Representations of the female nude in Blake's Composite Art

2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 17520148
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: ヨーロッパ語系文学
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: IMA-IZUMI Yoko University of Tsukuba, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, professor, 大学院人文社会科学研究科, 教授 (40151667)
• Project Period (FY): 2005 – 2006
• Keywords: Blake / Composite Art / Woman / Nude / Gender / Aphrodite / Feminism / Eighteenth Century

Research Abstract

I have clarified the role and meaning of the female naked bodies, which are depicted in William Blake's composite art. Human beings have long been aware of the sexual aspect of blood (especially since the discovery in the 1980s of the route followed by the HIV virus), and so Blake's pursuit of the topic in light of the female naked bodies should not seem surprising. Focusing on Blake's tendency to center on female sexuality in his illuminated poems, I have explored the ways in which blood becomes sexual for the female characters, and have also considered how the major bodily fluids, milk and semen, relate to blood. Unlike the male, who materializes from a chaotic formless lump into a hard rocky skeleton, the female separates from the body of the male by taking the form of blood. I have examined the significance of the liquid origin of the female body.