UnReading William Blake's Marginalia

Abstract

Though William Blake is a central figure in the academy, there is one particular area of his work that receives little attention: the marginalia. And when annotations are incorporated into Blake studies, scholars tend to turn for quotation to typeset Blake editions, which do not communicate the visual complexity of the annotations. In addition to being visually dynamic, the marginalia provide evidence of Blake engaging the printed book of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and are thus part of his work as a bookmaker. Blake's books are radically different technologies for representation than are the books he was annotating. Further, Blake's experience as a reader and annotator are reflected in his poetic universe, in which readers, writers and books figure so prominently.