ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to situate William Blake in relation to the diversity of radical positions available in the 1790s and more specifically develops a parallel between Blake's brand of millenarian radicalism and the politics of Richard "Citizen" Lee, a little-known fellow inhabitant of London's sub-cultures of politics, publishing, and religious enthusiasm. It focuses on the assumption that any attempt to think about Blake and radicalism must recognise that the so-called Revolution controversy of the 1790s was neither simply a "debate" over principles nor, alternatively, only a matter of "practical" political activity but also a contest over a variety of symbolic practices. The chapter informs that Blake's "Everlasting Gospel" is part of a counterenlightenment, part of a response to the formation of the classical bourgeois public sphere whose own authority lay in its appeal to Reason. It is necessary to emphasize that there was no stable entity, equivalent to "radicalism," against which his commitment to "Republican Art" can be plotted.
