While A L Morton thought Blake may have read the work of the Ranter, Abiezer Coppe, modern historians say there is no evidence of Blake being familiar with Ranter texts. How much do Blake’s ideas overlap with The Ranters? I look at the Justification of the Mad Crew (1650) to compare.
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Few could deny that William Blake supported the radical politics of his time, yet revolutionary ideas were not an adjunct to his visionary genius, but the living heart of it as a poet.
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In the wake of the attempted QAnon putsch, and in the run-up to the inauguration of Joe Biden, when Trump’s supporters are expected to take to the streets again, Aleks McHugh considers QAnon hysteria and social media generally as incarnations of Meyrink’s Golem, as portrayed in the 1920 film by Paul Wegener.
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Although Blake’s knowledge of industry was uncertain, his vision of it was not. It is an astonishing vision — Jacob Bronowski on Blake and Industry, and Blake on Jerusalem and Liberty.
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Blake Bloc, conceived by Poets, Artists and Photographers and the banner designed by Artist Matthew Couper, brings back visionary and poetic anarchism to the conventional march of protest. Last seen with Blake’s influence, through Ginsberg, on sixties anti-war demonstrations and incorporating the once-proud trade union and suffragette banners of the nineteenth century. Bearing William Blake’s images and his immortal words — ‘Opposition is True Friendship’ — this banner isn’t for the bin afterwards with the pile of placards ! It’s a work of art as much as a protest in the Blakean tradition of William Morris elevating socialist ideals.
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The Irish Independent Left conducted an interview with the historian Peter Linebaugh about his book, Red Round, Globe Hot, Burning, which discusses Blake at several points and makes some excellent observations about him, Thomas Spence, and others, and their relevance to our times.
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The Tyger is potentially the Led Zeppelin of Blake poems — brash, bombastic and unnervingly successful. It is supposedly the most anthologised poem in the English language — stadium poetry, if you like. Your children will probably come across it at school. Along with the Parry’s version of Jerusalem, this is the Blake that people know.
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Iain Sinclair explores the historical background to William Blake’s radical writings. Filmed on the South Bank of the River Thames, Vauxhall, London.
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At the televised Vice-Presidential debate last week with Kamala Harris, Mike Pence spectacularly ignored the fly that came to rest very publicly on his head. This act of wilful ignorance crowned Pence’s role at the side of Donald Trump as ‘the man who pretended not to notice‘.
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The Assassin includes excerpts from all the Unkant publications released since we started out in 2011. There are also 100s of pages of scores, photographs, poems, paintings and images, essays, comics, reviews, notices and manifestos from the AMM, its friends and supporters.
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The key to understanding this whole carious election is INHERITANCE, alongside its accompanying closest-thing-remaining-to-an-emotion, ENTITLEMENT.
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Of course the system can not be beaten on its own terms. It can be beaten by creating terms outside the system. One hole and everything leaks out.
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