3796 - Exploring William Blake's Illustrations (Liza Davis)
Course Description
Instructor: Liza Davis
English poet, artist, unorthodox Christian, and impassioned critic of political and religious authoritarianism, William Blake (1757–1827) etched his works onto plates he illustrated by hand, in most cases coloring them in before reproducing them. These illustrations may complement a poem's text or subtly qualify it, as they do in Songs of Innocence and of Experience. They may be devoted primarily to the text, as in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell—challenge enough to our analytical skills. Or they may stand alone as irreverent interpretations of famous figures, as in his etchings Newton and Elohim Creating Adam. We will explore all three of these approaches. The instructor will provide links to the readings and illustrations and will feature them throughout the PowerPoint presentation.
Please note: We will also offer this class as an in-classroom section, however, in-classroom is still via Zoom, just from the OLLI Classroom, for those that want to participate in another class at OLLI in-person at 11:30AM
BIO: Dr. Liza Davis received her Ph.D. in English from Emory University in 1980 and subsequently taught literature courses at the University of Alabama in Huntsville before marrying, returning to Atlanta, and continuing her teaching career at Kennesaw State University. For 20 years she served as KSU's Undergraduate Honors Director, retiring in 2016. Now Professor Emerita of English, she has taught interdisciplinary courses on topics ranging from utopian/dystopian literature to the intersections between literature and science (a good excuse to teach Frankenstein). But she has also enjoyed offering classes on eighteenth-, nineteeth-, and twentieth-century British and American poetry; on Arthurian literature and film; and on "Great Books" in world literature.
Her first OLLI course was on the poetry of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey, who has shaped her experiences as a biracial Southern woman into remarkably accessible, thought-provoking, and beautiful verse. Dr. Davis hopes to teach this course to OLLI students again, as well as offer other classes in her repertory.