134 pages

Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1990. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2847. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 298-299).

Texte remanié de: Th. D.--University of Birmingham, 1995. / Bibliogr. p. 202-210. Index.

Blake’s critics have never attempted to illustrate in a systematic manner how Blake used information he learned from writings published by members of the circle of Joseph Johnson in his own works during the period 1790-95. Although Blake was a peripheral figure in the Johnson circle – known to them through his profession of engraving and marginalized on account of his social position and lack of university education – his works reveal a continuing engagement with topics addressed in the writings of authors associated with Johnson, perhaps signifying Blake’s desire to be recognized as an author participating, like them, in the literary deliberations of the public sphere. Chapter 1, ‘Blake, Priestley and Swedenborg’, examines Blake’s treatment in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell of body and soul, the natures of God and Jesus Christ, and Swedenborgianism in relation to Joseph Priestley’s History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782) and Letters to the Members of The New Jerusalem Church (1791). Chapter 2, ‘The Voice of a Devil and the Printing House in Hell’, considers The Marriage as an attempt to join the Revolution controversy and compares this work with writings by Richard Price, Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine. Chapter 2 also assesses the relationship between The Marriage and radical diabolism and Blake’s engagement with ‘energy’ as a distinctively radical concept in the work of Erasmus Darwin, Henry Fuseli, William Godwin, Priestley and Mary Wollstonecraft. Chapter 3, ‘Topical Representations in The French Revolution’, considers Blake’s engagement with Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and the Bastille in relation to responses to Reflections by Wollstonecraft, Paine and other authors published by Johnson. Chapter 3 concludes with an analysis of the response The French Revolution might have elicited from the Analytical Review. Chapter 4, ‘The French Revolution and Three Contemporary Discourses’, approaches this poem in terms of the discourses of ancient liberty, nature and the sublime, once again in comparison with responses to Reflections by members of the Johnson circle. My discussion of the sublime considers the possible influence on The French Revolution of Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) and Bishop Robert Lowth’s Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews (1787). Chapter 5, ‘The Continental Prophecies: Prophetic Form and Contemporary Prophecy’, examines America, Europe and The Song of Los in relation to writings concerning prophecy published by Johnson (with special emphasis on Lowth’s Lectures and Priestley’s 1793 and 1794 Fast Day sermons). The second part of Chapter 5 compares aspects of the works of Blake and Richard Brothers with Priestley’s Fast Day sermons, suggesting that Priestley and Blake’s works of 1793 and 1794 are rather less dissimilar than traditionally assumed. Chapter 6, ‘Blake’s “Bible of Hell” and Contemporary Critics of the Bible’, discusses Urizen, The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los in light of biblical criticism from the 1780s and 1790s (with particular reference to the Analytical and the writings of Alexander Geddes, Priestley and Paine). The final section of Chapter 6 reads Ahania in terms of the contemporary debate regarding the doctrine of the Atonement. The Conclusion, ‘ “melting apparent surfaces away”: Continuities in the Thought of Priestley and Blake’, revisits my discussion in Chapter 5 of similarities between Priestley and Blake and proposes that they are not so far apart in ideas and the content of their works as modern scholars usually argue.

