Solomon and Egyptian Love Lyrics

In a 2006 Vetus Testamentum article, Hector Patmore takes aim at Michael Fox’s claims about strong parallels between the Song of Songs and Egyptian love lyrics.  He points out that even Fox recognizes significant differences: Egyptian love poems are monologues not dialogs (reminds me of Don Quixote , where the whining courtly lover is interrupted by the “cruel” shepherdess who doesn’t see why she’s villainized for not loving him back); the girls in Egyptian poems are passively waiting, not seeking  as in the Song; the Song’s wasfs are not straightforward physical descriptions, but metaphorical and allegorical; the Song focuses more on the external public emotions of the lovers than the twists and turns of their internal states.  The themes that Fox finds in common between the Song and Egyptian lyrics, moreover, are too generic to be useful.  Patmore shows that the same themes show up in virtually any love poetry from any age.  Was Solomon influenced by Marvell or Robert Burns?

Despite the weaknesses of Fox’s work, Patmore complaints that he has not found “a single recent scholar who has deemed it necessary to present the case in support of the secular-sexual reading other than by reference to Fox.”