Blake and Kierkegaard : creation and anxiety PDF
Preview Blake and Kierkegaard : creation and anxiety
Blake and Kierkegaard Related Titles in the Continuum Literary Studies series: Coleridge and German Philosophy Paul Hamilton Blake, Deleuzian Aesthetics and the Digital Claire Colebrook Blake and Kierkegaard: Creation and Anxiety By James Rovira Continuum International Publishing Group The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane 11 York Road Suite 704, New York London SE1 7NX NY 10038 © James Rovira 2010 James Rovira has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as the Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-4411-3559-9 (hardcover) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Group Ltd For Sheridan, Thwarted goddess of commas. This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 Blake and Kierkegaard: Shared Contexts 8 The Sources of Kierkegaardian Anxiety and Creation Anxiety 8 Denmark’s and England’s Shared Histories 9 Denmark’s and England’s Cultural Anxieties 15 Blake, Kierkegaard, and the Cultural Tensions 26 2 Blake, Kierkegaard, and the Socratic Tradition 36 Human Personality and the Socratic Tradition 36 Kierkegaard and the Socratic Tradition 39 Blake and the Socratic Tradition 47 3 Blake, Kierkegaard, and the Classical Model of Personality 60 Kierkegaard’s Aesthetic Stage and Blake’s Innocence 60 Kierkegaard’s Ethical Stage and Blake’s Experience 78 Kierkegaard’s Religiousness A and B and Blake’s Visionary Personality 87 4 Innocence, Generation, and the Fall in Blake and Kierkegaard 93 Kierkegaard and the Problem of Generation 93 Generation in Blake 101 Urizen the Refl ective-Aesthetic King 114 Reason and Imagination in Blake and Kierkegaard 116 5 Creation Anxiety and The [First] Book of Urizen 121 Urizen the Creator-Monarch 121 Science and Religion in the Urizen Books 129 viii Contents Haufniensis, the Demonic, and Spiritlessness 134 Conclusion: Nature, Artifi ce, and Creation Anxiety in William Blake 141 Notes 144 Bibliography 151 Index 177 Acknowledgments I would like to thank, fi rst of all, the person at the beginning of my journey with William Blake, Terry Scott Taylor of Daniel Amos, whose song “William Blake” inspired me to seek out Blake’s work and read it 25 years ago. Michael Phillips deserves my profuse thanks for his support of this project, for introducing me to Blake’s works as material objects, for being the model of a scholar and a historian that he has always been, and for the sheer pleasure of his company. Flaws in this work are undoubtedly the result of my inability to incorporate all of his suggestions in my given time frame. I owe my parents, John and Teresa Rovira, thanks for their continual love and support, and all of my children thanks for their sacrifi ce in accepting my inability to spend time with them while working on this project. I need to thank my dear friend and colleague, Sherry Truffi n, vexed goddess of grammar, for giving up sabbatical time to read this book not once but three times. This book would be far poorer but for her infl uence. Her generosity and sacrifi ce to her friends, family, and colleagues, as well as her character, her dedication, her scholarship, and her intelligence deserve recognition and admiration. I need to thank most of all my wife Sheridan, my fi rst reader, for her sacrifi ce, her support, and for her reading of my work. Her infl uence upon my life and work has forever changed it and made it what it is today. I need also to thank everyone with whom I’ve argued about Blake and Kierkegaard. You’ve helped me more than you know, and for that I am grateful.
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