A critical overview of the work features the writings of Wilfred D. Samuels, Valerie Smith, Harry Reed, Ralph Story, and Jan Stryz,

Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-233) and index.

Introduction / Harold Bloom -- Liminality and the search for self in Song of Solomon / Wilfred D. Samuels -- Song of Solomon: continuities of community / Valerie Smith -- The interdependence of men's and women's individuation / Stephanie A. Demetrakopoulos -- The lyrics of salvation / Karla F. C. Holloway -- Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon and black cultural nationalism / Harry Reed -- An excursion into the black world: the "seven days" in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon / Ralph Story -- "Unruly and let loose": myth, ideology, and gender in Song of Solomon / Michael Awkward -- Inscribing origin in Song of Solomon / Jan Stryz -- Song of Solomon: the struggle for race and class consciousness / Doreatha Drummond Mbalia -- Knowing their names: Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon / Marianne Hirsch -- Competing discourses in Song of Solomon (1977) / Linden Peach -- "Why don't he like my hair?": constructing African-American standards of beauty in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Zora Neale Hurston's Their eyes were watching God / Bertram D. Ashe -- Male consciousness: Song of Solomon / Jan Furman -- "Anaconda love": parental enmeshment in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon / Gary Storhoff.