Hazard Adams, William Blake on His Poetry and Painting: A Study of A Descriptive Catalogue, Other Prose Writings and Jerusalem

In the past decade, we have seen examinations of the more marginal works (sometimes literally so) in William Blake’s oeuvre. For example, Blake’s epic Jerusalem has long been considered more or less his valedictory work, but in 2003’s The Traveller in the Evening: The Last Works of William Blake (Oxford), Morton Paley charted Blake’s productions after that supposed farewell, and in the process created a valuable introduction for readers interested in examining those relatively neglected materials.  In 2009 Hazard Adams offered a similar overview of Blake’s marginalia in Blake’s Margins: An Interpretive Study of the Annotations (McFarland).  In William Blake on His Poetry and Painting: A Study of A Descriptive Catalogue, Other Prose Writings and Jerusalem, Adams “continues the study of William Blake’s prose writings begun with Blake’s Margins” (1).  Poetry and Painting looks at Blake’s prose works with a particular focus on his remarks on art and poetry. Part I includes seven essays on, respectively, A Descriptive Catalogue, A Vision of the Last Judgment, A Public Address, On Homers Poetry and On Virgil, Laocoön, Blake’s letters, and “The Early Tractates.”  Part II comprises three essays, the first considering Blake’s attitudes on poetry, on his own poetry, and on other poets, the second on his prose and Jerusalem, and the third on his impact on William Butler Yeats and James Joyce.