This book lays bare the sexy Blake lately obscured in fogs of political correctness and post-feminism. Its contributors uncover, in fact, numerous sexy Blakes, arguing for both chastity and pornography, violence and domination as well as desire and redemption, and also journeying in the realms of conceptual sex and conceptual art. Fierce tussles over the body in, and the body of, Blake's work are the book's life-blood. Contributors differ passionately in their conclusions about the nature of Blake's sexiness. All acknowledge Christopher Hobson's revelation of Blake's insistent tendency to normalize perversity - some with relish, some with alarm. We celebrate the mysteries of Blakean attractions and repulsions, and hope this volume will re-animate the lively sexual debates which once characterized Blake Studies.

"Over the last decade, Romanticism and queer theory have been mutually illuminating and incredibly productive, but this canonical 'queering' has somehow veered away from William Blake. This collection looks anew at Blake's celebrated sexual visions, to see how they might appear once compulsory heterosex has been ditched as an interpretative norm"--Provided by publisher.

Blake said of his works, 'Tho' I call them Mine I know they are not Mine'. So who owns Blake? Blake has always been more than words on a page. This volume takes Blake 2.0 as an interactive concept, examining digital dissemination of his works and reinvention by artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers across a variety of twentieth-century media.

William Blake and the Body re-evaluates Blake's central image: the human form. In Blake's designs, transparent-skinned bodies passionately contort; in his verse, metamorphic bodies burst from each other in gory, gender-bending births. The culmination is an ideal body uniting form and freedom. Connolly explores romantic-era contexts like anatomical art, embryology, miscarriage, and 20th century theorists like those of Kristeva, Douglas, and Girard to provide an innovative new analysis of Blake's transformations of body and identity.

This book lays bare numerous sexy Blakes, arguing for both chastity and pornography, violence and domination as well as desire and redemption, and also journeying in the realms of conceptual sex and conceptual art. Fierce tussles over the body in, and the body of, the poet-artist's work celebrate Blakean attractions and repulsions.

Numerous claims have been made for a sexual Blake, from post-lapsarian pessimist to free-loving hippie. Queer Blake raises a flag for the weird, perverse, camp and gay directions of the artist's life and work. The contributors occupy diverse positions, illustrating what fresh interpretations result when heterosexuality is ditched as an ideal.