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