William Blake’s Mysticism

This book examines William Blake as a ‘mystic’ and the movements and authors that contributed to this definition during and after his lifetime, with a particular focus on his influence on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Celtic Modernist writers. The author W. B. Yeats was one of the first to present this view of Blake in depth, although his concept of the mystic prioritised the lone male practitioner and the occult. This study argues that the mystic and the esoteric in a community context impacted both Blake’s, and Yeats’, critical and cultural reception. It also offers the first extended literary examination of the Romantic prophet Dorothy Gott’s work alongside Blake’s, and the first analysis of Blake’s influence on Celtic Modernist writers George Russell and Fiona Macleod. This book will be of interest to scholars interested in representations of gender and spirituality in Romantic and Modernist literature and art, and in authors so far neglected in Blake studies.