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Witness Against the Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law
Witness Against the Beast is a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study in which the renowned social historian E. P. Thompson contends that most of the assumptions scholars have made about William Blake are misleading and unfounded. Brilliantly reexamining Blake's cultural milieu and intellectual background, Thompson detects in Blake's poetry a repeated call to resist the usury and commercialism of the "Antichrist" embodied by contemporary society--to "witness against the beast."
284 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 1993
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About the author
E.P. Thompson
83 books228 followersEdward Palmer Thompson was an English historian, writer, marxist and peace campaigner. He is probably best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class (1963). He also published influential biographies of William Morris (1955) and (posthumously) William Blake (1993) and was a prolific journalist and essayist. He also published the novel The Sykaos Papers and a collection of poetry.
Thompson was one of the principal intellectuals of the Communist Party in Great Britain. Although he left the party in 1956 over the Soviet invasion of Hungary, he nevertheless remained a "historian in the Marxist tradition," calling for a rebellion against Stalinism as a prerequisite for the restoration of communists' "confidence in our own revolutionary perspectives". Thompson played a key role in the first New Left in Britain in the late 1950s. He was a vociferous left-wing socialist critic of the Labour governments of 1964–70 and 1974–79, and during the 1980s, he was the leading intellectual light of the movement against nuclear weapons in Europe.
Thompson was one of the principal intellectuals of the Communist Party in Great Britain. Although he left the party in 1956 over the Soviet invasion of Hungary, he nevertheless remained a "historian in the Marxist tradition," calling for a rebellion against Stalinism as a prerequisite for the restoration of communists' "confidence in our own revolutionary perspectives". Thompson played a key role in the first New Left in Britain in the late 1950s. He was a vociferous left-wing socialist critic of the Labour governments of 1964–70 and 1974–79, and during the 1980s, he was the leading intellectual light of the movement against nuclear weapons in Europe.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
January 28, 2021
E P Thompson is one of my favourite historians and this was his last book. It is an analysis of the poet William Blake. Thompson looks at the origins of his thought and attempts a different approach to most academic studies of Blake. Thompson believes that the roots of Blake’s thought can be found in the seventeenth century radicalism that flourished in the Civil War period in England. The book is in two parts; the first looks at the backdrop to the radical ideas of the time Blake lived and their historical roots. The second half examines Blake’s poetry in the light of this.
Thompson treats the reader to a whole array of seventeenth and eighteenth century sectarians with some wonderful names. Anyone remember Behmenists, Swedenborgians, Muggletonians (this is not a Harry Potter reference!), Hutchinsonians, to name but a few. These along with more traditional dissent are examined to establish the origins of Blake’s thought. The Muggletonians are particularly interesting and the account of Thompson meeting the last living Muggletonian, Philip Noakes, in the 1970s and being given access to their archives (which date back to the seventeenth century) is quite moving. He describes their thought as “highly intellectual anti-intellectualism”. Thompson moves easily amongst these rather odd and strange groups. As he says, he is an atheist and the ideas they propound seem to be him to be no more ridiculous than the beliefs of established religion.
Thompson goes on to examine the origins of Blake’s strong antinomian tendencies which underlay his strongly negative views about established religion and the state. This tendency is amply illustrated by the poem Garden of Love;
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires
Blake moved amongst the radicals and revolutionaries that grew when the ideas around the French Revolution crossed the channel He knew people like Paine, Bewick, and Wollstonecraft amongst others. Blake was a radical, but he was also very anti-reason, opposing the lines of thought from Locke, Hume and Newton, which set him apart from many of the radicals who were essentially Deist. One thing that Thompson does make clear is the complexity and sometimes contradictoriness of Blake’s thought.
