"This book will change the way we think about Blake. Diane Piccitto shows what happens when Blake's own vivid concept of 'Visionary Forms Dramatic' is taken seriously. She applies the idea of drama to Blake's illuminated books both historically and conceptually, drawing equal insight from the context of late eighteenth-century theatre and more unexpected comparisons such as the theories of ... Read moreBrecht and Stanislavsky, and the dramatic basis of Althusser's concept of interpellation. The interpretive results are impressive, especially in combination with Piccitto's own bright constellations of close reading. Her daring yet well founded arguments offer rich food for thought not only for Blakeans but also for those interested in the ongoing redefinition of Romantic drama, as well as larger issues of performance and identity, reader response, and the interactions of image and text." Tristanne Connolly, University of Waterloo, Canada Show Less