Harold Fisch
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184898
- eISBN:
- 9780191674372
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184898.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, Shakespeare Studies
In this book of the poetics of influence, the indebtedness of Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake to a common source, namely the Bible, becomes a powerful tool for displaying three fundamentally different ...
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In this book of the poetics of influence, 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 fresh and original discussions of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and King Lear, the author discerns what he terms the metagon: not the struggle between the characters on the stage, but a struggle for the control of the play between biblical and non-biblical modes of imagining. Milton seems more single-minded in his reliance on biblical sources, yet from his analysis of Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, the author concludes that there are unresolved contradictions, both aesthetic and theological, which threaten the coherence and balance of these poems as well. Blake in his turn perceived these contradictions in the work of his predecessors, condemning both Shakespeare and Milton for allowing their writing to be curbed by Greek and Latin models and claiming for himself a more authentic inspiration — that of ‘the Sublime of the Bible’. But Blake’s marvellous achievements in the sublime mode, as for instance in his Illustrations to Job, often reverse the direction of his biblical source, replacing dialogue with monologue.Less
In this book of the poetics of influence, 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 fresh and original discussions of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and King Lear, the author discerns what he terms the metagon: not the struggle between the characters on the stage, but a struggle for the control of the play between biblical and non-biblical modes of imagining. Milton seems more single-minded in his reliance on biblical sources, yet from his analysis of Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, the author concludes that there are unresolved contradictions, both aesthetic and theological, which threaten the coherence and balance of these poems as well. Blake in his turn perceived these contradictions in the work of his predecessors, condemning both Shakespeare and Milton for allowing their writing to be curbed by Greek and Latin models and claiming for himself a more authentic inspiration — that of ‘the Sublime of the Bible’. But Blake’s marvellous achievements in the sublime mode, as for instance in his Illustrations to Job, often reverse the direction of his biblical source, replacing dialogue with monologue.
Jon Mee
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183297
- eISBN:
- 9780191674013
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183297.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, 18th-century Literature
This book considers William Blake's prophetic books written during the 1790s in the light of the French Revolution controversy raging at the time. His works are shown to be less the expressions of ...
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This book considers William Blake's prophetic books written during the 1790s in the light of the French Revolution controversy raging at the time. His works are shown to be less the expressions of isolated genius than the products of a complex response to the cultural politics of his contemporaries. Blake's work presents a stern challenge to historical criticism. This study aims to meet the challenge by investigating contexts outside the domains of standard literary histories. It traces the distinctive rhetoric of the illuminated books to the French Revolution controversy of the 1790s and Blake's fusion of the diverse currents of radicalism abroad in that decade. The study is supported by original research. Blake emerges from these pages as a ‘bricoleur’ who fused the language of London's popular dissenting culture with the more sceptical radicalism of the Enlightenment. This book presents a more comprehensively politicized picture of Blake than any previous study.Less
This book considers William Blake's prophetic books written during the 1790s in the light of the French Revolution controversy raging at the time. His works are shown to be less the expressions of isolated genius than the products of a complex response to the cultural politics of his contemporaries. Blake's work presents a stern challenge to historical criticism. This study aims to meet the challenge by investigating contexts outside the domains of standard literary histories. It traces the distinctive rhetoric of the illuminated books to the French Revolution controversy of the 1790s and Blake's fusion of the diverse currents of radicalism abroad in that decade. The study is supported by original research. Blake emerges from these pages as a ‘bricoleur’ who fused the language of London's popular dissenting culture with the more sceptical radicalism of the Enlightenment. This book presents a more comprehensively politicized picture of Blake than any previous study.
