The Mystical William Blake and the Unity of Body and Soul
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Bushnell, Kathleen M.
Issue Date
2005
Type
Capstone
Language
en
Keywords
English
Alternative Title
Abstract
William Blake, today a recognized artist and poet of Romanticism, was a virtual unknown in his own age. Blake is a man who was ahead of his time or, as many of his contemporaries thought him, bordering on lunacy. Whether viewed as genius or as lunatic, the pure potency of his work is undeniable. Part of Blake's power is in the mystical quality his work projects, a quality that scholars have grappled with since the late 1800's. Even those who would shun the mystical side of Blake cannot divorce his images from his text. His literary work invokes a mysterious element that, at times, seems wild fantasy as he begets a world constructed of spirits, heavens, hells and memorable fancies. From Blake's own professed spiritual interaction with angels and souls to the visions contained within his work, at issue is the creation of an understanding of the mystical, and defining it within the boundaries of Blake's work. The assimilation of Blake the mystic with Blake the writer and artist is lacking within the context of what the mystical means. One particularly intriguing mystical quality often overlooked in Blake's work is his envisioning of the unity of the body and the soul, a vision divine in its imagining. By unifying the inscrutable soul with the matter of the body, Blake creates a harmonious whole of corporeal existence whose unity defies established dogma, even today.