‘Living, self moving’: Blake’s Jerusalem and the Epic Machine

Dr. Tara Lee
Post-Doctoral Fellow
Society of Fellows in the Humanities
University of Hong Kong

***All are welcome***

Abstract:
It is generally understood that the Romantics replaced the concept of mechanism with that of the organic. Jerusalem, however, however, sees Blake place greater emphasis on machinery than ever before. ‘Los’s Furnaces howl loud, living, self moving’: as vibrant steam technologies replaced the clock-work mechanisms of the preceding age, the idea that machines might be “living” or “self moving” inspired Blake to consider the liberatory potential of these disruptive innovations. By showing how Blake drew on epic conventions to enrich the symbol of the machine, this paper shows how machines became such potent symbols of modernity precisely because they allowed for evocative engagements with the question of human freedom and agency in an increasingly complex, dynamic world.

Bio:
Tara Lee is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong. She received her DPhil from the University of Oxford, and has articles related to Blake and biology in European Romantic Review, Studies in Romanticism, and Romanticism on the Net. She is preparing a monograph on Blake and biology, specifically pre-Darwinian ideas of evolution. Moving from organicism to mechanism, she is also developing a new project on the symbol of the machine in the Romantic epic.