A. D. Nuttall
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184621
- eISBN:
- 9780191674327
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184621.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, Drama
This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of how the early 20th century saw itself, in contrast with the 19th, as ‘life-affirming’ (which tended to mean ‘sexuality-affirming’). It then ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of how the early 20th century saw itself, in contrast with the 19th, as ‘life-affirming’ (which tended to mean ‘sexuality-affirming’). It then argues that although Blake was discovered as a notable precursor of this liberation, his thought was derived from previously existing matter. The libertine ideology was not dominant, indeed, before the Romantics, but it existed. The tradition can be traced back, perhaps to the time of Christ and beyond. The religious tone of Blake and Lawrence should alert us to the possibility of a haeresis perennis, a perennial heresy. To pursue this ‘explanatory heresy’ is, however, to encounter a considerable paradox. At the centre of this paradox, having the power in some degree to resolve it, is an alternative picture of the Trinity, in which the Father is a tyrant, not complemented but opposed by the Son.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of how the early 20th century saw itself, in contrast with the 19th, as ‘life-affirming’ (which tended to mean ‘sexuality-affirming’). It then argues that although Blake was discovered as a notable precursor of this liberation, his thought was derived from previously existing matter. The libertine ideology was not dominant, indeed, before the Romantics, but it existed. The tradition can be traced back, perhaps to the time of Christ and beyond. The religious tone of Blake and Lawrence should alert us to the possibility of a haeresis perennis, a perennial heresy. To pursue this ‘explanatory heresy’ is, however, to encounter a considerable paradox. At the centre of this paradox, having the power in some degree to resolve it, is an alternative picture of the Trinity, in which the Father is a tyrant, not complemented but opposed by the Son.
Patrick H. Hase
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098992
- eISBN:
- 9789882207592
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098992.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In 1899, a year after the Convention of Peking leased the New Territories to Britain, the British moved to establish control. This triggered resistance by some of the population of the New ...
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In 1899, a year after the Convention of Peking leased the New Territories to Britain, the British moved to establish control. This triggered resistance by some of the population of the New Territories. There ensued six days of fighting with heavy Chinese casualties. This forgotten war has been researched and recounted for the first time. After a brief discussion of British Imperialism in the 1890s and British military theory of that period on small wars, the heart of the book is a day-by-day account of the fighting and of the differences of opinion between the Governor of Hong Kong (Sir Henry Blake) and the Colonial Secretary (James Stewart Lockhart) as to how the war should be fought. The book uses knowledge of the people and the area to give a picture of the leaders and of the rank-and-file of the village fighters. New estimates of the casualties are provided, as are the implications of why these casualties are down-played in most British accounts.Less
In 1899, a year after the Convention of Peking leased the New Territories to Britain, the British moved to establish control. This triggered resistance by some of the population of the New Territories. There ensued six days of fighting with heavy Chinese casualties. This forgotten war has been researched and recounted for the first time. After a brief discussion of British Imperialism in the 1890s and British military theory of that period on small wars, the heart of the book is a day-by-day account of the fighting and of the differences of opinion between the Governor of Hong Kong (Sir Henry Blake) and the Colonial Secretary (James Stewart Lockhart) as to how the war should be fought. The book uses knowledge of the people and the area to give a picture of the leaders and of the rank-and-file of the village fighters. New estimates of the casualties are provided, as are the implications of why these casualties are down-played in most British accounts.
Bernard Schweizer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199751389
- eISBN:
- 9780199894864
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751389.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Algernon Swinburne is possibly the first unapologetic misotheist who did not choose self-censorship and concealment but rather boldly announced his hatred of God. This earned him much hostility in ...
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Algernon Swinburne is possibly the first unapologetic misotheist who did not choose self-censorship and concealment but rather boldly announced his hatred of God. This earned him much hostility in return, and this chapter documents the reception of his controversial works. The influences on Swinburne, notably of Blake and Shelley, are also discussed, as well as how Swinburne put his own stamp on the theme of God-hatred by offering alternative pagan deities of fertility and love. Swinburne is not only unusual because he so openly declares his hatred of God but also because his eroticized work violated Victorian standards of decency in more ways than one. This chapter contains compelling close readings of Swinburne’s work, revealing just how radical his denunciations of both Yahweh and Christ were and documenting how this attitude was intertwined with his republicanism and working-class sympathies.Less
Algernon Swinburne is possibly the first unapologetic misotheist who did not choose self-censorship and concealment but rather boldly announced his hatred of God. This earned him much hostility in return, and this chapter documents the reception of his controversial works. The influences on Swinburne, notably of Blake and Shelley, are also discussed, as well as how Swinburne put his own stamp on the theme of God-hatred by offering alternative pagan deities of fertility and love. Swinburne is not only unusual because he so openly declares his hatred of God but also because his eroticized work violated Victorian standards of decency in more ways than one. This chapter contains compelling close readings of Swinburne’s work, revealing just how radical his denunciations of both Yahweh and Christ were and documenting how this attitude was intertwined with his republicanism and working-class sympathies.
