The Torn Book: UnReading William Blake's Marginalia argues for the
connection between British poet and painter William Blake's marginalia
and the role that often multivalent symbols like pens, writers, readers,
and books played in his art. Blake was by no means a copious annotator,
but the extant volumes reflect the poet's engagement not only with ideas
but also with the materiality through which those ideas are
communicated. The Torn Book shows that the marginalia represent
important evidence of Blake-as-reader experiencing the typographical
features of books printed using the conventional, moveable-type methods
of the day. The annotated volumes are thus key to understanding Blake
both as a poet and as a bookmaker himself. Jason Snart is an Assistant
Professor of English at the College of DuPage.