Blake's Reading

William Blake's significant reading included, but was certainly not limited to, the following list. Note that Blake could be aware of ideas put in circulation by certain books without having actually read them, and that Blake could provide engravings for books without having read them, especially if another artist executed the initial illustrations. I tried to indicate at times Blake's relationship to the text. Please feel free to email me with additions and clarifications at jamesrovira(at)gmail(dot)com. Please include your source if possible.

Akenside, Mark: “Ode to the Country Gentleman of England” (Davis 19, Frye 179).

Agrippa, Cornelius: Of Occult Philosophy (Davis 24-5, Erdman 137); Vanity of the Arts and Sciences (Frye 150); Three Books of Occult Philosophy, trans. J.F. London 1651 (Raine 115).

An Account of the Dispute Between Mr Hume and Mr Rousseau: with the Letters that passed between them during their Controversy Trans. from the French. (London 1796) (Paley 214; probable and widely publicized source for knowledge of Rousseaus's paranoia after coming to England, referenced in Jerusalem plate 52).

Ariosto, Ludovico: Orlando Furioso? (Davis 93 from Blake letter).

Apuleius, Lucis: The .XI. Bookes of the Golden Asse, trans. by William Aldington, London, 1566 (Raine 115).

Bacon, Francis: Essays Moral, Economical and Political (CPP); Advancement of Learning (Keynes 476; Blake's words in his annotations to Reynold's Discourses).

Barbauld, Anna Letitia: Hymns (Erdman 125 – his source was Grace A. Oliver’s Life of Mrs. Barbauld).

Barlow, Joel: Vision of Columbus revised to The Columbiad (Erdman 154).

Barnes, Sir Joshua: History of Edward III (Erdman 58).

Berkeley, George: Siris (CPP; Blake annotated a copy of this work).

Bhagavadgita: Translated by Charles Wilkins, published by the East India Company 1785 (Frye 173, Erdman 146). Raine cites the translation by Capt. Mahony in Asiatic Researches, VII (1801) 32-56 (117).

The Bible – Authorized Version? Especially Genesis, Job (illustrated), Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Gospels, Revelation. Blake gained competence in Greek and Hebrew in his adult years.

Blair, Robert: The Grave (illustrated. Davis 116, Keynes 442 for Blake's description of his illustrations).

Boehme, Jacob. The Works of Jacob Behmen the Teutonic Philosopher (Davis 18, Erdman 11) – edited by G. Ward and T. Langcake, London, 1764-81, 4 vols. (Raine 115).

Bonnycastle, John. An Introduction to Astronomy: In a Series of Letters, from a Perceptor to His Pupil (1786) (Dorrbecker v. 4 357).

--An Introduction to Mensuration (1783?) (Worrall 143). One engraving.

Boyd: Historical Notes on Dante (CPP).

Brown, John. The Elements of Medicine (1795) (Worrall 136)--received engraving commission.

Browne, Alexander: Whole Art of Drawing (1660); Ars Pictora (1675) (Erdman 12).

Bryant, Jacob: A New System, or An Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1774-6) 3 vols. (Frye 173, but Frye guesses Blake didn’t read this, though he cited it; Erdman (33) and Dorrbecker (289) states it was engraved by Basire’s shop).

Bunyan, John: Pilgrim’s Progress (watercolors Davis 154).

Burke, Edmund: Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful (Keynes 476; Blake's claim in his annotations to Reynolds).

Burnet, Thomas: Sacred Theory of the Earth 3rd. ed. (London 1697) (Dorrbecker v.4 305 and Paley).

Burns, Robert: (identify works by).

Byron: "Cain." Blake's "The Ghost of Abel" was written as a response to Byron's "Cain" and is mentioned in the dedication, but it's not clear if Blake actually read Byron's play. Essick and Viscomi argue convincingly in their volume for the Illuminated Books series (v. 5) that Blake probably just read a review of the play in the London Literary Gazette of July 17, 1819 (450), see p. 223. (See also Frye 167).

Bysshe: Art of Poetry (Erdman 220).

Cabbala (specific version?) (Davis 40).

Camoens: (identify works by) (Davis 93 from a letter by Blake).

The Caroline Poets: (identify works by) (Davis 19).

Cennini: Trattato dell’ Oreficeria (CPP; Blake wrote a note in a copy of this work).

Chatterton: Aella (Davis 19, Frye 167); Goddwym, Bristowe Tragedies (Erdman 250).

Chaucer: Canterbury Tales (one illustration).

Cicero: De Nat: Deor (CPP).

Collins: “Ode to Liberty,” “Jubilante Agno,” “Ode to Evening” (Frye 175, 176, 183).

