The Traveller in the Evening - The Last Works of William Blake

347 Pages·2008·4.8 MB·English

by  Morton D. Paley

The Traveller in the Evening
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The Traveller
in the Evening
THE LAST WORKS OF
WILLIAM BLAKE
MORTON D. PALEY
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp
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© Morton D. Paley 2003
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First published 2003
First published in paperback 2007
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ForMartinandFrances Butlin
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Acknowledgements
I can hardlyimagine having written this book without the gen-
erous aid of three friends and fellow scholars: Martin Butlin, Detlef
W.Dörrbecker, and Robert N. Essick. For their generous advice and
criticism I am deeply grateful.
For additional help and suggestions I am indebted to G. E. Bentley,
Jr., David Bindman, Pamela Clemit, Morris Eaves, Tim Fulford,
Alexander Gourlay, Nelson Hilton, Tim Hoyer, Grevel Lindop,
Rosamund A. C. Paice, Sheila Spector, Joseph Viscomi, David
Wagenknecht, David Worrall, and Alex Zwerdling.
I have also greatly benefited from the advice and encouragement of
Sophie Goldsworthy at Oxford University Press, from the expert
assistance of Frances Whistler, from the skilful editing of Mary
Worthington, and from the expert proofreading of George Tulloch.
My thanks to the institutions at which I did my research: the
libraries of the University of California at Berkeley, the Bancroft
Library, the British Library, the Department of Prints and Drawings
of the British Museum, the New York Public Library and its Print
Room, the Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the
Butler Library of Columbia University, the Henry E. Huntington
Library and Art Gallery, the Zentralbibliothek of Zürich, the
English Seminar Library of the University of Zürich, the National
Art-Collections Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and
Tate Britain. I am grateful to staffs of these libraries and museums,
and especially to Frances Carey, Marianne Kaempf, Anthony Bliss,
Peter Hanff, and Michaelyn Burnette.
I appreciate the opportunity to give some parts of this book in an
earlier form as papers at the Tate Gallery Blake Conference, the
Blake Society (London), the North American Society for the Study
of Romanticism Conference (Seattle 2001), and the Arts Club of
Berkeley. I also wish to acknowledge the kindness of the editors and
publishers of Studies in Romanticism and of Prophetic Character:
Essays on William Blake in Honor of John E. Grant, in which parts
of chapters first appeared.
I wish to express appreciation for the assistance I received in
viii Acknowledgements
support of travel and other research expenses from the Committee
on Research and the Chancellor’s Office of the University of
California at Berkeley. At the Berkeley English Department I received
invaluable help from Beverley Scherf and Mary Melinn, both of
whom it is a pleasure to thank.
In making corrections for this second addition, I have received
invaluable help from Professor Joon Yoon of PaiChai University,
Korea. I am grateful to Professor Joon for his scholarly acumen and
his generosity.
My single greatest debt is, as always, to my wife, Gunnel Tottie.
Morton D. Paley
Berkeley, California
2October2006
Table of Contents
list of illustrations x
abbreviations xiv
INTRODUCTION 1
1 DARK PASTORAL: ILLUSTRATIONS TO
THORNTON’SVIRGIL 20
2 & HIS TWO SONS SATAN &ADAM 53
3 ‘IN EQUIVOCAL WORLDS UP &DOWN ARE
EQUIVOCAL’: ILLUSTRATIONS TO THE DIVINE
COMEDY 101
4 ‘THOU READST BLACK WHERE I READ
WHITE’: THE BIBLE 178
The Everlasting Gospel 178
The Ghost of Abel 201
Illustrations of the Book of Job 219
GenesisandEnoch 260
The Lord’s Prayer 279
supplementary note: the visionary heads 300
bibliography 305
general index 321
index of works by william blake 328