Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William BlakeThis brilliant outline of Blake's thought and commentary on his poetry comes on the crest of the current interest in Blake, and carries us further towards an understanding of his work than any previous study. Here is a dear and complete solution to the riddles of the longer poems, the so-called "Prophecies," and a demonstration of Blake's insight that will amaze the modern reader. The first section of the book shows how Blake arrived at a theory of knowledge that was also, for him, a theory of religion, of human life and of art, and how this rigorously defined system of ideas found expression in the complicated but consistent symbolism of his poetry. The second and third parts, after indicating the relation of Blake to English literature and the intellectual atmosphere of his own time, explain the meaning of Blake's poems and the significance of their characters. |
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... of the second half of the eighteenth century-Smart, Cowper, Chatterton, Macpherson, Fergusson, Collins, Burns—we shall find the percentage of mental breakdowns and social maladjustments among them abnormally high. 4 THE ARGUMENT.
... find an artistic satisfaction, or even relief, in writing such confused and chaotic monologues as the prophecies are generally considered to be. I quote from an intelligent and sensitive study of his painting: By way of more than ...
... find out what the mystery is. The usual label attached to Blake's poetry is “mystical,” which is a word he never uses. Yet “mysticism,” when the word is not simply an elegant variant of “misty” or “mysterious,” means a certain kind of ...
... find the symbolism of visionary experience not only unnecessary but a positive hindrance to the highest mystical contemplation. This suggests that mysticism and art are in the long run mutually exclusive, but that the visionary and the ...
... find their least common denominator and arrive at a common agreement which will point the way to a reality about the sun independent of their perception of it. The guinea-sun is a sensation assimilated to a general, impersonal, abstract ...