John Updike, A Month of Sundays

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Just as he had rewritten classical and biblical myths in

The Centaur

and

Couples

and Shakespeare’s

Hamlet

in his

Gertrude and Claudius

, John Updike sought to rewrite Nathaniel Hawthorne’s masterpiece

The Scarlet Letter

in the light of contemporary American life and religious values. The result was his “

The Scarlet Letter

Trilogy”, consisting of

A Month of Sundays

(1985),

Roger’s Version

(1986) and

S.

(1988).

In the first novel in the trilogy, Updike sought “to show how radically American attitudes have changed in regard to adulterous clergy. … As any bishop can tell you, modern clergymen tend to be quite unapologetic about where their bodies take them” (quoted in Greiner, 1989: 483-484). One of Updike’s most critically neglected works, A Month of Sundays is the diary

849 words

Citation: Gomez-Galisteo, M. Carmen. "A Month of Sundays". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 September 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7050, accessed 19 March 2024.]

7050 A Month of Sundays 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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