Статья / Article "Blake & Orthodoxy"

[RUS]

[ENG]

[RUS]

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[ENG]

This paper aims to give an engaging introduction to a study of the relations, as I identify them, between Blake's work and Orthodox thought and beliefs. Giving a succinct outline of some of Blake's most central preoccupations, the paper suggests links between Blake's vision and the thought of, among others, Sergius Bulgakov, Kallistos Ware, Nicolas Berdyaev and David Bentley Hart. The basis for a fruitful dialogue between Blake and Orthodoxy, the paper argues, is found in the joint emphasis on man's calling to grow in the likeness of God, his potential for theosis. This mutual belief leads to some significant shared understandings on such crucial issues as repentance, creativity and transfiguration; iconicity, the role of art, and the nature of personality and communication. Ultimately, the real affinity between Blake and Orthodoxy, the paper argues, is expressed in the conception of – and the commitment to – humanity's divinely appointed and inspired task to creatively transfigure and spiritualise the world.

[ENG]

Introduction This paper may be read both as a Blakean approach...

Albion: The embodiment and personification of collective mankind; more particularly, he represents England. Fallen, and chained to the rocks in deadly sleep, he needs to be awakened, rescued and reunited with Jerusalem.

Los: A blacksmith, the agent of creative form-giving and regeneration in Blake's drama of Albion's redemption.

Spectre: The enemy and antithesis of Los, signifying despair, scepticism, destructive industry and the darkening of imaginative vision.

Golgonooza: The visionary city that Los and his sons and daughters are building, symbolising the triumph of art and creative manufacture over the powers of division and dissolution. It prefigures the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem.

[ENG]