Spectre (Blake)

The mythological character of Spectre is first introduced in Blake's prophetic book Jerusalem:{{cite web| url = http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/transcription.xq?objectid=jerusalem.e.illbk.15| title = Transcription of "Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion, copy E, object 15 (Bentley 15, Erdman 15, Keynes 15)"| publisher = William Blake Archive| author = William Blake|editor1=Morris Eaves |editor2=Robert N. Essick |editor3=Joseph Viscomi |access-date= September 12, 2013}}

:I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep

:And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.

Elsewhere in Jerusalem, Blake defines it this way: "The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man, and when separated from Imagination and closing itself as in steel in a Ratio of Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws and Moralities [...]."{{cite web| url = http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/transcription.xq?objectid=jerusalem.e.illbk.74| title = Transcription of "Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion, copy E, object 74 (Bentley 74, Erdman 74, Keynes 74)"| publisher = William Blake Archive| author = William Blake|editor1=Morris Eaves |editor2=Robert N. Essick |editor3=Joseph Viscomi |access-date= September 12, 2013}} The Spectre also appears in his published works Milton and The Four Zoas.

In his unpublished hand written workbook, known as the Rossetti Manuscript, he also drafted a poem that began "My Spectre around me night and day / Like a wild beast guards my way."For a transcription of the poem see it on Wikisource

Historicist critics sometime look for direct inspirations for Blake's mythological ideas, such as Spectre, in his life experiences. In his 1966 article titled "Cowper as Blake's Spectre", Morton Paley argues that William Blake was thinking of the poet William Cowper, his philosophy and madness when creating the character of Spectre. In his argument, he discusses Blake's admiration and connections to Cowper both intellectually and socially as helping Blake create the archetype which became Spectre within the larger Blake mythology .{{cite journal |title =Cowper as Blake's Spectre | first =Morton D. | last = Paley| journal = Eighteenth-Century Studies| volume = 1| number = 3 | date= Spring 1968| pages = 236–252| doi =10.2307/2737763 | jstor = 2737763}}

Some critics have used Blake's mythology to help map elements of his mythology within a larger intellectual history. For example, in his book Blake, Kierkegaard, and the Spectre of Dialectic, Lorraine Clark argues that Spectre and its relationship to Los signals a change in Blake's approach to history and philosophy. He says that Blake in his focus on "the Los and Spectre in The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem, Blake turns from a Hegelian "both-and" dialectic of Orc and Urizen in his earlier works to something very Kierkegaardian "either/or".{{cite book | title =Blake, Kierkegaard, and the Spectre of Dialectic| first = Lorraine| last = Clark| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=aGEtGhl-gEAC&q=Spectre | publisher = Cambridge University Press| year = 2009| isbn = 9780521110471}}

In general, Blake's mythology lends itself to psychoanalytic criticism, because of its clear archetypes. According to scholar Mark Ryan, the acclaimed literary critic Northrop Frye often aligned Spectre with persona in Jung's archetypes. On the other hand, Ryan says that many other critiques using archetypal approaches "tend to automatically relate the "Shadow" and the "Spectre," as pertaining to the concept of the dark side of the psyche, without considering the possibility that each character's shadow is, by implication, open to different modes of interpretation."{{cite journal| title = Fearful symmetries: William Blake, Northrop Frye, and archetypal criticism| first = Mark | last = Ryan| journal = English Studies in Canada| volume = 37 | issue = 2 | date = June 2011| page = 173| doi = 10.1353/esc.2011.0021 | s2cid = 170524061 | url = http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA294194392&v=2.1&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w}} Accessed via Academic OneFile {{subscription required}}

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• {{cite journal| url = http://digitalcommons.colby.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2282&context=cq |journal = Colby Quarterly| volume = 13| issue = 2 |date = June 1977| title = Blake and the Double: The Spectre as Doppelganger |first = Edward J.| last = Rose}}

{{William Blake|myth}}

Category:William Blake characters