The Bible and Literature A Reader

by Jasper, David; Prickett, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780631208570
• ISBN10: 0631208577
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-11-28
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

There is no book more important for our culture than the Bible, and it is fundamental to the study of English literature and language. But the Bible is actually little read and its resonances in poetry, plays, and fiction are becoming forgotten and lost. This book is designed primarily, though not exclusively, for students of English, giving a collection of some of the most important passages from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, with introductions and commentaries, and selections of texts from literature which use and incorporate these passages in different ways. It explores how closely the Bible is linked with some of the great imaginative literature in English, beginning with the creation stories in Genesis and moving through to the visions of the End in Revelation. There are extensive introductory essays and full reading lists.

Author Biography

David Jasper is Professor in Theology at Glasgow University, Director of the Centre for the Study of Literature and Theology at Glasgow, and general editor of Literature and Theology and International Journal of Theory, Criticism and Culture. He has published widely in the fields of theology and literature.

Stephen Prickett is Regius Professor of English Literature at Glasgow University. Co-editor of the World's Classics Bible, his books include Reading the Text: Biblical Criticism and Literature (1991), Words and 'The Word': Language, poetics and biblical interpretation (1986), Origins of Narrative: The Romantic Appropriation of the Bible (1996). He is a member of the editorial board of Literature and Theology.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgements	xiii
General Introduction	1	(11)
Biblical and Literary Criticism: A History of Interaction	12	(32)
Stephen Prickett
Literary Readings of the Bible: Trends in Modern Criticism	44	(21)
David Jasper
The Creation (Genesis 1-2):	65	(15)
Paradise Lost	73	(1)
John Milton
`The Spacious Firmament on High'	74	(1)
Joseph Addison
Biographia Literaria	74	(1)
S. T. Coleridge
Choruses from `The Rock'	75	(2)
T. S. Eliot
`Let There Be Light!'	77	(1)
D. H. Lawrence
The Magician's Nephew	77	(3)
C. S. Lewis
In the Beginning Was the Word (John 1: 1-18):	80	(14)
Apology	85	(1)
Justin Martyr
Holy Sonnets, No. 4	85	(1)
John Donne
Lectures on Revealed Religion	86	(1)
S. T. Coleridge
Faust, Part 1	86	(1)
Goethe
The Morgante Maggiore	87	(1)
Lord Byron
`A Word Made Flesh Is Seldom'	88	(1)
Emily Dickinson
`In the Beginning Was the Three-pinted Star'	89	(1)
Dylan Thomas
Of Grammatology	90	(4)
Jacques Derrida
The Fall (Genesis 3: 1-13):	94	(16)
The City of God	101	(1)
St Augustine
Bondage	101	(1)
Adam Lay
Paradise Lost	102	(3)
John Milton
Earl of Rochester, `The Fall'	105	(1)
John Wilmot
`The Tree of Knowledge'	106	(1)
Abraham Cowley
Free Fall	107	(3)
William Golding
The Sacrifice of Isacc (Genesis 22: 1-19):	110	(13)
Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Rashi's Commentary	114	(1)
Epistle to the Hebrews	114	(1)
The City of God	114	(2)
St Augustine
Fourteenth-century English Passion Play	116	(2)
Religio Medici	118	(1)
Sir Thomas Browne
Tess of the D'Urbervilles	118	(1)
Thomas Hardy
Fear and Trembling	118	(1)
Soren Kierkegaard
Letter of 1921	119	(1)
