The Sanity Of William Blake

In this scholarly work, MacDonald argues that Blake can only be said to have been insane if certain behaviours of 'normal' people are also similarly judged. He says that sanity is not easy to define and is a cultural conception.

Excerpt from The Sanity of William Blake All criticism is based upon some standard of convention. Yet, in spite of the fact that our education necessarily favours such standard, our instincts are often finely rebellious in their repudiation of convention. And we secretly honour all who outdare custom, though we openly fear and perhaps deride them. The weakness of convention as a standard of criticism lies in this, that we are able to estimate a given work only so long as it falls within our educational experience; whereas if it does not, there remains no system that will give it justice. How can one judge, say, of ethics in Mars, when he is entirely ignorant of its conditions? or of habits in Mile End if he do not share its quite reasonable dislike of his own culture? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.