D02. The Song of Songs in the Medieval Commentarial Traditions

Denys Turner, Yale Divinity School
9:00-11:30 AM, June 8-12
$325

Within the huge number of Old Testament commentaries extant from the Middle Ages, the Song of Songs is second only to the Psalms in frequency. Commenting on this erotic, even sometimes bawdy, and apparently secular collection of poems is especially popular among celibate monks. Why? Is there something sinisterly repressed about this interest? Or does the ease with which the monastic traditions took to this book of the Old Testament show a surprisingly positive view of the way in which carnal love reveals something about the love of God that no other language could reveal as effectively? Why does the popularity of the Song diminish so dramatically with the sixteenth century Reform - and since?  This course examines these and other questions through a reading in translation of some medieval commentaries composed in the thousand years from Gregory the Great in the fifth century to Denys the Carthusian in the fifteenth.

Class Resources (pdf format):

Syllabus

Eros and Allegory

Allegory in Christian Late Antiquity

Metaphor, Poetry and Allegory

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Last updated: June 5, 2009