Cooke, William. Memoirs of Samuel Foote, Esq. 3 vols. (London: Richard Phillips 1805) (Paley 214; see note to Foote, this may have been Blake's source on Foote as well).

Cudworth, Ralph. The True Intellectual System of the Universe (London 1820) (Paley 298).

Dante: The Divine Comedy (illustrated) (Henry Boyd, trans., 1803) (Keynes 411-414 contains Blake's annotations to this work).

Darwin, Erasmus. The Botanic Garden, A Poem, in two parts (1791) (Worrall 130).

Davis, Edward: Celtic Researches (Frye 173).

Dryden: at least the Virgil (Davis 122).

Earle, John. Practical Observations on the Operation for the Stone (1793) (Worrall 136)--received engraving commission.

Elder Eddas: Volüspa, Hdvámal (Frye 306). Possible source: Paul Henri Mallet, Northern Antiquities: or, A Description of the Manners, Customs, Religions, and Laws of the Ancient Danes and other Northern Nations. English trans. T. Percy (1770). (Worrall 136).

Epicurus: Discourses (maybe?).

Erasmus, Darwin: The Botanic Garden (Erdman 511).

Ercilla: Titles? (Davis 93 from Blake letter).

Foote, Samuel. The Minor 10th ed. (London 1789) (Paley 212; Blake makes direct reference to Foote's critique of Whitehead in Jerusalem plate 52. See also entry for Cooke).

Fuseli: Remarks on Rousseau (Erdman 428).

Geddes, Alexander. A Letter to the Right Reverend Lord Bishop of London (1787) (Worrall 130) -- tenuous.

--Preface to his edition of the Bible (1792) (Worrall 136).

Gray: “The Bard” (Frye 167, 173, Erdman 49); “Descent of Odin” (Erdman 262); Blake illustrated a copy of Gray's poems, see Keynes 414.

Haller, Albrect von. First Lines of Physiology (1786) (Worrall 136). Tenuous.

Henry, Thomas. Memoirs of Albert de Haller (1783) (Worrall 136) -- received engraving commission.

Homer: Odyssey and The Iliad (Davis 148) trans. by William Cowper, 1791, 2 vols. (Raine 116). See also George Chapman’s 1612 translation.

Jonson: Titles? (Davis 19).

"The Lamentable Tragedy of Locrine" (Paley 163).

Lavater: Aphorisms on Man (trans. by Henry Fuseli, CPP); Essays on Physiognomy (Erdman 140, 420 illus.).

Le Brun, Charles. A Method to Learn to Design the Passions, trans. John Williams (1734) (Dorrbecker v. 4 310). Used at Royal Academy during Blake's attendance there.

Locke: Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Keynes 476; Blake's claim in his annotations to Reynolds).

Macpherson, James: Ossian (Davis 19, Frye 167); Fingal (Frye 167); Oithona (Erdman 236); An Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland 2nd ed., London, 1772 (Raine 116); Carric-Thura (Frye 210).

Mallet: Northern Antiquities (Erdman 356). Translated by Bishop Percy, London, 1770 2 vols. (Raine 117).

Mason, William: Caractacus (Erdman 83).

Milton: Poetical canon, especially Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, "Il Penseroso," "L’Allegro," “Hymn On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (Erdman 266); "Comus" (Davis 177); “Reason of Church Government” (Frye 406); "Areopagitica" (Erdman 429).

de Montfaucon, Bernard. Antiquity Explained, and Represented in Sculptures Trans. David Humphreys 5 vol. with 5 vol. Supplement (1721-25) (Paley 204). Conjectural.

Moor, Edward. Hindu Pantheon (1810) (Paley 204). Source of illustrations in Jerusalem according to Paley.

Mosheim, Bishop J.L. Ecclesiastical History (1764) (Worrall 132) -- may have only read part of it quoted in Priestley.

Newton: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy trans. by Andrew Motte, London 1729, 2 vols (Raine 117) and Opticks........... London 1704, corrected 1721).

Ovid: Metamorphosis in 15 books, various translators, edited by Sir Samuel Garth, London 1717; and Fasti, or the Roman's Sacred Calendar trans. by W. Massey, London, 1757 (Raine 117).

Paine, Thomas: Age of Reason (1794-5) (Frye 109); Agrarian Justice (Erdman 356); Rights of Man (1791-2) (Worral 23).

Paracelsus: (Davis 36) Multiple titles, see Raine 117.

Pars, William: Ionian Antiquities (Ackroyd 37).

Bishop Percy: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765, 1776) (Davis 19, Erdman 32); Northern Antiquities (Erdman 250).

