Description
Book SynopsisThis special issue of the
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library is devoted to William Blake. It explores the British and European reception of Blake’s work from the late nineteenth century to the present day, with a particular focus on the counterculture. Opening with two articles by the late Michael Horovitz, an important figure in the ‘Blake Renaissance’ of the 1960s, the issue goes on to investigate the ideological struggle over Blake in the early part of the twentieth century, with particular reference to W. B. Yeats. This is followed by articles on the artistic avant-garde and underground of the 1960s and on Blake’s significance for science fiction authors of the 1970s. The issue closes with an article on the contemporary Belgian art collective maelstrÖm reEvolution.
Table of ContentsIntroduction – Douglas Field and Luke Walker
The Blake Renaissance – Michael Horovitz
William Blake and (a Few of) His Friends in Our Time – Michael Horovitz
‘Invisible Gates Would Open’: W. B. Yeats and William Blake in the 1890s – Jodie Marley
William Blake and the Spiritual Forms of Citizenship and Hospitality – Colin Trodd
Avant-Garde Blake: From Francis Bacon to Oz Magazine – David Hopkins
Iain Sinclair, William Blake and the Visionary Poetry of the 1960s – James Riley
‘The Place Where Contrarieties are Equally True’: Blake and the Science-Fiction Counterculture – Jason Whittaker
A Cosmopolitan Case Study: Countercultural Blake in the Therapoetic Practice of maelstrÖm reEvolution – Franca Bellarsi
