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The article examines W.Shakespeare’s use of biblical allusions in the tragedy “King Lear” and peculiarities of their reproduction in the Ukrainian translation by P. Kulish. Such concepts as “allusion”, “bibleism” and “bibleme” are considered herein, as well as the specifi c features of their reproduction. It was established that the adequate reproduction of the biblical allusions of the source text was facilitated by translator’s thorough knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, as far as P. Kulish translated into Ukrainian “Pentateuch”, “Job”, Psalter, Gospel (co-authored with I. Puliui) and carried out the fi rst complete Ukrainian translation of the Bible (in co-authorship with I. Puliui and I. Nechui-Levytskyi). It was found that in some places properly reproduced biblemes were replaced during the editing process, which led to the loss of intertextuality. It has been clarifi ed that the source text contains the following implicit biblemes: the story of Job, intertexts of the Fall and fratricide, images of the Apocalypse and the suff erings of Jesus. It is established that the use of biblical allusions creates in the text the biblical archetypes of Christ, Job, the Devil, Cain and Abel, which is properly refl ected in the translation. It has been revealed that the translator’s ability to recognize a biblical allusion in the source text depends on the appropriate cognitive base that the translator has, as well as on the recipient’s linguistic and cultural competence which will enable proper interpretation. The possibility to recognize the proposed equivalent in the translated text, if we are talking about an allusion to a certain literary work, depends on the presence in the host culture of a translation of the text referred to by the original author and the reader’s level of familiarity with the denotations of the allusion. The conclusion has been drawn that when trying to fi nd an appropriate equivalent, it is important for the translator not to deprive the reader of the pleasure of decoding hidden meanings, that is, not to resort to overinterpretation in the explanation of the allusion.