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This issue of the BLAKE NEWSLETTER is dedicated to Professor S. Foster Damon, whom we delight to honor in anticipation of his seventy-fifth birthday.
A more substantial and permanent tribute to Professor Damon is being prepared by Professor Alvin Rosenfeld of Brown University. It is an anthology of original essays on Blake to be published as a Festschrift entitled William Blake: Essays For S. Foster Damon. It will include some two dozen essays on Blake’s poetry and painting, written for the occasion by many of the world’s leading Blake scholars; an introductory essay on S. Foster Damon by Malcolm Cowley; and, as an appendix, a full bibliography of Professor Damon’s writings. It will also include numerous plates of Blake’s designs. A further announcement about the Festschrift, including details about its contents and date of publication, will appear in the next NEWSLETTER.
A celebration of Professor Damon’s birthday will take place at Brown on February 22-23. The festivities will include a reading of his poetry, a performance of scenes from his prize-winning play Witch of Dogtown, and possibly a small concert of his music. An informal seminar will be conducted by Professors Harold Bloom and Geoffrey Hartman, and an exhibit of Blake items and Damoniana will be shown at Brown’s Rockefeller Library (Feb. 15 - March 15). All these programs have been arranged by Alvin Rosenfeld.
It’s difficult to find words adequate to someone who is at the same time a great pioneer and an energetic contemporary. May Foster Damon’s wisdom, enthusiasm, wit and versatility long continue to astonish us!