William Blake's Gothic Imagination

Scholars of the Gothic have long recognised Blakes affinity with the genre. Yet, to date, no major scholarly study focused on Blakes intersection with the Gothic exists. William Blakes gothic imagination seeks to redress this disconnect. The papers here do not simply identify Blakes Gothic conventions but, thanks to recent scholarship on affect, psychology, and embodiment in Gothic studies, reach deeper into the tissue of anxieties that take confused form through this notoriously nebulous historical, aesthetic, and narrative mode. The collection opens with papers touching on literary form, history, lineation, and narrative in Blakes work, establishing contact with major topics in Gothic studies. Then refines its focus to Blakes bloody, nervous bodies, through which he explores various kinds of Gothic horror related to reproduction, anatomy, sexuality, affect, and materiality. Rather than transcendent images, this collection attends to Blakes dark visions of torment. -- .