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"This book lays bare the sexy Blake lately obscured in fogs of political correctness and post-feminism. Its contributors uncover, in fact, numerous sexy Blakes, arguing for both chastity and pornography, violence and domination as well as desire and redemption, and also journeying in the realms of conceptual sex and conceptual art. Fierce tussles over the body in, and the body of, Blake's work are the book's life-blood. Contributors differ passionately in their conclusions about the nature of Blake's sexiness. All acknowledge Christopher Hobson's revelation of Blake's insistent tendency to normalize perversity - some with relish, some with alarm. We celebrate the mysteries of Blakean attractions and repulsions, and hope this volume will re-animate the lively sexual debates which once characterized Blake Studies. "--
List of contents
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Notes on the contributors List of abbreviations Introduction: 'Bring me my Arrows of desire': Sexy Blake in the Twenty-First Century; Helen Bruder and Tristanne Connolly PART I: VIOLENCE AND DOMINANCE 1. Subjectivity, Mutuality and Masochism: Ahania in The Book of Ahania and The Four Zoas ; Lucy Cogan 2. The Hidden Love Triangle and Adulterous Birth in Blake's The Four Zoas ; Ayako Wada 3. Blood in Blake's Poetry of Gender Struggle; Yoko Ima-Izumi 4. Ripped from Complacency: Violence and Feminist Moments in Blake; Michelle Leigh Gompf PART II: CHASTITY, REDEMPTION AND FEMININE DESIRE 5. In the 'Lilly of Havilah': Sapphism and Chastity in Blake's Jerusalem ; Sean David Nelson 6. 'Abstinence sows sand all over': William Lost in Paradise; Magnus Ankarsjö 7. 'The Sight of All These Things': Sexual Vision and Obscurity in Blake's Milton ; David Shakespeare 8. Erotic Spirituality in Blake's 'Last Judgement'; Susanne Sklar 9. Blake's Bowers of Bliss: TheGitagovinda , The Four Zoas , and Two Illustrations for L'Allegro ; Kathryn Kruger PART III: CONCEPTUAL SEX, CONCEPTUAL ART 10. Hélyos and Ceylèn [A Poison Tree]; Tommy Mayberry 11. The Hinges on the Doors of Marriage: The Body's Openness to Information in the Art of Stelarc and Blake; Paige Morgan 12. The Sexual Life of Catherine B.: Women Novelists, Blake Scholars and Contemporary Fabulations of Catherine Blake; Angus Whitehead and Joel Gwynne 13. Blake and Porn; Philippa Simpson PART IV: CODA 14. Normalizing Perversity: Blake and Homosexuality in 2013; Christopher Z. Hobson 15. Commemorating the Vere-street 'Monsters'; Christopher Z. Hobson Bibliography Index
Report
"The editors provide an incisive, polemical introduction to the book's treatment of sex and gender in Blake's work and its reception history. ... the book remains essential reading for those interested in Blake's representations of women and gender in his poetry and art. It shows in a definitive way that Blake's value for sexual theory and practice both in his day and ours depends ultimately on the intellect and outlook that readers bring to his work." (G. A. Rosso, Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Vol. 50 (3), Winter, 2016-2017)
