Reading William Blake

William Blake's illuminated poems challenge their readers to participate fully in a highly interactive process of reading. The complex interaction of their verbal and visual texts forces the involved reader to assume greater responsibility than usual for formulating meaning. This book examines some of the ways in which Blake's illuminated poems subvert the customary authority of texts and force readers to reassess both their expectations about reading and their customary responses to words and visual images alike. Cover 1 Contents 8 Preface 9 List of Plates 11 Key to Abbreviations 12 A Note on Copies 13 1 Introduction: Reading Blake's Texts 17 The Illuminated Page 28 An Example: Five Plates from America 41 2 Songs of Innocence and of Experience 52 The Songs in Context 58 The Songs and the Reader 67 3 Three Early Illuminated Works 89 The Book of Thel 90 Visions of the Daughters of Albion 112 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 121 4 Lambeth Prophecies I: History of the World 129 Reconstituting History 133 Metamorphosis and Encyclopedic Allusion 141 5 Lambeth Prophecies II: History of the Universe 153 Inversion, Reversal, and the Ways of Seeing 154 Myth, Metamorphosis and the Nature of Reality 171 6 Epic Art: Milton and Jerusalem 180 Milton and Epic Art 181 Jerusalem and the Eternal Community 193 Notes 202 Index 219 Front Matter....Pages i-xv Introduction: Reading Blake’s Texts....Pages 1-35 Songs of Innocence and of Experience....Pages 36-72 Three Early Illuminated Works....Pages 73-100 Lambeth Prophecies I: History of the World....Pages 101-124 Lambeth Prophecies II: History of the Universe....Pages 125-151 Epic Art: Milton and Jerusalem....Pages 152-173 Back Matter....Pages 174-196