Incorporating the most recent discoveries concerning Blake’s heritage and cultural context, Visionary Materialism in the Early Works of William Blake: The Intersection of Enthusiasm and Empiricism proposes a radical new reading of his early works, that sees them taking enlightenment ideas to heights never dreamed of by Locke and Priestley. Drawing on a careful analysis of key figures from both sides of the enlightenment/counter-enlightenment divide (including Boehme, Swedenborg, the Moravians, Lavater, Brothers, Erasmus Darwin), the discussion traces an alternative tradition that disrupts previous assumptions about important aspects of Blake’s thought.
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Acknowledgements- A Note on Texts and Illustrations Introduction: Blake and his Traditions PART 1: EXPERIENCES OF EMPIRICISM Blake and Locke: Friendship and Enmity Closet and Cavern Priestley and the Material Soul PART 2: THE TREE OF MYSTERY Obscurity and the Sublime Infinity: Causes and Consequences The Corporealisation of Thought ‘Surgeing Sulphureous Fluid’: The Case of Urizen PART 3: RIGHT REASON AND ‘SENSE SUPERNATURAL’ ‘Where Else is Heaven’: The Ranting Impulse and Inner Light The Spiritual Substance The Abyssal Eye PART 4: THE OPENING EYE ‘He Conversed with Angels’ Divine Vision as Political Force PART 5: THE ARK OF GOD ‘What is Man!’ The First Principle Perception, Liberty and Organic Light The Bounding Line Outlining the Vessels of Eternity PART 6: THE SUBLIME ACT Incarnations and Inheritance Index
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Matthew J.A. Green is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nottingham.