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Landscapes of the Song of Songs is an interdisciplinary study that develops a theory of landscape to explore the Song's conceptualization of the natural world. New readings of the Song's poetry reveal how it imagines human lovers enfolded in complex relationships of fragility and care.
List of contents
- Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction: Landscape and Lyric
- 2. The Agrarian Landscape
- 3. The Garden
- 4. The Cityscape
- 5. The Map of the Body
- 6. Conclusion
About the author
Elaine T. James is Assistant Professor of Theology, St. Catherine University
Summary
Landscapes of the Song of Songs is an interdisciplinary study that develops a theory of landscape to explore the Song's conceptualization of the natural world. New readings of the Song's poetry reveal how it imagines human lovers enfolded in complex relationships of fragility and care.
Additional text
Elaine T. James brings a novel approach to the poetics of the Song of Songs (hereafter, the Song) by focusing on the text's evocation of various types of landscapes ... This book's unique contribution is to show that the Song elaborates a vision of what it might mean to love one's land, which is to see it with affection and to intervene in it with care (151). James is at her best when she is explicating the poetry of the Song by analogy with other artistic expressions, ancient and modern.