William Blake: The Politics of Vision

by Mark Schorer

Good used condition. Some signs of storage/wear.

524 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1659

About the author

Mark Schorer was an American writer, critic, and scholar born in Sauk City, Wisconsin.

Schorer earned an MA at Harvard and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1936. During his academic career, he held positions at Dartmouth, Harvard, and the University of California, Berkeley, where he chaired the Department of English from 1960 to 1965. A leading critic of his time, he was best known for his work, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life. Schorer was also the author of many short stories, which appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic Monthly, and Esquire.

Among his honors were three Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright professorship at the University of Pisa and a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. He also was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the most prestigious honor society for creative arts in the country.

Schorer was called as an expert witness during the 1957 obscenity trial over the Allen Ginsberg poem Howl, and testified in defense of the poem. This incident is dramatized in the film Howl (2010), in which Schorer is portrayed by Treat Williams.

In addition to his scholarly works, he also co-authored a series of science-fiction and horror stories with writer, publisher and childhood friend (both being natives of Sauk City, Wisconsin) August Derleth. These stories, originally published mainly in Weird Tales magazine during the 1920s and 1930s, were eventually anthologized in Colonel Markesan and Less Pleasant People (1966).

Schorer died from a blood infection following bladder surgery in Oakland, California at the age of 69.

Reviews

[Paul Wilner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, fairly dense explication of Blake's work, including its philosophical and religious underpinnings. Would have liked to see more of his poetry quoted stand-alone, rather than in snippets, and to a significant extent, Schorer seems to be intent on staking out his claim that Blake was not a "mystic,'' something that may mean more to the author than to the reader (or the poet). Easy to get lost amidst the explications of the more obscure sections of the master's work, but...still worth it. Hard to imagine a more different subject than Sinclair Lewis, but it's a tribute to this critic's mind and range that he ventured there. Made me want to go back to the original, and find my own path through it.

[Sophie]

Not enough structure to follow the 'what' Schrorer is saying and 'why'. The topic is so niche it is just tangent after tangent with no clear conclusions, which is a shame as his other essays are very insightful.