First published in 1998, this book formed part of an ongoing effort to restore politics and history to the centre of Blake studies. It adopts a three pronged approach when presenting its essays, seeking to promote a return to the political Blake; to deepen the understanding of some of the conversations articulated in Blake’s art by introducing new, historical material or new interpretations of texts; and to highlight differing perspectives on Blake’s politics among historically focused critics. The collection contains essays with varying methodological assumptions and differing positions on questions central to historicist Blake scholarship.

This anthology of essays charts the work of William Blake - combining traditional and current historicist methods with a plurality of other approaches. While many essays here recuperate a radical Blake opposed to imperialism, slavery, and patriarchy, differences emerge over the nature of Blake's radicalism and his stance on revolution, violence, and democratic pluralism. Contributors may champion a Blake critical of patriarchal discourse and practice, but they remain cautious about Blake's "homocentric" solutions. In the "Blake and women" section, authors seek to reorient discussions by connecting Blake to historical issues concerning women, particularly domestic ideology and the idealised female of the conduct books.

William Blake, poet, artist, and mystic, created a vast multidimensional universe through his verse and art. Spun from a fabric of symbolism and populated by a host of complex characters, BlakeÕs comprehensive world has provided endless inspiration to subsequent generations. For the reader of Blake, background knowledge of his symbolism is a necessity. In this volume, first published in 1965, S. Foster Damon, father of modern Blake studies and a professor at Brown University until his death, has assembled all references to particular symbols or aspects of BlakeÕs work and life, so that readers can see the entire spectrum of BlakeÕs thought on a variety of topics.

Known for his prophetic and imaginative works of poetry, painting, and printmaking, William Blake was also a prolific reader and annotator of other writers' works. This is the first work of criticism to consider Blake's annotations in their entirety, and it covers such topics as art, poetry, theology, madness and philosophy, as well as the authors Lavater, Swedenborg, Bacon, Spurzheim, Berkeley, and Wordsworth, among others.

Exploring the work of William Blake within the context of Methodism – the largest 'dissenting' religious group during his lifetime – this book contributes to ongoing critical debates surrounding Blake's religious affinities by suggesting that, contrary to previous thinking, Blake held sympathies with certain aspects of Methodism.

It is not surprising that visitors to Blake’s cosmology – the most elaborate in the history of British text and design – often demand a map in the form of a reference book. The entries in this volume benefit from the wide range of historical information made available in recent decades regarding the relationship between Blake’s text and design and his biographical, political, social, and religious contexts. Of particular importance, the entries take account of the re-interpretations of Blake with respect to race, gender, and empire in scholarship influenced by the groundbreaking theories that have arisen since the first half of the twentieth century. The intricate fluidity of Blake’s anti-Newtonian universe eludes the fixity of definitions and schema. Central to this guide to Blake's work and ideas is Kathryn S. Freeman's acknowledgment of the paradox of providing orientation in Blake’s universe without disrupting its inherent disorientation of the traditions whereby readers still come to it. In this innovative work, Freeman aligns herself with Blake’s demand that we play an active role in challenging our own readerly habits of passivity as we experience his created and corporeal worlds.

Poetry.

Interpreting Blake has always proved challenging. Hermeneutics, as the on-going negotiation between the horizon of expectations and a given text, hinges on the preconceptions that structure thought. The structure, in turn, is derived from myth, a cultural narrative predicated on a particular set of foundational principles, and organized in terms of the resulting symbolic form. The primary impediment to interpreting Blake has been the failure to recognize that he and much of his audience have thought in terms of two radically different myths. In The Evolution of Blake’s Myth, Sheila A. Spector establishes the dimensions of the myth that structures Blake’s thought. In the first of three parts, she uses Jerusalem, Blake’s most complete book, as the basis for extrapolating the components of the consolidated myth. She then traces the chronological development of the myth from its origin in the late 1780s through its crystallization in Milton. Finally, she demonstrates how Blake used the myth hermeneutically, as the horizon of expectations for interpreting not only his own work, but the Bible and the visionary texts of others, as well.