Abstract

This article begins with the breakdown of boundaries between modern literature and classical Jewish texts, and the freeing insight that all texts, regardless of chronology, are in conversation with one another. It is inspired by Wendy Doniger's explorations of how disparate stories comment on and complete one another. Sylvia Townsend Warner's 1964 short story, "A Love Match," about brother-sister incest, is juxtaposed with a Biblical verse on the same topic, Leviticus 20:17. Close attention is given to the language of the verse and rabbinic commentary throughout the centuries. This analysis sees the Jewish commentators on Scripture as storytellers, and "A Love Match" as a text that fills out their hints about its troubling topic. Introduction: Intertextuality

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