Blake and Kierkegaard : creation and anxiety

195 Pages·2010·1.09 MB·English

by  Rovira

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
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© 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.