Bernard Schweizer
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199751389
- eISBN:
- 9780199894864
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751389.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter discusses a contemporary manifestation of misotheism, and it documents the moment when misotheism is at the threshold of entering the cultural mainstream. In Pullman’s celebrated ...
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This chapter discusses a contemporary manifestation of misotheism, and it documents the moment when misotheism is at the threshold of entering the cultural mainstream. In Pullman’s celebrated trilogy, His Dark Materials, a band of children and adults set out to make war on God (called the Authority in the trilogy) and not only do they succeed, but they do so while implementing a progressive, liberal set of values. The story goes beyond an anticlerical focus on the wrongdoings of the Church to suggest the need to do away with the patently incompetent, deceptive, and tyrannical deity altogether. This chapter reflects on the contemporary reception of Pullman’s work (including the movie “The Golden Compass”) in the U.S., and it shows how discussions of Pullman’s religious attitudes are derailed by a lack of awareness about his misotheistic stance.Less
This chapter discusses a contemporary manifestation of misotheism, and it documents the moment when misotheism is at the threshold of entering the cultural mainstream. In Pullman’s celebrated trilogy, His Dark Materials, a band of children and adults set out to make war on God (called the Authority in the trilogy) and not only do they succeed, but they do so while implementing a progressive, liberal set of values. The story goes beyond an anticlerical focus on the wrongdoings of the Church to suggest the need to do away with the patently incompetent, deceptive, and tyrannical deity altogether. This chapter reflects on the contemporary reception of Pullman’s work (including the movie “The Golden Compass”) in the U.S., and it shows how discussions of Pullman’s religious attitudes are derailed by a lack of awareness about his misotheistic stance.
J. R. Watson (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198269731
- eISBN:
- 9780191600791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198269730.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
Contains 29 hymns, beginning with William Blake's ‘And did those feet in ancient time’, and continuing to the hymns of the early Victorian period, with writers such as Henry Francis Lyte and Cecil ...
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Contains 29 hymns, beginning with William Blake's ‘And did those feet in ancient time’, and continuing to the hymns of the early Victorian period, with writers such as Henry Francis Lyte and Cecil Frances Alexander. Between there are hymns by Reginald Heber, such as ‘From Greenland's icy mountains’, by James Montgomery, and by John Keble, whose sacred poetry in The Christian Year (1827) became justly famous.Less
Contains 29 hymns, beginning with William Blake's ‘And did those feet in ancient time’, and continuing to the hymns of the early Victorian period, with writers such as Henry Francis Lyte and Cecil Frances Alexander. Between there are hymns by Reginald Heber, such as ‘From Greenland's icy mountains’, by James Montgomery, and by John Keble, whose sacred poetry in The Christian Year (1827) became justly famous.
Herbert F. Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232987
- eISBN:
- 9780191716447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232987.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
The book's proper narrative commences in this chapter. Into the 18th century's preponderantly theoretic disposition to prize or illustrate epic as a fixed idea or classic form, the Revolution in ...
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The book's proper narrative commences in this chapter. Into the 18th century's preponderantly theoretic disposition to prize or illustrate epic as a fixed idea or classic form, the Revolution in France sent shock waves that galvanized literary experimentation in Britain. Poets of the 1790s rebuilt epic from used and jury-rigged parts, in a process that favored specimen or torso models and that the chapter brings into focus around the issue of ‘machinery’. How did the angelic or allegorical machines in these epic thinkers' improvised prototypes drive the reinvented genre, and to what end? Unresolved yet productive tension between romance plots and standard epic patterns brought forth radical initiatives from Darwin and Blake, and generated the decade's farthest-reaching work by Landor and Southey.Less
The book's proper narrative commences in this chapter. Into the 18th century's preponderantly theoretic disposition to prize or illustrate epic as a fixed idea or classic form, the Revolution in France sent shock waves that galvanized literary experimentation in Britain. Poets of the 1790s rebuilt epic from used and jury-rigged parts, in a process that favored specimen or torso models and that the chapter brings into focus around the issue of ‘machinery’. How did the angelic or allegorical machines in these epic thinkers' improvised prototypes drive the reinvented genre, and to what end? Unresolved yet productive tension between romance plots and standard epic patterns brought forth radical initiatives from Darwin and Blake, and generated the decade's farthest-reaching work by Landor and Southey.
