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William Blake’s Aesthetic Reclamation: Newton, Newtonianism, and Absolute Space in The Book of Urizen and Milton

ABSTRACT This essay interrogates the scholarly assumption that William Blake's hostility toward Isaac Newton arose solely from his direct encounters with the scientist’s writings. Instead, it argues that The Book of Urizen and Milton illustrate that Blake was also aware of and critical toward popularized accounts of Newton’s works. Written by Newton’s disciples, these aimed to not only codify a culture of Newtonianism through appeals to social institutions and a non-academic public, but also to subtly augment the prestige of their Newtonian authors. This essay historicizes these Newtonian works with the help of George Berkeley and argues that Blake’s Milton contains an appropriation of Newton’s own thought to combat them. That is, Milton’s defeat of the Newtonian Satan achieves two things: it allows Blake’s deployment of Newton’s absolute space to challenge the self-interested, institutionalized authority Newtonianism had obtained, and it provides a template for Newton’s redemption from Newtonianism within Blake’s oeuvre.