Biblical Influences in Shakespeare's Great Tragedies PDF Download

Author: Peter Milward
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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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. .

Author: Naseeb Shaheen
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874136777
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 896

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Book Description
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.

Author: Naseeb Shaheen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Author: Ivor Morris
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415353243
Category : Christian drama, English
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
First published in 1972. Shakespeare's God investigates whether a religious interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedies is possible. The study places Christianity's commentary on the human condition side by side with what tragedy reveals about it. This pattern is identified using the writings of Christian thinkers from Augustine to the present day. The pattern in the chief phenomena of literary tragedy is also traced

Author: E. Beatrice Batson
Publisher: Baylor University Press
ISBN: 1932792368
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
This volume explores the influences of Catholicism and Protestantism in a trio of Shakespeare's tragedies: Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet. Bypassing the discussion of Shakespeare's personal religious beliefs, Batson instead focuses on distinct footprints left by Catholic and Protestant traditions that underlie and inform Shakespeare's artistic genius.

Author: D. Douglas Waters
Publisher: Associated University Presse
ISBN: 9780838635285
Category : Christian drama, English
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
Battenhouse's Shakespearean tragedy: Its art and Christian premises, Irving Ribner's Patterns in Shakespearian tragedy, Virgil K. Whitaker's The mirror up to nature: The techniques of Shakespeare's tragedies, and Robert Grams Hunter's Shakespeare and the mystery of God's judgments. Waters questions, for example, Battenhouse's validity of Christian theological and didactic emphases on the old purgation theory of catharsis. His approach differs also from Northrop Frye's views on the tragedies in Northrop Frye on Shakespeare, an archetypal approach to representative plays including the tragedies.

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.

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.

Author: Lee Oser
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813235103
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Shakespeare, Lee Oser argues, is a Christian literary artist who criticizes and challenges Christians, but who does so on Christian grounds. Stressing Shakespeare’s theological sensitivity, Oser places Shakespeare’s work in the “radical middle,” the dialectical opening between the sacred and the secular where great writing can flourish. According to Oser, the radical middle was and remains a site of cultural originality, as expressed through mimetic works of art intended for a catholic (small “c”) audience. It describes the conceptual space where Shakespeare was free to engage theological questions, and where his Christian skepticism could serve his literary purposes. Oser reviews the rival cases for a Protestant Shakespeare and for a Catholic Shakespeare, but leaves the issue open, focusing, instead, on how Shakespeare exploits artistic resources that are specific to Christianity, including the classical-Christian rhetorical tradition. The scope of the book ranges from an introductory survey of the critical field as it now stands, to individual chapters on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, the Henriad, Hamlet, and King Lear. Writing with a deep sense of literary history, Oser holds that mainstream literary criticism has created a false picture of Shakespeare by secularizing him and misconstruing the nature of his art. Through careful study of the plays, Oser recovers a Shakespeare who is less vulnerable to the winds of academic and political fashion, and who is a friend to the enduring project of humanistic education. Christian Humanism in Shakespeare: A Study in Religion and Literature is both eminently readable and a work of consequence.