ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows the richness that combinations of Blake, gender and culture are bringing forth in the early twenty-first century. It deals with the concept of 'closet drama' to offer a reading of Blake alongside Joanna Baillie's Plays on the Passions. The book also deals with Sex and Spirit, moves to less orthodox religious contexts. Naked history displayed is 'Naked Beauty displayed'. The beauty which returns here is largely naked and the male and female bodies Blake fashions speak in a bold gestural language which could easily be termed universal. William Blake's own erotically charged attitude to history and its transformation it is no wonder that every new historical revelation carries a new sexual illumination. Arguably this sexualized thematic unity could simply result from the fact that six of the eight images originate in "The Book of Urizen".