This is not an introduction to Blake’s work or an interpretation of his poetry; Thompson is setting Blake within his historical context, the London of 1780 to 1820, showing how his roots in a radical intellectual tradition informed his thought. Blake was a lifelong radical; many of his contemporaries turned to Toryism when the French Revolution went wrong; Blake remained radical. This book emphasizes the importance of dissent and in a world where the forces that dominate are unjust and unfair, maintaining radical dissent is very important. Thompson was never an armchair historian (one of the reasons I like him) and this analysis of Blake adds a good deal to the history of radical dissent.
Thompson treats the reader to a whole array of seventeenth and eighteenth century sectarians with some wonderful names. Anyone remember Behmenists, Swedenborgians, Muggletonians (this is not a Harry Potter reference!), Hutchinsonians, to name but a few. These along with more traditional dissent are examined to establish the origins of Blake’s thought. The Muggletonians are particularly interesting and the account of Thompson meeting the last living Muggletonian, Philip Noakes, in the 1970s and being given access to their archives (which date back to the seventeenth century) is quite moving. He describes their thought as “highly intellectual anti-intellectualism”. Thompson moves easily amongst these rather odd and strange groups. As he says, he is an atheist and the ideas they propound seem to be him to be no more ridiculous than the beliefs of established religion.
Thompson goes on to examine the origins of Blake’s strong antinomian tendencies which underlay his strongly negative views about established religion and the state. This tendency is amply illustrated by the poem Garden of Love;
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires
Blake moved amongst the radicals and revolutionaries that grew when the ideas around the French Revolution crossed the channel He knew people like Paine, Bewick, and Wollstonecraft amongst others. Blake was a radical, but he was also very anti-reason, opposing the lines of thought from Locke, Hume and Newton, which set him apart from many of the radicals who were essentially Deist. One thing that Thompson does make clear is the complexity and sometimes contradictoriness of Blake’s thought.
This is not an introduction to Blake’s work or an interpretation of his poetry; Thompson is setting Blake within his historical context, the London of 1780 to 1820, showing how his roots in a radical intellectual tradition informed his thought. Blake was a lifelong radical; many of his contemporaries turned to Toryism when the French Revolution went wrong; Blake remained radical. This book emphasizes the importance of dissent and in a world where the forces that dominate are unjust and unfair, maintaining radical dissent is very important. Thompson was never an armchair historian (one of the reasons I like him) and this analysis of Blake adds a good deal to the history of radical dissent.
October 26, 2013
This was fascinating. I bought it because I really like Thompson's books and think he's a really good historian and I really like Blake. However, it ended up being much less about Blake and much more about obscure 18th century Christian sects. I found that interesting though as I was raised in a very evangelical church where we were told their belief system was "as the original church founded by the apostles". So it was intriguing to read where their ideas had actually come from only a few centuries earlier and how those ideas had developed and what other ideas people were having at the same time. So I ended up liking the first half of this book much better than the second half where he actually got around to talking about Blake.
There was also discussion of the rights of women that I thought was very interesting. Some were claiming that if they gave "any woman" rights then "why not also birds and dogs" (49). Which is kinda terrifying that it shows that the female was considered equal to animals not man. It also reminded me of all the arguments we've been hearing about marriage equality lately and how it will lead to bestiality and incest.
Swedenborg came across as quite a misogynist though. Saying how men were able to have mistresses if their wife was not of their faith but that women shouldn't because, "with men is the love of sex in general but with women the love of one of the sex... The male sex has stimulations that kindle and inflame but which is not the case with the female sex" (138).
Thompson spent a lot of time discussing Muggletonians (which I'd never heard of before). They had some very interesting ideas about Eve and the Serpent. The idea that Cain was the serpent's child instead of Adam's and that humans had been two races one with a heavenly inspiration and one with a satanic one was quite interesting.
When he did focus on Blake he focused on a few poems and looked at early versions compared with published versions. I must admit I found it less enlightening that I was hoping. But then I find poetry and literary criticism quite hard to get into. Though there was one particular passage towards the end which I did like, "For once animated by the imagination , once released into culture and myth those old gods went on eternally, unless they were slain by the imagination or hammered by it into new forms and myths" (215).
