Longing, Weakness and Temptation: From Myth to Artistic Creations

The themes of longing, weakness and temptation are relevant to every human and are interwoven with all fundamental ideals and values of the created, rational being. Temptation is all the more dramatic, the broader the perspective of recognition, the power of human longing and the sense of the difference between good and evil. This book is a summary of a study which compares and contrasts Slovenian and European literary works created under the influence of biblical source texts (Adam and Eve, Joseph from Egypt, Samson and Dalilah, etc.) and the works of other known and unknown origins (Homer’s Iliad, Goethe’s Faust, various versions of the myth of the Fair Vida, etc.). The ascribing of a text to a genre provides the interpreter of the text with a key intertextual framework and with a system of references to other books, other texts, other literary statements. The intertextual approach is obviously appropriate to the study of contents, symbols and forms of literary works. It shows how the source text continues to speak through the new work and how the new work forces new meanings from the source text. Later writers use important themes with a historical sense, when aiming toward a better understanding of authenticity of human existence.

About the Author :
Irena Avsenik Nabergoj was born in 1969 in Slovenia (Jesenice). In 2004, she received her PhD in literature at the University of Ljubljana, and since then she has been a member of various research groups. Her last book is Mirror of Reality and Dreams (Frankfurt et al.: Peter Lang, 2008).

Review :
"This book is a first intertextual presentation of central texts of world literature containing the motif of longing, weakness and temptation. With a wealth of illuminating examples showing mutual interdependence between the Bible, folk literature and culture this volume is a major contribution to culture studies and will prove invaluable for any student of literature and culture." —Seizo Sekine, Professor of Biblical Studies & Ethics, Tokyo University, Japan'This long-awaited study is a powerfully persuasive reading of most popular tales that appear in the Bible and folklore of many peoples and cultures, in many different eras, including ancient Egypt, Classical Greece, post-Biblical Jewish literature and Koran. The author touches on varying constructions of male-female relationships and explores interrelationships between longing, weakness and temptation of broad relevance in later European and especially in Mediterranean cultural area. Irena Avsenik Nabergoj has made a major contribution in helping us to understand the structures, genres, and formal strategies of widely scattered texts and to bring diverse and complex units into a meaningful whole. '—Jože Krašovec, Professor of Biblical Studies, University of Ljubljana, Slovenian and European Academies of Sciences and Arts