Dangerous enthusiasm : William Blake and the culture of radicalism in the 1790s / Jon Mee.

By:

Mee, Jon

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.Description: x, 251 p. : ill. ; 23 cmISBN:

0198122268 :

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

821.7 MEE

Online resources:

Publisher description

Contents:

A Note on Texts -- Introduction: Blake the Bricoleur -- 1. 'Every Honest Man is a Prophet': Popular Enthusiasm and Radical Millenarianism -- 2. 'Northern Antiquities': Bards, Druids, and Ancient Liberties -- 3. 'Forms of Dark Delusion': Mythography and Politics -- 4. Blake, the Bible, and its Critics in the 1790s -- Conclusion.

Summary: Dangerous Enthusiasm considers Blake's prophetic books written during the 1790s in the light of the French Revolution controversy raging at the time; his works are shown to be less the expressions of isolated genius than the products of a complex response to the cultural politics of his contemporaries. William Blake's work presents a stern challenge to historical criticism. Jon Mee's new study meets the challenge by investigating contexts outside the domains of standard literary histories. He traces the distinctive rhetoric of the illuminated books to the French Revolution controversy of the 1790s and Blake's fusion of the diverse currents of radicalism abroad in that decade. The study is supported by a wealth of original research which will be of interest to historians and literary critics alike. Blake emerges from these pages as a 'bricoleur' who fused the language of London's popular dissenting culture with the more sceptical radicalism of the Enlightenment. Dangerous Enthusiasm presents a more comprehensively politicized picture of Blake than any previous study.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Books	H.T. Parekh Library	SIAS Collection	Meenakshi Mukherjee Books	821.7 MEE (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		K4633

Gratis.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 227-245) and index.

A Note on Texts --
Introduction: Blake the Bricoleur --
1. 'Every Honest Man is a Prophet': Popular Enthusiasm and Radical Millenarianism --
2. 'Northern Antiquities': Bards, Druids, and Ancient Liberties --
3. 'Forms of Dark Delusion': Mythography and Politics --
4. Blake, the Bible, and its Critics in the 1790s --
Conclusion.

Dangerous Enthusiasm considers Blake's prophetic books written during the 1790s in the light of the French Revolution controversy raging at the time; his works are shown to be less the expressions of isolated genius than the products of a complex response to the cultural politics of his contemporaries. William Blake's work presents a stern challenge to historical criticism. Jon Mee's new study meets the challenge by investigating contexts outside the domains of standard literary histories. He traces the distinctive rhetoric of the illuminated books to the French Revolution controversy of the 1790s and Blake's fusion of the diverse currents of radicalism abroad in that decade. The study is supported by a wealth of original research which will be of interest to historians and literary critics alike. Blake emerges from these pages as a 'bricoleur' who fused the language of London's popular dissenting culture with the more sceptical radicalism of the Enlightenment. Dangerous Enthusiasm presents a more comprehensively politicized picture of Blake than any previous study.

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