SOURCE: "Gender Imagery in the Song of Songs," in The Hebrew Annual Review, Vol. 10, 1986, pp. 209-23.

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.

I. Introduction: Imagery in the Song

In no other book of the Hebrew Bible does the imagery figure so prominently as it does in the Song of Songs. The rich and extravagant array of figurative language boldly draws the reader into the world so joyously inhabited by the ancient lovers. The poetic craft of the unknown author or authors succeeds at a descriptive level in conveying the lushness of the natural settings and also the beauty that the female and male characters each find in the physical...