A King is Bound in the Tresses: Allusions to the Song of Songs in the Fourth Gospel

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2001 by Conway, Colleen M

A King is Bound in the Tresses: Allusions to the Song of Songs in the Fourth Gospel. By Ann Roberts Winsor. Studies in Biblical Literature, Vol. 6. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. 111 pp. $41.00 (cloth).

The author proposes a new solution to enigmatic aspects of John 12:1-8 and 20:11-18. In the first passage the reader puzzles over why Mary of Bethany would anoint Jesus' feet and then wipe his feet with her hair. In the second passage, Mary Magdalene's double turning (20:14, 16) and Jesus' non sequitur "do not hold me" (20:17) prove difficult to interpret. Winsor proposes a literary approach that explores allusions and intertextuality. She argues that the two narratives are more fully understood in light of potential allusions to the Song of Songs.

Chapter 1 lays out the theoretical base for her work, drawing on the work of Michael Riffaterre and Ziva Ben-Porat. Riffaterre offers the idea of "ungrammaticality," i.e., textual glitches that point to another text in which the problematic reference makes sense. Ben-Porat provides an analysis of allusion as a literary technique. Winsor argues that interrelated texts must share more than corresponding vocabulary. There must be a thematic concurrence between the two texts and the allusion must be plausible with respect to the social setting of the primary text. The rest of the book sets out to demonstrate such a link between the Fourth Gospel, its community and the Song of Songs.

Chapter 2 focuses on John 12:1-8. Connections are made between the Song and the Gospel's references to hair, the "king" reclining, precious nard, feet and scent. Chapter 3 notes links between John 20:1, 11-18 and the Song's references to night, tomb, garden, arise, voice, and dweller in the garden (in addition to the aforementioned "turning" and command, "do not hold me"). Chapter 4 analyzes the Song as an "evoked text." It retraces key words identified in earlier chapters and studies their place within the Song. It also examines broader themes within the Song such as the mutuality and reciprocity between the lovers. Chapter 5 uses Malina's concept of the Johannine community as an "antisociety" to argue that the evocation of the Song functioned as part of their countercultural "antilanguage." Like the images in the Song, the Johannine community stressed reciprocity, independent women, intimacy, and human bodily experience.

Winsor has written a provocative study that is useful as a model of establishing intertextual connections that move beyond shared vocabulary. Her arguments are sometimes convincing, but other times the supposed allusions are so oblique that they remain uncertain at best. For example, the "king is bound in the tresses" (Song of Sol. 7:6) does not, in the end, provide a clear solution for Mary of Bethany's perplexing action. Jesus' feet are not "bound" by Mary's hair, they are "wiped." The verb here is important since it provides a more immediate link to chapter 13, where Jesus' "wipes" the disciples' feet. Still, Winsor has shown that there is enough in John 12, and especially John 20, to dwell on the idea of the Song as a literary matrix for these two narratives. As a whole, the book raises the question of the relationship between a text's social context and textual allusions. One wonders how Winsor would treat allusions in the Fourth Gospel to other texts (e.g., the Genesis creation narrative, Moses traditions, Wisdom traditions). Those interested in constructions of the Johannine community and literary approaches to the Gospel will benefit from reading her work.

COLLEEN M. CONWAY

Seton Hall University South Orange, New Jersey