Herbert F. Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232987
- eISBN:
- 9780191716447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232987.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter assesses the correction that was imposed around 1800 on the 1790s epic explosion by British national mobilization for war and suppression of dissent. A host of orthodox martial epics ...
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This chapter assesses the correction that was imposed around 1800 on the 1790s epic explosion by British national mobilization for war and suppression of dissent. A host of orthodox martial epics were mustered up by ambitious patriots to celebrate recent victories or nourish nationalism on, say, the royal careers of Saxon Alfred and Richard the crusader. More thoughtful poets employed the genre for complex accounts of chastened ambition valorizing the backward look and the second chance. Narrated in a reparative spirit that both sprang from the previous decade's revolutionary engineering and amended it, a striking constellation of major poetic ventures were completed around 1805 by Tighe, Southey, Blake, Wordsworth, and Scott, for which personal and political revisionism, and their mutual relation, form common themes.Less
This chapter assesses the correction that was imposed around 1800 on the 1790s epic explosion by British national mobilization for war and suppression of dissent. A host of orthodox martial epics were mustered up by ambitious patriots to celebrate recent victories or nourish nationalism on, say, the royal careers of Saxon Alfred and Richard the crusader. More thoughtful poets employed the genre for complex accounts of chastened ambition valorizing the backward look and the second chance. Narrated in a reparative spirit that both sprang from the previous decade's revolutionary engineering and amended it, a striking constellation of major poetic ventures were completed around 1805 by Tighe, Southey, Blake, Wordsworth, and Scott, for which personal and political revisionism, and their mutual relation, form common themes.
Herbert F. Tucker
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199232987
- eISBN:
- 9780191716447
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199232987.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter takes its lead from Marmion. On one hand, Scott's extremely influential poem opened the epic genre to romance motifs more relaxed in their plotting and versification than had hitherto ...
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This chapter takes its lead from Marmion. On one hand, Scott's extremely influential poem opened the epic genre to romance motifs more relaxed in their plotting and versification than had hitherto appeared; on the other hand, it cross-hatched with new complexity both the figure of the hero and the compromised national identity for which the heroic ideal continued to stand. Epic themes broadened in geographic and ethnic range, glimpsing alternative subaltern histories and betraying, even in Bible epics, a tinge of moral complicity in wrongs whose unredressed balance forward gave a new kind of impetus to collective history. In signal poems clustering around 1815 by Southey, Blake, and Wordsworth, the earlier motif of error yields to guilt, correction, and repair to forgiveness and endurance.Less
This chapter takes its lead from Marmion. On one hand, Scott's extremely influential poem opened the epic genre to romance motifs more relaxed in their plotting and versification than had hitherto appeared; on the other hand, it cross-hatched with new complexity both the figure of the hero and the compromised national identity for which the heroic ideal continued to stand. Epic themes broadened in geographic and ethnic range, glimpsing alternative subaltern histories and betraying, even in Bible epics, a tinge of moral complicity in wrongs whose unredressed balance forward gave a new kind of impetus to collective history. In signal poems clustering around 1815 by Southey, Blake, and Wordsworth, the earlier motif of error yields to guilt, correction, and repair to forgiveness and endurance.
John Casey
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195092950
- eISBN:
- 9780199869732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195092950.003.0016
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
Swedenborg aims vividly to describe his encounters with angels in the various “heavens” he claims to have visited. His heavens and hells might be called “real,” in that they correspond to ...
