Beneath the Body of the Text: Body-images in the Song of Songs

Abstract

The various explicit references and descriptions of the different bodies in the Song of Songs have, just as characters, an “unconscious†which can be interpreted by psychoanalysis. These body-images are important as they unconsciously influence the recipients of the text and therefore need to be unpacked in a critical way. This will hopefully also show that the literal interpretations are flat reductions and a denial of a hidden depth of meaning.