Madness and Blake's Myth

This book offers the first systematic study of madness and its significance for the poetry of William Blake. Blake's reputation as an artist was long clouded by suspicions of madness. Although the great victory of his modern critics has been to see his work clearly, unobstructed by this prejudice, criticism now runs the risk of vindicating Blake the poet at the expense of understanding certain elements of his poetry.

In Madness and Blake's Myth, Paul Youngquist argues that, in its thematic ...