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Swedenborg aims vividly to describe his encounters with angels in the various “heavens” he claims to have visited. His heavens and hells might be called “real,” in that they correspond to psychological states. Swedenborg has been called the inventor of the modern heaven. The human soul contains powers and possibilities that accord with the Romantic doctrine of man as microcosm of the universe. There is an affinity of mystics such as Blake with Swedenborg. Heaven is not a reward for goodness, or hell a punishment for evil. In so far as we are good and filled with love, we are in heaven. Swedenborg's heaven is not God‐centered. There is no place for original sin in his philosophy, or for the ascetic. His is an optimistic vision, thoroughly Pelagian. Marriage and the erotic—even in heaven—is at the center of his thought, with an emphasis on “conjugial” love.Less
Swedenborg aims vividly to describe his encounters with angels in the various “heavens” he claims to have visited. His heavens and hells might be called “real,” in that they correspond to psychological states. Swedenborg has been called the inventor of the modern heaven. The human soul contains powers and possibilities that accord with the Romantic doctrine of man as microcosm of the universe. There is an affinity of mystics such as Blake with Swedenborg. Heaven is not a reward for goodness, or hell a punishment for evil. In so far as we are good and filled with love, we are in heaven. Swedenborg's heaven is not God‐centered. There is no place for original sin in his philosophy, or for the ascetic. His is an optimistic vision, thoroughly Pelagian. Marriage and the erotic—even in heaven—is at the center of his thought, with an emphasis on “conjugial” love.
David Brown
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198270188
- eISBN:
- 9780191600425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198270186.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Three interpretations of the book are examined and the way in which they generated alternative trajectories for subsequent Jewish thinking in writings such as in the Testament ...
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Three interpretations of the book are examined and the way in which they generated alternative trajectories for subsequent Jewish thinking in writings such as in the Testament of Job and the Zohar. The history of Christian exegesis is pursued through Gregory the Great, Aquinas, and Calvin before concluding in William Blake. Throughout, the different underlying assumptions about providence are noted, in particular, the reasons behind the modern retreat from agent‐specific notions of directional providence.Less
Three interpretations of the book are examined and the way in which they generated alternative trajectories for subsequent Jewish thinking in writings such as in the Testament of Job and the Zohar. The history of Christian exegesis is pursued through Gregory the Great, Aquinas, and Calvin before concluding in William Blake. Throughout, the different underlying assumptions about providence are noted, in particular, the reasons behind the modern retreat from agent‐specific notions of directional providence.
Richard Shannon
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264348
- eISBN:
- 9780191734250
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264348.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
Robert Norman William Blake (1916–2003), a Fellow of the British Academy, had published admired revisionist studies of the soldier Lord Haig (1952) and the politician Andrew Bonar Law (1955), but ...
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Robert Norman William Blake (1916–2003), a Fellow of the British Academy, had published admired revisionist studies of the soldier Lord Haig (1952) and the politician Andrew Bonar Law (1955), but unquestionably it was the brilliant success of his biography of Benjamin Disraeli in 1966 that stimulated support for his election to the Academy. He was born in the Manor House, Brundall, on the Yare, Norfolk, a little outside Norwich, on December 23, 1916 to William Joseph Blake and Norah Lindley. In 1935, Blake went to Magdalen College, Oxford, with a view to preparing for a legal career. He read ‘Modern Greats’, philosophy, politics, and economics. Blake was eloquent on the depressing peculiarities of World War II. He related in a manuscript fragment, ‘Memories of Christ Church’, that his two closest friends in the Senior Common Room were Hugh Trevor-Roper and Charles Stuart. In his biography of Disraeli, Blake made the British prime minister much less convincing as a heroic legend, but made him much more interesting as a man.Less
Robert Norman William Blake (1916–2003), a Fellow of the British Academy, had published admired revisionist studies of the soldier Lord Haig (1952) and the politician Andrew Bonar Law (1955), but unquestionably it was the brilliant success of his biography of Benjamin Disraeli in 1966 that stimulated support for his election to the Academy. He was born in the Manor House, Brundall, on the Yare, Norfolk, a little outside Norwich, on December 23, 1916 to William Joseph Blake and Norah Lindley. In 1935, Blake went to Magdalen College, Oxford, with a view to preparing for a legal career. He read ‘Modern Greats’, philosophy, politics, and economics. Blake was eloquent on the depressing peculiarities of World War II. He related in a manuscript fragment, ‘Memories of Christ Church’, that his two closest friends in the Senior Common Room were Hugh Trevor-Roper and Charles Stuart. In his biography of Disraeli, Blake made the British prime minister much less convincing as a heroic legend, but made him much more interesting as a man.
