Blake and the CityThough usually classified as a Romantic, Blake subverts and dissolves the binaries on which Romanticism turns: self and other, art and nature, country and city. Rather than reject the city outright like many of his contemporaries, Blake embraces it as the intricate workshop of human imagination. Each chapter of this book focuses on a specific text of Blake's that illustrates a particular conception of metaphorical embodiment of the city. These shifting metaphors emphasize the construction of all human environments and the need for imaginative labor to build and interpret them. This study seeks to bridge a gap between transcendent and historicist readings of Blake while at the same time challenging assumptions that still color our view of the city in the twenty-first century. Jennifer Davis Michael is Associate Professor of English at the University of the South. |
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Page 18
... rural , and the idea of a pristine nature does not even exist outside the human mind . Ideally , the city represents the union of the human and the natural , and not , as Wordsworth describes it in one sonnet , the alienation where ...
... rural , and the idea of a pristine nature does not even exist outside the human mind . Ideally , the city represents the union of the human and the natural , and not , as Wordsworth describes it in one sonnet , the alienation where ...
Page 20
... rural solitude and contem- plation , Blake insists on centering it in the city , along with politics , trade , and increasingly mechanized labor . Blake's ambivalence toward industry is apparent from his descrip- tions of brick kilns ...
... rural solitude and contem- plation , Blake insists on centering it in the city , along with politics , trade , and increasingly mechanized labor . Blake's ambivalence toward industry is apparent from his descrip- tions of brick kilns ...
Page 21
... rural and urban landscapes primarily as land- scapes , but at the same time limits the urban landscape to a place " out there . " While the application of the georgic mode to the city ( as I will discuss in chapter 2 ) helps to define ...
... rural and urban landscapes primarily as land- scapes , but at the same time limits the urban landscape to a place " out there . " While the application of the georgic mode to the city ( as I will discuss in chapter 2 ) helps to define ...
Page 23
... rural land ) only to suggest that the contrary terms work in cooperation rather than in opposition : nature needs imagination , and the country needs the city . The conjunction of these pairs , superimposing the traditionally " Romantic ...
... rural land ) only to suggest that the contrary terms work in cooperation rather than in opposition : nature needs imagination , and the country needs the city . The conjunction of these pairs , superimposing the traditionally " Romantic ...
Page 24
... rural village , when tinged with a taste for the sublime , quickly shades into the nature worship of Wordsworth , who cherishes rural societies precisely because they are " closer to na- ture . " Conversely , civis provides a common ...
... rural village , when tinged with a taste for the sublime , quickly shades into the nature worship of Wordsworth , who cherishes rural societies precisely because they are " closer to na- ture . " Conversely , civis provides a common ...
Contents
38 | |
Prophetic Labor and Creation of Space Lambeth and The Four Zoas | 75 |
The City as Body Milton | 113 |
The City as Text Jerusalem | 158 |
Notes | 200 |
Bibliography | 216 |
Index | 228 |
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Common terms and phrases
Albion appears artistic becomes begins Blake body building built called chapter city's comes construction created creation culture dark death defined describes Earth Emanation Enitharmon environment Eternity existence experience face fact fall fields Four Zoas frame functions garden gates give golden Golgonooza hand heaven houses human idea ideal imagination Innocence Jerusalem John labor land landscape limited lines live London lyric material means metaphor Milton mind nature Night offers organic particular pastoral physical plate poem poet poetry points political present Press printed prophetic puts reader refer represents Romantic ruins rural seems seen sense separate shape social society Songs soul space Stone streets structure suggests takes Tharmas things tion turn University urban Urizen Vala vision walking walls whole Wordsworth writing
Popular passages
Page 92 - Then stay'd the fervid wheels, and in his hand He took the golden compasses, prepared In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe, and all created things. One foot he centred, and the other turn'd Round through the vast profundity obscure, And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, This be thy just circumference, O world.
Page 170 - All things acted on Earth are seen in the bright Sculptures of Los's Halls, & every Age renews its powers from these Works With every pathetic story possible to happen from Hate or Wayward Love ; & every sorrow & distress is carved here, 65 Every Affinity of Parents, Marriages & Friendships are here In all their various combinations wrought with wondrous Art, All that can happen to Man in his pilgrimage of seventy years.
Page 90 - No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But choked with sedges works its weedy way; Along thy glades, a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; Amidst thy desert walks the lap-wing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all. And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall ; And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, Far, far away, thy children leave the land.
Page 53 - Then naked and white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind ; And the angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy, He'd have God for his father and never want joy.
Page 46 - HOLY THURSDAY. Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, — Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand? Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty! And their sun does never shine, And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are filled with thorns, It is eternal winter there.
Page 195 - According to the subject of discourse & every Word & Every Character Was Human according to the Expansion or Contraction, the Translucence or Opakeness of Nervous fibres such was the variation of Time & Space Which vary according as the Organs of Perception vary & they walked To & fro in Eternity as One Man reflecting each in each & clearly seen And seeing: according to fitness & order.
Page 59 - PITY would be no more If we did not make somebody Poor; And Mercy no more could be If all were as happy as we.
Page 15 - COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE EARTH has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river...