윌리엄 블레이크의 국가주의 이데올로기 비판

Abstract

Jerusalem was being written during the period of British-Franco war which had a character of not only a hegemonic struggle for world economy but also an ideological battle. In England, a powerful patriotism was promoted against Napoleon's justification for the spread of revolutionary ideas. In this conservative social milieu, the popular Dissenter tradition, which was the root of Blake's thought and language, was subsumed under the ruling class. ‘The cult of love' was appropriated for the national unity. Blake reveals how nationalism works in belligerence through insightful examination on the contradiction of ‘family love'. As his name suggests, Luvah's suffering and death means that christian love was no longer the foundation of social solidity, but degenerated into an ideological apparatus. Luvah's queer resuscitation also indicates that deceitful pity was the expression of sentimental philanthropism employed to gloss over the reality of war and soothe people's sense of frustration. In parallel, Jerusalem lost a historical substantiality and Albion fell into a spiritual chaos. ‘Albion's Tree', the symbol of capitalism in Blake's context, was firmly rooted in the whole life and ‘the Atheistical Epicurean Philosophy' was permeated through human relationships. In short, Luvah's death resulted in a cycle of ‘satanic wheels' in which men were united not by love but by hate in the struggle for survival. Blake's own solution to overcome the errors of ‘love' is ‘the intellectual war' where the winner is decided depending on who exercises imagination and thought based on the nature and order of ‘life.'