What We Are Reading Today: The Song of Songs

Author: Ilana Pardes

The Song of Songs has been embraced for centuries as the ultimate song of love.
But the kind of love readers have found in this ancient poem is strikingly varied.
Ilana Pardes invites us to explore the dramatic shift from readings of the Song as a poem on divine love to celebrations of its exuberant account of human love, says a review on the Princeton University Press website.
With a refreshingly nuanced approach, she reveals how allegorical and literal interpretations are inextricably intertwined in the Song’s tumultuous life.
The body in all its aspects — pleasure and pain, even erotic fervor — is key to many allegorical commentaries. And although the literal, sensual Song thrives in modernity, allegory has not disappeared.
New modes of allegory have emerged in modern settings, from the literary and the scholarly to the communal.
Pardes traces a diverse line of passionate readers. She shows how feminist critics have marveled at the Song’s egalitarian representation of courtship.