“Hang Philosophy”: Blake’s Metaphysical Forays in An Island in the Moon

Blake’s An Island in the Moon is foundational for his self-conception as a metaphysician. This chapter elaborates on the philosophical topics in Island that will pervade Blake’s early illuminated work. Several of the targets of his satirical barbs are natural-philosophic attitudes regarding the nature of matter, the soul’s relationship to the body, and the first principles that enable understanding of the universe. Beneath Blake’s satirical clowning lies a deep awareness of and engagement with several ontological and epistemological traditions and contemporary developments in the natural sciences, thus placing the work in a tradition of philosophical dialogues. Although Blake does not mount a coherent metaphysical argument in this manuscript work, he stakes out the metaphysical preoccupations that will be taken up more thoroughly in later works.