{"title":"William Blake and the Spiritual Forms of Citizenship and Hospitality","authors":"C. Trodd","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.98.1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.98.1.5","url":null,"abstract":"The first part of this article focuses on previously unstudied materials relating\u0000 to the critical recuperation of William Blake in the period between\u0000 c.1910 and 1930. It notes how commentators utilised ideas\u0000 of citizenship and hospitality when they attempted to modernise Blake’s\u0000 interests and concerns. It explains how these distinctive critical idioms were\u0000 constructed, what they had in common and how they situated Blake in larger\u0000 public arguments about the social significance of cultural creativity. The\u0000 second part of the article traces the ramifications of this new way of thinking\u0000 about Blake by noting his appearance in modernist and neo-romantic art criticism\u0000 in the 1930s and 1940s.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46113155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Avant-Garde Blake","authors":"David Hopkins","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.98.1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.98.1.6","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses how we might formulate an account of William\u0000 Blake’s avant-garde reception. Having dealt with Peter\u0000 Bürger’s theorisation of the notion of\u0000 ‘avant-garde’, it concentrates on a series of portraits, made from\u0000 Blake’s life mask, by Francis Bacon in 1955. This ‘high\u0000 art’ response to the Romantic poet is then contrasted with a series of\u0000 ‘subcultural’ responses made from within the British\u0000 counterculture of the 1960s. Case studies are presented from the alternative\u0000 magazine production of the period (notably an illustration from\u0000 Oz magazine in which Blake’s imagery is conflated\u0000 with that of Max Ernst). An article by David Widgery in Oz on\u0000 Adrian Mitchell’s play Tyger (1971) is also discussed to\u0000 show how the scholarly literature on Blake of the period (mainly David Erdman)\u0000 was called on by the counterculture to comment on political issues (e.g. Enoch\u0000 Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech). The final section\u0000 of the article shows how the ‘avant-gardism’ of\u0000 Oz’s utilisation of Blake might be counterposed to\u0000 the more activist left-wing approach to the poet in small magazines such as\u0000 King Mob with their links to French situationism. In terms\u0000 of the classic avant-garde call for a reintegration of art and life-praxis, such\u0000 gestures testify to a moment in the 1960s when Blake may be considered fully\u0000 ‘avant-garde’.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47528207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Invisible Gates Would Open’","authors":"Jodie Marley","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.98.1.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.98.1.4","url":null,"abstract":"Yeats’s Blake criticism of the 1890s hinged on his knowledge of the\u0000 esoteric and occult systems that he used as his framework for interpretation of\u0000 the Romantic poet. This article examines The Works of William Blake:\u0000 Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical (1893) and Yeats’s 1890s\u0000 reviews of his contemporary Blake critics, as well as his relationship with the\u0000 mystic poet and artist George William Russell (Æ), whom he repeatedly\u0000 compared to Blake. Yeats’s emphasis on the importance of Boehme and\u0000 Swedenborg in Blake’s system had a major influence on Blake’s\u0000 critical legacy in the twentieth century, such as S. Foster Damon’s\u0000 approach to Blake in William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols\u0000 (1924) and Kathleen Raine’s Blake and Tradition (1969).\u0000 Yeats’s engagement with Blake in the 1890s also contributed to the\u0000 popular conception of Blake as a mystic and visionary artist which still\u0000 continues.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42591566","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Blake Renaissance","authors":"Michael Horovitz","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.98.1.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.98.1.2","url":null,"abstract":"This article, originally published in 1958, was written to commemorate William\u0000 Blake’s bicentenary. In it, the author observes that Blake has been\u0000 claimed or dismissed by successive generations since his death in 1827: for the\u0000 Romantics, he was a ‘weird crank’, while the Victorians enveloped\u0000 him in ‘their own damp sentimentalism’. The author argues that\u0000 Blake ‘evades appraisal because he was always working for a synthesis of\u0000 creation far beyond outward forms and genres’, which\u0000 meant ‘he had to invent his own methods to express himself\u0000 adequately’. He notes that the recent bicentenary was marked by\u0000 ‘floods of exhibitions, magazine supplements, radio features, new books\u0000 from all sides devoted to him’. This clearly anticipates the Blakean\u0000 explosion of the 1960s, in which the author himself would play a major role.\u0000 This article can therefore be seen as marking the beginning of Sixties Blake in\u0000 Britain.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48088496","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Cosmopolitan Case Study","authors":"Franca Bellarsi","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.98.1.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.98.1.9","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the reception and transformation of William Blake’s\u0000 countercultural legacy by focusing on the neo-Romantic resurgences within\u0000 maelstrÖm reEvolution, an experimental performance and arts collective\u0000 based in Brussels but with heavy transnational affiliations. In relation to the\u0000 company’s neo-shamanic and therapeutic conception of\u0000 poiesis, Blake is an inspirational figure amongst a broader\u0000 family of mentors ranging from Beat Generation writers to Arthur Rimbaud and\u0000 Alexandro Jodorowsky. The Blake–maelstrÖm connection is here\u0000 examined for the first time. Blending classical reception studies with a broader\u0000 interest in the intersections between poiesis and the\u0000 ‘sacred’, this article approaches countercultural Blake as the\u0000 archetypal embodiment of the shamanic poet. More specifically, it reflects on\u0000 how, as the poet of ‘double-edged madness’ and ‘Spiritual\u0000 Strife’, Blake’s subversion of alienation into ecstasy feeds\u0000 maelstrÖm’s own ‘therapoetic’ experimentalism and\u0000 psycho-aesthetic endeavours to restore the lines of communication between the\u0000 ‘visible’ and the ‘invisible’.