Abstract
If William Blake had heard that Moses Mendelssohn was called the “Socrates of Berlin,”1 Blake would have responded, “That’s just his problem.” And Mendelssohn would have said the same thing if he had heard that Blake regarded himself as an incarnation of “the ever-apparent Elias,” “the Spirit of Prophecy” (Milton 24:71).2 For both writers, at least nominally, squared off on opposite sides of the Enlightenment, and the site of this contestation is a discursive space called Jerusalem, which is the title of the major work of each writer. Both Moses Mendelssohn’s and William Blake’s Jerusalem, besides sharing the same title and the same position in the canon of each writer, also share an intriguing and informative congruence, even in their very differences. Yet, when we closely examine the net effect of both writers’ works, we will find that their most important common factor is their tendency to undo the very project that they attempt to establish.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
David Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996), xx.
Michael A. Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew: Jewish Identity and European Culture in Germany, 1749–1828 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967), 48.
Alfred Jospe, “Introduction” to Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism, in “Jerusalem” and Other Jewish Writings, trans. and ed. Alfred Jospe (New York: Schocken, 1969), 1.
Joseph Viscomi, Blake and the Idea of the Book (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 338–57.
Leonard M. Trawick, “William Blake’s German Connection,” Colby Library Quarterly 13, 4 (1977): 231–3.
Meyer, The Origins of the Modern Jew, 1–22; Sorkin, xxi, 6–8, 38; Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism: The History of Jewish Philosophy from Biblical Times to Franz Rosenzweig (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 293–6.
Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical Tradition in Blake’s Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 55–85.
Sheila A. Spector, “Wonders Divine”: The Development of Blake’s Kabbalistic Myth (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2001), 11.
Jason Whittaker, William Blake and the Myths of Britain (London: Macmillan, 1999), 47–8.
See Jean H. Hagstrum, “Christ’s Body,” in William Blake: Essays in Honour of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, ed. Morton D. Paley and Michael Philips (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 129–56.
Michael A. Meyer, “Judaism as a Vehicle of the Enlightenment: The Contribution of Moses Mendelssohn,” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 263 (1989): 574.
J. G. Davies, The Theology of William Blake (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 1–3.
G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Records (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 40–1.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2008 Sheila A. Spector
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tannenbaum, L. (2008). “What are Those Golden Builders Doing?”: Mendelssohn, Blake, and the (Un)Building of Jerusalem . In: Spector, S.A. (eds) British Romanticism and the Jews. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05574-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05574-3_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-60251-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-05574-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)