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-centuryIncludes introductory sections to each period giving background information about the Bible as a source text in English literature, and placing writers in their historical contextDraws on examples from medieval, early-modern, eighteenth-century and Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist literatureIncludes 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
Rebecca Lemon is an associate professor of English literature at the University of Southern California. She is the author of
Treason by Words: Literature, Law, and Rebellion in Shakespeare's England (2006), as well as articles on Mary Wroth and Petrarchism, Shakespeare and Agamben, and Hayward and censorship.
Emma Mason is a senior lecturer in English at the University of Warwick. She is the author ofWomen Poets of the Nineteenth Century (2006),Nineteenth Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction (with Mark Knight, 2006), andThe Cambridge Introduction to Wordsworth (2009), and is co-editor ofThe Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (with Michael Lieb and Jonathan Roberts, 2010).
Jonathan Roberts is a lecturer in English at the University of Liverpool. He is the author ofWilliam Blake's Poetry (2007),The Bible for Sinners (with Christopher Rowland, 2008),Blake. Wordsworth. Religion. (2010), and is co-editor ofThe Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (with Michael Lieb and Emma Mason, 2010).
Christopher Rowland is Dean Ireland's Professor of Holy Exegesis at the University of Oxford. He is the author of a number of books, includingThe Nature of New Testament Theology (2006),Revelation Through the Centuries (with Judith Kovacs, 2003), andRadical Christian Writings: A Reader (with Andrew Bradstock, 2002), all published by Wiley-Blackwell. He is Consultant Editor ofThe Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (edited by Michael Lieb, Emma Mason, and Jonathan Roberts, 2010), and together with John Sawyer, Judith Kovacs, and David Gunn, he also edits the Blackwell Bible Commentary series.
List of Contributors ix
Part I Introduction1
1 General IntroductionRebecca Lemon, Emma Mason, and Jonathan Roberts 3
2 The Literature of the BibleChristopher Rowland 10
3 Biblical Hermeneutics and Literary TheoryDavid Jasper 22
Part II Medieval39
4 IntroductionDaniel Anlezark 41
5 Old English PoetryCatherine A. M. Clarke 61
6 The Medieval Religious LyricDouglas Gray 76
7 The Middle English MysticsAnnie Sutherland 85
8 ThePearl-PoetHelen Barr 100
9 William LanglandSister Mary Clemente Davlin, OP 116
10 Geoffrey ChaucerChristiania Whitehead 134
Part III Early Modern153
11 IntroductionRoger Pooley 155
12 Early Modern WomenElizabeth Clarke 169
13 Early Modern Religious ProseJulie Maxwell 184
14 Edmund SpenserCarol V. Kaske 197
15 Mary SidneyRivkah Zim 211
16 William ShakespeareHannibal Hamlin 225
17 John DonneJeanne Shami 239
18 George HerbertJohn Drury 254
19 John MiltonMichael Lieb 269
20 John BunyanAndrew Bradstock 286
21 John DrydenGerard Reedy, S.J. 297
Part IV Eighteenth Century and Romantic311
22 IntroductionStephen Prickett 313
23 Eighteenth-Century Hymn WritersJ. R. Watson 329
24 Daniel DefoeValentine Cunningham 345
25 Jonathan SwiftMichael F. Suarez, S.J. 359
26 William BlakeJonathan Roberts and Christopher Rowland 373
27 Women Romantic PoetsPenny Bradshaw 383
28 William WordsworthDeeanne Westbrook 397
29 S. T. ColeridgeGraham Davidson 413
30 Jane AustenMichael Giffin 425
31 George Gordon ByronWolf Z. Hirst 438
32 P. B. ShelleyBernard Beatty 451
Part V Victorian463
33 IntroductionElisabeth Jay 465
34 The BrowningsKevin Mills 482
35 Alfred TennysonKirstie Blair 496
36 The BrontësMarianne Thormählen 512
37 John RuskinDinah Birch 525
38 George EliotCharles LaPorte 536
39 Christina RossettiElizabeth Ludlow 551
40 G. M. HopkinsPaul S. Fiddes 563
41 Sensation FictionMark Knight 577
42 DecadenceAndrew Tate 587
Part VI Modernist601
43 IntroductionWard Blanton 603
44 W. B. YeatsEdward Larrissy 617
45 Virginia WoolfDouglas L. Howard 629
46 James JoyceWilliam Franke 642
47 D. H. LawrenceT. R. Wright 654
48 T. S. EliotDavid Fuller 667
49 The Great War PoetsJane Potter 681
Index 696
