| Description |
1 online resource |
| Contents |
Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Blake, Law, and the Antinomian Turn -- Courtroom, Nationhood, and Prophecy -- Chapter 2: Laws Ancient and Modern: Nation, Custom and Legislative Renewal -- Building Legal Castles -- Law and the Myth of the Ancient Constitution -- Human History and the Laws of God -- Constitutionalism and Legal Nation Building -- Law, Nation, and Manners in Blake's Prophetic Work -- Chapter 3: One Law for the Lion and the Ox is Oppression: The Emergence of Universal Law -- Why is One Law Given? |
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One Law is Oppression -- Is There Not One Law? -- The Stony Law Stamped to Dust -- Chapter 4: One King, One God, One Law: Building Constitutions in the Lambeth Books -- The Constitution of Mind and Body -- Urizen Gives His Laws to the Nations -- The Strife of Blood -- Chapter 5: The Heavens Squared by a Line: Legal Architecture and Mystery -- Strong Heroic Verse, Marshalled in Order -- The Architecture of the Law -- Antinomian Fire Extinguished -- Legal Travel Journals -- Glimpsing the Laws of Eternity -- Chapter 6: Such are the Laws of Eternity: Recovery, Redemption, and Prophecy |
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Radical Prophecy and the Law -- Punishment and Death-The Law of Satan's Elect -- Golgonooza and the Machinery of Redemption -- Self-Annihilation and the Laws of Eternity -- Chapter 7: Creating Nature from this Fiery Law: Towards Visionary Legislation? -- The Wheel of Religion -- Building Laws of Moral Virtue -- The Covenant of Jehovah -- London, Law, and the Human Form Divine -- Chapter 8: Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index |
| Summary |
This book examines the difficult relationship between individual intellectual freedom and the legal structures which govern human societies in William Blakes works, showing that this tension carries a political urgency that has not yet been recognised by scholars in the field. In doing so, it offers a new approach to Blakes corpus that builds on the literary and cultural historical work of recent decades. Blakes pronouncements about law may often sound biblical in tone; but this book argues that they directly address (and are informed by) eighteenth-century legal debates concerning the origin of the English common law, the autonomy of the judicature, the increasing legislative role of Parliament, and the emergence of the notions of constitutionalism and natural rights. Through a study of his illuminated books, manuscript works, notebook drafts and annotations, this study considers Blakes understanding that law is both integral to humanity itself and a core component of its potential fulfilment of the Human Form Divine. Matthew Mauger is Senior Lecturer in English at Queen Mary University of London, UK. His research focuses on the intellectual, literary and commercial life of London in the eighteenth century, with a particular interest in how the administrative frameworks associated with the city civil, legal, political, financial provide contexts for literary expression. He is co-author of Stealing Books in Eighteenth-Century London (2016) and of Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf that Conquered the World (2015) |
| Notes |
Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed September 27, 2023) |
| Subject |
Blake, William, 1757-1827.
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| SUBJECT |
Blake, William, 1757-1827. fast (OCoLC)fst00029047 |
| Subject |
Law and literature -- History -- 18th century
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Law and literature -- History -- 19th century
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Law and literature.
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| Genre/Form |
History.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9783031377235 |
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3031377230 |
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