The damned and the elect

by Friedrich Ohly

The stark theological polarities of damnation and salvation have haunted representations of guilt in Western culture for thousands of years. Friedrich Ohly's classic study of the damned and the elect offers a comparative cultural history of figures such as Oedipus, Judas and Faust, from Antiquity, through the Middle Ages, into modern times. Looking at the works of writers as various as Sophocles, Dante, Marlowe, Bunyan, Goethe and Thomas Mann (and illustrating his ideas with reference to representation in the visual arts), Ohly's wide-ranging arguments weave deftly across different cultures and periods to illuminate one of the most salient themes in Western literature.