Adult education: things we can learn from Blake
Colin Waugh address delivered at the Conference on the 7th May 2021
‘Fostering community, democracy, and dialogue through adult lifelong education’: Celebrating resources of hope.
This presentation and associated paper will focus on two documents produced by William Blake: the title page of his prophetic book Milton, probably started in 1803 (this includes the verses that begin 'And did those feet in ancient time . . .'), and the section of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) (MHH) that begins 'The ancient poets . . .'.
The later document centres on two concepts - : 'prophecy' and 'mental fight' - that I argue are crucial to rebuilding collective working-class adult education now. The earlier document allows us to see how Blake arrived at these concepts.
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