Blake Studies in the 21st Century

Abstract

The author summarizes Blake studies of the 21st century. The beginning of the modern era of Blake studies can be considered with the paradigm of deconstruction. At the end of the 20th century, synthetic analysis took a special place in Blake studies, when Blake’s illuminated books were studied as an inseparable unity of verbal and visual. Blake’s legacy has undergone a significant evolution related to deconstruction and postmodern approaches, and linguistic research. The development of traditional areas of research, such as psychoanalysis, textual criticism of manuscripts, religious and mystical allusions, and comparative studies is also traced. Postmodernism, which owes much to the Romanticism (i.e. the concept of irony, fragmentation, the category of the exalted, the original lonely hero), brought new features to Blake studies and greatly contributed to its approval among canonical authors of the Romanticism. In modern Blake studies, such areas as gender studies, postcolonial studies, studies in digital reality environments are most actively developing. Starting from the 2000s, the main direction in Blake studies has become reception, that is, the cultural influence of Blake’s writings on later culture, including the culture of other countries: poetry, literature, music and cinema. Each new era reveals fundamentally similar features and adds meanings to Blake: this process is going from symbolism and psychoanalysis to the present day.