ABSTRACT
William Blake’s illuminated poetry has shaped contemporary environmental discourse on the communities we form with nonhuman. For instance, does Blake’s challenge to the concept of nature as a separate and abstract entity open the possibility for an “ecology without nature” (Morton 2007)? Such challenge involves a revolution in our modes of perception. The animals and the insects, the rhizomes and the tendrils populating Blake’s illuminated poetry are not mere symbol of humanity’s progress towards regeneration: they are endowed with visionary powers of their own. Can attentiveness to other senses than ours bring us closer to opening the doors of our own perception? Do we need to embrace nonhuman modes of vision to reach “Humanity Divine”? Blake’s illuminated works offer thought experiments and provide a sensory apparatus to expand the human imagination and embrace nonhuman experience. This opens the way for a renewed conception of the polis, shaped around a better recognition of nonhumans. Blake’s poetry mobilises literary and visual resources to make us see through nonhuman eyes: it invites us to see through the eye of the Earth.
