The Song of Songs: A New Translation with an Introduction and Commentary

Amazon.com
Ariel and Chana Bloch's new translation of the Song of Songs--the most sexually explicit and sensually rich book of the Bible--is pure delight from beginning to end. Its introduction is an accessible, sophisticated, entertaining, and comprehensive orientation to the literary and religious history of the Song of Songs. The Blochs say the speakers in this poem "don't suffer love, they savor it." Their translation, overflowing with full--almost to the point of florid--feeling ("Feast, friends, and drink / till you are drunk with love!"), arrives at a time when many Jews and Christians are opening themselves to the religious dimensions of sexuality and human love. Song of Songs has a great deal to teach us; this translation is sure to attract many eager students. --Michael Joseph Gross


From Library Journal
The Blochs, he a professor of Near Eastern history and she a poet, have teamed up to render a strikingly beautiful translation of this oldest of Western erotic love poems. The Blochs' translation captures the frank sensuality and rich erotic lyricism that earlier translations have often missed. The poem is accompanied by a splendid introduction that traces the social, historical, and literary contexts of the poem. The afterword, by biblical scholar Robert Alter, praises the Blochs' translation by comparing it with older ones, while an exegetical and expository commentary offers readers a chance to see why the translators made certain choices in rendering their version. Evocative lyrics and lucid expositions make the Blochs' offering one of the best of recent versions. Highly recommended.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
This beautifully crafted book is a collaboration between a scholar of both classical Arabic and Hebrew and a poet who has also previously translated several volumes of Hebrew poetry. The result is an authoritative translation that allows the poetry to sing in English as it does in Hebrew. The book begins with an accessible introduction that establishes the context and date of the poem as well as the history of its incorporation into the canon of Hebrew scripture and its translation and interpretation in Jewish and Christian traditions. The translation and the Hebrew text are printed on facing pages, followed by Robert Alter's afterword and an extensive commentary accessible to laypersons as well as scholars, to readers who know Hebrew as well as those who don't. Whether the Song of Songs qualifies as the world's first great love poem is a matter for debate--Sappho's poetry predates its canonical form by several centuries--but even where its priority is in question, this new translation leaves little room for doubt as to its greatness and its passion. Steve Schroeder


Gabriel Josipovici, Times Literary Supplement International Books of the Year 1995
"[A] masterpiece [has appeared in America], Chana and Ariel Bloch's beautiful translation of the Song of Songs, with the English and the Hebrew on facing pages, an informative introduction, wonderfully interesting notes, and a thought-provoking afterword by Robert Alter."


Stephen Mitchell
"Chana and Ariel Bloch's new translation of the Song of Songs is quite simply the best version in the English language. Its poetic voice, intimate, dignified, and informed by meticulous scholarship, carries us into the Eden of the original Hebrew text: a world in which the sexual awakening of two unmarried lovers is celebrated with a sensuality and a richness of music that is thrilling beyond words."


Book Description
Poetry. Religious Studies. "Chana and Ariel Bloch's new translation of THE SONG OF SONGS is quite simply the best version in the English language. Its poetic voice, intimate, dignified, and informed by meticulous scholarship, carries us into the Eden of the orginal Hebrew text: a world in which the sexual awakening of two unmarried lovers is clelbrated with a sensuality and a richness of music that are thrilling beyond words." -- Stephen Mitchell. "(A) masterpiece has just appeared in America... This is Chana and Ariel Bloch's beautiful translation of THE SONG OF SONGS, with the English and the Hebrew on facing pages, an informative introduction, wonderfully interesting notes, and a thought-provoking afterword by Robert Alter" --Gabriel Josipovici, The Times Literary Supplement (London). Chana Bloch is author of the poetry collection THE PAST KEEPS CHANGING (Sheep Meadow Press). She teaches at Mills College. Ariel Bloch is Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley.


Language Notes
Text: English, Hebrew (translation)
Original Language: Hebrew


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Chana and Ariel Bloch's new translation of The Song of Songs is quite simply the best version in the English language. Its poetic voice, intimate, dignified, and informed by meticulous scholarship, carries us into the Eden of the original Hebrew text: a world in which the sexual awakening of two unmarried lovers is celebrated with a sensuality and a richness of music that are thrilling beyond words. — Stephen Mitchell


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