Annunciations to anyone

This provocative, wide-ranging study focuses on parodies of Scripture with which Michelangelo and Shakespeare, Proust, Joyce and Picasso responded to two moments of ideological controversy and technological revolution: the Protestant Reformation and the early twentieth century. It calls for a revision of contemporary critical theory modelled upon the challenges which these passionate deconstructions of verbal and visual performance launch at both orthodoxy and iconoclasm of any period.