Every thing is human, mighty! sublime! New literary humanism and the trope of the daimon in William Blake’s Jerusalem

Written by Dr Todd William Dearing

Portable Document Format (PDF), 346 pages

This is the product of three years of doctorate research.

Reading is an act of understanding humanity. This is because literature—novels, poetry, drama, and creative non-fiction—is a vast repository of human experience and imagination. When we approach literature as a mirror unto ourselves, we can better know and evolve our own humanness.

With deep insight and precision, Dr Dearing articulates this approach to literary humanism through a study of the poet-painter William Blake’s conception of the daimon.

This is a scholarly work—the casual reader may find it a difficult climb, although the attentive mind will be adequately rewarded by the work’s rigour, precision, and depth.

This work enters into that wisdom which is the seabed of Western knowledge; a body of lore historically overlooked by the middling consensus yet deeply considered by some of the world’s greatest minds (Heraclitus, Socrates, Aristotle, Plotinus, Milton, Goethe, Coleridge, and others).

It includes a historical survey of the daimonic tradition, culminating in today’s concept of human genius. This work is spanned by interlocking pylons of knowledge that resonate with the ages and is speckled with points of focus for present day creative work.

Dr Dearing here renders this golden thread of the daimonic more accessible, while highlighting how to understand and develop one’s humanity through reading literature. This work is not to be missed by anyone on the quest for knowledge.

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Literature is written by humans, read by humans, and discussed among humans. Humanness is a common factor in all literature, which is a vast record of our shared experience and imagination, encompassing many times, cultures, and perspectives. Yet recent decades in literary studies have seen human nature as a topic within literature often dehumanised—stereotyped, abstracted, or disappearing from focus.

This doctorate thesis aims to reinvigorate the study of humanity within literature, in an inclusive and meaningful way. Dr Dearing’s research into the Romantic-period painter and poet William Blake (1757-1827) illuminates Blake’s understanding of human nature within his longest illustrated poem, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion. Dr Dearing shows how Blake’s concept of genius provides a critical and creative methodology for understanding and developing our own humanity through literature.

This research is original, significant, and relevant because it presents Blake’s contribution to reading literature in a way that is designed to rehumanise literary studies for the twenty-first century.