Download or read book William Blake and the Myths of Britain written by J. Whittaker and published by Springer. This book was released on 1999-06-03 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Blake and the Myths of Britain is the first full-length study of Blake's use of British mythology and history. From Atlantis to the Deists of the Napoleonic Wars, this book addresses why the eighteenth century saw a revival of interest in the legends of the British Isles and how Blake applied these in his extraordinary prophetic histories of the giant Albion, revitalising myths of the Druids and Joseph of Arimathea bringing Christ to Albion.
Download or read book Divine Images written by Jason Whittaker and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although relatively obscure during his lifetime, William Blake has become one of the most popular English artists and writers, through poems such as “The Tyger” and “Jerusalem,” and images including The Ancient of Days. Less well-known is Blake’s radical religious and political temperament and that his visionary art was created to express a personal mythology that sought to recreate an entirely new approach to philosophy and art. This book examines both Blake’s visual and poetic work over his long career, from early engravings and poems to his final illustrations to Dante and the Book of Job. Divine Images further explores Blake’s immense popular appeal and influence after his death, offering an inspirational look at a pioneering figure.
Download or read book Blake Myth and Enlightenment written by David Fallon and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-01-09 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides compelling new readings of William Blake’s poetry and art, including the first sustained account of his visionary paintings of Pitt and Nelson. It focuses on the recurrent motif of apotheosis, both as a figure of political authority to be demystified but also as an image of utopian possibility. It reevaluates Blake’s relationship to Enlightenment thought, myth, religion, and politics, from The French Revolution to Jerusalem and The Laocoön. The book combines careful attention to cultural and historical contexts with close readings of the texts and designs, providing an innovative account of Blake’s creative transformations of Enlightenment, classical, and Christian thought.
Download or read book The Evolution of Blake s Myth written by Sheila A. Spector and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-04 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpreting Blake has always proved challenging. Hermeneutics, as the on-going negotiation between the horizon of expectations and a given text, hinges on the preconceptions that structure thought. The structure, in turn, is derived from myth, a cultural narrative predicated on a particular set of foundational principles, and organized in terms of the resulting symbolic form. The primary impediment to interpreting Blake has been the failure to recognize that he and much of his audience have thought in terms of two radically different myths. In The Evolution of Blake’s Myth, Sheila A. Spector establishes the dimensions of the myth that structures Blake’s thought. In the first of three parts, she uses Jerusalem, Blake’s most complete book, as the basis for extrapolating the components of the consolidated myth. She then traces the chronological development of the myth from its origin in the late 1780s through its crystallization in Milton. Finally, she demonstrates how Blake used the myth hermeneutically, as the horizon of expectations for interpreting not only his own work, but the Bible and the visionary texts of others, as well.
Download or read book The Splendid and the Vile written by Erik Larson and published by Crown. This book was released on 2020-02-25 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake delivers an intimate chronicle of Winston Churchill and London during the Blitz—an inspiring portrait of courage and leadership in a time of unprecedented crisis “One of [Erik Larson’s] best books yet . . . perfectly timed for the moment.”—Time • “A bravura performance by one of America’s greatest storytellers.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time • Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • The Globe & Mail • Fortune • Bloomberg • New York Post • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • LibraryReads • PopMatters On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold his country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally—and willing to fight to the end. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people “the art of being fearless.” It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it’s also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London. Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports—some released only recently—Larson provides a new lens on London’s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his family: his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents’ wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela’s illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the advisers in Churchill’s “Secret Circle,” to whom he turns in the hardest moments. The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today’s political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when, in the face of unrelenting horror, Churchill’s eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together.
Download or read book William Blake and the Myths of Albion written by Jason Whittaker and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Storyland written by Amy Jeffs and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immersed in mist and old magic, Storyland is an exquisitely illustrated new mythology of Britain, set in its wildest landscapes. Historian and printmaker Amy Jeffs reimagines ancient legends in wondrous detail in this this gift-worthy collection for all lovers of myth, folklore, and mysticism. Storyland begins between the Creation and Noah's Flood, follows the footsteps of the earliest generation of giants, covers the founding of Britain, England, Wales, and Scotland, the birth of Christ, the wars between Britons, Saxons and Vikings, and closes with the arrival of the Normans. These are retellings of medieval tales of legend, landscape, and the yearning to belong, inhabited by characters now half-remembered: Arthur, Brutus, Albina, and more. Told with narrative flair, embellished in stunning, original linocuts and glossed with a rich and erudite commentary, Storyland illuminates a collective memory that still informs the identity and culture of Britain and its descendants. Readers will visit beautiful, sacred places that include prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge and Wayland's Smithy; mountains and lakes such as Snowdon and Loch Etive; and rivers including the Ness, the Soar, and the storied Thames in this vivid, beautiful tale of a land steeped in myth.
Download or read book Visions of the Daughters of Albion written by William Blake and published by . This book was released on 1793 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book English Romanticism and the Celtic World written by Gerard Carruthers and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-05-15 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English Romanticism and the Celtic World explores the way in which British Romantic writers responded to the national and cultural identities of the 'four nations' England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The essays collected here, by specialists in the field, interrogate the cultural centres as well as the peripheries of Romanticism, and the interactions between these. They underline 'Celticism' as an emergent strand of cultural ethnicity during the eighteenth century, examining the constructions of Celticness and Britishness in the Romantic period, including the ways in which the 'Celtic' countries viewed themselves in the light of Romanticism. Other topics include the development of Welsh antiquarianism, the Ossian controversy, Irish nationalism, Celtic landscapes, Romantic form and Orientalism. The collection covers writing by Blake, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron and Shelley, and will be of interest to scholars of Romanticism and Celtic studies.
