In spite of Solomon’s addiction to women and devotional failure, at some point in his life (it is disputed when) he did realize that pleasures ‘under the sun’ do not satisfy: not position and power, nor honor and achievements, nor even wealth and women; and he wrote a poetic disquisition on the subject. This, of course, is the book of Ecclesiastes, which is Solomon’s autobiography of an existential crisis. During this existential crisis he pondered the meaning of life, and the subject of women never entered the debate, at least not directly. Cohen, contrariwise, is tormented by his desire for women. They are at the center of his debate about life.
By the wisdom that God gave him to govern Israel, Solomon concluded that man’s all is to fear God and to obey his commandments. This conclusion, offered for acceptance to each one of us, is recorded at the close of Ecclesiastes. Though God does not give men wisdom in the same fashion as he gave it to Solomon, nor to the same extent, he does give it: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1.5.) It would be wisdom itself to accept Solomon’s conclusion on life and meaning; and then, upon acceptance of this, we would be made wiser in the performance of our trade.
What poetry could Leonard Cohen write if he were to repent toward God and apply divine power to control desire? What if he were to ask God for wisdom to supplement his talent? He would never write a song to rival Solomon’s because God no longer inspires the writings of men like he once did for a few. But if he were to come under the authority of God, Leonard Cohen’s song, much because of his natural endowments, would be a 21st century classic. About Cohen’s poetry, one cannot conclude: “But where many beauties shine in a poem, I will not be offended with a few blemishes” (Horace.) His work is more than blemished. Its many beauties cannot make amends for profuse carnality. Of his poems, it might be said, though hyperbolically, of course, that they contain “features so beauteous that they had been worthy to shine in everlasting gold, if he had chosen rather to praise our God; to whom he preferred foul monsters, and defiled his fluent language with obscenity” (Prudentius.)
There is no lack of love poetry in the world, even of a chaste character. Not all poets are playboys, thankfully; some of them have been able, at least in verse, to keep desire on the leash. The newly married Nathaniel Hawthorne knew something about the sweetmeats of marital bliss; he almost wrote at length about this kind of love. “Would that my wife would permit me to record the ethereal dainties,” he says, “that kind Heaven provided for us, on the first day of our arrival! Never, surely, was such food heard of on earth—at least, not by me” (Arlin Turner, Nathaniel Hawthorne, p. 146.) He might have written an epic love poem; because of his florid style, the moral restraints of American Victorianism, and his respect for the bashfulness of his wife, it would have resembled Solomon’s verse more than Cohen’s. Solomon wrote about his experience of sexual love. Why didn’t Hawthorne? Why wouldn’t anyone? Maybe some things are best not written about, even emblematically, if their composition were to render, even to a degree, ecstatic encounters too earthy. It is perhaps as difficult for a writer to abstain compositionally as it is for a philanderer to be sexually disciplined.