Plato: De Animae Immortalitate (CPP); Timaeus (Bloom); Politicus (Raine 60).

Plutarch: Char: Bk (CPP).

Priestley, Joseph. Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit (1777) (Worrall 132).

--A Comparison of the Institutions of Moses with Those of the Hindoos (1799) (Worrall 140). Date of publication is too late to have influenced the Blake works with noted parallels (MHH, 1794, and FZ, 1797), but both may have had a common source.

Pseudepigrapha: Book of Enoch (Bloom 31).

Rapin de Thoyras (trans. by Nicholas Tindal, 1723-31): History of England (Erdman 66).

Reynolds, Sir Joshua: The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (CPP; Blake annotated a copy of this work).

Richardson, Samuel. Clarissa, Pamela, Sir Charles Grandison, The Correspondence of Samuel Richardson Selected by Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1804). (Keynes 934; mentioned by Blake in his letter to Hayley of July 16, 1804).

Rousseau: Emilé, or Education (Erdman 139, 143); Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind (Erdman 252).

Rowley, Thomas: (Frye 167 – Rowley was actually a fictional monk invented by Chatterton).

Sammes, Aylett. Britannia Antiqua Illustrata:, or, the Antiquities of Ancient Britain (1786). (Paley 163, credits Worrall with making this identification).

Shakespeare: Hamlet, Henry V (Erdman), King Lear (Bloom 30).

Smart: “Song to David” (Frye 176).

Sophocles: Oedipus Rex (Bloom 30).

Spenser: (Davis 93 from Blake letter), Epithalamion (Bloom 17).

Spurzheim: Observations on Insanity (CPP; Blake annotated a copy of this work).

Stedman, John Gabriel. A Narrative of a five years' expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam 2 vols. (London 1796) (Paley 301).

Stukeley, William. Abury: A Temple of the British Druids (London 1743); Stonehenge: A Temple Restor'd to the British Druids (London 1740) (Paley 297; Paley attributes Ruthven Todd with identifying Stukeley's Abury as a visual source for plate 100 of Jerusalem) (Frye 174).

Swedenborg: The Wisdom of Angels Concerning Divine Love and Divine Wisdom (Blake annotated a copy of this work); Divine Providence; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (CPP; see MHH and Blake's annotations); True Christian Religion (Frye 109, Erdman 142); Apocalypse Revealed (Erdman 143).

Taylor, Thomas: Translations of Plato, Plutarch, and other Greek works (Raine 3 and elsewhere).

Thelwall, John. The Tribune. Periodical. Worrall cites similarities in Blake to the May 30, 1795 issue XII p. 278 (140).

Thornton: The Lord’s Prayer, Newly Translated (CPP; Blake annotated a copy of this work).

Thompson, James: Rule, Britannia! (Erdman 83).

Trismegistrus, Hermes: The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus (trans. by Dr. John Everard, 1650 (Raine 116).
The Smaragdine Table of Hermes (Bloom 429).

Virgil: The Aeneid (Davis 148).

Volney, Francois Constantin: The Ruins: Or, a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires (1792) (Worrall 131).

Voltaire: Ignorant Philosopher (Erdman 144).

Warburton, (Bishop). The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated (Dorrbecker v. 4 348).

Warner, Richard Rev. (of Bath). "War Inconsistent with Christianity" (sermon published in 1804) (Paley 204).

Watson, R.: An Apology for the Bible (CPP; Blake annotated a copy of this work).

Whitehead, William: Odes (1778: Erdman describes him as Britain’s Poet Laureate from the year of Blake’s birth for some time afterwards – 61, 70).

Wilkins, Charles trans. The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon. (London, 1785) (Paley 297; Blake makes reference to this work in his Descriptive Catalog)

Wollstonecraft, Mary: Vindication of the Rights of Men…of Women, Original Stories, Elements of Morality (Erdman 156).

Wordsworth: Poems, Preface to The Excursion, being a portion of The Recluse, a Poem (CPP; Blake annotated a copy of this work).

Young, Sir Thomas: Night Thoughts (illustrated).


List drawn from:

Ackroyd: Blake: A Biography, Ackroyd, Peter.

Bloom: Blake’s Apocalypse, Bloom, Harold.

CPP: Complete Poetry and Prose, Erdman, David V. ed.

Davis: William Blake: A New Kind of Man, Davis, Michael.

Dorrbecker: Vol. 4 of the Illuminated Books: The Urizen Books, by the William Blake Trust, D.W. Dorrbecker, ed.

Erdman: Blake: Prophet Against Empire, Erdman, David V.

