Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays

Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays PDF Author: Naseeb Shaheen
Publisher: University of Delaware
ISBN: 1611493730
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 982

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Book Description
The hundreds of biblical references in Shakespeare's plays give ample evidence that he was well acquainted with Scripture. Not only is the range of his biblical references impressive, but also the aptness with which he makes them. Hamlet and Othello each have more than fifty biblical references. No study of Shakespeare's plays is complete that ignores Shakespeare's use of scripture. The Bibles that Shakespeare knew, however, were not those that are in use today. By the time the King James Bible appeared in 1611, Shakespeare's career was all but over, and the Anglican liturgy that is evident in his plays is likewise one that few persons are acquainted with. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the English Bibles of Shakespeare's day, notes their similarities and differences, and indicates which version the playwright knew best. The thorny question of what constitutes a valid biblical reference is also discussed. The study of Shakespeare's biblical references is not based on secondary sources. The author owned one of the world's largest collections of early English bibles, including over one hundred copies of the Geneva bible and numerous editions of other Bibles, prayer books, and books of homilies of Shakespeare's day. To be of real worth, a study of Shakespeare's biblical references should also enable the reader to determine which references Shakespeare borrowed from his plot sources and which he added from his own memory as part of his design for the play. The author studies every source that Shakespeare is known to have read or consulted before writing each play and has examined the biblical references in those sources. Shaheen then points out which biblical references in his literary sources Shakespeare accepted, and how he adapted them in his plays. This information is especially valuable when assessing the theological meanings that are sometimes imposed on his plays, meanings that often go beyond what Shakespeare intended or what his audience must have understood. Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays is considerably broader in scope than any other study of its kind and provides the scholarly checks and balances in dealing with the subject that previous studies lacked. .

Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays

Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays PDF Author: Naseeb Shaheen
Publisher: University of Delaware
ISBN: 1611493730
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 982

Get Book

Book Description
The hundreds of biblical references in Shakespeare's plays give ample evidence that he was well acquainted with Scripture. Not only is the range of his biblical references impressive, but also the aptness with which he makes them. Hamlet and Othello each have more than fifty biblical references. No study of Shakespeare's plays is complete that ignores Shakespeare's use of scripture. The Bibles that Shakespeare knew, however, were not those that are in use today. By the time the King James Bible appeared in 1611, Shakespeare's career was all but over, and the Anglican liturgy that is evident in his plays is likewise one that few persons are acquainted with. This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the English Bibles of Shakespeare's day, notes their similarities and differences, and indicates which version the playwright knew best. The thorny question of what constitutes a valid biblical reference is also discussed. The study of Shakespeare's biblical references is not based on secondary sources. The author owned one of the world's largest collections of early English bibles, including over one hundred copies of the Geneva bible and numerous editions of other Bibles, prayer books, and books of homilies of Shakespeare's day. To be of real worth, a study of Shakespeare's biblical references should also enable the reader to determine which references Shakespeare borrowed from his plot sources and which he added from his own memory as part of his design for the play. The author studies every source that Shakespeare is known to have read or consulted before writing each play and has examined the biblical references in those sources. Shaheen then points out which biblical references in his literary sources Shakespeare accepted, and how he adapted them in his plays. This information is especially valuable when assessing the theological meanings that are sometimes imposed on his plays, meanings that often go beyond what Shakespeare intended or what his audience must have understood. Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays is considerably broader in scope than any other study of its kind and provides the scholarly checks and balances in dealing with the subject that previous studies lacked. .

The Bible in Shakespeare

The Bible in Shakespeare PDF Author: Hannibal Hamlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199677611
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
"This book is about allusions to the Bible in Shakespeare's plays. It argues that such allusions are frequent, deliberate, and significant, and that the study of these allusions is repaid by a deeper understanding of the plays." - Introduction.