GEOFFREY HARTMAN
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264355
- eISBN:
- 9780191734052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264355.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This lecture presents the text of the speech about theopoesis and the contest of priest and poet delivered by the author at the 2007 British Academy Special Lecture held at the British Academy. It ...
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This lecture presents the text of the speech about theopoesis and the contest of priest and poet delivered by the author at the 2007 British Academy Special Lecture held at the British Academy. It discusses William Blake's thoughts about the identity of prophet and poet and explains his apodictic pronouncements contained in his All Religions are One. The lecture charts the complexity of the relation between poetry and both natural and revealed religion in the works of Joseph Addison, Blake, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Less
This lecture presents the text of the speech about theopoesis and the contest of priest and poet delivered by the author at the 2007 British Academy Special Lecture held at the British Academy. It discusses William Blake's thoughts about the identity of prophet and poet and explains his apodictic pronouncements contained in his All Religions are One. The lecture charts the complexity of the relation between poetry and both natural and revealed religion in the works of Joseph Addison, Blake, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Catherine Osborne
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199282067
- eISBN:
- 9780191712944
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199282067.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
This introductory chapter presents a discussion of Blake's ‘Auguries of Innocence’ and ‘The Fly’, and of an extract from Shakespeare's Henry IV Part One. It illustrates the claim that not all ...
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This introductory chapter presents a discussion of Blake's ‘Auguries of Innocence’ and ‘The Fly’, and of an extract from Shakespeare's Henry IV Part One. It illustrates the claim that not all philosophical persuasion takes the form of academic argument; that literature can be more effective in this role; that moral understanding involves having one's sensibilities aligned with genuine value, so as to be able to see it right; and that science cannot tell us what to value, or how to construct a moral taxonomy. The chapter compares the appreciation of value in nature with the appreciation of value in art, and questions the idea that human life is of supreme value, just in virtue of being human.Less
This introductory chapter presents a discussion of Blake's ‘Auguries of Innocence’ and ‘The Fly’, and of an extract from Shakespeare's Henry IV Part One. It illustrates the claim that not all philosophical persuasion takes the form of academic argument; that literature can be more effective in this role; that moral understanding involves having one's sensibilities aligned with genuine value, so as to be able to see it right; and that science cannot tell us what to value, or how to construct a moral taxonomy. The chapter compares the appreciation of value in nature with the appreciation of value in art, and questions the idea that human life is of supreme value, just in virtue of being human.
The late A. D. Nuttall
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184621
- eISBN:
- 9780191674327
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184621.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, Drama
The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family: the Father and the Son do not get on. It might be thought that so cumbersome a notion ...
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The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family: the Father and the Son do not get on. It might be thought that so cumbersome a notion is inconceivable before the rise of Romanticism but the Ophite Gnostics of the 2nd century AD appear to have thought that God the Father was a jealous tyrant because he forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and that the serpent, who led the way to the Tree of Knowledge, was really Christ. This book explores the possibility of an underground ‘perennial heresy’, linking the Ophites to Blake. The ‘alternative Trinity’ is intermittently visible in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and even in Milton's Paradise Lost. Blake's notorious detection of a pro-Satan anti-poem, latent in this ‘theologically patriarchal’ epic is less capricious, better grounded historically and philosophically, than is commonly realised.Less
The Trinity of orthodox Christianity is harmonious. The Trinity for Blake is, conspicuously, not a happy family: the Father and the Son do not get on. It might be thought that so cumbersome a notion is inconceivable before the rise of Romanticism but the Ophite Gnostics of the 2nd century AD appear to have thought that God the Father was a jealous tyrant because he forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and that the serpent, who led the way to the Tree of Knowledge, was really Christ. This book explores the possibility of an underground ‘perennial heresy’, linking the Ophites to Blake. The ‘alternative Trinity’ is intermittently visible in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and even in Milton's Paradise Lost. Blake's notorious detection of a pro-Satan anti-poem, latent in this ‘theologically patriarchal’ epic is less capricious, better grounded historically and philosophically, than is commonly realised.
