Did the King James Bible Influence
Shakespeare’s Writing?

Myth or Reality?

No. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in the late 1500s and early 1600s, before the King James Bible was finished and printed in 1611. Shakespeare died five years later, in 1616. There are certainly biblical references in Shakespeare’s works, but they come from earlier English translations of the Bible, most often the Geneva Bible. Shakespeare also knew the Bishops’ Bible and the psalm translations by Miles Coverdale that appear in the Book of Common Prayer, both of which were read aloud in church from 1568 to 1611 (the Book of Common Prayer continued to be read aloud for much longer). He sometimes draws on those sources as well.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom’s speech after recovering from his magical night with the fairies includes a comically confused biblical allusion. His lines correspond to the text of the Bishops’ Bible from 1 Corinthians 2:9, which reads:

But as it is written: The eye hath not seen, and the ear hath not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Or, as Bottom puts it:

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be called “Bottom’s Dream” because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her death.

Learn about other literary works that (unlike Shakespeare) were influenced by the King James Bible: Timeline: Literary Influences