SOURCE: "The Wasfs of the Song of Songs and Hermeneutic," in Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. LXXXVI, No. 11, June, 1967, pp. 183-90.

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.

In order to justify another look at the Song of Songs one need not resort to the kind of hyperbole recently employed by the Catholic scholar A. Feuillet [in "Einige scheinbare Widerspriuche des Hohenliedes," Biblische Zeitschrift, 1964]: "Es gibt kein erregenderes Problem als das des Hohenliedes." An earlier remark of his [from "La formule d'appartenance mutuelle (II, 16) et les interpretations divergentes du Cantique des Cantiques," Revue Biblique, 1961] would suffice: "L'exegese du Cantique des Cantiques ne cesse de faire l'objet des plus vives controverses." One of these controversies centers around the proper interpretation of its imagery, particularly the images of certain curiously interesting songs...