In his early prophetic works, William Blake presents his own creation myth, which reinterprets Genesis and critically examines contemporary medical discourse on generation and birth.In this talk Annalise Volpone explores a specific trope that emerges from Blake’s depiction of imagination and (artistic) creation: partus mentis, the parturition of the mind.

Annalisa Volpone is an Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Perugia. She specializes on modernism and romanticism; her research includes the intersections between literature and medicine in the Romantic period. She is currently working on a monograph on birth metaphors and imagination in William Blake.

Begun some time around 1797, Vala or The Four Zoas is William Blake's great unfinished masterpiece, an attempt to provide a complete mythology of Blake's universe of characters, Urizen, Los, Orc, Vala and many more. The poem has fascinated and perplexed readers ever since and, in this episode of Visionary, Professor Jason Whittaker is joined by Dr Annise Rogers who has worked in detail on Blake's epic. They discuss the conditions in which the poem was written, as well as provide some explanation as to its characters and significance.

In 1789, Blake developed the relief etching technique which he described as “a method of Printing which combines the Painter and the Poet,” allowing him to simultaneously write and design on copper plates for his illuminated books. This process required Blake to write and design in reverse, leading him to develop his command of retrography. Consequently, what appears “forwards” on the printed page is the product of a “backwards” preparatory process. In this talk, Dr Camille Adnot analyses the workings of these reversed words on the printed page, examining the dynamics of reading text backwards, and the function that these words serve within the illuminated book. This investigation into mirror writing and its implications extends to Blake’s practice of mirror designing, which, though less obviously subversive and challenging for the reader, still operates a reversal of important proportions, providing some of the dynamics behind Blake’s fearful symmetries.