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45155337","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Circulation of Menasseh ben Israel’s Works in Puritan Libraries in England","authors":"Lawrence Rabone","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.97.2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.97.2.6","url":null,"abstract":"In this article on book circulation, I survey twelve English library auction\u0000 catalogues from the period 1676–97, in order to show how interest in the\u0000 writings of the Amsterdam rabbi Menasseh ben Israel (1604–57) continued\u0000 after his death. I do this by identifying the circulation of his works in\u0000 Puritan personal libraries. I focus particularly on the library auction\u0000 catalogues of leading Puritans, notably Lazarus Seaman, Thomas Manton, Stephen\u0000 Charnock and John Owen. I also show that of all Menasseh’s books,\u0000 De resurrectione mortuorum libri III was the one most\u0000 frequently owned by Puritan divines. This article demonstrates how books helped\u0000 to catalyse the boundary-crossing nature of the Jewish–Christian\u0000 encounter in seventeenth-century England.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41516448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Cronica bona et compendiosa and Shorter Fourteenth-Century Histories of England","authors":"T. Smith","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.97.2.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.97.2.2","url":null,"abstract":"This article reconsiders the value of ‘shorter’ chronicles written\u0000 in fourteenth-century England through a case study of the most popular of these,\u0000 the Cronica bona et compendiosa, which survives in more\u0000 manuscripts than most of the chronicles frequently used in scholarship. It\u0000 examines the text’s authorship and narrative to show what it can reveal\u0000 about history writing and ideas of the past, especially as they relate to\u0000 medieval readers. It demonstrates the text’s influence on contemporary\u0000 writers by showing how it was slightly adapted by the important chronicler Henry\u0000 Knighton, which use has so far gone unnoticed. This article also includes an\u0000 appendix listing twenty-three ‘shorter’ histories and their\u0000 manuscripts, nearly all of which have not hitherto been identified.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42902974","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dead Letter Office? Making Sense of Greek Letter Collections","authors":"A. Morrison","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.97.2.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.97.2.1","url":null,"abstract":"The letter collections of Greco-Roman antiquity dwarf in total size all of\u0000 ancient drama or epic combined, but they have received far less attention than\u0000 (say) the plays of Euripides or the epics of Homer or Virgil. Although\u0000 classicists have long realised the crucial importance of the order and\u0000 arrangement of poems into ‘poetry books’ for the reading and\u0000 reception both of individual poems and the collection as a whole, the importance\u0000 of order and arrangement in collections of letters and the consequences for\u0000 their interpretation have long been neglected. This piece explores some of the\u0000 most important Greek letter collections, such as the Letters attributed to\u0000 Plato, and examines some of the key problems in studying and editing collections\u0000 of such ancient letters.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48134130","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Patterns of Piety in Manchester, John Rylands Library, Latin MS 165","authors":"M. Thompson","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.97.2.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.97.2.5","url":null,"abstract":"This article proposes that Manchester, John Rylands Library, Latin MS 165 was an\u0000 ‘accessory text’ produced and gifted within the Tudor court and\u0000 passed down by matrilineal transmission within the influential Fortescue family.\u0000 It proposes that from the text’s conception, the book of devotions\u0000 participated in various projects of self-definition, including Henry\u0000 VII’s campaign for the canonisation of his Lancastrian ancestor, Henry\u0000 VI. By analysing visual and textual evidence, it posits that later female owners\u0000 imitated the use of marginal spaces by the book’s original scribe and\u0000 illuminator. Finally, it traces the book’s ownership back from its\u0000 acquisition by the John Rylands Library to the viscounts Gage, in whose custody\u0000 the book underwent a transformation from potentially subversive tool of female\u0000 devotion to obscure historical artefact.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44099865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The 1405 Richard Scrope Execution Verses (Long Version)","authors":"D. Carlson","doi":"10.7227/bjrl.97.2.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7227/bjrl.97.2.3","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents a previously unpublished long version of an Anglo-Latin poem\u0000 on Henry IV’s executions of Archbishop Richard Scrope and others at York\u0000 in 1405. It is argued that the poem was not part of the well-known hagiography\u0000 of Scrope that grew quickly up for funding rebuilding programmes at York\u0000 Minster, also exemplified in the paper; rather, it is a poetic contribution to\u0000 the contemporary secular historiography of the York Rebellion against the\u0000 Lancastrian regime, implicating the archbishop in active leadership of it.","PeriodicalId":80816,"journal":{"name":"Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43288166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}