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But He Talked of the Temple of Man’s Body: Blake’s Revelation Unlocked
Author: Eliza Borkowska
Date Of Publication: Mar 2009
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-0329-8
Isbn: 1-4438-0329-4
Starting with Locke’s philosophy of language, which turns words into bricks and uses them to build a rigid system of science and morality, this book is a response to Blake’s un-Lockian thought through an analysis of his linguistic practices. It is an attempt to understand why Blake says what he says the way he does. While being a study of Blake’s poetics, the book is at the same time a poetic study that never attempts to translate poetry into prose. It reads like a narrative, telling of an effort to build, an attempt to destroy, and then rebuild again. Primarily aimed at Blake readers, it will also interest those interested in Enlightenment and Romanticism, as well as students of art, religion or philosophy. And, since Blake’s criticism of Locke is in fact Blake’s criticism of the main assumptions of modernity, the book should prove a stimulating experience to all those who do not mind looking at the reality from some critical distance.
Eliza Borkowska is Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, SWPS (Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities) in Warsaw, and Vice-dean of SWPS’s Faculty of Languages and Literatures. She also works as a translator and scriptwriter.
"… Written with sparkling critical acumen, Borkowska’s book is a passionate plea for Blake’s systematic search for the Living Ideal hidden behind the veil of human-made abstractions …"
—Małgorzata Grzegorzewska, Warsaw University “… A lucid and eloquent investigation at the end of which we obtain interesting, sometimes surprising results which take us beyond the standard opinions about Blake's straightforward rejection of Locke's ideas. Blake who emerges from this book is not merely anti-Locke but, the point which Borkowska demonstrates with zest and intellectual passion, un-Locke, not a figure of non-reading or anti-reading but one of critical mis- or un-reading …” —Tadeusz Sławek, University of Silesia “Eliza Borkowska provides an erudite, lively discussion of the poetic strategies by which Blake disrupts and transforms Locke’s “temple of rationalism.” Borkowska’s treatment of Locke is careful and respectful as she articulates precisely those aspects of his work that Blake felt compelled to reimagine. Well informed by Blake scholarship from all eras, and displaying a rare command of the full Blake oeuvre, Borkowska constructs a theoretical defense of the neologisms and other linguistic subversions that have made his work seem almost perversely difficult. The book will reward Blake scholars with fresh insights about familiar texts and images, but Borkowska’s analyses—for all their nuance and complexity—are always clear enough to serve as an advanced introduction to the study of Blake and the intellectual paradigm against which he reacted.” - Wayne Glausser, Professor of English, DePauw University
Price Uk Gbp: 39.99
Price Us Usd: 59.99
Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)
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