Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories (Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature) (French Edition)

1. The Emergence Of The Lethal Woman, Or The Use Of Hermeneutic Models -- Pregnancy And The Limits Of Power -- The Use Of Interpretation -- The Use Of Form -- The Use Of Frame-theory -- The Use Of Narratology -- The Use Of The Text -- The Use Of Symmetry -- The Use Of Frames -- The Use Of The Subject -- The Use Of Competition -- 2. Delilah Decomposed: Samson's Talking Cure And The Rhetoric Of Subjectivity -- Reading Heroes -- Questions Asked And Problems Revealed -- The Emergence Of The Hero -- Samson And Delilah -- Samson's Death -- Who Is Samson? -- Samson, Patriarchy, And Social Reality -- 3. Heroism And Proper Names, Or The Fruits Of Analogy -- Balancing The Tension -- Starting From A Detail -- Narrativization Of The Proper Name -- In Search Of The Subject -- In Search Of Foundations, Or The Subjects Versus The Law -- The Unconscious Performing Speech Acts: Symptoms Reflecting Reflection -- 4. One Woman, Many Men, And The Dialectic Of Chronology -- The Limits Of Higher Criticism -- On The Margins Of Anachrony: Paralepsis, Or The Deviation From The Straight Path -- Tamar From Father To Son, Or On Subversion -- Juxtaposition, Or Similarity Behind Displacement -- Onan's Offspring, Or How To Conceive Safely -- Tamar's Matchmaking: The Mirror Stage -- 5. Sexuality, Sin, And Sorrow: The Emergence Of The Female Character -- Characterizing Character -- The Emergence Of Myth: Collocation -- The Emergence Of The Human Body: Unaccomplishment -- The Emergence Of The Female Body: Sexual Difference -- The Emergence Of Activity: Sin? -- The Emergence Of Character: Sorrow -- The Effect Of Naming. Mieke Bal. Rev. Translation Of: Femmes Imaginaires. Includes Index. Bibliography: P. 133-136. "Lethal Love" is, in Mieke Bal's words, "first and foremost a study of biblical love stories and how we read them." Bal reads five familiar love stories from the Bible -- David and Bathsheba, Samson and Delilah, Ruth and Boaz, Judah and Tamar, and Adam and Eve. -- differently. In the past, readings of these stories have represented woman' love as lethal -- women are victimizers to be avoided lest one be killed by their love. Ball calls into question these interpretations of the past, revealing a patriarchal ideology of interpretation that has dominated. Borrowing interpretive tools from semiotics and pyschoanalysis, Bal deconstructs this dominant ideology by stressing the different -- the multivalent, heterogeneous meanings possible when one pays close attention to the text. Her powerful, exciting interpretations resonate deeply and raise new possibilities for the ways we read the love stories of the Bible."