Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral LawCambridge University Press, 1994 M10 13 - 234 pages E. P. Thompson's long-awaited book on William Blake was published shortly after the historian's death in August 1993. Acclaimed as one of his best and most deeply felt works, it appears now for the first time in paperback. Written with a vivid passion, and bearing the marks of Thompson's lifelong struggle against authoritarian and anti-humanitarian politics both at the level of the individual and of the state, Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law is a profound enquiry into the structure of Blake's thought and the character of his sensibility. Its qualities are among those which place Thompson himself in the same tradition of dissenting values and non-conforming radicalism represented by Blake some two hundred years earlier. |
Contents
Works or faith? | 3 |
Antinomianisms | 10 |
The ranting impulse | 22 |
The polite witnesses | 33 |
Radical dissent | 52 |
A peculiar people | 65 |
Antihegemony | 105 |
The Muggletonian archive | 115 |
Introductory | 125 |
The New Jerusalem church | 129 |
The Divine Image | 146 |
From innocence to experience | 162 |
London | 174 |
The Human Abstract | 195 |
Conclusion | 222 |
| 230 | |
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Common terms and phrases
annotations antinomian antinomian tradition argued argument Beast Behmenist believers Bentley Blake Records Blake's thought Boehme century chapter charter'd Chastanier Christ Christian Christopher Hill contraries Crabb Robinson death deism deist devil divine humanity Divine Image Divine Songs doctrine Dr Williams's Library earth eighteenth eighteenth-century Emmanuel Swedenborg eternal Everlasting Gospel evil faith Gnostic Heaven and Hell heresy Holy Human Abstract Ibid Illus imagery influence intellectual James Jane Lead Jerusalem Church Jesus John John Pordage Library London Magazine Marriage of Heaven Mercy Moral Law Morton Muggletonian archive nature Noakes notion painted for Thomas Pen and watercolour perhaps Philadelphians poem poetic political prophets Quakers radical Dissent Ranters Reason Reeve and Muggleton Religion Robert Hindmarsh Satan sects seed serpent Society Songs of Experience spiritual stance suggest Swedenborg Swedenborgian symbolism theme Thomas Butts tion tonian Tree of Mystery verse vision vocabulary Volney Volney's William Blake worship writings
References to this book
Touring Cultures: Transformations of Travel and Theory Chris Rojek,John Urry No preview available - 1997 |