“mind-forged manacles” We had some fabulous classes this morning exploring William Blake as both a mystic and a social activist in the poems “Auguries of Innocence” and “London” Click on the poems for a direct link. You can hear a wonderful class discussion on both these poems right here: And here are some of the…
Tag: William Blake
Grace IV: Contemplative Experience, Poetry of Grace @ Aquinas, Poetry of Grace IV Contemplative Experience, x Blogging
The Poetry of Grace Contemplative Experience IV: Part 4
In today’s last session we turned first to exploring the ways in which William Blake explores the conditions that create GRACE. In his Songs of Innocence and Experience he has two songs that are about Nurses. In Nurse’s Song in Songs of Innocence he presents the Nurse in a state in which “her heart is at…
The Visionary Imagination: William Blake, Patrick White, Brett Whiteley, Allen Ginsberg- Celebrating Class of 2018 ePortfolio/Blogs
BLAKEAN STORIES This was perhaps the most creative component of all the blogs: those many stories about strangers or family members who provided a trigger for seeing the world in a totally new way. Here is Jamie’s wonderful story about his sister from Vietnam in which he “describes a totally ordinary person in such…
William Blake’s “Grain of Sand” Alive and Well in 2018
Performances based around the work of William Blake and his legacy in Australia have taken place today in Strathfield (ACU)! What an amazing collection of young voices celebrating the continuing creative power of William Blake and his impact on such diverse talents as Patrick White, Brett Whiteley and Allen Ginsberg. Here are our pre-performance tutorials…
Riders in the Chariot- Final Classes
Hi All, today was our final excursion into the world of Patrick White, especially his representation of Alf Dubbo, the Aboriginal artist as a ministering priest of a renewed Christianity. Patrick White shows us how Alf Dubbo’s belief is restored through his visionary imagination and in this way illuminates the way in which William Blake’s…
Patrick White: Riders in the Chariot
What a wonderful world Patrick White takes us into in this remaking of the Australian social landscape in line with his own prophetic ambition to re-sacralize a spiritually desolate land. As he says in his essay “The Prodigal Son”: Because the void I had to fill was so immense, I wanted to try to suggest…
Brett Whiteley & William Blake 2018
Audio Lecture in the Brett Whiteley Studio Audio Lecture 1 in the NSW Art Gallery on Blake’s Job Engravings Audio Lecture 2 in the NSW Art Gallery on Blake’s Job Engravings Brett Whiteley’s “Grain of Sand” in Surry Hills & William Blake in Sydney: Blake’s “Job” in the NSW Art Gallery; What a fabulous connection was made today …
The Visionary Imagination – Week 1!
What a great start to our exploration of William Blake’s transformative visionary imagination! Most of you seemed to grasp really well, through Ginsberg’s celebration of Blake’s poem “The Sunflower”, how Blake seems to provide a gateway to a deeper or heightened vision of reality. Cleansing the Doors of Perception, seems to be what Blake is…
Literature in Spring 2018
Hi All, this semester I am teaching Australian Literature to first years (with long-time colleague Elaine Lindsay): You can listen to Elaine in an interview she had on ABC radio recently with novelist Tom Keneally: http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s4432426.htm I am also teaching Twentieth Century Literature to second years and The Visionary Imagination (William Blake, Patrick White and Brett…
Romanticism Week 3
So how have I been responding to all these radical ideas developed during the Romantic period? What has caught my attention as being especially relevant to my own experience and my own period of history? Now is my chance to express something of my reaction to all I have been reading, either in the form…
William Blake, born 28th November 1757!
William Blake was born on this day exactly 260 years ago. William Blake was one of the greatest poets of the English language, but he was also a mystic whose vision continues to inform the lives of many people. His vision was Christian, but it was so broadly Christian that it included all religions. One…
Patrick White: Riders in the Chariot
What a wonderful world Patrick White takes us into in this remaking of the Australian social landscape in line with his own prophetic ambition to re-sacralize a spiritually desolate land. As he says in his essay “The Prodigal Son”: Because the void I had to fill was so immense, I wanted to try to suggest…
Brett Whiteley and Blake’s Job
What an amazing morning and early afternoon was had by us all today, starting in 2 Raper Street at the Brett Whiteley Studio: we saw him walking down this very street in the film viewed last week! To travel through Whiteley’s transformative imagination, through the birth canal that produced that shock of ginger hair,…
William Blake and Brett Whiteley
We had the mammoth task today of bringing together Brett Whiteley’s Alchemy and William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell & his engravings for The Book of Job– all in a two hour session! But we have all survived! And it has to be said it is a glorious field for exploring the power of creativity in…
William Blake: The Songs
Blog Topics for Week 3 – Based on Weeks One and Two 1/ Take the first line of any one of Blake’s poems (looked at so far in the unit) and write your own poem celebrating a new insight that you have had as a result of listening to Wiliam Blake. 2/ Present…
William Blake in Sydney: Blake’s “Job” in the NSW Art Gallery; Brett Whiteley’s “Grain of Sand” in Surry Hills.