Essick and Viscomi: Vol. 5 of the Illuminated Books: The Urizen Books, by the William Blake Trust, Robert N. Essick and Joseph Viscomi eds.

Frye: Fearful Symmetry, Frye, Northrop.

Gilchrist: A Biography of William Blake, Gilchrist, Alexander

Keynes: Blake: The Complete Writings ed. by Geoffrey Keynes.

Raine: Blake and Antiquity by Kathleen Raine.

Paley: Vol. 1 of the Illuminated Books: Jerusalem, by the William Blake Trust, Morton Paley ed.

Worral: Vol. 6 of the Illuminated Books: The Urizen Books, by the William Blake Trust, David Worral, ed.

William Blake's "The Tyger," Music Video Style

Brazilian Director Guilherme Marcondes created a very interesting music video interpretation of William Blake's "The Tyger" from the Songs of Experience. He didn't, unfortunately, use any of the poem, but he did capture well one way to feel and understand it.

You can view good images of many of Blake's original prints at the William Blake Archive, or just read the text of the poem at the Blake Digital Text Project.

Jonathan Carroll's Glass Soup

Jonathan Carroll's White Apples and its follow up, Glass Soup, tells the story of Vincent Ettrich and Isabelle Neukor. White Apples begins with Vincent Ettrich still moving through the routines of his daily life with the growing awareness that he's recently died. Isabelle, his soul mate and lover, brought him back to life, hence his somewhat disoriented wandering of the streets of Vienna. White Apples narrates their reunion and the significance of their unborn child, Anjo, not only to their personal lives, but to the very fabric of existence. In these novels Carroll presents a universe continually expanding in big bangs then contracting back into singularities in repeated cycles, a differently configured universe brought into being with each big bang. Everything that exists has its place in the universe, which for these novels Carroll has conceived of as a grand mosaic; once everything has taken its place in the Mosaic, the universe begins its contraction again.

In the current configuration of the universe the principle of Chaos has taken on a conscious mind and personality and likes it that way, so is attempting to stop the completion of the Mosaic to freeze the expansion of the universe in its current configuration. Vincent and Isabelle's child will be the one who finally defeats Chaos, so Chaos is seeking to destroy both parents and the child. In White Apples Vincent and Isabelle are reunited and thwart Chaos's attempt to destroy or damage their unborn son, while Glass Soup continues the story with Chaos's attempt to permanently separate Vincent and Isabel, ending with Anjo's birth.

Carroll's bizarre plot places the White Apples trilogy (Carroll plans a sequence of three books to develop this story) well outside any established genre, but his writing is perhaps best understood as a type of magical, or even supernatural, realism. However, in consideration of western mythology and the gnostic/hermetic tradition that developed from it, this story isn't so bizarre after all. Athena sprang from Zeus' head, emanating from Zeus, much like Chaos has sprung from the universe fully conscious. In many gnostic religions the universe has actually been created by divine emanations rather than God, these emanations being embodiments of divine moods or personality traits. In the hermetic tradition the universe is something like God's body and also follows vast cycles of expansion and contraction. This universal/divine cycle of expansion and contraction finds its highest philosophical expression in Hegel's philosophy of history, and its best known materialist/scientific expression in the Big Bang theory.

Carroll, deliberately or not, appropriates these ancient traditions to reveal the contours of the human heart -- not unlike English Romantics such as William Blake and Percy Shelley. These novels tell, first and foremost, a love story between Vincent and Isabelle. The tensions between chaos and control, the willingness to love the current form of the universe while maintaining openness toward its eventual demise, are all analogs of romantic love: what preserves it, what kills it, what makes it grow. Carroll maps our real lives, our emotional lives, onto a fantastic landscape. His books are our hearts writ large. Only the imaginative can comprehend the insights provided by such imaginative work. If you're not used to this type of writing, try it...but with an open mind.

For Robert "Scottie" Bowman

An old listserve friend of mine (what's a "listserve friend"? Someone you've conversed with on listserves for seven years but never met) passed away Nov. 24th: Robert "Scottie" Bowman (1928-2005). I just found out as notice of his death was posted to a Salinger listserve just a day or so ago. Scottie is the author of at least two novels: Run to the Sea and The Toy, either of which you might, if you're lucky, find on Amazon.com at any given time. They're fairly rare these days, being published in the 1960s. I was fortunate enough to have found and read Run to the Sea, and if you can imagine a novel written by a British Hemingway, this was it. Scottie was a psychologist by trade but an author at heart (perhaps the two vocations aren't all that different after all): even his listserve posts were typically characterized by a grace and elegance of prose that's rare to find anywhere on the internet. In tribute, I've reproduced one of his posts to a Salinger listserve from the mid to late 1990s, as there is no better representation of Scottie Bowman than his own words. It's a description of his first impression of Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye when he read it in 1955 or 56:

One winter evening in 1955 (56 ?), after finishing a clinic session in the Croydon General Hospital, I was scrabbling under a pile of desk debris in search of a pen. I found, instead, a copy of The Catcher which had been abandoned, I presumed, by one of the social workers who occasionally used the same office. (I was sure it couldn't have been one of my medical colleagues since they were not as a rule sufficiently literate to read anything more demanding than an X-Ray plate.)

