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

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 Shakespeares 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 of Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century (2006), Nineteenth Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction (with mark Knight, 2006), and The Cambridge Introduction to Wordsworth (2009), and is co-editor of The 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 of William Blakes Poetry (2007), The Bible for Sinners (with Christopher Rowland, 2008), Blake. Wordsworth. Religion. (2010), and is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible (with Michael Lieb and Emma Mason, 2010). Christopher Rowland, is Dean Irelands Professor of Holy Exegesis at the University of Oxford. He is the author of a number of books, including The Nature of New Testament Theology (2006), Revelation Through the Centuries (with Judith Kovacs, 2003), and Radical Christian Writings: A Reader (with Andrew Bradstock, 2002), all published by Wiley-Blackwell. He is Consultant Editor of The 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.