Biblical References in Shakespeare's Tragedies

Biblical References in Shakespeare's Tragedies PDF Author: Naseeb Shaheen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Shakespeare and the Bible

Shakespeare and the Bible PDF Author: Steven Marx
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198184409
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
Oxford Shakespeare Topics provides students and teachers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. Notes and a critical guide tofurther reading equip the interested reader with the means to broaden research. Despite the presence of hundreds of Biblical allusions in Shakespeare, this is the first book to explore the pattern and significance of those references in relation to a selection of his greatest plays. It reveals the Bible as a rich source for Shakespeare's uses of myth, history, comedy andtragedy, his techniques of staging, and his ways of characterizing rulers, magicians and teachers in the image of the Bible's multifaceted God. This book also discloses ways in which Shakespeare's plays offer both pious and irreverent interpretations of the Scriptures comparable to those presentedby his contemporary writers, artists, philosophers and politicians. After an opening chapter comparing the Bible as a fragmented yet unified collection of 46 books with the fragmented yet unified First Folio collection of Shakespeare's 36 plays, each of the following six chapters matches a book of the Bible with a representative play: the creation myth of Genesiswith the first play in the Folio, The Tempest, the historical epic of Exodus with Henry V, the tragedy of Job with King Lear, the tragicomedy of the Gospel of Matthew with Measure for Measure, the homiletic disputation of Paul's Epistle to the Romans with The Merchant of Venice, and the apocalypticmasque of the Book of Revelation with The Tempest again. Though its subject matter and style appeal to a broad audience, this book is grounded in recent scholarship in Shakespeare and Biblical studies. Its intertextual readings are framed by descriptions of the historical circumstances of each work's composition and reception and by an emergent theory ofallusion as a principle of creation and understanding.

Biblical References in Shakespeare's Comedies

Biblical References in Shakespeare's Comedies PDF Author: Naseeb Shaheen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"William Shakespeare's works give ample evidence that he was well acquainted with Scripture. There is hardly a book in the Bible that he does not refer to in one or another of his plays. Not only is the range of his biblical references impressive, but also the aptness with which he makes them. But the Bibles that Shakespeare knew were not those that are in use today. By the time the King James Bible appeared, Shakespeare's career was all but over, and the Anglican liturgy that is evident in his plays is likewise one that few people are familiar with today." "This volume provides a comprehensive survey of the English Bibles of Shakespeare's day, notes their similarities and differences, and indicates which version the playwright knew best. The biblical references in each of the comedies are then carefully analyzed, as are Shakespeare's references to the Prayer Book and the homilies. The question of what constitutes a valid biblical reference is also discussed." "A particularly valuable feature of this volume is that it analyzes Shakespeare's references in light of his secular sources. To be of real worth, a study of Shakespeare's biblical references should not only list those references, but should enable the reader to determine which references Shakespeare borrowed from his plot sources and which he added from his own memory as part of his design for the play. Shakespeare's handling of his subject is often best understood when compared with his sources, and this is also true of his biblical references. The author has therefore studied every source that Shakespeare is known to have read or consulted before writing each play and has examined the biblical references in those sources. Then he points out which biblical references in his literary sources Shakespeare accepted and how he adapted them in his plays. This information is especially valuable when assessing the theological meanings that are sometimes imposed on his plays, meanings that often go beyond what Shakespeare intended or what his audience must have understood." "This volume on the comedies is a companion to the author's Biblical References in Shakespeare's Tragedies and Biblical References in Shakespeare's History Plays, published by the University of Delaware Press in 1987 and 1989. All three volumes are considerably broader in scope than any other study of Shakespeare's use of Scripture thus far attempted, and they provide the scholarly checks and balances in dealing with the subject that previous studies lacked."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Shakespeare and Abraham

Shakespeare and Abraham PDF Author: Ken Jackson
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 026808355X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
In Shakespeare and Abraham, Ken Jackson illuminates William Shakespeare’s dramatic fascination with the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22. Themes of child killing fill Shakespeare’s early plays: Genesis 22 informed Clifford’s attack on young Rutland in 3 Henry 6, Hubert’s providentially thwarted murder of Arthur in King John, and Aaron the Moor’s surprising decision to spare his son amidst the filial slaughters of Titus Andronicus, among others. However, the playwright’s full engagement with the biblical narrative does not manifest itself exclusively in scenes involving the sacrifice of children or in verbal borrowings from the famously sparse story of Abraham. Jackson argues that the most important influence of Genesis 22 and its interpretive tradition is to be found in the conceptual framework that Shakespeare develops to explore relationships among ideas of religion, sovereignty, law, and justice. Jackson probes the Shakespearean texts from the vantage of modern theology and critical theory, while also orienting them toward the traditions concerning Abraham in Jewish, Pauline, patristic, medieval, and Reformation sources and early English drama. Consequently, the playwright’s “Abrahamic explorations” become strikingly apparent in unexpected places such as the “trial” of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and the bifurcated structure of Timon of Athens. By situating Shakespeare in a complex genealogy that extends from ancient religion to postmodern philosophy, Jackson inserts Shakespeare into the larger contemporary conversation about religion in the modern world.

