Assembly Rooms: An exciting afternoon of talks by wonderful speakers.
Paul Weston: Glastonbury Golgonooza
Nick Owen: Blake and Mindfulness
Peter Fraser: Blake’s Chaucer
Before the start and at the end of the Saturday talks programme there will be a screening of the short film, Chartered Streets, by Jeremy Wooding and Neil Spencer.
This stars Julian Firth and Pauline Melville, with voiceover by Billy Bragg. It is an exquisite piece: A contemporary view of London through the poetry of William Blake.
‘William Blake was, and is, important as an artist, a poet, a moral philosopher and as a critic, both of art and of literature. Not only was he exceptional in all these fields and not only are they are all to be found in all his work, but they are to be found complete in everything he did, however minor.
Nowhere is this as clear as it is in his work on Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This centres on a substantial painting, his engraving of it, the largest plate he engraved, and the writing in “The Descriptive Catalogue” where almost as much space is given to this one painting as to the other fifteen in the exhibition. By looking at these it is possible to readily understand many aspects of Blake’s amazing and complex philosophy’.
During Saturday afternoon we will also welcome further special guests.