William Blake and the Language of Adam

This study sets William Blake's language concepts and practices within a broad context of linguistic history, offering a new perspective on his poetry. An introductory consideratin of four of Blake's paintings raises some basic questions in semiotic theory addressed and follows with a history of the idea of a motivated sign from Plato to Wilhelm von Humboldt. Converting this background into a hermeneutic, the author demonstrates Blake's contributions to the mystical tradition and his critique of eighteenth century linguistic doctrines that culminates in a parodic deconstruction of rationalist sign theory in "The Book of Urizen". The concluding two chapters treat Blake's compositional practices, his development of these into a transactional view of language and the apocalyptic reordering of the relationship between meaning and being in "Jerusalem". The critical and historical methods exemplified by this study offer some fresh ways of thinking about literature and its relations to linguistics.