The Metamorphoses of Judas. Authors’ Biblical Paraphrases as a Testimony of Cultural Changes (in Bulgarian Literature) Cover Image

Metamorfozy Judasza. Autorskie parafrazy biblijne jako świadectwo przemian kulturowych (na przykładzie literatury bułgarskiej)
The Metamorphoses of Judas. Authors’ Biblical Paraphrases as a Testimony of Cultural Changes (in Bulgarian Literature)

Author(s): Ewelina Drzewiecka
Subject(s): Literary Texts
Published by: Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: metamorfoza; Judasz; apokryf; nowoczesność; literatura bułgarska; metamorphosis; Judas; apocrypha; Modernity; Bulgarian literature

Summary/Abstract: The paper is devoted to the problem of the (Judeo-)Christian (biblical) tradition functioning in (post-) modern culture from the perspective of the history of ideas. The starting point is the metamorphosis of both the Bible as a text and apocrypha as its creative (re)interpretation. The object of interest are literary paraphrases of the Evangelic story about Judas as a figure of the fallen man. In order to reveal the fundamental ideological changes of (post-)modernity there are presented functionalizations of the greatest sinner in modern Bulgarian apocrypha. It is shown that authors’ metamorphosis of Judas have made him a significant figure of the (post-)modern man. Therefore, the (post-)modern metamorphosis of the (Bulgarian) apocrypha about the God’s traitor on the one hand show the effects of the collapse of the Enlightenment project of human emancipation, and thus testify to the process of the man’s sliding into the tragic immanence, on the other they reveal according toCharles Taylor, Agata Bielik-Robson and Philip Rieff - the sense-making potential of {para-phrase} as a poetic repetition.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 3 (6)
  • Page Range: 143-163
  • Page Count: 21
  • Language: Polish