Articles by Leland Ryken

The story of Shakespeare and the Bible is partly the story of Protestant English Bible translation in the sixteenth century. Shakespeare was the beneficiary of a movement in which English Reformers poured their energies into translating the Bible. In fact, English Bible translation in the sixteenth century galvanized a society in a manner that invites comparison with the building of cathedrals in the Catholic Middle Ages. The Protestant Reformation also created an edifice--an edifice of the Word. continue

The myth of the secular Shakespeare continues to cast a long shadow over most people's perception of Shakespeare's plays.  Until I inherited the Shakespeare course in my department halfway through my career, I assumed that despite certain Christian patterns and... continue