What a fabulous connection was made today with creative genius at its source in William Blake’s (1828) original engravings for The Book of Job (1828) at the Art Gallery of NSW and in Brett Whiteley’s creative masterpiece Alchemy (1971-1972), displayed in the actual Studio occupied by Brett Whiteley during the last years of his life: So it…
Blake’s The Book of Job and Brett Whiteley’s Alchemy
We are entering two weeks where the following two creations are going to be explored and contrasted. Blake’s Illustrations to the Book of Job are one of the most extraordinary sacred documents in which a poet/ artist reinterprets one of the most ancient and well-known classic religious texts along the lines of his own unique…
And now for the Grand Finale (of this first trawl through Literature Blogs)!
Please find here links to the best third year blogs. These students, most in their third year of literature, are studying “The Visionary Imagination” with a focus on William Blake, Patrick White and David Malouf. Let’s hear a round of applause for the following stars all who got full, or close to full marks!! Emma…
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: The Bible of Hell
I have also: The Bible of Hell: which the world shall have whether they will or no. For Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell occurs when the sanctimonious, commandment-loving Angel finally gives up his/her smug sense of superiority and happily embraces the flames of fire and joins the Devil’s party, a party which believes in the presence…
The Doors of Perception: Heaven and Hell
The song “End of the Night” by The Doors was directly inspired by Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” especially the lines “Realms of bliss, realms of light, some are borne to sweet delight, some are borne to sweet delight, some are borne to the endless night.” Listen to the Doors singing “End of the Night” here. William Blake takes…
William Blake – Week 2
William Blake was a radical in countless ways: political, religious, personal. He dared to confront and question received knowledge and forced his readers then and now to ask questions about the nature of God, the Universe and everything in it. Among many aspects of his creative life we explored closely today this contrasting vision of…
The Visionary Imagination Week 1 2015: Seeing through not with the eye.
A great start to the semester! So glad to see the level of interest and attention to these important ideas, to these amazing composite art works of William Blake. Here are the complete visual images of the Nurse’s Songs in The Book of Innocence and The Book of Experience (always click on the image for…
Wilde, Shaw, Jagger and the Challenge to a Dysfunctional Society
Oscar Wilde’s biographer Richard Ellman tells us that “From as early as 1881 … literary London was put out of countenance by this outrageous Irishman … who declared he was a socialist and hinted he was a homosexual, while patently mocking wise saws on all subjects. He declined, in a public and ceremonious manner, to live…
Heathcliffe: Daemon or Demon – Withering Frights
Daemon = a divinity or supernatural being of a nature between gods and humans. Demon = an evil spirit or devil, especially one thought to possess a person or act as a tormentor in hell. Which of these words most aptly describes Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights? Heathcliff is a foundling who is cared for by old…
William Blake and Patrick White
Patrick White was clearly deeply influenced by William Blake. Not only does his novel Riders in the Chariot (arguably his most radical religious novel) begin with a core quote about the power of the prophetic imagination from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but White’s obsession with explicitly exploring the transformative power of art, of literature is central…
D.H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield
Two extraordinary, brilliant writers who refused to fit into the cage that society wanted for them. There is David Herbert Lawrence with his wild sense of the power and sacredness of sexuality, of the way in which the rhythms of the universe are all in a constant state of creative flux and then there is Katherine…
Third Year William Blake- Visionary Imagination Blogs-
What a fabulous swag of 3rd year Blogs in the unit Visionary Imagination, William Blake etc. These are all very talented students showing off their skills in bringing the experience of William Blake to life. This is a very impressive bunch of blogs for the first few weeks of semester. It is an inspiration to…
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Summer 2023 
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