William Blake and the Emergence of Romantic Media Studies

Abstract

The following article is structured in two parts: the first half of the essay investigates the now‐emerging Romantic media studies paradigm, a vital sub‐field within contemporary Romanticist scholarship, and historicizes this critical paradigm while contextualizing its emergence and development in relation to competing historical and theoretical accounts of “media,” “medium,” “mediation,” and other terms most crucial to scholars working in this area. The essay's second half situates the role of the art and poetry of William Blake, often cited as the Romantic age's greatest multimedia artist, within Romantic media studies and does so by reviewing the general lack of critical and theoretical attention given to Blake within the nascent sub‐field. While Blake's poetry, painting, and printmaking have proven to be extremely generative of digital scholarly projects, Romantic media studies' implicit investment in his work (and especially the nature and function of his illuminated manuscripts) requires further investigation.