<p>Lost-and-found purity is central to William Blake’s illuminated book <em>Visions of the Daughters of Albion</em> (1793). In <em>Visions</em>, Blake’s central character Oothoon embraces the otherness of her sexual desires, flies off to be with her lover Theotormon, but not before being brutally raped and impregnated by Bromion. The assault leads to Theotormon’s refusal to be with Oothoon because of her putatively compromised state. Today, in the shadow of queer conceptualizations of gender, sexuality, and virginity, how do we understand Blake’s narrative of loss and rejection, of injurious force and sexual violence? This thesis lays the critical groundwork for a queer reading of the text that is more than critical – i.e. that is a re-visioning of the text’s details, and is re-writing of its narrative premise.</p> <p>Through unconventional scholarly approaches, this thesis tackles issues of identity in Blake’s <em>Visions</em> from three separate vanguards that each further break open the heuristic and speculative possibilities in Blake’s work. Approaching Blake’s <em>Visions</em> from a Numerological perspective via deconstructing the central characters’ names and explicating the poem through their respective algorithms, the first section examines eighteenth century conceptions of the soul and its place within literature through locating and recognizing the souls of Blake’s poetry of lost souls. Considering sexual essentiality and the potential recovering of virginity, the second section reads <em>Visions</em> from the vantage of Schizosexuality (a fourth component to the hetero-/homo-/bisexual paradigm) to liberate Oothoon from both literal and metaphorical chains. From these critical approaches of Numerology and Schizosexuality, the thesis concludes with a visual book. Through inverting the gender axes of the love triangle central to Blake’s <em>Visions</em>, the visual book queerly re-visions <em>Visions</em> by following a male-Oothoon (Oathe13) flying off to be with his male lover (a homo-oriented Theotormon – Zucchicarro34) but not before being accosted by a female-Bromion (Aquabolt21). The critical chapters together with the visual book complete this thesis’ queer re-vision of Blake’s <em>Visions of the Daughters of Albion. </em></p> / Master of Arts (MA)

This thesis examines the use and interpretation of Revelation in the writings of the contemporary prophets Richard Brothers, Joanna Southcott and William Blake. Contributing to an emerging scholarly interest in the reception of biblical texts within marginalised interpretative traditions, the thesis offers a detailed exploration of how Revelation is incorporated into these authors' prophetic texts, and how it informs the identity of readers who see their activities as bringing about the fulfilment of the text's visions on the historical plane. This aim is achieved by engaging with extant comparative studies of Brothers, Southcott and Blake within historical and literary studies; a comparison with similar contemporary prophetic figures and the contribution of Revelation to their prophetic self-understandings; and contextualising these figures against contemporary constructions of Revelation as a prophetic text, and the recognition of the poetic nature of biblical prophecy in the eighteenth century. In particular, the thesis advocates for the continued exploration of "emic" approaches to these figures, a process started by members of Oxford's Prophecy Project. The thesis thus argues that "prophecy", rather than "millenarianism," is the most appropriate way of characterising these authors' scriptural engagement, and explores how prophecy is understood in their writings to delineate commonalities in their understanding of the prophet's role. Finally, it surveys how Revelation is interpreted within the respective works of the writers who are the focus of this thesis. The conclusion offers a hermeneutical reflection on the relationship between the prophetic interpreter and the texts they engage with. It suggests that the reader who claims to be "inspired" faces a tension between offering an interpretation of the authoritative text, and claiming an equivalent level of authority for their own works. The thesis makes three contributions to existing scholarly debates. Firstly, it demonstrates that attention to these three authors' interpretations of Revelation shows how attention to neglected voices illuminates the history of interpretation of this biblical book. Secondly, it justifies comparing these three authors under the framework of "prophecy", rather than the anachronistic terminology of "millenarianism." Thirdly, it explores their readings of Revelation to shed light on how interpretation of a scriptural text such as Revelation is key to the evolution of prophetic vocation; how Revelation’s images are developed and transformed in their own prophetic texts; and finally, their sensitivity to hermeneutical questions raised by Revelation’s relationship to other biblical texts and the problems posed by its eschatology.

