Ethics and Aesthetics in the Song of Songs

Abstract

While readings of the Song of Songs tend to focus on the extent of its licencing of pre-marital sex, the Song’s message on the nature of sexual and human loving is to be found in its choice of metaphors for that activity. These, while not revealing the divine nature, direct the readers’ gazes towards heavenly love (in the Christian tradition, He is ‘seated at the right hand of the Father’) so as to be better able to hear revealed instructions for loving.