What most grabbed my attention in this beautiful poem was the variety of pronouns used. First of all, the perspective switches between directly addressing a listener (“you”) and third-person pronouns. More interestingly, in my opinion, is the use of both feminine and masculine pronouns to describe the narrator’s lover. The poem mentions his hands, her praises, his eyes, etc. This fluidity of gender is fascinating. Some may interpret it as two lovers whose perspectives as they speak about each other are not clearly delineated, as Lieber seems to in the concluding commentary on page 209 of our secondary reading. Perhaps several people’s discussions of their lovers have been seamlessly compiled into this one book. I enjoy the idea that there is one lover, or one idea of love and beauty, whose gender is not strictly defined, but fluid and beautiful in that fluidity. This interpretation challenges the opposition of man and woman in a strict binary, allowing for the two gendered concepts to mix and merge freely within one image of the beloved whose beauty is being praised in Song of Songs.
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