Introduction

Hello all,

I am not sure how much of an introduction this project warrants but I will try to outline my major argument. Because our class is concerned with art in our mass media culture and my own academic interests lie in how the Romantic Poets are interpolated by modern Speculative Fiction Writers, I will use the poet/artist William Blake and the contemporary writer/artist Clive Barker to explore Marxist notions of revolutionary art. It is my contention that both artists would be considered revolutionary per Marxist definitions because of their use of imagination, uniqueness of works, subversive messages, and efficacy of praxis inherent in their art.

Both artists Barker and Blake have websites and archives of their art readily available on the internet which I will be providing links to. While I can perhaps take great issue with this proliferation of mass produced images and how it is antithetical to their (explicitly Blake's) art, I think the images provided by the websites provide context and reference to what I hope to write about. Although these images are copies of original works, they are by no means viable substitutes for seeing either artists originals.

Clive Barker's official website is linked here. This main site links to both his children's site and adult with galleries and book information for each. http://www.clivebarker.info/

The University of Rochester's William Blake Archives are linked here http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/main.html