| The long poem,Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion(abbreviated as Jerusalem)is the last work of the British Former Romantic poet William Blake.It has more than 4,000 lines in total,and one hundred delicate pieces of etching prints engraved of interlinked verses and paintings,represents the highest achievement of Blake’s poetry creation.Blake lived in the era which intertwined by social improvement,Industrial Revolution,rationalism and mysticism,he realized that “I must Create a System,or be enslav’d by another Mans”.So he put his lost,passion and faith into this long poem,and built a utopian imagination system.From the Christian religious tradition to Utopia,the conception of utopia has associated with the ideal world of human being;from Utopia to Republic,utopian imagination has becoming a literary motif.Through the development and evolution of long time,nowadays both domestic and foreign utopian researches are devoted to explore the aesthetic utopia in literature and art,utopia has become an important direction of literary study.Current researches have had an in-depth study of the relationship between literature and utopia,and pointed out interlinked connotations between utopia and Romanticism,but this area still lacks the study of specific works.This paper holds that,Blake’s special aesthetic cognition,conceptions and artistic expression have constructed the romantic poetic utopia.Based on this factor,this paper takes Blake’s poem Jerusalem as an example to research on poet’s Utopian features,and it includes three parts,introduction,three chapters and conclusions.The introduction part starts with the origins and the development history of utopia,and then it introduces the domestic and foreign researches on utopian studying.The first chapter talks about the ideological origin of Blake and the formation of his utopian thought.This part introduces the traditional and modern ideas which Blake has accepted,and analyses how Blake’s utopian concept has been formed under the influence of these ideas.The second chapter refers Jerusalem and utopian imagination.Utopia is based on order,harmony and freedom,and it also has the "irony" function of criticizing social reality.On the basis of these points,the second chapter analyzes the harmony and symmetry,running condition and circulation,as well as the imaginational power beyond all things in this Jerusalem world.In this part,this paper mainly uses the way of close reading,analyses the cubical symmetrical imaginary world constructed by Blake,introduce the nonlinear narrative and conversational poetic language,as well as the unique image chains in this poem.In addition,Blake criticized Deism,pseudo Christians and other social abuses in this long poem,and calls for the reconstruction of pure faith and the national spirit coming back,showing the poet’s utopian “irony” power of criticizing reality.The third chapter focuses on the influences and limitation of Blake’s utopia,Blake was called as the "prophet against empire",he has wide influences on the literature,art,national spirit and philosophy.However,to some extent,Blake’s religious sentiments and mysticism has weakened the ideological value of this poetry,his thoughts may slide into dangerous nihilism,here this paper discusses the negative influences of Blake.In conclusion,this paper sums up the utopian features of Blake’s Jerusalem.This long poem has transformed reality into another world with its unique imagination,to be the last work of the poet’s poetic system,Jerusalem perfects the complete portrait of Black’s poetic imagination world. |
