During this course you will explore a range of writers from the sixteenth century to the present day in terms of their relationship to the Bible.
We will proceed each week author by author, but as we do so the full extent of the Bible shall reveal itself from Genesis through to Revelation. Through close textual analyses of individual literary texts, presented in their specific biographical, historical and religious contexts, you will learn about different techniques of literary imitation and allusion through the ages and discern the prevalent influence of the most important single source of English literature.
The question at the heart of this course is what we can learn today from the changing ways in which writers have deciphered, or abided by, this ‘Great Code of Art’, as William Blake described the Holy Scriptures in one of his annotations to his drawing of the Laocoön.