Castaway
Roy Porter, 4 March 1982
The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Vol. I: 1750-1781
edited by James King and Charles Ryskamp.
Oxford, 640 pp., £27.50, June 1979,0 19 811863 5 Show More
edited by James King and Charles Ryskamp.
Oxford, 640 pp., £27.50, June 1979,
The Poems of William Cowper: Vol. 1 1748-1782
edited by John Baird and Charles Ryskamp.
Oxford, 500 pp., £25, September 1980,0 19 811875 9 Show More
edited by John Baird and Charles Ryskamp.
Oxford, 500 pp., £25, September 1980,
The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper. Vol. II: 1782-1786
edited by James King and Charles Ryskamp.
Oxford, 640 pp., £27.50, June 1979,0 19 811863 5 Show More
edited by James King and Charles Ryskamp.
Oxford, 640 pp., £27.50, June 1979,
“... Cowper came to me and said: “O that I were insane always. I will never rest. Can you not make me truly insane? … You retain health and yet are as mad as any of us all – mad as a refuge from unbelief – Bacon, Newton and Locke.’ ” Thus William Blake’s memo of a ghostly visitation from William Cowper. But how aghast Cowper would have been at the words put into his mouth! Blake revelled in his own prophetic ravings, soaring free from the mind-forged manacles of the rationalist trinity into the aether of mysticism and insight ... ”
