Sheila A. Spector. "Glorious Incomprehensible": The Development of Blake's Kabbalistic Language, And "Wonders Divine": The Development of Blake's Kabbalistic Myth (Book Review‪)‬

Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press/London: Associated University Presses, 2001. Pp. 202 ("Glorious")/213 ("Wonders"). $59.50 each. Sheila Spector's reputation is based on her--gloriously comprehensible work on Hebrew and kabbalistic influences on British romantic literature. Now in these two volumes she expands from this base into William Blake's universe. The putative link between Blake and kabbalism is not new. The idea that he may have recruited kabbalism to give shape to his poetic figure of Albion as a version of the kabbalistic Adam Kadmon was first suggested by S. Foster Damon in 1924. But Spector's well-grounded knowledge of Hebrew and kabbalistic aspects of language theory takes this idea further and generates many interesting questions for academic speculation. Spector's research into the impact of kabbalism on British romantic literature has sometimes been viewed with scepticism by historians disquieted by what they see as factual evidence arranged to fit preliminary hypotheses, but it should also appeal to anyone with a passing interest in Blake who has ever puzzled over the derivation and pronunciation of his Pantheon of characters--for instance, Los being an anagram for the Latin word Sol, or more importantly the name of Blake's creator figure Urizen, which is usually interpreted as a "combination of the Greek for 'horizon,' and the Hebrew for 'curse/light' of the 'counsellor,' and the English pun, 'your reason'" ("Glorious Incomprehensible" 116).