Venus in Sackcloth: The Magdelen's Origins and Metamorphoses by: Malvern, Marjorie M.
Hardcover. Carbondale IL, Southern Illinois University, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, lightly worn dust jacket. 219 pages, b&w illustrations.Prostitute, saint, penitent, woman taken in adultery, the Magdalen--a Venus in sackcloth----has evolved through two thou-sand years of iconography and literature little understood, this original and pro-vocative study shows. The complex intermingling of the Mag-dalen myth in religion and culture pro-vides a fascinating chapter in the history of ideas. This important new book there-fore not only fills a gap in religious and humanistic studies but also deepens our understanding of how the ideas implanted in the Magdalen figure were sustained over the years--from her origins in Scrip-ture and Apocrypha to rock opera in our time.
