Damrosch’s early chapters is titled “How Should We Understand Blake’s Symbols?,” and he makes the claim, with which most critics and specialists of Blake would agree, that by “learning to ‘read’ ” the images that accompany Blake’s words we can gain access to “the heart of his vision. 2016 by Leo Damrosch (Author) 98 ratings Kindle Edition 12.34 Read with Our Free App Hardcover 22.39 7 Used from 20.30 Paperback 12.99 2 Used from 13.94 14 New from 11. the symbols in which he conveyed it.” He wants to write “not just a book about Blake but a book with Blake”-the “with” suggesting a cooperative engagement. Leo Damrosch Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake Paperback 25 Oct. His is not, he says, a “systematic biography” or a “comprehensive guide to Blake’s works” but aims rather to be introductory in the best sense: “to help nonspecialists appreciate Blake’s profoundly original vision and. Damrosch distinguishes his effort from more specialized studies of Blake, of which there are many. Yeats, described Blake’s peculiar difficulty as that of “a symbolist who had to invent his symbols.” Blake, meanwhile, has become notorious for the extent and complication of criticism directed at his literary and graphic achievements, intertwined as they are. He was obsessed with England, with the spiritual side of his Christian religion, and he was inspired by Milton. The book explains the lexicon of recurring symbols Blake drew and wrote of. By contrast, there have been endless arguments about the meaning and value of Swift’s satire “A Tale of a Tub” or the fourth book of “Gulliver’s Travels,” the one featuring the Houyhnhnms and the Yahoos. It presents not Blake's life, but his works. Although Pope and Samuel Johnson are perhaps greater writers, they are less problematic-their work is wholly comprehensible to any serious reader.

Swift died in 1745, 12 years before Blake was born, and taken together they are surely the 18th-century English authors who present the most challenges to understanding and appreciation. Two years ago, Leo Damrosch, the author of this excellent book on William Blake, wrote a biography of Jonathan Swift.

Eternity's Sunrise by Leo Damrosch