Download or read book Visions of the Daughters of Albion written by William Blake and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-05-25 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally produced in 1793, Visions of the Daughters of Albion has become one of Blake's most widely read and interpreted prophecies. The main character is a liberation figure challenging not only male chauvinism and marriage but the institution of slavery and imperialism in general. The female protagonist Oothoon, a sex slave who is raped by the slave driver Bromion, is clearly made to represent both the fertile, virginal and innocent lands of the pre-colonialism New World and the oppression of the women of Blake's time, who were, like slaves, treated as property of their husbands. In the course of his poem Oothoon becomes the ultimate symbol for liberation both as a woman and as a slave. William Blake (1757 – 1827) was a British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.
Download or read book Brahma in the West written by David Weir and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2003-08-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that the myths and ideals of William Blake's poetry were heavily influenced by the Oriental Renaissance—the British discovery of Hindu literature.
Download or read book Summary of John Higgs William Blake vs the World written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-07-21T22:59:00Z with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The English lawyer Henry Crabb Robinson met the English painter and printmaker William Blake at a dinner party in London in 1825. Over the course of the evening, he became fascinated by Blake’s casual conversation about his relationship with the spirit world. #2 Robinson was initially confused by Blake, but he couldn’t bring himself to dismiss him as a simple madman. He felt there was something important and vital about his worldview, even if it was frustratingly obscure. #3 The story of the clash between the world and William Blake seems straightforward. Blake had lacked the ability to respond to the pressures and challenges of contemporary life and society, and as a result, he spent his life impoverished and misunderstood. #4 In 2018, people went to the grave of William Blake to pay their respects to his memory. The Blake Society had raised money for a flat piece of Portland stone, carved by the stonecutter Lida Cardozo Kindersley, which was set into the grass.
Download or read book Blake and Antiquity written by Kathleen Raine and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic book on William Blake as prophet of the New Age William Blake (1757–1827) inhabited a remarkable inner world, one that he brought vividly to life in his poetry, painting, and printmaking. Blake and Antiquity situates this brilliant and enigmatic artist within the Western esoteric canon, revealing his indebtedness to Neoplatonism, the Gnostics, alchemy, and astrology. In this book, Kathleen Raine demonstrates how Blake rejected conventional orthodoxy and went in search among the occult traditions of antiquity for symbols that might expand the mind’s awareness into a spiritual state where space, time, and even death are transcended.
Download or read book The Glory of Arthur written by Jeffrey John Dixon and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-08-08 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting with William Blake's lost painting The Ancient Britons, this book shows how the visionary artist and poet reworked the Matter of Britain--the corpus of legends presenting an alternative history of Britain--into his own mythology. He thus adds to a tradition of Arthurian epic begun by Layamon in the 13th century and continued by Edmund Spenser in the 16th, in which a Romano-Celtic warlord becomes an icon of the English imagination. This book shows how Britain became the promised land of a pagan goddess where mythical events are as important as those of history, and how the figure of Arthur is transformed into a British Messiah whose Christian realm is in continuous interaction with the Otherworld of Faerie, an imagined place between the spiritual and the earthly. Arthur as perceived through Blake's vision is the earthly embodiment of the fallen Albion; this exploration of the mythic underpinnings of the English sense of nationhood reveals an imaginative consciousness that links us to "human existence itself."
Download or read book William Blake and the Age of Aquarius written by Stephen F. Eisenman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William Blake and the Age of Aquarius / by Stephen F. Eisenman -- Prophets, madmen, and millenarians: Blake and the (counter)culture of the 1790s / by Mark Crosby -- William Blake on the West Coast / Elizabeth Ferrell -- William Blake and art against surveillance / Jacob Henry Leveton -- Building Golgonooza in the Age of Aquarius / John Murphy -- "My teacher in all things": Sendak, Blake, and the visual language of childhood / Mark Crosby -- Blake then and now / W.J.T. Mitchell
Download or read book William Blake written by Robin Hamlyn and published by . This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "William Blake is one of the most influential, but also one of the most perplexing, of all British artists. Probably best known for his verses of the hymn "Jerusalem" and his poem "The Tyger," he produced an enormously varied range of visual work - including prints, illuminated books, drawings, and paintings - appealing to a more diverse audience than perhaps any other artist." "This illustrated volume, published to accompany the largest Blake exhibition ever mounted, closely examines Blake's vision, personal mythology, political views, and highly idiosyncratic painting techniques. An analysis of Blake's life-long interest in the Gothic, both as a source of his own distinctive style and as an ideal of spiritual and artistic integrity, leads into a study of his life during the 1790s, when his radical political interests and innovative printmaking techniques came together to form a totally new visionary art. This is followed by an investigation into the sources from which he developed his ideas, language, and images - including an explanation of the key characters that populated his imaginative universe. Finally, the culmination of Blake's highly original vision, his major illuminated books, including Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, Europe, and Jerusalem, are unveiled. Throughout, a wealth of reproductions bring Blake's vision to life." "In two opening essays, Peter Ackroyd, author of the definitive biography of the artist, introduces Blake the man, exploring the apparent contradictions of his complex personality, and Marilyn Butler, an expert on the poetry of the era, casts new light on Blake in the context of the social, cultural, and literary environment of his time."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book William Blake s Gothic imagination written by Chris Bundock and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While overlooked by extant studies of the Gothic, William Blake’s literary and visual oeuvre embodies the same obsessions and fears that inform the Gothic revival with which he was contemporary.