Franz Kafka
`The Parable of the Old Man and the Young'	120	(1)
Wilfred Owen
`England, my England'	120	(1)
D. H. Lawrence
Mimesis	120	(3)
Erich Auerbach
Jacob and Esau (Genesis 27: 15-35):	123	(11)
The City of God	129	(1)
St Augustine
Holy Sonnets, No. 11	130	(1)
John Donne
`On Jacob's Purchase'	130	(1)
Francis Quarles
The Christian Year	131	(1)
John Keble
Joseph and his Brothers	131	(1)
Thomas Mann
Midnight's Children	132	(2)
Salman Rushdie
Wrestling Jacob (Genesis 32: 22-31):	134	(13)
The Life of John Donne	138	(1)
Izaak Walton
`Wrestling Jacob'	138	(2)
Charles Wesley
`Jacob Wrestling with the Angel'	140	(1)
Jones Very
`Carrion Comfort'	141	(1)
Gerard Manley Hopkins
`A Little East of Jordan'	141	(1)
Emily Dickinson
`Weeping We Hold Him Fast Tonight'	142	(1)
Christina Rossetti
`The Struggle with the Angel'	142	(3)
Roland Barthes
Son of Laughter	145	(2)
Frederick Buechner
David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11: 1-27):	147	(12)
The Gospel According to St Matthew	153	(1)
The Love of King David and Fair Bathsabe	153	(1)
George Peele
The Prologue to Penitential Psalms	153	(2)
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Absalom and Achitophel	155	(1)
John Dryden
Far From the Madding Crowd	155	(1)
Thomas Hardy
The Scarlet Letter	156	(1)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
God Knows	156	(1)
Joseph Heller
Bathsheba	157	(2)
Torgny Lindgren
The Still Small Voice (1 Kings 19: 8-13):	159	(5)
The Divine Comedy, `Purgatory'	162	(1)
Dante
St John of the Cross `Living Flame of Love'	162	(1)
The Christian Year	162	(1)
John Keble
`Dear Lord and Father of Mankind'	162	(1)
John greenleaf Whittier
`The Surrender of a Cockney'	163	(1)
G. K. Chesterton
`A Successful Summer'	163	(1)
David Schubert
The Lord Is My Shepherd (Psalm 23):	164	(16)
`The Twenty Third Psalm'	168	(1)
Miles Coverdale
`Psalm 23'	169	(1)
Thomas Sternhold
Henry V	169	(1)
William Shakespeare
`Psalm 23'	170	(1)
George Herbert
`Psalm 23'	170	(2)
Richard Crashaw
The Pilgrim's Progress	172	(2)
John Bunyan
`Psalm 23'	174	(1)
Henry Williams Baker
God Knows	175	(1)
Joseph Heller
The Very Model of a Man	176	(1)
Howard Jacobson
`Psalms'	176	(4)
John Hollander
I Am a Rose of Sharon (The Song of Songs):	180	(23)
The Fire of Love	191	(1)
Richard Rolle
`In the Vale of Restless Mind'	192	(1)
The Canterbury Tales	193	(1)
Geoffrey Chaucer
Colin Clouts Come Home Againe	193	(1)
Edmund Spenser
The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; The Reason of Church Government; Paradise Lost	194	(2)
John Milton
`The Garden'	196	(2)
Andrew Marvell
`In the Glorious Assumption of Our Blessed Lady'	198	(2)
Richard Crashaw
`The Reflexion'	200	(1)
Edward Taylor
The Name of the Rose	201	(2)
Umberto Eco
The Nativity (Matthew 2: 1-12; Luke 2: 1-19):	203	(18)
`I Sing of a Maiden'	208	(1)
Holy Sonnets, No. 3	209	(1)
John Donne
`Anagram'	209	(1)
George Herbert
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity	210	(3)
John Milton
`Let Earth and Heaven Combine'	213	(1)
Charles Wesley
`A Christmas Carol'	214	(1)
S. T. Coleridge
`A Christmas Carol: The Oxen'	215	(1)
Thomas Hardy
'Ave Maria Gratia Plena'	216	(1)
Oscar Wilde
`I Saw a Stable'	216	(1)
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
`Mary and Gabriel'	216	(2)
Rupert Brooke
`The Journey of the Magi'	218	(1)
T. S. Eliot
`The Annunciation'	219	(2)
Edwin Muir
The Problem of the Parables (Mark 4: 1-20):	221	(19)
The Genesis of Secrecy	227	(1)
Frank Kermode
Isaiah 6: 9-13	228	(1)
The Gospel of Thomas	229	(1)