I was mildly curious & began reading - though with no particular expectation, since the name Salinger, at that time, meant very virtually nothing to anyone in England.

Long, long before I reached the bottom of the first page I knew I had no choice but to take the book home with me & not leave it out of my hand until I'd finished it. Which I duly did, sometime in the early hours of the next morning. It really didn't matter to me one damn who might have owned it & I doubt, in fact, I ever returned it. I shouldn't like to think for how many days thereafter my brain continued in obsessive turmoil over the idea of this young lunatic in the red hunting cap.

This seems a rather different experience from the one Jim & others describe when they tell us of their original contact with Salinger: (`...I didn't read Catcher until AFTER I graduated college, and I was an English Major.....I only read the opening page of Catcher in a writing class once, that was it...)

This suggests a considerably cooller response to my own & I wonder has it something to do with the way Salinger seems to have been an established figure of literature - set on college courses & so on -- by the time most list members first encountered him. For people of my generation who were interested in writing, he represented a bomb going off ("all that David Copperfield crap") -- very much as I imagine Hemingway did to the generation before mine. (I don't believe he had, in fact, the same potential for liberation that Hemingway presented & I don't think he has lasted so well, but the parallel may still have some validity.)

Considering my own lifelong & instinctive resistance to books recommended by teachers I wonder would I have ever got round to him -- even at this late stage in the proceedings.

Scottie B.

Regrettably, I'm the Jim he's making reference to in the post. The only thing I can say in my defense is that mine was a cooler response only in that I had to read ten or twenty pages before I was hooked, not just one. But I think he has a point about generational differences, though. In 1996 and 2005 Salinger is an institution, not the bomb dropped on the literary scene that he was in the mid 50s.

Scottie's was an eloquent voice of a past generation that will sorely be missed. I'll miss you, Scottie.

PS Thanks much to Daniel Yocum for reposting the above to the Salinger listserve and bringing it back to our attention.

Composition Links

"a curriculum is a grand time-bound surrealism." -- Hugh Kenner

The APA Style Guide
Columbia Style Guide Online
The Drew Composition Home Page
Drew Online Resources for Writers
How to Avoid Plagiarism
Landmark's Citation Machine
Milton's Rhetoric
The MLA Style Guide
The OWL at Purdue
Silva Rhetoricae

James Rovira's Commentary Online

"Why the Left has Lost America" at Riverwest Currents

"Defining Our Assertive Ambivalence" at Riverwest Currents

James Rovira's Poetry Links Online

See my index page at Fiera Lingue

James Rovira's Creative Non-Fiction Online

"Justice: A Semi-Autobiographical Fiction" at The New Pantagruel

"Meditations on a Multicultural Utopia" at the Tower of Babel and translated into Spanish

James Rovira's Film Criticism Online

"Casino Royale: Taking It in the Cojones for Her Majesty's Secret Service"

"Subverting the Mechanisms of Control: Baudrillard, The Matrix Trilogy, and the Future of Religion" at the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies

"Baudrillard and Hollywood: Subverting the Mechanisms of Control and The Matrix." This essay has been published on Baudrillard on the Web and the Tower of Babel, which has also published a Turkish translation

"V for Vindictive" at Metaphilm

"The Curse of the Were-Rabbit: Fear of a Vegan World" at Metaphilm

"Finding Hulko: Secondary Colors" at Metaphilm

"The Lion King: Hamlet and the Myth of Happy Vengeance" at Metaphilm

"The Matrix Reloaded: A Film Review" at Riverwest Currents

James Rovira's Literary Criticism Online

"Gathering the Scattered Body of Milton's Areopagitica" at Faer-Spel Studios. A significantly revised version has been published by Renascence (print only)

"A Section Man's Experience of The Catcher in the Rye" at the Tower of Babel, which has also published a Spanish translation

"The Tower of Babel in Ancient Literature" has been published at the Tower of Babel and translated into German, Russian, Serbian, Turkish, and Dutch