Abstract
As an apprentice engraver, William Blake wrote his gothic poem ‘Fair Elenor’ ( Poetical Sketches, 1783) whilst drawing the tombs and monuments of Westminster Abbey for Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain (1786) and Vetusta Monumenta (1789). A few years later, he would write The Book of Thel (1789) in which he continued to explore his own anxieties about his artistic legacy through the existential crises – centred on the process of ageing – of his female protagonists. Resembling the tombs he drew as an apprentice, Blake creates a funereal monument for Thel. However, through Thel’s reflections on the transience of corporeal existence, Blake reveals his own concerns about his corpus. Thel asks, ‘who shall find my place[?]’ (E4, 2.12). Though Blake himself would be buried in an unmarked grave, his memento mori provides a lasting monument for her ‘grave plot’ (E6, 6.9) and his own creative process. As such, though the physical body ages and fades, the Blakean body of the Imagination endures.
Published Version
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