Abstract
Abstract In Cain Byron demonstrates his interest in using the Bible to critique itself. He sticks close to the letter of his biblical source while engaging directly with traditional scriptural readings including the commonplace combination of the Devil with the serpent who tempts Eve—which Byron’s Lucifer rebuts himself. Byron engages more subtly with the typological equivalence frequently drawn between Abel and Christ, allowing the equivalence to stand but refusing to employ it to legitimize Christianity at the expense of Judaism. Byron thus seeks to rehabilitate two of Genesis’ most reviled characters as part of his search for a credible deliverer of his critique. Cain is juxtaposed with Lucifer and then with his sister Adah and brother Abel. These doublings within the play ultimately demonstrate that Cain is the figure most worthy of conveying Byron’s culminating critique of Christian hypocrisy at the play’s close.
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