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Over the years, Ingmar Bergman has been hailed by journalists as a visionary director, with the capacity to convey to an international audience—via films as diverse as The Seventh Seal ( Det sjunde inseglet , 1956), Persona (1966) and Fanny and Alexander ( Fanny och Alexander , 1982)—insights into the times when the films were made, as well as into more universal concerns. Myrna Oliver’s headline in the Los Angeles Times , ‘Cinema’s Brooding Auteur of the Psyche: His Work Opened the
This article considers the use made of William Blake by a range of writers associated with the ‘countercultural’ milieu of the 1960s, particularly those linked to its London-based literary context. Iain Sinclair is offered as a writer who, in his appreciation of Blake, stands apart from the poets linked to the anthology, Children of Albion (1969). The article unpacks this distinction, analysing Sinclair’s ‘topographic’ take in comparison to the ‘visionary’ mode of his contemporaries. Having established this dualism, the argument then questions the nature of the visionary poetics assumed to apply to the likes of key poets from the era. The work of Michael Horovitz is brought into view, as is that of Harry Fainlight. In essence, these multiple discourses point to the plurality of Blake as a figure of influence and the variation underpinning his literary utility in post-1960s poetry.
of these publications in 1706 is important for what follows, because at the inception of the century there is a clear and unambiguous alignment of a fraught political nationhood with a fraught visionary practice. The supernatural realm is not bolted on after the fact of political reality, it is constitutive of it, certainly in terms of the Union debate at the turn of the century. Literary practice, figurative practice, is not something that follows a high-political moment, but is rather the thing that constitutes the architecture and boundaries of the debates
5287P IMPOSTURES MUP-PT/lb.qxd 14/10/09 15:12 Page 64 Chapter 4 . Prophets and visionaries, possessed and exorcists – all religious impostors? he occurrence of religious individuals who claimed spiritual power and thought themselves prophets, exorcists or healers is not a peculiarity of the early modern period, but rather a transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon.1 Plato, for instance, writes in the Republic of ‘[m]endicant priests and soothsayers’, and Origen in Contra Celsum of ‘sorcerers who profess to do wonderful miracles’.2 The Bible warns of
kingdoms of France and England]. 2 With these words, the fourteenth-century visionary Bridget of Sweden defined the conflict between England and France that we know as the Hundred Years War. Translated from Swedish in to Latin and ultimately in to Middle English, her eventual resolution in her Revelations that England had the rightful claim in the dispute would help her texts rise to prominence and set the stage for the importance of her order in late medieval England, as this excerpt is translated and disseminated there well
This chapter investigates the extent to which poetry influenced the life and work of one of the most important scientists of the nineteenth century: James Clerk Maxwell. In deriving what have become known as the ‘Maxwell Equations’, Maxwell summarised all previous understanding of electricity and magnetism, and in doing so revealed new insights that have since greatly benefited both scientific research and discovery. This chapter presents the argument that in reading Maxwell’s poetry, we likewise observe an intellect and wit that expressed complex and multifaceted thoughts in clear and succinct verse, including, but not limited to, an erudite warning about the dangers presented by scientific materialism such as that of the physicist John Tyndall.
The fusion of Gothic and Eastern details, which one encounters in these stories, is obviously not original to Poe. William Beckford‘s Vathek, Charlotte Dacres Zofloya, and Byrons Eastern tales contain similar blends, but in ‘Metzengerstein’, ‘The Visionary’, and ‘Berenice’ Oriental and Gothic devices, especially the former, serve unique purposes. With these motifs, Poe continues his investigation of authorship, a theme animating his Poems (1831), in which Oriental devices also appear,with surprising frequency. Published shortly before Poe wrote ‘Metzengerstein’ this volume showcases verse dealing with the craft of writing and the nature of inspiration, and in several poems from this collection, ‘East’ and ‘West’ operate as metaphorical shorthand, with ‘East representing poetic genius and ‘West’ suggesting unimaginativeness. Middle-Eastern devices serve related purposes in #8216;Metzengerstein’, ‘The Visionary’, and ‘Berenice’, stories sharing thematic correspondences with the poems that preceded them. In particular, these tales evince Poe‘s anxieties about authorship, its demands, and its pitfalls. Throughout the narratives, Oriental machinery constitutes a network of symbols, collapsing complex ideas into compact metaphors, and with these devices, Poe imaginatively investigates the life of writing in nineteenth-century America, where professional writers struggled to satisfy a mass audience while following their own aesthetic inclinations. Such experiences no doubt proved ‘Gothic’ for these authors working in a society transformed by industrialization, a space where commercial trends impinged on creativity and threatened artistic freedom. Gothic fiction offered a proper vehicle for Poe‘s own anguished response to the challenges he and others faced while negotiating their conflicting roles as artists and professionals. For Poe, preserving the sanctity of the imagination, figuratively associated with the Middle East, was paramount, and ‘Metzengerstein’, ‘The Visionary’, and ‘Berenice’, all of which employ Gothic and Oriental devices, dramatize artistic failure, the betrayal of genius resulting in imaginative decay or death.
Yeats’s Blake criticism of the 1890s hinged on his knowledge of the esoteric and occult systems that he used as his framework for interpretation of the Romantic poet. This article examines The Works of William Blake: Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical (1893) and Yeats’s 1890s reviews of his contemporary Blake critics, as well as his relationship with the mystic poet and artist George William Russell (Æ), whom he repeatedly compared to Blake. Yeats’s emphasis on the importance of Boehme and Swedenborg in Blake’s system had a major influence on Blake’s critical legacy in the twentieth century, such as S. Foster Damon’s approach to Blake in William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols (1924) and Kathleen Raine’s Blake and Tradition (1969). Yeats’s engagement with Blake in the 1890s also contributed to the popular conception of Blake as a mystic and visionary artist which still continues.
The acceleration of interest in Baldwin’s work and impact since 2010 shows no signs of diminishing. This resurgence has much to do with Baldwin—the richness and passionate intensity of his vision—and also something to do with the dedicated scholars who have pursued a variety of publication platforms to generate further interest in his work. The reach of Baldwin studies has grown outside the academy as well: Black Lives Matter demonstrations routinely feature quotations from Baldwin; Twitter includes a “Son of Baldwin” site; and Raoul Peck’s 2016 documentary, I Am Not Your Negro, has received considerable critical and popular interest. The years 2010–13 were a key period in moving past the tired old formula—that praised his early career and denigrated the works he wrote after 1963—into the new formula—positing Baldwin as a misunderstood visionary, a wide-reaching artist, and a social critic whose value we are only now beginning to appreciate. I would highlight four additional prominent trends that emerged between 2010 and 2013: a consideration of Baldwin in the contexts of film, drama, and music; understandings of Baldwin globally; Baldwin’s criticism of American institutions; and analyses of Baldwin’s work in conversation with other authors.
reminder that the laws of war ( jus in bello ) are first and foremost the business of the belligerents – the political powers – and that the terms of humanitarian conventions have always been negotiated by plenipotentiaries and generals from the signatory states. Such laws are not just the work of visionary philanthropists, as making Henry Dunant their face suggests, but evidence of the militarisation of charitable organisations. The Red Cross societies ‘have been considered a