A Will to Believe

A Will to Believe PDF Author: David Scott Kastan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191004294
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
On 19 December 1601, John Croke, then Speaker of the House of Commons, addressed his colleagues: "If a question should be asked, What is the first and chief thing in a Commonwealth to be regarded? I should say, religion. If, What is the second? I should say, religion. If, What the third? I should still say, religion." But if religion was recognized as the "chief thing in a Commonwealth," we have been less certain what it does in Shakespeare's plays. Written and performed in a culture in which religion was indeed inescapable, the plays have usually been seen either as evidence of Shakespeare's own disinterested secularism or, more recently, as coded signposts to his own sectarian commitments. Based upon the inaugural series of the Oxford-Wells Shakespeare Lectures in 2008, A Will to Believe offers a thoughtful, surprising, and often moving consideration of how religion actually functions in them: not as keys to Shakespeare's own faith but as remarkably sensitive registers of the various ways in which religion charged the world in which he lived. The book shows what we know and can't know about Shakespeare's own beliefs, and demonstrates, in a series of wonderfully alert and agile readings, how the often fraught and vertiginous religious environment of Post-Reformation England gets refracted by the lens of Shakespeare's imagination.

Holy Shakespeare!

Holy Shakespeare! PDF Author: Maisie Sparks
Publisher: FaithWords
ISBN: 9781455570423
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
101 lines or passages from William Shakespeare's works paired with Scripture passages that appear in the bard's classics. To be published just in time for the Shakespeare 400th celebrations. Shakespeare was heavily influenced by Holy Writ. Bible lines, characters and narratives are "verbal characters" in the his plays, poems and sonnets, sometimes subtly and sometimes blatantly. But they are there, revealing the deep scriptural well that was the culture from which Shakespeare drew and also reminding us of scenes and stories in the Bible. Shakespeare knew the Bible--as did everyone during that time. He used Scripture freely in what he wrote because through such biblical allusions, audiences would immediately grasp his meanings, charaterizations and unfolding situations. His works-meant to be performed-gave Scripture life. The Bible was not mere words in Shakespeare's work, but, like all of Scripture, were used for reproof, instruction, conviction and training. Listening to Shakespeare with an ear that's open to whispers from God's Word can kindle both passion for his great literary works and the Greatest Book of all, Holy Scripture.

Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Form of the Book

Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Form of the Book PDF Author: Travis DeCook
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136662758
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Why do Shakespeare and the English Bible seem to have an inherent relationship with each other? How have these two monumental traditions in the history of the book functioned as mutually reinforcing sources of cultural authority? How do material books and related reading practices serve as specific sites of intersection between these two textual traditions? This collection makes a significant intervention in our understanding of Shakespeare, the Bible, and the role of textual materiality in the construction of cultural authority. Departing from conventional source study, it questions the often naturalized links between the Shakespearean and biblical corpora, examining instead the historically contingent ways these links have been forged. The volume brings together leading scholars in Shakespeare, book history, and the Bible as literature, whose essays converge on the question of Scripture as source versus Scripture as process—whether that scripture is biblical or Shakespearean—and in turn explore themes such as cultural authority, pedagogy, secularism, textual scholarship, and the materiality of texts. Covering an historical span from Shakespeare’s post-Reformation era to present-day Northern Ireland, the volume uncovers how Shakespeare and the Bible’s intertwined histories illuminate the enduring tensions between materiality and transcendence in the history of the book.

A Christian Guide to the Classics

A Christian Guide to the Classics PDF Author: Leland Ryken
Publisher: Crossway
ISBN: 1433547066
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
Most people are familiar with the classics of Western literature, but few have actually read them. Written to equip readers for a lifetime of learning, this beginner’s guide to reading the classics by renowned literary scholar Leland Ryken answers basic questions readers often have, including “Why read the classics?” and “How do I read a classic?” Offering a list of some of the best works from the last 2,000 years and time-tested tips for effectively engaging with them, this companion to Ryken’s Christian Guides to the Classics series will give readers the tools they need to read, interact with, and enjoy some of history’s greatest literature.