The indebtedness of Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake to a common source, namely the Bible becomes a powerful tool for displaying three fundamentally different poetic options as well as three different ways of dealing with a conflict central to western culture. In this piercing study of the poetics of influence, Fisch gives detailed and original discussions of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, King Lear, Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Blake's Milton, and Blake's illustrations to Job.