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. .

The Bible in Shakespeare

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

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Book Description
The Bible in Shakespeare is a critical study of the links between the two great pillars of English culture, the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.

Holy Shakespeare!

Holy Shakespeare! PDF Author: Maisie Sparks
Publisher: FaithWords
ISBN: 1455570419
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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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.

The Bard and the Bible

The Bard and the Bible PDF Author: Bob Hostetler
Publisher: Worthy Inspired
ISBN: 1617958425
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 666

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Book Description
365 Devotions pairing Scripture from the King James Bible and lines from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. Includes little known history, curiosities, and facts about words introduced or used in new ways by Shakespeare.

Shakespeare and the Bible

Shakespeare and the Bible PDF Author: Steven Marx
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780198184393
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
'The first book to explore the pattern and significance of hundreds of biblical allusions in Shakespeare in relation to a selection of his greatest plays.' -Years Work in English Studies'Marx fills something of a void with Shakespeare and the Bible. He compiles critical works, identifies current arguments within the field, and lends his own interpretations. The final product is a comprehensive and insightful contribution to Shakespearean scholarship.' -Criticism'Hugely enjoyable and insightful... Marx's analysis of Merchant of Venice is particularly thought provoking' -Literature andamp; Theology'Oxford University Press offer a mix of engagingly written introductions to a variety of Topics intended largely for undergraduates. Each author has clearly been reading and listening to the most recent scholarship, but they wear their learning lightly' -Ruth Morse, Times Literary SupplementOxford Shakespeare Topics (General Editors Peter Holland and Stanley Wells) provide students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship, including some general anthologies relating to Shakespeare. Despite the presence of hundreds of Biblical allusions in Shakespeare, Shakespeare and the Bible is the first book to explore the pattern and significance of those references in relation to a selection of his greatest plays. It reveals that the Bible inspired Shakespeare's uses of myth, history, comedy and tragedy, 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 presented by his contemporary writers, artists, philosophers and politicians.

Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine

Shakespeare and Christian Doctrine PDF Author: Roland Mushat Frye
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400878934
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Combining scholarship with grace, the author shows in this study that Shakespeare's works are pervasively secular, that he was concerned with the dramatization of universally human situations within a temporal and this-worldly arena, and that he was familiar with and used theological materials as only one of many natural and available sources. Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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.

Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Bible

Shakespeare's Sonnets and the Bible PDF Author: Ira B. Zinman
Publisher: World Wisdom Books
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
The extent to which Shakespeare derived the inspiration for his plays and Sonnets from the Bible has sparked debate for centuries. Although much research has been done on Shakespeare's plays, a comprehensive analysis of his Sonnets has been absent, until now. This book gives a detailed examination of Shakespeare's Sonnets, identifying their underlying spiritual themes at the religious and scriptural levels of interpretation.

The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage

The Bible on the Shakespearean Stage PDF Author: Thomas Chandler Fulton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107194237
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The first volume to consider how the context of early modern biblical interpretation shaped Shakespeare's plays.

The Cambridge Companion to the Bible and Literature

The Cambridge Companion to the Bible and Literature PDF Author: Calum Carmichael
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108422950
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
Examines the varied, enormously sophisticated contents of the Bible and sees how certain Western authors were inspired by them.