There was also discussion of the rights of women that I thought was very interesting. Some were claiming that if they gave "any woman" rights then "why not also birds and dogs" (49). Which is kinda terrifying that it shows that the female was considered equal to animals not man. It also reminded me of all the arguments we've been hearing about marriage equality lately and how it will lead to bestiality and incest.
Swedenborg came across as quite a misogynist though. Saying how men were able to have mistresses if their wife was not of their faith but that women shouldn't because, "with men is the love of sex in general but with women the love of one of the sex... The male sex has stimulations that kindle and inflame but which is not the case with the female sex" (138).
Thompson spent a lot of time discussing Muggletonians (which I'd never heard of before). They had some very interesting ideas about Eve and the Serpent. The idea that Cain was the serpent's child instead of Adam's and that humans had been two races one with a heavenly inspiration and one with a satanic one was quite interesting.
When he did focus on Blake he focused on a few poems and looked at early versions compared with published versions. I must admit I found it less enlightening that I was hoping. But then I find poetry and literary criticism quite hard to get into. Though there was one particular passage towards the end which I did like, "For once animated by the imagination , once released into culture and myth those old gods went on eternally, unless they were slain by the imagination or hammered by it into new forms and myths" (215).
August 16, 2017
Awesome.
May 21, 2025
Throughout this book are scattered certain political correspondences, endearing in their awkwardness, that tell us perhaps more than intended about the inner life of this book. For instance, when Thompson calls the Philadelphian Society a ‘tiny Fabian Society’ or compares Robert Hindmarsh’s history of the Swedenborgian New Church to Stalin’s Short History of the CPSU(B), and most intriguing of all, when in the introduction he abashedly recalls a time when he referred to himself as a ‘Muggletonian Marxist’.
This book is most of all a contribution to Blake scholarship, it seeks to illuminate the links between Blake’s worldview and that of the Ranters which A.L. Morton could only postulate. It finds this in the pamphlett controversies of the sectaries, free thinkers and antinomians of 18th century London, a literature that Thompson considers was much more readily available than the Paracelsian, kabbalistic and neoplatonist literature that Kathleen Raine considers in her book, Blake and Tradition.
It is also, as all E.P. Thompson books are, a search for comrades. Thompson comes closest to finding them in the Muggletonians, a 17th century group of plebeian antinomians descended from the London Ranters, and whom Thompson had the immense pleasure of meeting the last living descendent, an encounter which is lovingly retold in the book. What draws Thompson to the Muggletonians at first blush seems to be their habits of organisation, so familiar to the modern socialist sectary, of intimate meetings above pubs with plenty of beer, and the common tasks of record keeping, note taking, and publication of tracts that give the organisation its material presence.
Yet there is also a suggestion, more pronounced perhaps in the last few chapters which are exoterically works of literary crticism on Blake’s poems ‘The Divine Image’, ‘London’, and ‘The Human Abstract’, that the antinomians, Muggletonians and Blake more specifically represent a road not taken (what Johannes Kepler was to Loren Goldner) when it comes to the precocious development of a philosophy of sensuous activity.
The Divine Image has an obvious antinomianism as well as an egalitarian humanism. When Blake says that “Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell/ There God is dwelling too” after also saying that “Mercy has a human heart…” one gets the impression that mercy, God and man are all of the same thing.
The social criticism of London is archetypal, and to link it to the critique of political economy would be unnecessary. Thompson blithely remarks that ‘The mark of the beast would seem, like chart’d, to have something to do with the buying and selling of human values.’ One would hope! The invocation of the apocalyptic tradition also highlights the this-sidedness of Blake's theology. The Book of Revelation brings forward hell into the world of the present, Blake’s London is hell already. As Blake says in the Divine Image that love is the human form divine, so too is our hell the human form infernal.
