Skip to main content
ERCC Conference Inventing the Human
Conference 2023: 'Inventing the Human' - University of Melbourne & Online
Times are shown in your local time zone GMT

‘A Form Was completed, a Human Illusion’: Encounter and Erasure in William Blake’s The Book of Los (1795)

Research Paper (Oral Presentation)
Edit Your Submission
Edit

Research Paper (Oral Presentation)

4:00 pm

29 November 2023

Arts West, Room 553

Conversation 8 - Disability, Ability, and the Human

Watch The Abstract

Abstract Description

William Blake’s The Book of Los ends with this vision of a human form appearing through darkness, reinforcing a similar image presented in an earlier poem The [First] Book of Urizen (1795). While this form is determined ‘a Human Illusion,’ the poem preceding this statement explores the different facets of embodiment and bodily functions. The poem is framed as a prophetic cry, and it addresses the ways in which the physical embodiment of a form conflicts with the conceptualising of the form itself. The disjunction between perception and presentation creates an epistemological break in what constitutes the human body. Grounding itself in Disability theory, this paper will examine how encountering the human form in Blake necessitates the erasure of what we understand as ‘normative’ and able-bodied. Standardisation is an illusion, one that when pressed, can copen the form to post-human possibilities.

Speakers

Authors

Authors

Dr Sharon Choe - University of York (United Kingdom)