SURVEY OF AFRO-ASIAN

LITERATURE
MS. SHIELA MARIE DAVID │EL 112

Songs of Solomon
In the book of Genesis, when God made Adam and Eve, He brought them together as husband and wife.
Adam recognized Eve as bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall
become one flesh. (Gn 2:23–24)
The Song of Solomon is also known as the Song of Songs, celebrates this kind of union a man and a
woman becoming one. It’s a ballad of love and longing. It’s an exchange of love notes. It’s a story of adoration,
satisfaction, delight, and sexual desire. It’s the tale of a young woman preparing to marry her love a handsome
gent who adores her. They describe their emotions, their passions, their appearances, their fears. They
vulnerably display their love and desire for one another sometimes rather graphically.
Characters
1. King Solomon
2. Zion
3. Daughters of Zion
4. David
5. Daughters of Jerusalem
Content
Song of Solomon takes its title from the first verse of the book, which mentions who the song comes
from: “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s” (Song of Solomon 1:1). The original Hebrew version of the
book took its title from the book’s first two words, shiyr hashiyrim, usually translated as “the song of songs.”
This latter title remained in Greek and Latin Bible translations in later centuries. The repetition of the word song
indicates that the writer considered this “the greatest of all songs.”1 We find a similar construction in other
famous biblical phrases: Lord of Lords, King of Kings, and Holy of Holies, to name a few.
The title of the book eventually took on King Solomon’s name because of the mention of his name
throughout the book (1:5; 3:7, 9, 11; 8:11–12). This title change also supports the traditional view of Solomon
as the author of the book. While numerous critics in the last two centuries have disputed Solomon’s authorship,
the internal evidence seems to support it, not only because of the appearances of Solomon’s name but because
of evidence of his royal advantage (3:6–11) and his numerous wives and concubines (6:8)
Style

SERNA│BOADO│GUTIERREZ│DUPITAS│1
 This book is not typical wisdom literature, yet it may have functioned in the same way, to train
young men. It seems to have a moral aspect related to monogamy and the purity and beauty of human sexuality
at the appropriate time.
It is a series of love poems; this theory affirms the God-given aspects of human sexuality. It takes the
book at face value. This view was espoused by some rabbis and Theodore of Mosuestia, one of the bright lights
of the Antiochan school of interpretation (R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 1049-1058).
Genre

This is a love poem. There are two main characters portrayed in the Song of Songs: a woman and a man.
They are deeply and passionately in love with each other. The woman craves to be kissed by him (Song. 1:2)
and the man considers her the “most beautiful of women” (Song. 1:8). She, as well, proclaims, “How handsome
you are, my love” (Song. 1:16). Their relationship is filled with anticipation of being together (Song. 2:8, 11,
14), although there is an element of elusiveness as the woman seeks the man, unsuccessfully at first (Song. 3:1-
2).
The man lavishes praises upon his lover using descriptive detail about her body (Song. 4:1-5; 7:1-5) and
calling her “my perfect one” (Song. 5:2), “absolutely beautiful” (Song. 4:7), “lovely… (and) awe-inspiring”
(Song. 6:4). He desires to be intimate with her (Song. 7:7-8) and invites her to come away with him (Song.
2:10; 4:8).
The woman has her share of compliments as well, referring to him as “fit and strong, notable among ten
thousand” (Song. 5:10) with arms compared to “rods of gold”, his body to ivory, and his legs as “alabaster
pillars set on pedestals of pure gold” (Song. 5:14-15). “His mouth is sweetness. He is absolutely desirable. This
is my love, and this is my friend” (Song. 5:16). She sensually invites him to be with her (Song. 7:11-12; 8:2,
14), wanting to kiss him in public (Song. 8:1) and be embraced by him (Song. 8:3).
All of this, though, comes with a warning. This type of passionate love is not to be awakened until the
appropriate time (Song. 2:7; 3:5, 8:4). The charge is given to a third character in the poem, the “young women”.
The implication is that the intensity of what is being described in these pages is reserved for the marriage
relationship. Those who are young, and not yet ready for marriage should be protected by those who are older
and more mature (Song. 8:8-9).
Setting

1. Lebanon
2. Amana
3. Mountain of Myrrh
4. Sherin
5. Hermon
6. Mountain of Leopards
7. Heshbon
8. Bath-rabbim
SERNA│BOADO│GUTIERREZ│DUPITAS│2
9. Damascus

