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A contribution to: Melancholy

Edited by Joanna Neilly and Alex Stuart

MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities 6

Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract.  The eighteenth century consisted of a wide range of theories that presented experimental attempts to understand the workings of the human nervous system. In 1800, the first foundations of psychiatry were in the process of being formed, as a result of much groundwork and anatomical research, as well as the theories of artists and scientists who tried to make sense of the functioning of the body. Certain theorists were more objective than others, but what became known as ‘The English Malady’ or ‘Melancholia’ was generally understood simply in terms of its symptoms and classified with other illnesses, such as mania and hypochondria. However, William Blake theorised about cognitive dysfunction like no other poet of his time and his ideas challenged the prevailing Zeitgeist of opinion. Despite the fact that Blake appears to use the symbolism of eighteenth-century anatomical studies, such as that relating to animal spirits, to the extent that his creatures of the psyche, the Zoas, are described in such terms, it is clear that they are not simply rooted in physiology. In rejecting the mechanistic notion of splicing nerves and fibres to study the corporeal functions of the human being, Blake made a profoundly important choice. This article seeks to explore Blake’s analysis of the causes of melancholy and possible solutions to the problem that he presented in his later works, such as The Four Zoas and Jerusalem. It is an attempt to advance the general field of research into the nature of Blake’s interest in cognitive processes and to illuminate some of the essential differences between Blake’s ideas and those of his contemporaries on the subject of the causes, symptoms and solutions to ‘Melancholia’. As monologistic discourse is a feature of the psychic life of Blake’s main character, Albion, the poet’s notion of how the structure of language is instrumental in determining psychic health is considered.

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