Marginalism and the Reconstruction of East-West Relations in Blake's Jerusalem
Interpreting William Blake's epic Jerusalem from the dual perspectives of literary economics and East-West relations may provide a new theoretical perspective for examining the changes in literary economic thought of the British Romantic period.From the perspective of the demarcation of Blake studies,it can be observed that Blake,as a producer of artworks and books,participated in the emerging market of the British Romantic period.The discourses of the social criticism school,the classical tradition school,and the textual study school are respectively based on the examination of the relationship between Blake's artistic creation and the market in different ways.From the interdisciplinary perspective of literary economics,it can be seen that Jerusalem's reflection on the reality of social transformation in the Roman-tic period can be corroborated with the contemporaneous rise of the marginalist economic thought,which can be analyzed from two aspects:first,the principle of diminishing marginal utility aligns with Blake's artistic innovation practice;second,the principle of dynamic equi-librium resonates with the complex symbolism of Blake's epics.Accordingly,Blake reshaped the national imagination of Romantic-period Britain in two ways:one is the idealized vision of the nation symbolized by the giant Albion;the other is the reconstruction of the East-West relations symbolized by the relationship among Albion,Jerusalem,and Vala.Blake's imagina-tion reconfigured the schema of East-West relations,embodying the influence of literary art on social reality.
William BlakeJerusalemMarginalismDynamic EquilibriumEast-West Relations
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