In the following prologue to his commentary, written in 240, Origen ascribes the Song of Songs to Solomon, noting the importance of a cautious distinction between "passionate love" and "charity" to an interpretation of the dramatic poem's "secret metaphors."

In the following essay originally published in 1952, Rowley provides a brief historical survey of scholarship on the Song of Songs, outlining the allegorical, historical, Christian, and dramatic readings of the work, and considering its function and meaning.

In the following essay, Alter conducts a close formal analysis of the Song of Songs as poetry, exploring the work's imagery and metaphor. Alter finds the Song a rare instance in biblical poetry of "uninhibited self-delighting play" and "elegant aesthetic form."

In the following essay, revised from an original 1982 publication, Falk addresses issues of setting, theme, and motif in the Song of Songs that have arisen from her translation of the work. She finds the Song "extraordinarily rich with sensual imagery."

In the following essay, Pope contends that the emphasis in the Song of Songs on expressions of love might link the work to the occasion of a funeral feast.

In the following essay, Matter explores medieval Christian interpretations of the Song of Songs which associate the figure of the Bride with the Virgin Mary.

In the following lectures, Lowth considers the Song of Songs as a form of dramatic poetry and suggests, after consideration of other Hebrew poetry, that the work should be read allegorically.

In the following excerpt from a series of lectures delivered in 1539, Luther provides a close exegesis of the first chapter of the Song of Songs. Luther attributes the Song specifically to Solomon, suggesting that the work deals with Solomon's government and his people's relationship with God.

In the following essay, Rabin explores the connections between the Songs of Songs and Indian—specifically Tamil—poetry.

In the following allegorical interpretation and explanation of its "mysteries," St. Gregory advises that the Song of Songs is a literary embodiment of the purity and chastity of Christian love. This essay is believed to have been written toward the end of the fourth century

In the following essay, Trible explores thematic and structural links between the Song of Songs and the book of Genesis.

In the following three sermons, presented around 1136, St. Bernard explains the title of the Song of Songs; the kiss as a symbol of God's presence and as a sustainer of faith; and suggests an interpretive approach to this and to other biblical texts.

In the following essay, Meyers offers a feminist reading of the Song of Songs, considering the use of architectural and faunal imagery in the Song's treatment of gender. She finds in the poem a rare insight into the private, "domestic realm" of ancient Israel.

In the following commentary, written sometime in the fourteenth century, the author provides both a literal interpretation of the Song's "plain meaning," and a parallel "occult interpretation" in which the Song is construed as an allegory of Jewish exile.

See annotation to previous excerpt

In the following essay, Soulen focuses on the function and effect of imagistic, descriptive passages, or wasfs, in chapters 4 and 7 of the Song of Songs.

[Song of Solomon] moves slowly, but with gathering momentum, into the heart of that myth-making impulse, pressing ever deeper on the human pain that is its motive force…. As readers of her previous novels, The Bluest Eye (1970) and Sula (1974), know, Toni Morrison is an extraordinarily good writer. Two pages into anything she writes, one feels the power of her language and the emotional authority behind that language. The world she creates is thick with an atmosphere through which her characters move...

[Song of Solomon] and to an even greater extent Morrison's earlier novels The Bluest Eye and Sula,… entirely concern black people who violate, victimize, and kill each other…. No relationships endure, and all are founded on exploitation. The victimization of blacks by whites is implicit but not the subject. The picture given by … Morrison of the plight of the decent, aspiring individual in the black family and community is more painful than the gloomiest impressions encouraged by...

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison is a fine novel exuberantly constructed and stylistically full of the author's own delight in words. Morrison has a strong narrative voice and much of her novel's charm comes from an oral tradition, the love of simply telling, for example, how places and people got their names and how these names—Not Doctor Street, Ryna's Gulch, a boy called Milkman, Mr. Solomon, women known as Pilate, Sing and Sweet—contain history. There is an enchantment...