Battle of the Sexes: Gender and the City in the Song of Songs
This article considers the significance of the city in the Song of Songs as a landscape, that is, a cityscape. It explores how contemporary theorizations of the city, especially landscape urbanism, can illuminate patterns of poetic use in the Song. It argues that the Song's use of the motif of...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
[2017]
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| In: |
Journal for the study of the Old Testament
Year: 2017, Volume: 42, Issue: 1, Pages: 93-116 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Song of Songs
/ City
/ Metaphor
/ Gender composition
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| IxTheo Classification: | HB Old Testament NBE Anthropology |
| Further subjects: | B
City
gender
Song of Songs
poetry
metaphor
urban theory
Daughter Zion
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article considers the significance of the city in the Song of Songs as a landscape, that is, a cityscape. It explores how contemporary theorizations of the city, especially landscape urbanism, can illuminate patterns of poetic use in the Song. It argues that the Song's use of the motif of the city is highly ambivalent, evoking the twin themes of protection and vulnerability. The Song playfully casts the lovers in a battle of the sexes, in which the young woman is a threatened city, and her lover is the encroaching enemy. Ultimately, the Song imagines the city as a body--dependent on and susceptible to its surrounding environment, gendered female according to the conventions of the ancient world, and evocative of desire. |
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| ISSN: | 1476-6728 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for the study of the Old Testament
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/0309089216670546 |