begin page 16 | back to top

Reply to Charu Sheel Singh

Beneath the surface of Charu Sheel Singh’s rejoinder to my review of Chariot of Fire, I sense feelings of both outrage and pain. For the pain of the person, I can only feel sorrow, and I do. But I feel a graver concern for the scholar, for his inability or unwillingness to look candidly at the quality of the work he has offered his colleagues. My criticisms of Chariot are just, indeed charitable—given such glaring flaws as arguments for direct influence on Blake by obscure writers unborn or in the cradle during his lifetime, combined with misleading data on the dates of their books. In any case, his book is “out,” my review written, and his riposte duly recorded. It is now to be hoped that the scholar in Charu Sheel Singh will, at this remove in time, find the leisure and the calmness of temperament to assess rationally his beloved intellectual progeny, which he will find to contain much in need of mending.

Print Edition

  • Publisher
  • Department of English, University of Rochester
  • Rochester, NY, USA
    • Editors
    • Morris Eaves
    • Morton D. Paley
    • Managing Editor
    • Patricia Neill
    • Bibliographer
    • D.W. Dörrbecker
    • Review Editor
    • Nelson Hilton
    • Associate Editor for Great Britain
    • Frances A. Carey
    • Contributors
    • G.E. Bentley, Jr.
    • Morris Eaves
    • Robert N. Essick
    • Robert F. Gleckner
    • Jean H. Hagstrum
    • George Mills Harper
    • Nelson Hilton
    • Mary V. Jackson
    • Edward Larrissy
    • Lousie Lippincott
    • Catherine McClenahan
    • Anne K. Mellor
    • Peter Otto
    • George Anthoy Ross, Jr.
    • Charu Sheel Singh
    • Brian Wilkie
    • David Worrall

    Digital Edition

    • Editors:
    • Morris Eaves, University of Rochester
    • Robert Essick, University of California, Riverside
    • Joseph Viscomi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • Project Manager
    • Joe Fletcher
    • Technical Editor
    • Michael Fox
    • Previous Project Manager and Technical Editor
    • William Shaw
    • Project Director
    • Adam McCune
    • Project Coordinator, UNC:
    • Natasha Smith, Carolina Digital Library and Archives
    • Project Coordinator, University of Rochester:
    • Sarah Jones
    • Scanning:
    • UNC Digital Production Center
    • XML Encoding:
    • Apex CoVantage
    • Additional Transcription:
    • Adam McCune
    • Jennifer Park
    • Emendations:
    • Rachael Isom
    • Mary Learner
    • Adam McCune
    • Ashley Reed
    • Jennifer Park
    • Scott Robinson
    • XSLT Development:
    • Adam McCune
    • Joseph Ryan
    • William Shaw
    • PHP and Solr Development:
    • Michael Fox
    • Adam McCune
    • Project Assistants:
    • Lauren Cameron,
    • Rachael Isom,
    • Mary Learner,
    • Jennifer Park,
    • Ashley Reed,
    • Adair Rispoli,
    • Scott Robinson
    • Sponsors
    • Funders
    • Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly
    • William Blake Archive
    • Carolina Digital Library and Archives
    • Use Restrictions
    • Copyright © 2015 Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, all rights reserved. Items in this digital edition may be shared in accordance with the Fair Use provisions of U.S. copyright law. Redistribution or republication on other terms, in any medium, requires express written consent from the editors and advance notification of the publisher. Permission to reproduce the graphic images in this digital edition rests with the owning institutions.