Michael O'Neill
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122852
- eISBN:
- 9780191671579
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122852.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
In this wide-ranging study the author examines the phenomenon of the ‘self-conscious poem’ — that is, a poem concerned with poetry or, more centrally if often connectedly, a poem that displays ...
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In this wide-ranging study the author examines the phenomenon of the ‘self-conscious poem’ — that is, a poem concerned with poetry or, more centrally if often connectedly, a poem that displays awareness of itself as a poem — in the work of the major Romantic poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. The book freshly illuminates many famous lyrics and longer poems and re-values less regarded works such as The Excursion. For the author, self-consciousness is allied to the new status granted to poetry by the Romantics. His closely attentive readings suggest that self-consciousness in Romantic poetry often accompanies exploration of, even anxiety about, poetry's significance. Yet his emphasis falls on the imaginatively productive ends to which such exploration and anxiety are put. An extended coda looks at the bequest of Romantic self-consciousness to post-Romantic writers. It offers chapters comparing Yeats and Stevens, discussing later Auden's scepticism about poetry, and exploring the affecting intricacies of Amy Clampitt's Voyages: A Homage to John Keats. Throughout, the author challenges recent accounts of Romanticism by placing at the centre of his study poetry's imaginative and aesthetic value.Less
In this wide-ranging study the author examines the phenomenon of the ‘self-conscious poem’ — that is, a poem concerned with poetry or, more centrally if often connectedly, a poem that displays awareness of itself as a poem — in the work of the major Romantic poets: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats. The book freshly illuminates many famous lyrics and longer poems and re-values less regarded works such as The Excursion. For the author, self-consciousness is allied to the new status granted to poetry by the Romantics. His closely attentive readings suggest that self-consciousness in Romantic poetry often accompanies exploration of, even anxiety about, poetry's significance. Yet his emphasis falls on the imaginatively productive ends to which such exploration and anxiety are put. An extended coda looks at the bequest of Romantic self-consciousness to post-Romantic writers. It offers chapters comparing Yeats and Stevens, discussing later Auden's scepticism about poetry, and exploring the affecting intricacies of Amy Clampitt's Voyages: A Homage to John Keats. Throughout, the author challenges recent accounts of Romanticism by placing at the centre of his study poetry's imaginative and aesthetic value.
Andrew Lincoln
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183143
- eISBN:
- 9780191673948
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183143.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
William Blake's The Four Zoas is one of the most challenging poems in the English language, and one of the most profound. It is also one of the least read of the major poetic narratives of the ...
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William Blake's The Four Zoas is one of the most challenging poems in the English language, and one of the most profound. It is also one of the least read of the major poetic narratives of the Romantic period. This book presents an introduction to the poem, and is the first study to examine in detail Blake's numerous manuscript revisions of the poem. It offers a staged reading, one that moves, as Blake himself moved, from simpler to more complex forms of writing. The book reads the poem in the light of two competing views of history: the biblical, which places history within the framework of Fall and Judgement, and that of the Enlightenment, which sees history as progress from primitive life to civil order. In so doing, the book offers an account of the narrative that is more coherent — and accessible — than much previous criticism of the work, and Blake's much misunderstood poem emerges as the most extraordinary product of the eighteenth-century tradition of philosophical history.Less
William Blake's The Four Zoas is one of the most challenging poems in the English language, and one of the most profound. It is also one of the least read of the major poetic narratives of the Romantic period. This book presents an introduction to the poem, and is the first study to examine in detail Blake's numerous manuscript revisions of the poem. It offers a staged reading, one that moves, as Blake himself moved, from simpler to more complex forms of writing. The book reads the poem in the light of two competing views of history: the biblical, which places history within the framework of Fall and Judgement, and that of the Enlightenment, which sees history as progress from primitive life to civil order. In so doing, the book offers an account of the narrative that is more coherent — and accessible — than much previous criticism of the work, and Blake's much misunderstood poem emerges as the most extraordinary product of the eighteenth-century tradition of philosophical history.
