In addition to its overriding theme of music — blues, jazz, spirituals, and gospel songs — as an integral force in the creation and survival of African-American culture, Song of Solomon draws on a wide variety of myths, stories, and legends from a diverse range of cultures. These narratives include the Bible (Song of Songs, the Prodigal Son); African folklore and oral tradition (Flying Africans, Anansi the Spider, the Signifying Monkey); black folk tales and trickster tales (Stagolee, High John the Conqueror); epic narrative (the Odyssey, the quest for the Golden Fleece); European fairy tales ("Rumpelstiltskin," "Sleeping Beauty"); and contemporary American myths (the American Dream, Feminine Beauty, Romantic Love). Within this broad context, Song of Solomon focuses on two key stories: Song of Songs and the myth of the flying Africans.
Morrison's third novel takes its title from Song of Songs, the twenty-second book of the Old Testament, comprised of a collection of love songs presented in the form of a dialogue between two lovers. The lovers are generally identified as King Solomon, the third king of Israel, renowned for his wisdom and gift of self-expression, and a Shulamite woman, possibly the legendary queen of Sheba, also known as the queen of the South, the Black Minerva, and Makeda, the Beautiful.
Song of Songs explores two people's love relationship and defines love as a powerful life-giving and life-sustaining force that begins with the mother/child relationship and branches out to encompass not only the lovers' families and society but plants, animals, and geography. The lovers are two individual people, but the eight songs, taken together, that comprise Song of Songs create a single, unified personality to which both lovers contribute.
