An Intertextual Study Of Shakespeare’s Great Tragedies And The Holy Bible

This thesis does a comparative study of Shakespeare·s four great tragedies, namely,Hamlet (1601-2), Othello (1604), King Lear (1605-06), Macbeth (1606), and the Holy Bible(KJV) from an intertextual perspective, trying to prove that Shakespeare might be the rareand precious genius created ever who managed to incorporate consciously and unconsciously,purposefully and purposelessly, freely and effectively the Scriptures of the Holy Bible into hisplays, expecially his four great tragedies. By doing so, Shakespeare·s works maintains a valueof long-lasting attraction and of revealing the truth in the secular world about human diversity,complexity and profundity with languages that can be described as more than rich, vivid,imaginative and magnificent.This dissertation is divided into Three Parts, the Introduction Part, the Body Part,containing Four Chapters, and the Conclusion Part.Part One is Introduction, which briefs Shakespeare·s life, creation, Shakespeareancriticism and some main points about this thesis.Part Two includes: Chapter One The theory of Intertextuality, which was based onBakhtin·s dialogism and the term intertextualityμ was first coinaged by Kristeva in1960sand Barthes and Genette as representatives of later scholars developed the theory, holding theopinion that almost every text is a tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centers ofculture and no text can exist alone.Chapter Two The Natural and Supernatural World includes the natural and supernaturalvisions of Life and Death, Ghosts, Spirits and Angels and the Crowing of the Cock; theConnotation of Natural and Supernatural Elements, animals and heaven and hell.Chapter Three deals with the The Human World from the perspective of man·s mortality,wisdom, and virtuous and vicious qualities.Chapter Four The Religious World includes the mutability between the earthly worldand the religious world, man·s sin and salvation, divinity and commandment. Part Three Conclusion drawn from the previous parts is that the author did find first, theHoly Bible exerts a lot of influence and impact on William Shakespeare in hisChristian-cultural Renaissance background society. Second, the co-present textual examplesof the Holy Bible and the great tragedies talk by themselves that how familiar Shakespearewas with the Scriptures as a whole and with it varied parts inside the Holy Bible. Theplaywright must have been aware of his active employment of these biblical elements andknowledge in his play writing. Third, Shakespeare did not quote exactly from the Bible. Hewanted to entertain as well as to teach and instruct his audience, that·s why he presented hisstories as vividly as possible, as vernacular as possible and as practical as possible, so that adaily-life Bible or a secular Bible could remain in their mind. Fourth, with the intertextualreading between Shakespeare·s four great tragedies and the Holy Bible, one may discover abetter and more wholesome understating of both.In writing this paper, the author searched from act to act, scene to scene and line to lineto scrutinize the four great tragedies and note down wherever Biblical allusions, references,parodies, palimpsest and imitations occur and selected typical examples to presentShakespeare, as a playwright, his world from three dimensions: The natural world, the humanworld and the religious world. In these three worlds, Shakespeare presents us with his talent,knowledge and creativity in his creation. After this intertextual reading and study of the greattragedies and the Holy Bible at the same time, readers may discover more from the fiveliterary canons.