"Primacies begins with the assertion that there are primary languages before ordinary language, and these preverbal enunciations give voice to the depths of the human condition. These expressions include tears, the primal cry, and laughter. For Michael Fishbane, these primacies express the instinctive and raw emotions of our existential condition, and they are at the root of our most powerful literary expressions-of sorrow, loss, joy, and fulfillment. Through examples drawn from ancient, medieval, and modern sources in diverse cultures, Fishbane explores the verbal formulations of primacies in modes of structured language like poetic lyric or discourse. By giving articulation to foundational feelings and experiences through literary means, the primary emotions of the original creators are transformed-as are the sensibilities of those who subsequently engage these literary texts. Primacies is an attempt to consider the intersections of life experiences and their literary expressions. The result is a lived hermeneutics, both personal and cultural, that expands the theological project Fishbane developed in Sacred Attunement and Fragile Finitude"--.