The Valley of Vision : Blake as Prophet and Revolutionary / Peter Fisher; Northrop Frye.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fisher, Peter F. (Peter Francis), 1918-1958, author.

Contributor:

Frye, Northrop, editor.

Series:

Heritage

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blake, William, 1757-1827--Political and social views.

Blake, William.

Revolutionary literature, English--History and criticism.

Revolutionary literature, English.

Prophecies in literature.

Visions in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (276 pages)

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The author of this important contribution to the study of Blake was tragically drowned in a sailing accident when he had almost completed it in manuscript. His was a critical mind of singular erudition and power. As is abundantly evidenced in these chapters which Northrop Frye has prepared for publication. Fisher had made a careful study of Oriental philosophy and of Plato and the Neo-Platonists and this background enabled him to make an original and fruitful analysis of his central interest, Blake. The book is not a study of Blake's sources but of his context. The author is trying to answer the question: given Blake's general point of view, why does he make the specific judgments he does make, judgments which so often seem merely glib or petulant or perverse. Blake himself, in explaining a painting, remarked: "It ought to be understood that the Persons, Moses & Abraham, are not here meant, but the States Signified by those Names." Fisher explains what Blake meant by "states," and shows that such names as Plato, Bacon or Newton, or such terms as "priest" or "deist" in Blake's writings, refer not to individuals but to cultural forces in Western civilization, the influence of which accounted for the social conditions that Blake attacked. The attack itself, Fisher shows, was based on a revolutionary dialectic, a sense of the underlying opposition between reactionaries committed to obscurantism and social injustice, the "Elect" as Blake calls them, and the prophets committed to a greater vision (the "Reprobate"), with the mass of the public (the "Redeemed") in between

Contents:

The prohetic reprobate

The circle of destiny

The allegory of the church

Reason and the new science

The critique of vision

Enthusiasm and the romatic revolt

Visionary politics

Genius and imagination : the alchemy of vision

The prelude to prophecy

Human exisitance : the epic theme

Natural existence : the selfhood.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Mrz 2019)

ISBN:

9781487596958

1487596952

9781487595241

1487595247

OCLC:

1091658840