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.

Analyzes the biblical references that Shakespeare makes in his plays, surveying the different English Bibles available to Shakespeare, and pointing out which of these he referred to most often (the King James version only appeared near the end of his career). Also examines biblical references found in literary source material used by Shakespeare to determine whether he used or adapted these or added others from his own memory; and what these allusions would have meant to audiences of the time.--From publisher 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.

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.

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.

Did Shakespeare write Psalm 46 of the King James Bible? In "Shakespeare and the Psalms Mystery" Jem Bloomfield investigates the literary legend that the famous playwright left his mark on the Authorized Version. He delves into the historical, textual and literary evidence, showing that the story isn't true - but that there are much more engrossing stories to be told about Shakespeare and the Bible. Whilst amassing the evidence against the Psalm 46 legend, Bloomfield asks why people want to believe it. What does this myth tell us about the connections between Shakespeare and the Bible? What does it reveal about people's views of religion and culture? In an intriguing investigation, Bloomfield ranges from the theatres of sixteenth-century England to the churches of the modern United States. On the way the reader is shown exiled Protestants becoming illegal Bible-smugglers, Edwardian schoolboys making jokes about the Book of Daniel, Lady Mary Sidney writing poetry inspired by the Psalms, Rudyard Kipling taking instructions from his own personal daemon, Lancelot Andrewes declaring that Jesus was a gardener, and other remarkable scenes from literary history. "Shakespeare and the Psalms Mystery" argues that the truth is always odder and more fascinating than any conspiracy theory. In debunking the legend of Shakespeare's hand in the King James Bible, it offers the reader a glimpse into the real mysteries which these books and their histories possess. Jem Bloomfield is Assistant Professor of Literature at the University of Nottingham. His previous publications include articles in scholarly journals on literature, theatre and religion, and the book "Words of Power: Reading Shakespeare and the Bible."

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.