Female Self-Assertion: The Song of Songs in Light of Epigrams from the Anthologia Palatina

Research concerning foreign influences on the Song of Songshas been brought forward following mainly two directions:on one hand,parallels with Mesopotamian and Ugaritic texts have been pointed out (e.g. Nissinen-Uro: 2008)while, on the other, a connection has been detected with Egyptian erotic poetry (Fox : 1985; Keel : 1997).Even thoughalready in 1871, Graetz had directed attention to some parallels of the Biblical poem withTheocritus’ Idylls, it wasn’t before 1992 that a systematic analysis of possible influences of Hellenistic poetry on the Song of Songs was thoroughlyconducted(Garbini : 1992).Against the backdrop of research on Hellenistic influences on the Song of Songs, the paper that will be presented –dealing with the notion of female self-assertion (explored by Bourton: 2005) –will focus on the different manner in which the Shulamit of the Biblical poem affirms and describes her sexual identity and control over her own body and how other “characters” within the Song of Songs react to it. Additionally, this paper aims to draw a comparison within some passages from the Song of Songs and numerous epigrams of the Anthologia Palatina from the 4th, 3rd, and 2nd century BCE demonstrating that a common tendency towards women sexual emancipation is strongly detectable as some repeated elements and τόποι–such as gender attributed roles put in a continuum, sexual fluidity in male-female carnal encounter, inversion of lovesickness and typical female body metaphors used for male body appreciation–are present in both the biblical poem and Greek Hellenistic epigrams.Furthermore, female sexual emancipation and the self-assertion conveyed by showing sexual desire will be investigated as a typical Hellenistic feature allowing to place(and date)the Song of Songs in such a flourishing and innovating poetical and cultural back ground as the Hellenistic Mediterranean area in the 3rd century BCE