“All his neighbourhood bewail his loss”: Bo Ossian Lindberg, 1937-2021
August 12, 2021
This obituary is by Morton D. Paley, co-editor of Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly.
Continue readingBlake Quarterly (summer 2021)
July 22, 2021
The first issue of volume 55 (summer 2021) is available online today. It will be open access until the end of July.
Continue readingSlaying the Demon King: William Blake and Urizen in Devil May Cry 5
July 7, 2021
Julian S. Whitney
Wabash College
Video games have become a popular medium in which to feature excerpts from Romantic poetry. The 2019 post-apocalyptic action game developed by Hideo Kojima, Death Stranding, originated with a 2016 reveal trailer that showcased a short excerpt from William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence.”[1] Likewise, the 2014 side-scrolling exploration game titled Elegy for a Dead World requires its players to write a diary based on their exploration through three worlds inspired by the literature of Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats.[2] These video games incorporate Romantic poetry as a way to contextualize, thematize, and construct the narrative and mechanical aspects of their respective designs. But what happens when a video game appropriates certain mythological elements of Romanticism and integrates them into the foundation of its own story?
Continue readingMelanie Smith and the Influence of Blake
June 28, 2021
Melanie Smith is one of the leading artists of her generation. Her recent piece Vortex is a multimedia work inspired by William Blake’s The Circle of the Lustful that intertwines performance, sculpture, and moving images. Smith’s installation at the Parafin in London, titled Leave it to the Amateurs, pulls from Vortex, consisting of film, photographs, and collages. These are displayed alongside paintings on panel that are derived from the works of Blake.
Continue readingA New Blake Book
June 6, 2021
I’d like to think that the Blake Quarterly does a decent job of celebrating books and articles on Blake that are not in English. Chuck Ripley’s annual checklist of publications, which will next appear in our upcoming summer 2021 issue, features four collaborators: Hüseyin Alhas for works in Turkish, Fernando Castanedo for Romance languages, Hikari Sato for Japanese, and Vera Serdechnaia for Russian and other Cyrillic languages.
Continue readingPublication: Biblical Illustrations Exhibit
April 27, 2021
The William Blake Archive is pleased to announce the publication of a digital exhibition on William Blake’s Biblical Illustrations. It joins the previously published installments in this wing: William Blake’s Canterbury Pilgrims, Biography, and Illuminated Printing. Exhibitions can be accessed through the drop-down at the upper right of the Archive’s home page.
Continue readingThe Development of the Biblical Illustrations Exhibition
April 27, 2021
The Blake Archive’s April 2021 publication is an exhibition on Blake’s biblical illustrations. This is the story of how it came to be.
Continue readingBlake Quarterly (spring 2021)
April 22, 2021
Today sees the publication of vol. 54, no. 4 (spring 2021). It will be open access until the end of April.
Continue readingVideo Tutorial: Copy Information Tab
April 13, 2021
Ginsberg’s Memories of Blake’s Sunflower
April 8, 2021
Recently, while looking for inspiration for a poetry assignment, I revisited one of my favorite poems, Allen Ginsberg’s “Sunflower Sutra.” I always loved this poem for its energy and relentless optimism. After arriving at a dock and sitting “under the huge shade of a Southern/Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the/box house hills and cry,” Ginsberg sees a dead sunflower and goes into a fit of emotions, ending with the cheery declaration, “we’re all beautiful golden sunflowers inside.” But this journey is not easy. Before Ginsberg’s uplifting conclusion, we’re first taken through a sort of microcosm of the industrial wasteland that is America:
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