BASC14021 - William Blake, A Revolutionary During Revolution: Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Course Description
William Blake, A Revolutionary During Revolution: Songs of Innocence & Experience and The Marriage of Heaven & Hell
“He approached everything with a mind unclouded by current opinions,” said T.S. Eliot of William Blake, adding—“This makes him terrifying.”
Terrifying or inspiring, Blake was a consummate original in both the content and the form of his poems—visionary works inseparable from his own hand-painted engravings. In two of his most famous works, “The Songs of Innocence and Experience: Showing the Two Contraries of the Human Soul” and “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” Blake poetically argues for the centrality to human life and creativity of what has traditionally been rejected as dangerous or evil—without, however, denying the danger. (“Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires,” runs one of the Proverbs of Hell in “Marriage,” infamously and ambiguously.)
We will read these two illuminated works with an eye toward Blake’s revolutionary and exuberant perturbation of conventional morality and traditional poetic form in service of individual freedom and creativity and affirmation.
Featured Speaker: W.J.T. Mitchell, Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago
Visual Presentation by Basic Program instructor Claudia Traudt.
Musical Presentation featuring Elizabeth Parker, vocal coach at the Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University, with mezzo-soprano Samantha Attaguile.
Course Outline
We recommend the following editions of the texts:
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Oxford Paperbacks) 1st Edition, ISBN: 978-0192811677
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul, 1789-1794 (Oxford Paperbacks), ISBN: 978-0192810892
Notes
This event is open to all.
Join us for a day-long symposium on Saturday, October 27, 2018 from 9 am - 3:30 pm.
Location, Saieh Hall for Economics, Room 146, 5757 S. University Avenue, Chicago 60637. Saieh Hall is on the Hyde Park campus. The main entrance to the building is on the pedestrian mall off of 57th Avenue.
Tuition $175, includes all-day beverage service, light breakfast, and lunch. Cancellations received within 10 days of the event will incur a fee of $75.