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Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs. By DENYS TURNER. Cistercian Studies Series. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1995. 471 pp. $49.95 cloth; $29.95 paper.
Since the publication of Jean Leclercq's L'Amour des lettres et le desir de Dieu (Les Editions du Cerf, 1957), students of the Middle Ages have once again been made aware of the centrality of the Song of Songs in medieval spirituality and exegesis. In that book, Leclercq noted that patristic and medieval commentaries on the Song were avidly read and copied in monastic circles. In fact, he asserted, perhaps with slight exaggeration, no book of the Bible was more commented on in the medieval cloister. It has been four decades since Leclercq made these remarks, yet it...