The Rabbinic Parable, Midrash Wayyikra Rabbah	229	(1)
The Canterbury Tales	230	(1)
Geoffrey Chaucer
Sonnet XVIII	230	(1)
John Milton
The Pilgrim's Progress	231	(1)
John Bunyan
The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ	231	(3)
Christopher Smart
`The Sower'	234	(1)
William Cowper
`Either/Or'	234	(1)
Soren Kierkegaard
`A Grammarian's Funeral'	235	(1)
Robert Browning
The Mayor of Casterbridge	235	(1)
Thomas Hardy
The Trial	235	(2)
Franz Kafka
The Violent Bear it Away	237	(1)
Flannery O'Connor
Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings	238	(2)
Jorge Luis Borges
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman (John 4: 1-30):	240	(15)
Genesis 24: 10-14	245	(1)
The Canterbury Tales	245	(1)
Geoffrey Chaucer
The Faerie Queen	246	(1)
Edmund Spenser
Silex Scintillans	247	(1)
Henry Vaughan
The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ	248	(3)
Christopher Smart
`I Know Where Wells Grow - Droughtless Wells'	251	(1)
Emily Dickinson
Unto This Last	252	(1)
John Ruskin
Man and Superman	252	(1)
George Bernard Shaw
Jeshua	253	(1)
Moelwyn Merchant
The Last Temptation	253	(2)
Nikos Kazantzakis
The Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32):	255	(13)
The Canterbury Tales	260	(1)
Geoffrey Chaucer
`The Prodigal Son'	260	(1)
John Newton
The Excursion	261	(3)
William Wordsworth
`A Prodigal Son'	264	(1)
Christina Rossetti
`The Lake Isle of Innisfree'	264	(1)
W. B. Yeats
`The Prodigal Son'	265	(1)
Robert Bly
`The Prodigal'	265	(1)
Elizabeth Bishop
The Return of the Prodigal Son	266	(2)
Henri J. M. Nouwen
The Crucifixion (Mark 15: 33-39):	268	(17)
The Dream of the Rood	273	(3)
Stabat Mater Dolorosa	276	(2)
`Colphizacio', from The Wakefield Pageants	278	(1)
Holy Sonnets, No. 5	279	(1)
John Donne
`Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ'	279	(1)
Isaac Watts
Billy Budd, Sailor	280	(2)
Herman Melville
`At a Calvary near the Ancre'	282	(1)
Wilfred Owen
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man	282	(1)
James Joyce
`Canticle for Good Friday'	283	(1)
Geoffrey Hill
God's Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible	283	(2)
Stephen D. Moore
Jesus and Mary in the Garden (John 20: 18-18):	285	(13)
The Book of the Resurrection of Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle	289	(1)
St Anselm The Prayers and Meditations	290	(3)
`Who So List to Hunt I Know Where Is an Hind'	293	(1)
Sir Thomas Wyatt
`Mary Magdalen's Complaint at Christ's Death'	293	(2)
Robert Southwell
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker	295	(1)
Tobias Smollett
St. Mawr	295	(1)
D. H. Lawrence
The Wild Girl	296	(2)
Michele Roberts
The Conversion of St Paul (Acts 9: 1-19)	298	(16)
`The Rebel's Surrender to Grace'	303	(1)
John Newton
The Confessions of a Justified Sinner	304	(1)
James Hogg
Father and Son	305	(1)
Edmund Gosse
The Wreck of the Deutschland	306	(2)
Gerard Manley Hopkins
`The Hound of Heaven'	308	(4)
Francis Thompson
Memoirs of the Blind	312	(2)
Jacques Derrida
Alpha and Omega (Revelation 21: 1-18)	314	(13)
Cathemerinon	318	(1)
Prudentius Aurelius Clemens
'In Dulci Jubilo'	318	(1)
Paradise Lost	318	(1)
John Milton
The Pilgrim's Progress	319	(1)
John Bunyan
The Prelude	320	(1)
William Wordsworth
Jane Eyre	320	(1)
Charlotte Bronte
`The Last Chantey'	321	(2)
Rudyard Kipling
`An Ordinary Evening in New Haven'	323	(1)
Wallace Stevens
`Victor'	323	(1)
W. H. Auden
Everything That Rises Must Converge	324	(3)
Flannery O'Connor
General Bibliography	327	(2)
Name Index	329