ABSTRACT
William Blake, the fifth member of the dinner party – a poet, prophet, painter, visionary, engraver, and non-academic philosopher, who has exerted a powerful influence on twentieth- and twenty-first-century thought and culture. Henry Crabb Robinson is himself the first reason for doubt, in part because of his self-description as "unlearned," the frequency with which he was baffled by Blake's thought, and his image as "cautious" and "orthodox," particularly amongst Blake critics. One might say that the Blake's modern Gnosticism repeats the structure of ancient Gnosticism while turning it inside out: viz. the journey to the source of life takes us back to this world rather than up to Heaven. Gnosticism provided a mythological frame that was able to encompass the moods, while nevertheless leaving open the question of how the relation between bodily soul and the stubborn reality should be articulated.
