威廉‧布雷克與全球想像

William Blake and the Global Imagination

本文試圖探討英國浪漫時期詩畫家威廉‧布雷克（1757－1827）之作品如何發展對於全球的想像。布雷克的詩句被譜成讚頌曲〈耶路撒冷〉而成為英國非官方國頌，其作品亦透露英國重返黃金年代的國族理想。然而，布雷克的英國例外論述與非屬英國的普世價值並行，此想像卻超越了民族國家的疆界；作品中的兩種動能必須在十八世紀末、十九世紀初的全球帝國局勢下理解。近年浪漫主義研究的全球論述頻以網絡、系統等概念探討文學作品，本文亦將追溯布雷克全球想像的演繹，分析作品如何將已知的世界化為整體而思構。布雷克早期作品讚揚美國與法國革命的激進立場，而後在《歐洲》與《洛思之歌》（後者涵蓋〈非洲〉與〈亞洲〉二章）轉向探索全球的普世價值。此系列作品試圖開創跨國界、跨版圖的意識，並企圖定義嶄新的全球意涵、敘說未來的世界秩序。

This paper aims to examine the formation of global imagination in the work of British Romantic poet and painter William Blake (1757-1827). Known for the lines to the hymn “Jerusalem” that has attained the status of an unofficial national anthem, Blake's work abounds with the aspiration to restore England to a golden age of peace and glory. Yet Blake's recurring references to British exceptionalism simultaneously occur with an imaginative impulse toward universality that transcends the boundaries of the nation state. The twin impulses must be understood within the context of global imperial forces that dominate the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Drawing on recent work in global Romanticism that emphasizes concepts of network and system, this paper traces the development of Blake's global imagination that attempts to envision the known world as a totality. While Blake's early work captures the early radical and enthusiastic spirit of the American and French Revolutions, Blake's universal aspirations are persistently manifest in the subsequent continental prophecies Europe (1794) and The Song of Los (1795), the latter comprising the sections “Africa” and “Asia.” Taken together, the series of illuminated books generate a narrative depicting the liberation of human consciousness across national and continental boundaries, and constitute a struggle to define a new sense of the global and to articulate a new world order.