Robert Rix - William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity

Robert Rix
University of Copenhagen, Denmark

First published 2007 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Robert Rix 2007

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rix, Robert, 1970
William Blake and the cultures of radical Christianity
1. Blake, William, 17571827 Religion 2. Blake, William, 17571827 Criticism and interpretation 3. Religion and poetry 4. Swedenborgians Influence
I. Title
821.7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rix, Robert, 1970
William Blake and the cultures of radical Christianity / by Robert Rix.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7546-5600-5 (alk. paper)
1. Blake, William, 17571827Religion 2. Swedenborg, Emanuel, 16881772Influence. 3. Bvhme, Jakob, 15751624Influence. 4. Theology in literature. 5. Radicalism in literature.
I. Title.

PR4148.R4R59 2007
821'.7dc22

2006036170

ISBN 9780754656005 (hbk)

The bulk of the research for this book was done in the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, London; Norrkpping Stadsbibliotek and the Swedenborg Society, London. I am deeply indebted to the staff of these institutions. I owe a special thanks to Honorary Librarian Nancy Dawson for locating many of the letters and rare materials relating to the Swedenborgians. In the course of my studies, I have discussed my work with many friends and colleagues. This book could not have been possible without the support and comments I have received from them. Jon Mee has helped me through the early phases of working with the material presented here. It was through him my understanding of Blake from a political-religious perspective was enlarged. An invaluable support has been Morton Paley, who has given me the benefit of his keen mind on several occasions. Phil Cardinale also needs mentioning as an encouragement in the early days. Later, David Worrall and Gerald Bentley have provided stimulating commentaries. Above all, I am greatly indebted to Charles Lock for his splendid work, as well as his help and friendly support. In addition to this, a special thanks to Charles for providing me with references for scholarship applications, which have since proved successful. It would also be hard to forget Robert Rintoull Leiding, who I could count on to point out my blunders and mistakes. On a personal level, my wife, Line, provided invaluable domestic support by generously sharing our marriage with a laptop.

The people I have mentioned would all qualify for this book to be dedicated to them. It is therefore with no disregard to any of these great people, that I wish to dedicate this book to my son, David.

By convention, references to Swedenborgs works are identified with n or nn for section number or numbers.

All biblical citations are from the Authorized king James version.

From the very beginning, scholars and critics with an interest in William Blake have sought to uncover the nature and source of his religious influences. However, earlier efforts to locate a singular key determining his thought at every juncture have now largely been abandoned. Instead, we are left with a picture of a thinker who has patched together a number of different traditions and discourses.

What was the extent of Blake's religious learning? We know from Frederick Tatham (to whom much of Blake's library went after the artist's death) that Blake was an avid reader of books on esoteric subjects. Tatham noted that Blake had 'a consummate knowledge of all the great writers in all languages', and his library contained 'books well thumbed and dirtied by his graving hands, in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, and Italian', among which was a 'large collection of works of the mystical writers' ( BR 57). Tatham specifically mentions two of these: Jakob Boehme (15751624) and Emanuel Swedenborg (16881772).

Blakes interest in speculative Protestantism of the theosophical variety cannot be doubted. Theosophical Christianity has its foundation in the premise that the divine must be mystically experienced in order to be known. The present study is to some extent about Blakes bibliophile interests. Yet, it is fundamental to our understanding of Blake that his brand of Christianity was not solely the product of an insular sifting of ideas encountered in books. The mystical tradition, in which Boehme and Swedenborg belonged, was a vibrant cultural mode. This meant that the understanding of these theosophists writings was coloured by the reading practices of late eighteenth-century interpretive communities. Theosophy was not just a question of personal enlightenment or retreat from reality; in fact, among a number of the cultures to be discussed in this book, ideas from books were decontexualized and reapplied to contemporary debates on religious, social and political matters. If the heterodox beliefs of mystical writers had caused controversy in their own times (both Boehme and Swedenborg are good examples), then England in the late eighteenth century rife with political instability and religious dissent gave a new meaning, purpose and end to religious ideas hostile to the official Church.

It is possible to read the sources from which Blake borrows and yet understand very little of what he says. The sources are valuable precisely to the degree that they allow us to view the extent to which Blake and his contemporaries appropriated them, reread them within new cultural frameworks, or took them to their logical conclusions.

A brief outline of some of the critical departures which can shed light on an examination of Blakes religious influences should be mentioned here from the outset. First of all, mystical theosophists often drew on a fount of commonly shared ideas that were hard to distinguish. This warns us against treating any one idea in Blakes writing as necessarily derived from only a singular source. It is central to Blakes understanding that all sects of Philosophy, as well as Religions of all Nations, have a source in the same original truths, as he argues in the early All Religions are One of c. 1788 (E 1). Thus, his discussions often draw on a syncretistic amalgam of ideas, but he remains loyal to none.