Synopses & Reviews
For the last two decades, scholars who specialize in the poetry and art of William Blake have stressed the formal and historical dimensions of his aesthetic theories and practices. Such an emphasis neglects the ethical commitments that inform his work. Primary among these ethical commitments is Blakes passionate advocacy of forgiveness between human beings as a means to solve the problem of human evil, an advocacy that seems to contradict Blakes assertions that ethical laws create the illusion of human evil and employ the concept of “forgiveness” solely to reinforce the terms of the original oppression. Blake, Ethics, and Forgiveness focuses on an important and pervasive issue found in the work of the English Romantic visionary poet, engraver, and mystic William Blake. It treats the moral and literary problem of representing ethical or human forgiveness, as distinct from the divine forgiveness of human beings.
Review
“Blake, Ethics, and Forgiveness is an original and thoughtful book. It examines with remarkable thoroughness and clarity a topic of enduring importance to William Blake as poet, visual artist, man, and Christian. Moskal demonstrates that the problem of forgiveness occupies Blake from his early antinomian days through his work on his major prophecies to his last years as illustrator and interpreter of the works of others.” – Don Bialostosky, The University of Toledo
Synopsis
Focuses on an important and pervasive issue found in the work of the English Romantic visionary poet, engraver, and mystic William Blake
For the last two decades, scholars who specialize in the poetry and art of William Blake have stressed the formal and historical dimensions of his aesthetic theories and practices. Such an emphasis neglects the ethical commitments that inform his work. Primary among these ethical commitments is Blake's passionate advocacy of forgiveness between human beings as a means to solve the problem of human evil, an advocacy that seems to contradict Blake's assertions that ethical laws create the illusion of human evil and employ the concept of "forgiveness" solely to reinforce the terms of the original oppression.
Blake, Ethics, and Forgiveness focuses on an important and pervasive issue found in the work of the English Romantic visionary poet, engraver, and mystic William Blake. It treats the moral and literary problem of representing ethical or human forgiveness, as distinct from the divine forgiveness of human beings.
Synopsis
Blake, Ethics, and Forgiveness focuses on an important and pervasive issue found in the work of the English Romantic visionary poet, engraver, and mystic William Blake. It treats the moral and literary problem of representing ethical or human forgiveness, as distinct from the divine forgiveness of human beings.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [205]-213) and index.
About the Author
Jeanne Moskal is Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.