Thompson reads CF Volney’s The Ruins closely with The Human Abstract as well as The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Volney states in The Ruins that ‘the attributes of God are abstractions of the knowledge of nature, the idea of whose conduct is suggested by the experience of a despotic government’. Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, suggests a different emphasis, he says ‘The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses … Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their object; thus began priesthood … Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.’ The difference is slight yet momentous. Whereas for Volney the misattribution of natural powers to Gods was a result of a lack of knowledge and done so in a way that is an imprint of this world’s government, for Blake the poetic interpretation of nature is positive and creative but subject to a later peversion by the pursuit of power. Do we not see here the disntinction between mechanical materialism and a philosophy that could conceive human activity itself as objective activity? Thompson also points to the distinction between Volney’s founding of human civilisation on self-love and the recieving of ideas purely through the senses, and Blake’s view of the importance of poetic genius. Again, is this not a recognition that 'The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society'? Thompson does not make these points because he is, despite his reputation, a very sensible and responsible historian. I am none of these things so I will.
This book is most of all a contribution to Blake scholarship, it seeks to illuminate the links between Blake’s worldview and that of the Ranters which A.L. Morton could only postulate. It finds this in the pamphlett controversies of the sectaries, free thinkers and antinomians of 18th century London, a literature that Thompson considers was much more readily available than the Paracelsian, kabbalistic and neoplatonist literature that Kathleen Raine considers in her book, Blake and Tradition.
It is also, as all E.P. Thompson books are, a search for comrades. Thompson comes closest to finding them in the Muggletonians, a 17th century group of plebeian antinomians descended from the London Ranters, and whom Thompson had the immense pleasure of meeting the last living descendent, an encounter which is lovingly retold in the book. What draws Thompson to the Muggletonians at first blush seems to be their habits of organisation, so familiar to the modern socialist sectary, of intimate meetings above pubs with plenty of beer, and the common tasks of record keeping, note taking, and publication of tracts that give the organisation its material presence.
Yet there is also a suggestion, more pronounced perhaps in the last few chapters which are exoterically works of literary crticism on Blake’s poems ‘The Divine Image’, ‘London’, and ‘The Human Abstract’, that the antinomians, Muggletonians and Blake more specifically represent a road not taken (what Johannes Kepler was to Loren Goldner) when it comes to the precocious development of a philosophy of sensuous activity.
The Divine Image has an obvious antinomianism as well as an egalitarian humanism. When Blake says that “Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell/ There God is dwelling too” after also saying that “Mercy has a human heart…” one gets the impression that mercy, God and man are all of the same thing.
The social criticism of London is archetypal, and to link it to the critique of political economy would be unnecessary. Thompson blithely remarks that ‘The mark of the beast would seem, like chart’d, to have something to do with the buying and selling of human values.’ One would hope! The invocation of the apocalyptic tradition also highlights the this-sidedness of Blake's theology. The Book of Revelation brings forward hell into the world of the present, Blake’s London is hell already. As Blake says in the Divine Image that love is the human form divine, so too is our hell the human form infernal.
Thompson reads CF Volney’s The Ruins closely with The Human Abstract as well as The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Volney states in The Ruins that ‘the attributes of God are abstractions of the knowledge of nature, the idea of whose conduct is suggested by the experience of a despotic government’. Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, suggests a different emphasis, he says ‘The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses … Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav’d the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their object; thus began priesthood … Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.’ The difference is slight yet momentous. Whereas for Volney the misattribution of natural powers to Gods was a result of a lack of knowledge and done so in a way that is an imprint of this world’s government, for Blake the poetic interpretation of nature is positive and creative but subject to a later peversion by the pursuit of power. Do we not see here the disntinction between mechanical materialism and a philosophy that could conceive human activity itself as objective activity? Thompson also points to the distinction between Volney’s founding of human civilisation on self-love and the recieving of ideas purely through the senses, and Blake’s view of the importance of poetic genius. Again, is this not a recognition that 'The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society'? Thompson does not make these points because he is, despite his reputation, a very sensible and responsible historian. I am none of these things so I will.