Peter Otto
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198187196
- eISBN:
- 9780191674655
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198187196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This book examines the relation between Blake's text and the visual designs in The Four Zoas, one of the most important works in Blake's oeuvre. It uncovers a Blake deeply engaged with the cultural ...
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This book examines the relation between Blake's text and the visual designs in The Four Zoas, one of the most important works in Blake's oeuvre. It uncovers a Blake deeply engaged with the cultural discourses of his time, in profound dialogue with Swedenborg, Locke, and Young. In the course of this conversation, Blake anatomizes a remarkable variety of cultural practices (including religion, science, and art) designed to achieve transcendence. He focuses in particular on the fate of the body in cultures of transcendence, developing perhaps the first theory of sexual sublimation. Blake's radical visual and verbal strategies in this poem are part of an attempt to defer the movement of transcendence, long enough for the reader to see the warring elements of the fallen world as the dismembered body of humanity.Less
This book examines the relation between Blake's text and the visual designs in The Four Zoas, one of the most important works in Blake's oeuvre. It uncovers a Blake deeply engaged with the cultural discourses of his time, in profound dialogue with Swedenborg, Locke, and Young. In the course of this conversation, Blake anatomizes a remarkable variety of cultural practices (including religion, science, and art) designed to achieve transcendence. He focuses in particular on the fate of the body in cultures of transcendence, developing perhaps the first theory of sexual sublimation. Blake's radical visual and verbal strategies in this poem are part of an attempt to defer the movement of transcendence, long enough for the reader to see the warring elements of the fallen world as the dismembered body of humanity.
Michael O'Neill
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199299287
- eISBN:
- 9780191715099
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199299287.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
This chapter discusses the poetry of W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, exploring the complicated response of both to the Romantic bequest. The first section focuses on a variety of texts by Auden, ...
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This chapter discusses the poetry of W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, exploring the complicated response of both to the Romantic bequest. The first section focuses on a variety of texts by Auden, including his Letter to Lord Byron, in order to bring out the intricately post-Romantic nature of his voice in his Thirties poetry. The section examines early poems such as ‘Who stands, the crux left of the watershed’ for their evidence of thwarted post-Romantic longing, as well as later poems such as ‘In memory of W. B. Yeats’ for the ways in which Auden reinvents for the modern age a poetry akin to the Romantics' in its concern to be both undidactic and ‘A way of happening’. Auden's practice in Letter to Lord Byron is compared with Byron's comic mode, and a mixture of admiration and necessary distance in Auden's view of Byron is discovered. The second section looks at Spender's attempts to preserve a Romantic lyric voice in the modern age; it compares, for example, his poem ‘Moving through the silent crowd’ with Blake's ‘London’, and sees his poetry voicing doubts about poetry of a kind inaugurated by the Romantics.Less
This chapter discusses the poetry of W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, exploring the complicated response of both to the Romantic bequest. The first section focuses on a variety of texts by Auden, including his Letter to Lord Byron, in order to bring out the intricately post-Romantic nature of his voice in his Thirties poetry. The section examines early poems such as ‘Who stands, the crux left of the watershed’ for their evidence of thwarted post-Romantic longing, as well as later poems such as ‘In memory of W. B. Yeats’ for the ways in which Auden reinvents for the modern age a poetry akin to the Romantics' in its concern to be both undidactic and ‘A way of happening’. Auden's practice in Letter to Lord Byron is compared with Byron's comic mode, and a mixture of admiration and necessary distance in Auden's view of Byron is discovered. The second section looks at Spender's attempts to preserve a Romantic lyric voice in the modern age; it compares, for example, his poem ‘Moving through the silent crowd’ with Blake's ‘London’, and sees his poetry voicing doubts about poetry of a kind inaugurated by the Romantics.
