Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law

By E.P. Thompson and E. P. Thompson

Book Overview

Witness Against the Beast is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study in which the renowned social historian E.P. Thompson contends that most of the assumptions scholars have made about William Blake are misleading and unfounded. Brilliantly reexamining Blake's cultural milieu and intellectual background, Thompson detects in Blake's poetry a repeated call to resist the usury and commercialism of the "Antichrist" embodied by contemporary society-to "witness against the beast."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565840992
• ISBN13: 9781565840997
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: New Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Muggletonian Archive

This is an brilliant piece of literary criticism that should be of great interest to anyone interested in English radicalism and antinomianism. The real gem here -- the part that I have returned to read again and again-- are the appendices which include a short account titled "The Muggletonian Archive". Here E.P. Thompson recounts his meeting with "last Muggletonian", the last living adherent to a 17th century sect, and the role he played in seeing that the church's archives were preserved in the British Library. A great story. Thompson maintains, if I remember correctly, that Blake's mother may have been a Muggletonian and that songs and tropes from that tradition had a great influence on Blake's mythology. You do not need to be convinced by Thompson's argument to find this book engrossing and thought-provoking. Well worth seeking out.