The Revolutionary Poetics of William Blake
Part II — Silence, Syntax, and Spectres
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11896325 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Middleton (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1983 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 35-51 |
| Publication date | 1983-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Oxford Literary Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-1498 • E-ISSN: 1757-1634 |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3366/olr.1983.002 |
| OpenAlex | W1969376238 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 1 |
A contemporary reading of Blake's later wo rk needs to begin w i t h an unrecoverable element of the textual p roduct ion , its silence — and Blake's. The prophetic books stand almost alone, w i t h very little of the accompanying wr i t ten material such as letters and essays that surrounds the work of the other Romantic poets. This silence goes even deeper because these poems were not read for many years, and it was nearly a century before readers began to be capable of generat ing the 'prophet ic ' texts in more than a random fashion. This silence must make us especially aware of the way that w e are n o w making these texts speak, and it is necessary to hear that silence as part of the textual p roduct ion , not merely an unfor tunate abeyance, delay whi le crit ical method developed. These texts have arrived in our history w i t hou t having acted in it for much of the t ime since they were wr i t ten , unlike the texts of other Romantic poets, wh ich have been product ive in our history since their incept ion. Blake's silence poses special problems for those tracing the relationship of economic and social format ions to the product ion of the texts, but it is also an element impor tant for all readers now, even those using the texts prospectively. The silence is as material as the pictorial spaces of the pages of the i l luminated prophecies. It is an unrecognisabil i ty that can never be ful ly familiarised or spoken for . A silence that any crit ical intervent ion must al low to art iculate the harmonies of its o w n performance
Aesthetics · Art · Linguistics · Literature · Poetics · Poetry · Reading (process · Romance · Silence · Moravian Church and William Blake · Philosophy · Poetry Analysis and Criticism
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2021 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |