Witness against the Beast
William Blake and the Moral Law

First paperback edition of one of E. P. Thompson's best and most deeply felt works.

E. P. Thompson (Author), Christopher Hill (Foreword by)

9780521225151, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 November 1993

284 pages, 20 b/w illus.
23.7 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.547 kg

'A stunning, undoubtedly major work.' Anarchist Studies

E. P. Thompson's long-awaited book on William Blake was published shortly after the historian's death in August 1993. Acclaimed as one of his best and most deeply felt works, it appears now for the first time in paperback. Written with a vivid passion, and bearing the marks of Thompson's lifelong struggle against authoritarian and anti-humanitarian politics both at the level of the individual and of the state, Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law is a profound enquiry into the structure of Blake's thought and the character of his sensibility. Its qualities are among those which place Thompson himself in the same tradition of dissenting values and non-conforming radicalism represented by Blake some two hundred years earlier.

Foreword Christopher Hill
Introduction
Part I. Inheritance: 1. Works or faith?
2. Antinomianisms
3. The 'Ranting' impulse
4. The polite witness
5. Radical dissent
6. A peculiar people
7. Anti-hegemony
Appendix 1. The Muggletonian archive
Appendix 2. William Blake's mother
Part II. Human Images: Introduction
8. The new Jerusalem Church
9. 'The Divine Image'
10. From innocence to experience
11. 'London'
12. 'The Human Abstract'
13. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]