Definition of "midrash"

You could call the Gospels a midrash on the Hebrew Bible, the lives of the saints a midrash on the Christ story, the Koran a midrash on all of the above.

2016 June, Judith Shulevitz, “The Brontës’ Secret”, in The Atlantic‎

Northrop Frye called the novel “a kind of ‘midrash’ on the book of Job,” one that reimagines the opaque nature of divine justice as a labyrinthine modern bureaucracy.

2021, Meghan O'Gieblyn, quoting Northrop Frye, chapter 12, in God, Human, Animal, Machine […]