The biblical presence in Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake : a comparative study / Harold Fisch. [print]

By:

Fisch, Harold [Author]

Material type: Text

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9780198184898

Subject(s):

LOC classification:

PR408.F528.B535 1999

Online resources:

Publisher description

Available additional physical forms:

Contents:

Julius Caesar : stones or men? -- Antony and Cleopatra : soldering up the rift -- Hamlet : thy commandment all alone -- King Lear : organized incoherence -- Samson and the poetics of covenant -- Paradise lost : subtext and supertext -- Mock on Voltaire Rousseau -- Cognition and re-cognition -- The golden sandal of Hermes -- The poetics of incarnation.

Review: "In this study of the poetics of influence, the indebtedness of Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake to a common source, namely the Bible, becomes a powerful tool for displaying three fundamentally different poetic options as well as three different ways of dealing with a conflict central to western culture. In fresh and original discussions of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and King Lear, Fisch discerns what he terms the metagon: not the struggle between the characters on the stage but a struggle for the control of the play between biblical and non-biblical modes of imagining. Milton seems more single-minded in his reliance on biblical sources, yet from his analysis of Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, Fisch concludes that there are unresolved contradictions, both aesthetic and theological, which threaten the coherence and balance of these poems as well. Blake in his turn perceived these contradictions in the work of his predecessors, condemning both Shakespeare and Milton for allowing their writing to be curbed by Greek and Latin models and claiming for himself a more authentic inspiration - that of 'the Sublime of the Bible'. But Blake's marvellous achievements in the sublime mode, as for instance in his Illustrations to Job, often reverse the direction of his biblical source, replacing dialogue with monologue."--BOOK JACKET.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Circulating Book (checkout times vary with patron status)	G. Allen Fleece Library CIRCULATING COLLECTION	Non-fiction	PR408.B53.F57 1999 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		31923001398854

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Previous	PR275.P45.Z3 Curiosity and pilgrimage : the literature of discovery in fourteenth-century England /	PR404.M3 English literature from Dryden to Burns.	PR408.A7.T38 1983 The return of King Arthur : British and American Arthurian literature since 1900 [i.e. 1800. /	PR408.B53.F57 1999 The biblical presence in Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake : a comparative study /	PR411.L4 1990 Poetry and prose in the sixteenth century /C.S. Lewis.	PR428.P4.T5 The Elizabethan world picture,	PR431.A37 1980 The age of Milton : backgrounds to seventeenth-century literature /	Next

Includes bibliographies and index.

"In this study of the poetics of influence, the indebtedness of Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake to a common source, namely the Bible, becomes a powerful tool for displaying three fundamentally different poetic options as well as three different ways of dealing with a conflict central to western culture. In fresh and original discussions of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and King Lear, Fisch discerns what he terms the metagon: not the struggle between the characters on the stage but a struggle for the control of the play between biblical and non-biblical modes of imagining. Milton seems more single-minded in his reliance on biblical sources, yet from his analysis of Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, Fisch concludes that there are unresolved contradictions, both aesthetic and theological, which threaten the coherence and balance of these poems as well. Blake in his turn perceived these contradictions in the work of his predecessors, condemning both Shakespeare and Milton for allowing their writing to be curbed by Greek and Latin models and claiming for himself a more authentic inspiration - that of 'the Sublime of the Bible'. But Blake's marvellous achievements in the sublime mode, as for instance in his Illustrations to Job, often reverse the direction of his biblical source, replacing dialogue with monologue."--BOOK JACKET.

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