Suffocated within a Loop: An Analytical Reading ofWilliam Blake’s “The Mental Traveller” and Other Poems

The present literature on Blake’s poetry, puzzling to scholars since his own time, proves unsuccessful injustifying the gloomy tone and perplexing nature of this poet-artist’s oeuvre. This study focuses on threemain issues: cyclic movements in “The Mental Traveller” in relation to his other poems, the repetitivethemes throughout them, and the continual presence of a certain mood of terror and sorrow in his works.Using the psychoanalytic concepts of symptom, fantasy, and the mental categories, we conclude thatBlake’s being a psychotic is the reason for the issues presented, distinguishing him from his peers as aunique figure.

Keywords:

William Blake , Psychosis , Fantasy , Symptom qua Sinthome , The Mental Traveller.