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Representing The Biblical Judith In Literature And Art: An Intertextual Cultural Critique, Peggy L. Curry

Open Access Dissertations

The Biblical Judith was written over 2,000 years ago and has become elemental material for artists and writers who struggle with male and female identity. Questions about how beauty has been defined, and who has defined it, as well as the subject of violence as gender-specific territory arise out of the intertextual study of the many reworkings of Judith and Holofemes' "romance."

A rich array of Judith characters are developed by artists and writers that reveal cultural values about women. Judith as chaste widow is visually presented in the stone archivolt of the Chartres Cathedral and in Alfred Stevens Victorian …