The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages by Ann W. Astell, and: The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christianity by E. Ann Matter

Abstract

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER several parts of the Companion, especially on the poem's apocalypticism, its anticlericalism, and its roots in the theology and politics of dominion. PENN R. SZITTYA Georgetown University ANNW ASTELL. The Song a/Songs in the Middle Ages. Ithaca, N.Y, and London: Cornell University Press, 1990. Pp. xi, 193. $27.95. E. ANN MATTER. The ii!ice ofMy Beloved: The Song ofSongs in Western Medieval Christianity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. Pp. XXXV, 227. $29.95. The Song of Songs, Ruth Wallerstein pointed out in 1965, was at the heart of medieval and Renaissance debate over the place of the senses in the spiritual life and helped to "shape man's ideas of symbolism and the functions of the imagination." More than any other biblical text, Song asked medieval readers to consider the relation of the life of the body to the life of the soul, as well as the relation between human and divine love. Tension between its ostensible topic (carnal love) and the topic most conspicuous by its absence (Song is the only biblical text that does not mention the Divine) provoked rich debate over the nature of meaning, the spiritual dynamics of reading, and the action of interpretation. In relating eros to logos and emotive love to spiritual motivation, Song also invited consideration of the role and operations of the human poet who imitated the divinely inspired Solomon. Just how central a text Song was to medieval thinking and writing is made clear by two studies released within months of each other. Both are concerned with the shift from the allegorical mode of interpretation of Song popularized by Origen, in which the literal sense of the text is denied entirely, to the twelfth century's insistence that the carnal meaning of the text be accepted and Song read in terms of both public and personal "brideship," in effect popularizing an affective mode of reading. But the ways they approach this shift are radically different. Drawing upon the work ofgenre theorists like Maria Corti and Mikhail Bakhtin, Ann Matter is nominally interested in identifying Song commentary as a "sub-genre" of biblical exegesis, or even as a "metacritical genre" that had a telling impact on "Latin Christian culture, including ecclesiology, apocalyptic, sexuality, 92 REVIEWS and literary creativity." Ann Astell, on the other hand, draws heavily upon Jungian theories of integration and of the feminine to illuminate the powerful affective bias of twelfth-century theories of reading, which placed Song at the center of a Bible-oriented literary culture. The studies, how­ ever,are nicely complementary as well. Matter fills in with greater historical detail the development of the commentary tradition that Astell draws upon in formulating her own Song-centered theory of spiritual and psychic integration, while Astell's analyses of vernacular texts substantiate the general claims that Matter makes for the influence of Song commentary tradition on vernacular literature. Of the two, however, Astell's is the more original and proves the more provocative achievement. At bottom Astell is interested in how Song allowed for the creation of "a new, incarnational art form imitative not only of the biblical Word but of the Word-made-Flesh," one that allows the poet to "share in God's own rhetorical aim: the wooing of humankind, the eliciting of the affectus, the fructifying of the bridal self in its various forms." Origen's polarizing of carnal and spiritual love led him to distinguish between a literal and a spiritual, between an overt and a hidden meaning of Song as well. In Origen's mystical experience, Astell brilliantly demonstrates, "intellection and loving are one and the same": just as the soul must depart from the body and ascend a pure spirit to consummate the mystical marriage with the Heavenly Bridegroom, so must the reader renounce the literal, carnal sensus of Song to enjoy the sensus interioris. The rediscovery of Song in the twelfth century after nearly two centuries of neglect, however, was part of a larger shift from allegorical to tro­ pological modes of interpretation. Thinkers began exploring the body-soul relationship from a psychological perspective, studying Song as the model for the...