Blake. Wordsworth. Religion. (New Directions in Religion and Literature)

This title features new scholarship informed by both historicist and metaphysical approaches, offering original readings of the poetry of Blake and Wordsworth and their reception. The history of responses to the works of William Wordsworth and William Blake can be divided into those who have tried to enact their poetry, and those who have tried to categorize it. The 'enactors' have themselves often been artists (Felicia Hemans, the pre-Raphaelites, William Hale White, Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg); the 'categorizers' - those who have attempted to systematize, theologize, and more recently historicize the poetry - have tended to be academics. The two types of response provide a polarity of the sort that Blake termed 'producers and devourers'. The reception of the two poets is riven by this conflict which provokes the strongest feeling. But which side is right? In addressing this question, Jonathan Roberts takes a leaf from Blake's own book and interrelates the two sides dialectically.