Mind-forg'd Manacles

David Bindman

• 22 november 2006
• 9781853322594

Samenvatting:

For William Blake (1757-1827), the idea of slavery was fundamental to his art and writing. He was fervently opposed to slavery and bitterly contemptuous of the forces in Britain that tried to prolong it. But for Blake slavery was also a mental state. To have limited perceptions, to pursue materialistic ends, to set oneself above others, to follow conventional religion or science was to be enslaved and to be held with 'mind-forg'd manacles' of one's own making. In Blake's art, many of his most dramatic and complex images show a confrontation between the forces of repression and those seeking freedom. With over 60 vivid reproductions from Blake's illuminated books, watercolours and engravings, Mind-forg'd Manacles includes an essay by curator and leading Blake scholar David Bindman. Bindman examines the following themes in Blake's poetry and visual art: the cruelties of slavery; The Little Black Boy and other black boys; slavery as restricted vision; chaining desire; and, throwing off the chains. A second essay by writer Darryl Pinckney explores blacks and literacy, ownership of the word, and the written language as proof of one's humanity, with a focus on eighteenth century black writers such as Sancho, Wheatley, Equiano.