LIFE OF DAVID, THE(ISBN=9780805211535)

　　Poet, warrior, and king, David has loomed large in myth and legend through the centuries, and he continues to haunt our collective imagination, his flaws and inconsistencies making him the most approachable of biblical heroes. Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the United States, plumbs the depths of David’s life: his triumphs and his failures, his charm and his cruelty, his divine destiny and his human humiliations. Drawing on the biblical chronicle of David’s life as well as on the later commentaries and the Psalms——traditionally considered to be David’s own words——Pinsky teases apart the many strands of David’s story and reweaves them into a glorious narrative.

　　Under the clarifying and captivating light of Pinsky’s erudition and imagination, and his mastery of image and expression, King David——both the man and the idea of the man——is brought brilliantly to life.

　　Robert Pinsky is the author of many books of poetry, including Gulf Music and The Figured Wheel, and of the award-winning translation The Inferno of Dante. His prose works include The Situation of Poetry and The Sounds of Poetry. He teaches at Boston University and lives in Massachusetts.

Acknowledgments
David
Cousin Goliath
The King's Other Daughter
Five Golden Tumors and Five Golden Rats
Smoke from His Nostrils, Devouring Fire
from His Mouth
Moabitage and Mephibosheth
Thou Art the Man
Sons of David
Would God I Had Died for Thee
The Enumerations
I Will Make Thine Enemies Thy Footstool
David in Paradise
Afterword
A Reader's Guide