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This book is about the participatory aesthetics of the fantastic. In it, the author argues that the definition of the fantastic presented by Tzvetan Todorov in 1970 can be used, provided it is first adapted to a media-ecological framework, to theorize the role of aesthetic participation in the creation of secondary worlds. Working within a hermeneutical tradition, Todorov understands reader participation as interpretation, in which the creative ambiguities of the literary object are primarily epistemological. However, it is here argued that the aesthetic object of the fantastic is also characterized by material ambiguity. The purpose of this dissertation is then to present a conceptual framework with which to theorize the relation between the material and the epistemological ambiguity of the fantastic. It is argued that such a framework can be found in an ecological understanding of aesthetic participation. This, in turn, entails understanding human subjectivity as a process always already embodied in a material environment. To this extent, the proposed theoretical framework questions the clear and oppositional distinction between form and matter, as well as that between mind and body, nature and culture, and human and non-human, on which a modern and humanist notion of subjectivity is based. And in this sense, the basic ecological assumptions of this dissertation are posthumanist, or non-humanist. From this position, it is argued that an ecological understanding of participation offers a means to reformulate the function of a number of concepts central to studying the aesthetics of the fantastic, most notably the concepts of media, genre and text. As the fantastic focuses on the creation of other worlds, it is an aesthetics of coming into being, of ontogenesis. Accordingly, it will be argued that the participatory aesthetics of the fantastic operationalizes the ontogenesis of media, genres and texts. By mapping the ontogenesis of three distinct media ecologies – the media ecology of fantasy and J. R. R. Tolkien’s secondary world Middle-earth; the media ecology of the American comic book superhero Miracleman; and the media ecology of William Blake – this book argues that the ecological imagination generates world. Per Israelson has been a doctoral candidate in the Research School of Studies in Cultural History at the department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University. Ecologies of the Imagination is his dissertation.

The thesis deals with life and particularly works of William Blake, one of the most prominent representatives of English poetry and art. His work stems from his dissatisfaction and resistance to religious and secular doctrines. He is known as an original poet, an engraver and a painter, a graphic artist and an illustrator, as well as a mystic and a visionary. In the midst of the birth of the modern world, during the War of Independence, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, he considered his talent for design and his predispositions of the Old Testament prophets a direct inspiration for him and his prophetic mission. He identified with all types of oppression and enslavement of humanity and tried to gibbet them in his works. He mainly criticised repressed sexuality, which according to him leads to wars, industrialism and perverted science. The apocalyptic character of many of his works is closely related to the time in which he lived and worked. These are mainly so-called prophetic books, which he also printed, and in which he used synthesis of artistic means. Most of his life he spent in poverty and solitude, misunderstood and despised. This reassured him of his real prophetic destiny. Blake?s work became an inspiration for following generations of artists; but only the 20th century fully discovered him and understood the importance of his prophetic vision. Blake sees a redemptive power of the real art, which helps cleanse people?s inner eyes, and gives them the opportunity to be freed from enslaving forces.

L’artiste et poète romantique William Blake (1757-1827) produisit, entre la fin du 18e siècle et le début du 19e siècle, plusieurs livres illustrés unissant texte, images, et décorations marginales. Ce mémoire se penche sur ces illustrations afin d’en analyser les motifs selon l’orientation théorique de l’ « altérité », un concept composite unifiant trois sens : l’infinitude, soit la dimension insaisissable de l’autre ; la distinction, soit l’altérité en tant que différence ; et la déclinaison, soit un mouvement hors du soi. Les chapitres abordent cette « altérité » à travers plusieurs thématiques : la dynamique de la forme visuelle, le lien du sublime et de l’émerveillement à la vision, la représentation du corps et du genre, et le rapport avec la nature. Chaque chapitre exemplifie une manière dont l’« altérité » se lie à des enjeux conceptuels issus de perspectives romantiques et contemporaines. L’analyse considère l’iconographie en tant que reflet et expression de l’imagination blakéenne, guidant la lecture vers une vision et une subjectivité accrues. Le « marginalium », l’élément décoratif marginal du livre illustré, parvient à symboliser cette vision de manière ponctuelle. La « figure flottante », une version humanisée et singularisée de ce marginalium, sous-tend les divers motifs, évoquant l’infinitude du potentiel humain. / Between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, William Blake (1757-1827), a romantic artist and poet, produced various illuminated works which unite text, images, and decorations set in the margins of the page. This thesis considers the iconography of these works, attempting to understand their visual motifs through the theoretical standpoint of “alterity”, a composite notion uniting three meanings: infinitude, or a quality of limitlessness; distinction, or the difference of what is “other”; and extension, suggesting a motion outside the self. The different chapters exemplify how this notion of “alterity” relates to contemporary and romantic theoretical constructs. Among the subjects considered are: “alterity” in itself, the significance of Blakean visual form, the sublime and the experience of awe, the representation of the body and of gender, and the relationship to the natural world. The thesis considers the Blakean iconography as a reflection of the imagination, guiding the reader towards a heightened capacity for vision and subjectivity. The “marginalium”, the decorative marginal element of the illustrated books, symbolizes such vision by a punctual means. The “floating figure”, a humanized and singular marginalium, underlies the different motifs, evoking the infinitude of human potential.

This thesis is an attempt to de-construct the linear way in which I describe my work. I am attempting to deal with my family’s background in the theater and identity as a Texan. In addition I am attempting to address my interest in phenomenological concerns. This document was created in Microsoft Word 2000. The video portions of the video were edited on Imovie HD and Final Cut Pro, while the audio text was recorded from TextEdit’s text to speech program.

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