Includes bibliographical references (pages 469-494) and indexes.

The Book of Judith tells the story of a fictitious Jewish woman beheading the general of the most powerful imaginable army to free her people. The parabolic story was set as an example of how God will help the righteous. Judith's heroic action not only became a validating charter myth of Judaism itself but has also been appropriated by many Christian and secular groupings, and has been an inspiration for numerous literary texts and works of art. It continues to exercise its power over artists, authors and academics and is becoming a major field of research in its own right. The Sword of Judith is the first multidisciplinary collection of essays to discuss representations of Judith throughout the centuries. The collection includes new archival source studies, the translation of unpublished manuscripts, the translation of texts unavailable in English, and Judith images and music.

Introductions. The Judith Project / Kevin R. Brine -- The Jewish Textual Traditions / Deborah Levine Gera -- Judith in the Christian Tradition / Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann -- Writing Judith. Jewish Textual Traditions. Holofernes's Canopy in the Septuagint / Barbara Schmitz -- Shorter Medieval Hebrew Tales of Judith / Deborah Levine Gera -- Food, Sex, and Redemption in Megillat Yehudit (the "Scroll of Judith") / Susan Weingarten -- Shalom bar Abraham's Book of Judith in Yiddish / Ruth von Bernuth and Michael Terry -- Christian Textual Tradition. Typology and Agency in Prudentius's Treatment of the Judith Story / Marc Mastrangelo -- Judith in Late Anglo-Saxon England / Tracey-Anne Cooper -- The Prayer of Judith in Two Late-Fifteenth-Century French Mystery Plays / John Nassichuk -- The Example of Judith in Early Modern French Literature / Kathleen M. Llewellyn -- The Aestheticization of Tyrannicide: Du Bartas's La Judit / Robert Cummings -- The Cunning of Judith in Late Medieval German Texts / Henrike Lähnemann -- The Role of Judith in Margaret Fell's Womens Speaking Justified / Janet Bartholomew -- Staging Judith. Visual Arts. Judith, Jael, and Humilitas in the Speculum Virginum / Elizabeth Bailey -- Judith between the Private and Public Realms in Renaissance Florence / Roger J. Crum -- Donatello's Judith as the Emblem of God's Chosen People / Sarah Blake McHam -- Costuming Judith in Italian Art of the Sixteenth Century / Diane Apostolos-Cappadona -- Judith Imagery as Catholic Orthodoxy in Counter-Reformation Italy / Elena Ciletti -- Music and Drama. Judith, Music, and Female Patrons in Early Modern Italy / Kelley Harness -- Judith in Baroque Oratorio / David Marsh -- Judith in the Italian Unification Process, 1800- 1900 / Paolo Bernardini -- Marcello and Peri's Giuditta (1860) / Alexandre Lhâa -- Politics, Biblical Debates, and French Dramatic Music on Judith after 1870 / Jann Pasler -- Judith and the "Jew-Eaters" in German Volkstheater / Gabrijela Mecky Zaragoza.

Print version record.

English.

Added to collection customer.56279.3 - Master record variable field(s) change: 072