This thesis is an examination of Blake's images of Christ and a study of his theology of art. My central premise is that these two topics are to be viewed simultaneously: that is, I argue that Blake's visualisation of Christ is an expression of his theology of art. Moreover, I contend that through his art, Blake seeks to emulate the spirit of Jesus' life and ministry in order to engender a community of Imagination which is the Divine Body of Jesus. Through a series of case studies focusing on Blake's depictions of different aspects of Christ's life, this thesis examines how Blake uses images to express his Christology and his theology of art. In Part I, I set out Blake's Christological cosmology in three chapters which deal with beginnings in Christ's life. Chapter 1 examines Christ as Creator; here, Christ inhabits a role traditionally associated with the Father, demonstrating the pre-eminence of Christ in Blake's concept of God, and the divinity of his Creation. Chapter 2 focuses on the advent, birth and infancy of Christ; Blake depicts the Nativity as the birth of Vision, emblematic of the individual embodying that state. Chapter 3 discusses the inauguration of Christ's ministry, the Baptism and Temptations; in these subjects, Blake represents Christ as immanent in the world, making it a place of Imagination and Vision, and the individual must learn to see it as such. Part II is concerned with Blake's idea of art as apocalypse, and of Christ as the supreme type of the artist - the state which every individual should embody and which Blake seeks to engender through his works. Chapter 4 focuses on the Crucifixion, a subject with which Blake had difficulty owing to his objection to the doctrine of the Atonement but which he came to view as an emblem of the individual sacrificing his/her self-hood in order to realise his/her true identity in the Human Form Divine. Chapter 5 examines the Transfiguration, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, exploring how Blake used these moments of transition between states in the life of Christ as types of the individual's transformation, and how these images seek to engender that process via a viewer- response aesthetic. Chapter 6 explores traditional apocalyptic subjects, in which, I argue, Christ is depicted as agent of artistic apocalypse, which for Blake consists of expunging error and embracing truth. Chapter 7 discusses Christ-like figures in Blake's depictions of Jesus' public ministry who embody the ideal state of imagination identified with Christ in the foregoing chapters, and thus act as members of Christ's Divine Body and as types for the individual's realisation of that state. I conclude with a discussion of the painting An Allegory of the Spiritual Condition of Man (1811?) which, I argue, encapsulates the central themes of this thesis.

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Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / William Blake was a painter, poet and printmaker. The author demonstrated a large experimentation in the production of his art, developing his own method of printing and publishing. Such method made possible the creation of the so called illuminated books, support in which was published most of his composite art, which combines poetry and painting in an inseparable way. This dissertation aims to examine the states of "Innocence" and of "Experience" in the illuminated books Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of Experience (1794) and Songs of Innocence and of Experience - Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1794 ). Usually, the Blake's "Innocence state", in the text and in the visual compositions, is associated with idealized existence, childhood figures and fertile nature. "Experience", on the other hand, presents urban scenes or arid nature, adult images and a different perspective about life, without the characteristic idealization of "Innocence". However, although the titles of the volumes indicate which compositions would be of "Innocence" and what would be of Experience", the compositions have evidences that perhaps these states are not clearly defined or contrary, as the subtitle of the agglutinated edition indicates. Examples of it, besides adult figures on the Innocence book and childhood images on the Experience , are compositions that appear in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, depending on the copy. Considering the switchable aspect of this collection of poems and the reallocations made by Blake in the several copies of the books, it will be observed what is the elements that fundaments the states of "Innocence" and of "Experience" on the three books of Songs. / William Blake foi pintor, poeta e gravurista. O autor demonstrou grande experimentação na produção de sua arte, elaborando o seu próprio método de impressão e publicação. Tal método viabilizou a criação dos chamados livros iluminados, suporte que possibilitou unir poesia e pintura de forma indissociável. Nesta dissertação, serão analisados os estados de Inocência e de Experiência nos livros iluminados Songs of Innocence (1789), Songs of Experience (1794) e Songs of Innocence and of Experience - Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1794). Comumente, o estado de Inocência em Blake é associado à existência idealizada, a figuras infantis e à natureza fértil, tanto nos textos quanto nas composições visuais. Experiência , por outro lado, apresentaria cenários urbanos ou de natureza árida, imagens adultas e um olhar diferenciado sobre a vida, sem a idealização característica de Inocência . Entretanto, embora os títulos dos volumes indiquem quais composições seriam sobre a Inocência e quais versariam acerca da Experiência , as composições possuem indícios de que talvez esses estados não sejam claramente delimitados ou contrários, como indica o subtítulo da edição conjunta. Exemplos disso, além de figuras adultas na parte de Inocência do livro e de presenças infantis em Experiência , são os poemas que aparecem tanto em Songs of Innocence quanto em Songs of Experience, dependendo da cópia do livro. Considerando o aspecto cambiável desse conjunto de poemas e as realocações realizadas por Blake nas diversas edições das obras, serão observados os elementos que fundamentam os estados de Inocência e de Experiência dentro dos três exemplares de Songs.