Michael Gove, Extremism & the case of William Blake’s Beast & Whore
Michael Gove has apparently been compiling a little list of people and organisations that he considers to be extremist. There is an episode of the Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin that could have saved him the trouble.
Gove’s knowledge of British history is doubtful at best and it is worth reflecting that some of the most well-known figures in British history held minority and indeed what many would regard as extreme religious views. William Blake was certainly one.
The late historian EP Thompson wrote extensively about Blake and the religious traditions he stood in. There is a review of his Witness Against the Beast from a Blake related website which gives a flavour in overview of what he was looking at:
http://bq.blakearchive.org/28.2.paley
In another age these minority traditions were perhaps better understood. The paperback edition of Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class was published as the 1000th Pelican book in September 1968. To mark the occasion the Guardian published a special supplement to which Thompson himself contributed a piece headlined ‘Beast and Whore’. In Blakeian terms the reference was to Church and State, but one wonders if mentions of Blake or exhibitions of his work could end up on Gove’s list
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