Joseph Flavius: An Intermediary Between Cultures? On the Role of the Protagonist as a Historian in the Trilogy The Jewish War by Lion Feuchtwanger Cover Image

Józef Flawiusz – pośrednik między kulturami? O roli postaci historyka w trylogii Wojna żydowska Liona Feuchtwangera
Joseph Flavius: An Intermediary Between Cultures? On the Role of the Protagonist as a Historian in the Trilogy The Jewish War by Lion Feuchtwanger

Author(s): Tadeusz Skwara
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Studies of Literature, Comparative Linguistics, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego
Keywords: comparative literature; cultural transfer; historical novel; ancient Rome; anti-Semitism; multi-culturalism; Lion Feuchtwanger; Joseph Flavius

Summary/Abstract: The paper is devoted to Josephus Flavius, a Jewish-Roman historian and a mediator between Jewish and Roman culture, as he appears in Lion Feuchtwanger’s “Josephus Trilogy” (1932–1942). The intercultural role of the ancient writer is discussed on two planes: with regard to his official contacts with Roman emperors, and with regard to his private life, especially his relationship to his son Paul whose mother was of Greek- Egyptian origins. Although Flavius’ attempts failed, a cultural analysis of his life can shed a new light on Feuchtwanger himself (now forgotten but once one of the most popular German writers in the world) and his work. The whole trilogy can still be read as an interesting diagnosis of multi-culture society and its problems since it seems to well illustrate cultural systems as Niklas Luhmann describes them.

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 5
  • Page Range: 153-171
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Polish