This Companion explores the Bible's role and influence on individual writers, whilst tracing the key developments of Biblical themes and literary theory through the ages.
An ambitious overview of the Bible's impact on English literature – as arguably the most powerful work of literature in history – from the medieval period through to the twentieth-century
Includes introductory sections to each period giving background information about the Bible as a source text in English literature, and placing writers in their historical context
Draws on examples from medieval, early-modern, eighteenth-century and Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist literature
Includes many 'secular' or 'anti-clerical' writers alongside their 'Christian' contemporaries, revealing how the Bible's text shifts and changes in the writing of each author who reads and studies it
Author Biography:
Rebecca Lemon is an associate professor of Englishliterature at the University of Southern California. She is theauthor of Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion inShakespeare's England (2006), as well as articles on Mary Wrothand Petrarchism, Shakespeare and Agamben, and Hayward andcensorship. Emma Mason is a senior lecturer in English at theUniversity of Warwick. She is the author of Women Poets of theNineteenth Century (2006), Nineteenth Century Religion andLiterature: An Introduction (with Mark Knight, 2006), andThe Cambridge Introduction to Wordsworth (2009), and isco-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of theBible (with Michael Lieb and Jonathan Roberts, 2010). Jonathan Roberts is a lecturer in English at theUniversity of Liverpool. He is the author of William Blake'sPoetry (2007), The Bible for Sinners (with ChristopherRowland, 2008), Blake. Wordsworth. Religion. (2010), and isco-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of theBible (with Michael Lieb and Emma Mason, 2010). Christopher Rowland is Dean Ireland's Professor of HolyExegesis at the University of Oxford. He is the author of a numberof books, including The Nature of New Testament Theology(2006), Revelation Through the Centuries (with JudithKovacs, 2003), and Radical Christian Writings: A Reader(with Andrew Bradstock, 2002), all published by Wiley-Blackwell. Heis Consultant Editor of The Oxford Handbook of the ReceptionHistory of the Bible (edited by Michael Lieb, Emma Mason, andJonathan Roberts, 2010), and together with John Sawyer, JudithKovacs, and David Gunn, he also edits the Blackwell BibleCommentary series.