Bible. The Bible was a fundamental source in 16th-century England, a repository not only of religious ‘truth’, but of ancient history, moral philosophy, romance, and poetry. As such it was quoted in many different ways, through representation in literary and pictorial art to references in general conversation. Indeed, so much of the Bible had passed into common currency that it is often difficult to be sure what is and is not a biblical quotation or allusion. At the beginning of the 16th century there were only two complete English bibles but in the course of that century appeared famous translations by Tyndale, Coverdale, Cranmer, and Thomson as well as the Geneva Bible of 1560 and the Bishops' Bible of 1568. Shakespeare's poetry and drama are full of biblical references, from direct quotations and allusions to a named character or parable, to vaguer structural and linguistic echoes.
Shakespeare's familiarity with the Bible may be accounted...
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