Theme
Human attraction (Song. 1:16), romantic love (Song. 7:11-13), pursuit (Song. 3:1-4), sexual desire and
expression (Song. 5:3-5; Song. 7:1-9) are a wonderful and dynamic part of God’s design for marital
relationships.
Love is powerful, fun, and good; but can also be dangerous and painful. This is a book about romantic
love. The man and woman are enthralled with each other, caught up in each other’s life. It is an enjoyable, even
fun experience (Song. 5:2), comparable to being in a private paradise (See Song. 4:12-15). But love is also as
dangerous as “fiery flames” (Song. 8:6) and, just like it is found, it can be lost (Song. 3:1-3; 6:1).
Don’t awaken love before the appropriate time. Three times the woman admonishes the young women
“do not stir up or awaken love until the appropriate time” (Song. 2:7; 3:5, 8:4). This warning can be lost amid
all of the flowery love language, yet it is a vital and important message, which, if disregarded can bring ruin
into a life.
Be generous in complimenting your spouse. Song of Songs reads like a list of spousal compliments.
From the general “you are beautiful” (Song. 1:15), to the specific “his hair is wavy and black as a raven” (Song.
5:11), to the creative “like a lily among thorns, so is my darling among the young women” (Song. 2:2),
expressions of flattery and admiration abound.
Communication, Song of Songs is a book of communication. Two lovers engage in dialogue about their
relationship. While much of it is expressing desire to be together, there are also several sections where they talk
about their love both with each other (Song. 2:15-17) and with others (Song. 6:11-1
PLOT
The literal subject of the Song of Songs is love and sexual longing between a man and a woman,
and it has little or nothing to say about the relationship of God and man in order to find such a meaning it was
necessary to resort to allegory, treating the love that the Song celebrates as an analogy for the love
TONE
Song of Songs is love and sexual longing between a man and a woman, and it has little or nothing to say
about the relationship of God and man; in order to find such a meaning it was necessary to resort to allegory,
treating the love that the Song celebrates as an analogy for the love between God and Church. The Christian
church's interpretation of the Song as evidence of God's love for his people, both collectively and individually,
began with Origen. Over the centuries the emphases of interpretation shifted, first reading the Song as a
depiction of the love between Christ and Church, the 11th century adding a moral element, and the 12th century
understanding of the Bride as the Virgin Mary, with each new reading absorbing rather than simply replacing
earlier ones, so that the commentary became ever more complex.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

The poetry of the Song is based primarily on metaphors and similes. Metaphor is the figurative
expression in language also known as the trope, in which ordinary language shifts from its normal, day to day
meanings to evoke new meanings by way of reference to something else with some sort of shared characteristic.

SERNA│BOADO│GUTIERREZ│DUPITAS│3
If the ordinary sense of a word does not make sense we look around for other ways to make sense, for new
meanings. For example, here are the words of the lover praising his beloved:
1:15 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.
We recognize that this starts out in perfectly ordinary, if a bit breathless, language, but that the ending,
thou hast dove’s eyes, is not a literal description of the Shulammite’s eyes. It is a figurative description, using
figurative language in this case, metaphor. The meanings and images we find in the phrase “dove’s eyes” (and
there are bound to be several) help us to see and to feel how the language evokes not simply what her eyes
might look like but what it feels like to see them, and what, then, as a result of this image, we are to make of
her. Figurative language, especially as it is used in the Song, enhances our sense perception and moves us from
often intense physical experiences to new realms of meaning.
As we read the Song we notice that the landscape is constantly used as a metaphor, that is, there are
frequent comparisons made between the flora and fauna which thrive in the fertile landscape and other things,
notably various parts of the shapely young bodies of the lovers. In Chapter 2 of the song the Shulammite says
( 2:1 ) I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. Her lover responds, (2:2) As the lily among thorns, so
is my love among the daughters. She is saying, in effect, that she is a flower, and all that implies, and he
responds that compared to other women she is the flower and they are the thorns, and all that implies.
The landscape is also used as a metonymy, that is, the same pomegranates, lilies, and gazelles the lovers
compare each other to are things they might realistically encounter, even reach out and pluck as they walk
along. A metonymy is a figure in which the part stands for the whole. These items stand for the landscape or the
garden from whence they grow. The metonymy of the lily, the thorns, or the gazelle tells us where we are, what
the flora and fauna is like. The figure of metonymy, then, acts in a more or less realistic fashion, standing as a
part of the entire landscape we are meant to envision as we read the poem.
In order to read closely we consider how metaphor and metonymy work in the text. In a metaphor we
compare one thing with another, changing ordinary meaning into a new meaning. In this passage the lover
describes the Shulamite’s breasts:
4:5 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.
This image of the young woman’s breasts is likened to a scene of two deer eating flowers. As with the
image of “dove’s eyes,” we are asked to consider the woman’s appearance her eyes, her breasts in terms of
some element from the natural world. This is a simile. A simile acts like a metaphor, only the words “like” or
“as” call our attention to the explicit act of comparing. The simile here enhances our sense not so much of what
the woman’s breasts look like as how their color, motion, timidity, and beauty might make us feel.
In a metonymy a part stands for a whole. The metonymy, then, suggests a realistic scene. As
metonymies, the twin roes and the lilies do not stand alone in the landscape but summon up everything else the
entire scene. They stand for the area of which they are a part, suggesting by their singular images the entire
landscape in which they may be found.
In the Song, then, the lushness of the landscape metaphorically reproduces the beauty of the lovers and
what they are feeling, and at the same time metonymic details from the landscape connect us to the rest of that
particular world, so that we conjure up an entire scene, which can be both imaginary and real at the same time.
This makes for a very interesting reading experience, since whatever we encounter seems to quiver with sense
and experience, taking us both to the real world of Palestine in the spring and to imaginative places of enhanced
sensory experience and symbolic meaning.

SERNA│BOADO│GUTIERREZ│DUPITAS│4
SERNA│BOADO│GUTIERREZ│DUPITAS│5