Three Faces of Saul: An Intertextual Approach to Biblical Tragedy
By (Author) Sarah Nicholson
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
1st May 2002
United Kingdom
Tertiary Education
Non Fiction
Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900
Literary studies: plays and playwrights
222.4306
Hardback
282
Width 156mm, Height 234mm
550g
This intertextual study compares the classic biblical tragedy of Saul, the first king of Israel, with later reworkings in Lamartine's drama "Saul: Tragedie" and Thomas Hardy's novel "The Mayor of Casterbridge". Plot and characterization are each explored in detail in this study, and in each of the narrations the hero's tragic fate emerges both as the result of a character flaw and also as a consequence of the ambivalent role of the deity, showing a double theme underlying not only the biblical vision but also its two very different retellings nearer to our own times.
Sarah L Nicholson is Lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Glasgow.