Instr:                William Halloran
Office:              CRT  908,     229-2420
e-mail:              halloran@uwm.edu
Office hours:     by appointment.

Course Information:          W 2:30 - 5:10pm   CRT 108

Course Description

Reading
Mary Lynn Johnson and John Grant, eds. Blake's Poerty and Designs
Harold Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse
David Erdman, Blake: Prophet Against Empire

William Blake is unique among English poets in that none of his poems were printed and issued in letterpress (type) during his
lifetime.  Trained as an engraver and visual artist, he printed his poems on separate sheets from copper plates that he engraved.
On these sheets, he surrounded his words with designs that comment on and interact with the texts.  In many cases he applied
colors either to the plates (color printing) or by hand to the sheets after they had been printed. Each sheet became a unique
work of art, and many are now recognized as among the supreme achievements of British art.  While Blake's poems can be
read and appreciated apart from their context on his printed sheets, their meanings are greatly enriched, and not infrequently
changed, when they are read as Blake intended, on the sheets he engraved and colored.

Modern technology and advanced printing methods have made it possible for students who cannot view the originals, most
of which now rest in special collections of major libraries and museums, to have the experience of reading Blake's poems as he
intended.  The seminar will visit the Special Collections division of UWM's Golda Meir Library to view its set of facsimilies of
Blake's books in illuminated printing.   Students will also have available for use in the Reserved Reading Room a set of the
reproductions of Blake's illuminated books that has been published recently by the Princeton University Press in cooperation
with the William Blake Trust.  More significantly, the seminar will meet in a Curtin Hall computer laboratory where every
student will have a computer and the ability to call up for class analysis and discussion the individual pages of Blake's illuminated
books.  The on-line availability of Blake's illuminated books in full color and in a format that allows magnification and
comparison of differently colored versions of the same plates has revolutionized the study and teaching of Blake's
accomplishments as a verbal and visual artist.  This seminar will take full advantage of the technological breakthrough.

The primary goals of the seminar will be to generate in its members an appreciation of William Blake's verbal and visual art
and an understanding of the role he played in the "age of revolutions."   Blake lived through both the American Revolution and
the French Revolution.  Both figure prominently in his work, as does the repression of revolutionary impulses in England.
Members of the seminar will be expected to read Blake's poems carefully and sensitively and come to terms with their multiple
levels of meaning.  We will read them in chronological sequence starting with his early Poetical Sketches and then moving on to
the Songs of Innocence and of Experience and as far as time allows into his later epic and apocalyptic works. As a
consequence of this approach, students will improve their ability to read poetry and their ability to write about literature and
visual art in clear, straightforward English prose.