November 27, 2017
'Reason' as in 'Ideology' today
September 24, 2020
Such fun! though I became a High Church Tory long ago.
June 30, 2010
Cross posted at http://nicodemist.wordpress.com/2010/...
This was Thompson’s last published work completed shortly before his death; how representative it is of his wider work I don’t know (I have a recollection of having read is Making of the English Working Classes a few years back but can’t be sure).
I did not purchase the book for it’s main thesis, that of offering a reading of William Blake’s dissenting thought but the work on muggletonianism and antinomianism that Thompson researched as a plank of his wider thesis on the radical spiritual influences on Blake by groups such as the Swedenborgians, diverse antinomians and, before them, the Muggletonians.
It is Thompson’s discussion of the latter that interested me. Without doubt the highlight of this book is the Appendix 1 in which Thompson recounts his discovery of the Last Muggletonian, Philip Noakes, shortly before he died in 1979 as the last living Muggletonian. Thompson was able to secure from Noakes the Muggletonian Archive for the British Library.
Thompson goes on to suggest that Blake, possibly through his mother, imbibed Muggletonian influences that would influence his thought and work. The argument to my mind is certainly not conclusive but this is an interesting book that charts the antinomian impulses of much 17th and 18th century thought. As such, it is one of the key texts for understanding Muggletonian thought as it outlived its first generation.
This was Thompson’s last published work completed shortly before his death; how representative it is of his wider work I don’t know (I have a recollection of having read is Making of the English Working Classes a few years back but can’t be sure).
I did not purchase the book for it’s main thesis, that of offering a reading of William Blake’s dissenting thought but the work on muggletonianism and antinomianism that Thompson researched as a plank of his wider thesis on the radical spiritual influences on Blake by groups such as the Swedenborgians, diverse antinomians and, before them, the Muggletonians.
It is Thompson’s discussion of the latter that interested me. Without doubt the highlight of this book is the Appendix 1 in which Thompson recounts his discovery of the Last Muggletonian, Philip Noakes, shortly before he died in 1979 as the last living Muggletonian. Thompson was able to secure from Noakes the Muggletonian Archive for the British Library.
Thompson goes on to suggest that Blake, possibly through his mother, imbibed Muggletonian influences that would influence his thought and work. The argument to my mind is certainly not conclusive but this is an interesting book that charts the antinomian impulses of much 17th and 18th century thought. As such, it is one of the key texts for understanding Muggletonian thought as it outlived its first generation.
October 5, 2014
I purchased E.P. Thompson's book for a project I am currently working on regarding William Blake. Contextually, the book certainly has a distinct advantage, but I did have a hard time following some of Thompson's logic and theories.
Occasionally, he mentions an ongoing or age old debate in reference to Blake and never chooses he a side which ultimately left me wondering what the purpose was of the inclusion at all. The argument is displayed briefly, then dismissed. Was it included for Thompson to seem more credible in his writing or presentation of context? Does he dismiss the arguments, because he simply doesn't want to take a side and thus skew readers' opinions?
Overall, not a bad book on Blake, but certainly not a place for beginners in Blakean studies to start.
Occasionally, he mentions an ongoing or age old debate in reference to Blake and never chooses he a side which ultimately left me wondering what the purpose was of the inclusion at all. The argument is displayed briefly, then dismissed. Was it included for Thompson to seem more credible in his writing or presentation of context? Does he dismiss the arguments, because he simply doesn't want to take a side and thus skew readers' opinions?
Overall, not a bad book on Blake, but certainly not a place for beginners in Blakean studies to start.
November 30, 2008
One of Thompson's last studies is a useful contribution to Blake scholarship which presents the most convincing case possible for William and Catherine's association with the Muggletonians -- all the while reminding us of the paucity of evidence supporting this thesis. Good work by a good historian at work.
August 28, 2009
William Blake, popular religious movements, and working-class radical politics. Excellent.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews