Wonders Divine: The Development of Blake's Kabbalistic Myth

Approaching myth as the structuring principle of intentionality, "Wonders Divine": The Development of Blake's Kabbalistic Myth analyzes the evolution of Wiliam Blake's my in the illuminated books. With numerous reproductions of the visual and references to the verbal art, Spector traces the profound shift that occured in Blake's subjective consciousness from the earliest prose tracts through the final prophecy, Jerusalem. The opening chapters establish the critical foundation. In the first, the cultural contexts, including the exoteric tradition, the Christian Kabbalah and English esoterica, are delineated; and in the second, the mythic bases, including Milton's recension of Calvinism in Paradise Lost, Jewish speculations about Ezekiel's Chariot and Creation, and Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont's Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae, are surveyed. Then, the last four chapters explore how the transformation of Blake's myth from what was originally a Miltonic orientation to a fully conceived Christianized version of the Kabbalistic myth, revels his own artistic development from the pre-mythic stage, before he was consciously aware of the fact that myth exerts control over thought, to the reflexive exploration of the conceptual basis of myth, so that, ultimately, he might develop a transformative myth through which the mind might be liberated.

Sheila A. Spector has devoted her scholarly career to studying the intersection between English Literature and Judaica. Since receiving the Ph.D. in British Literature from the University of Maryland, she has concentrated on the manifestation of Kabbalism in the visual and verbal art of Blake. She published Jewish Mysticism: An Annotated Bibliography of the Kabbalah in English, the only comprehensive bibliography of English-language materials dealing with Kabbalism, as well as numerous scholarly essays on Blake's use of Judaic materials, in publications that include Blake, An Illustrated Quaterly, Philological Quaterly, and Religion and Literature, as well as David V. Erdman's anthology, Blake and His Bibles. She also served as consultant for the film William Blake, part of the film series Pioneers of the Spirit, produced by Trinity Television in 1998.