Blake's Poetry: Spectral Visions - Tapa dura

William Blake is acknowledged as a poet of opposition and contradiction: a writer who, from Songs of Innocence and Experience to his last epic Jerusalem, ceaselessly explored the conflicts between limitation and possibility, reason and energy, torment and joy. But the contradictions within Blake's own 'visionary' poetics are less often considered. Throughout his work, Blake powerfully dramatises the energies and agonies of his own poetic labour.

This text focuses on Blake's account of creative struggle and examines his poetry as, in the words of "The Four Zoas", and "Intellectual Battle" - a war of visionary doubts and possibilities pursued with remarkable energy and self-scrutiny. William Blake is acknowledged as a poet of opposition and contradiction: a writer who, from "Songs of Innocence and Experience" to his last epic "Jerusalem", ceaselessly explored the conflicts between limitation and possibility, reason and energy, torment and joy. But the contradictions within Blake's own "visionary" poetics are less often considered. Throughout his work, Blake dramatizes the energies and agonies of his own poetic labour. A plate section of Blake's illustrations is included.