Blake and Kierkegaard

James Rovira is Assistant Professor of English at Tiffin University, Ohio, USA.

• Introduction; 1. Blake and Kierkegaard: Shared Contexts; 2. Blake, Kierkegaard, and the Socratic Tradition; 3. Blake, Kierkegaard, and the Classical Model of Personality; 4. Innocence, Generation, and the Fall in Blake and Kierkegaard; 5. Creation Anxiety and The [First] Book of Urizen; Index.

"Blake and Kierkegaard speak from the same instinct of the human condition and of man's states of anxiety and self-awareness. James Rovira offers a highly nuanced comparative reading of both author's concepts, of innocence and experience, creation and fall, that not only enhances our understanding of the works under consideration but affirms their abiding and life-affirming relevance to modern thought." -Michael Phillips, Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, UniversiOr of York, UK 'Rovira's book is an involved but extremely rewarding book, one that delves fully into the complex and sophisticated dialectical processes involved in Kierkegaard's thought... Blake and Kierkegaard as a whole is a carefully thought-through and argued text.' zoamorp.hosis.com 'Rovira's comparative study of William Blake and Soren Kierkegaard offers fresh perspectives related to both thinkers in their shared sociocultural moment. Rovira (English, Tiffin Univ.) frames his inquiry within creation anxiety--i.e., the persistent idea that creations will ultimately turn against one in destructive ways. The author makes connections between Frankenstein, Metropolis, and the Matrix trilogy in order to justify the persistence of this anxiety through the last 200 years and to imply that the apprehensions that impacted Blake's and Kierkegaard's thinking--apprehensions resulting from tensions between democracy and monarchy, science and religion, nature and artifice--apply today. Rovira compares and contrasts ideas relating to the progressive development of the subject to show how both resisted mechanistic Enlightenment psychologies that led to creation anxiety: in Blake's case, from innocence through experience toward visionary perspectives; in Kierkegaard's, the differentiation of self from natural, social, and mental environment. Accessible yet provocative, this book makes a significant contribution and offers critical challenges to the scholarship surrounding both figures, and close readings (and re-readings) expose lingering tensions between self and subjectivity. Generous notes and a substantial comprehensive bibliography round out this excellent study. Summing Up: Essential Lower-division undergraduates and above. --J.A. Saklofske, Acadia University"- CHOICE