William Blake and the daughters of Albion

About this book

William Blake and the Daughters of Albion offers a challenge to the Blake establishment. By placing some of Blake's early prophetic works in startlingly new historical contexts (most provocatively those of female conduct, pornography and the sexual narratives of the revolution debate) a very different image of the radical Blake emerges. Neglected historical figures are also given their rightful place in the feminist controversies of the period. Helen Bruder shows what can be achieved when a challenging methodology, feminist historicism, is brought to bear on a canonical writer and, in the process, reveals a great deal about the prejudices of influential Blake critics. A detailed survey of Blake studies over the past twenty years is included. An agenda for research in the next millennium is also offered.