In his early prophetic works, William Blake presents his own creation myth, which reinterprets Genesis and critically examines contemporary medical discourse on generation and birth.In this talk Annalise Volpone explores a specific trope that emerges from Blake’s depiction of imagination and (artistic) creation: partus mentis, the parturition of the mind.
Annalisa Volpone is an Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Perugia. She specializes on modernism and romanticism; her research includes the intersections between literature and medicine in the Romantic period. She is currently working on a monograph on birth metaphors and imagination in William Blake.
