The Massacre of the Innocents

Warren Carter

doi:10.5771/9781978714113

Summary

In The Massacre of the Innocents: Studies in the Cultural Afterlife of a Gospel Scene, Warren Carter examines some fifty instances of the interpretation of the Matthean “Massacre of the Innocents” (Matt 2:16-18). He emphasizes the agency of interpreters, who in their particular contexts and media, “think with” the shocking Matthean scene to address the often-tragic circumstances of their audiences. He argues throughout that the structure of the Gospel scene facilitates this “thinking with.” The scene is structured as a triad of power relations with a tyrant (Herod), victims (infants and parents), and violent means of tyranny (the massacre). Interpreters use this triad of power relations to identify tyrant/s, victims, and means of tyranny in their own situations. Carter illustrates the use of this triad of power relations across two millennia, in numerous socio-political contexts, and media as diverse as sermons, images, poems and hymns, dramas and festivals, films, novels, Christmas carols, and Children’s Bibles.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2023
ISBN-Print: 978-1-9787-1410-6
ISBN-Online: 978-1-9787-1411-3
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 406
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
Chapter 1: Introduction No access Pages 1 - 14
1. Chapter 2: Proto-Gospel of James No access
2. Chapter 3: Irenaeus No access
3. Chapter 4: Cyprian No access
1. Chapter 5: Chrysostom: Sermon 9 (d. 407) No access
2. Chapter 6: Chrysologus: Sermon 152 (d. 450) No access
3. Chapter 7: Quodvultdeus: Two Homilies on the Creed (430s CE) No access
4. Chapter 8: Leo, Bishop of Rome (d. 461) No access
5. Chapter 9: Our Martyrs Are Better: A Fifth-Century Anonymous Sermon No access
6. Chapter 10: Caesarius of Arles: Sermon 222, “On the Feast of the Holy Innocents” (d. 542) No access
7. Chapter 11: Venerable Bede (d. 735) No access
8. Chapter 12: Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179) No access
1. Chapter 13: Women Viewers at Chartres Cathedral (Thirteenth Century) No access
2. Chapter 14: Matteo di Giovanni (d. 1495) No access
3. Chapter 15: Pieter Bruegel (d. 1569) No access
4. Chapter 16: The Chapel of Lucrezia della Rovere (Sixteenth Century) No access
5. Chapter 17: The Book of Common Prayer, William Faithorne (1653) No access
6. Chapter 18: William Rimmer, Massacre of the Innocents (1858) No access
7. Chapter 19: Julia Chavarría, Massacre of the Innocents (1981) No access
8. Chapter 20: Bessie Harvey, Slaughter of the Innocents (1985) No access
9. Chapter 21: Anker Eli Petersen Scream from Ramah (2001) No access
10. Chapter 22: Oppression of Indigenous Peoples: Kent Monkman (2015/2017) No access
11. Chapter 23: Kara Walker, Slaughter of the Innocents (2016) No access
1. Chapter 24: Ephrem, Hymn Twenty-Four (d. 373) No access
2. Chapter 25: Prudentius, Cathemerinon 12 (c. 400) No access
3. Chapter 26: Paulinus and the Heavenly Play Center, Poem 31 (c. 400) No access
4. Chapter 27: Romanos the Melodist, Kontakion 3 (d. 556) No access
5. Chapter 28: Bede, Hymn 1, For the Holy Innocents (d. 735) No access
6. Chapter 29: Giambattista Marino, La Strage degli Innocenti (The Slaughter of the Innocents) (1632) No access
1. Chapter 30: Fleury Drama (c. 1200) No access
2. Chapter 31: York Mystery Plays (Fifteenth–Sixteenth Centuries) No access
3. Chapter 32: Chester Mystery Cycle: Play 10 (Fifteenth–Sixteenth Centuries) No access
4. Chapter 33: Festival de Máscaras de Hatillo, Puerto Rico No access
1. Chapter 34: Nicholas Ray, King of Kings (1961) No access
2. Chapter 35: Pasolini, Il vangelo secondo Mattei/The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) No access
3. Chapter 36: Franco Zeffirelli, Jesus of Nazareth (1977) No access
4. Chapter 37: Mark Dornford-May, Son of Man (2006) No access
5. Chapter 38: Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) No access
6. Chapter 39: Albert Camus, The Fall (La Chute) (1956) No access
7. Chapter 40: José Saramago, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991) No access
8. Chapter 41: Anne Rice, Christ the Lord (2005) No access
9. Chapter 42: Jacobus Clemens non Papa (d. 1555): Motet, Vox in Rama No access
10. Chapter 43: Hector Berlioz (d. 1869) Oratorio: L’Enfance du Christ/The Childhood of Christ (1854) No access
11. Chapter 44: Arthur Sullivan (d. 1900) Oratorio: The Light of the World (1873) No access
12. Chapter 45: John Harbison (b. 1938) Cantata: The Flight into Egypt (1987) No access
13. Chapter 46: Coventry Carol: A Lament-Lullaby (“Lully, lulla, thou little tiny Child”) (1534/1591) No access
14. Chapter 47: George Wither (d. 1667): “That Rage Whereof the Psalm Doth Say” No access
15. Chapter 48: Luke Wadding, For Innocents’ Day (1684) No access
16. Chapter 49: Cecil Francis (Fanny) Alexander, O Lord, the Holy Innocents (1848) No access
17. Chapter 50: Children’s Bibles No access
Bibliography No access Pages 379 - 394
Index No access Pages 395 - 404
About the Author No access Pages 405 - 406