This book examines the difficult relationship between individual intellectual freedom and the legal structures which govern human societies in William Blake’s works, showing that this tension carries a political urgency that has not yet been recognised by scholars in the field.

  1 – Introduction.- 2 – Laws Ancient and Modern: Nation, Custom and Legislative Renewal.- 3 – One Law for the Lion and the Ox is Oppression: the Emergence of Universal Law.- 4 – One King, One God, One Law: Building Constitutions in the Lambeth Books.- 5 – The Heavens Squared by a Line: Legal Architecture and Mystery.- 6 – Such are the Laws of Eternity: Recovery, Redemption, and Prophecy.- 7 – Creating Nature from this Fiery Law: Towards Visionary Legislation?.- 8 – Conclusion.

This book examines the difficult relationship between individual intellectual freedom and the legal structures which govern human societies in William Blake’s works, showing that this tension carries a political urgency that has not yet been recognised by scholars in the field. In doing so, it offers a new approach to Blake’s corpus that builds on the literary and cultural historical work of recent decades. Blake’s pronouncements about law may often sound biblical in tone; but this book argues that they directly address (and are informed by) eighteenth-century legal debates concerning the origin of the English common law, the autonomy of the judicature, the increasing legislative role of Parliament, and the emergence of the notions of constitutionalism and natural rights. Through a study of his illuminated books, manuscript works, notebook drafts and annotations, this study considers Blake’s understanding that law is both integral to humanity itself and a core component of its potential fulfilment of the ‘Human Form Divine’.​Matthew Mauger is Senior Lecturer in English at Queen Mary University of London, UK. His research focuses on the intellectual, literary and commercial life of London in the eighteenth century, with a particular interest in how the administrative frameworks associated with the city – civil, legal, political, financial – provide contexts for literary expression. He is co-author of Stealing Books in Eighteenth-Century London (2016) and of Empire of Tea: The Asian Leaf that Conquered the World (2015).

“The book is thoroughly up to date in its critical sources. Indeed, this secondary scholarship, and Mauger’s use of it, are wonderful reminders of the continuing attractiveness of Blake to scholars of outstanding critical caliber.” (David Worrall, Blake, An Illustrated Quarterly, Vol. 58 (2), 2024)

Matthew Mauger’s exciting new book complicates the image of the antinomian Blake. William Blake and the Visionary Law shows that – like nearly everything else in Blake’s imagination – legal systems are capable of redeeming and being redeemed. A fascinating account of the way the law both imprisons and liberates in Blake’s prophetic books, Mauger's bold reappraisal reveals their longing for a constituent power to underpin the vision of a New Jerusalem.—Jon Mee, Professor of 18th Century Studies, University of York

Explores the relationship between individual intellectual freedom and legal structures as presented in Blake’s works Argues that Blake’s corpus directly addresses and is informed by eighteenth-century legal debates Examines his illuminated books, manuscript works, notebook drafts and annotations

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