William Blake/Poet The Ampersand: Casual Vortex or Engravers Shortcurt

book of the Fours Zoas, which is approximately the same length and word count, the exact opposite occurs. Blake uses 180 ampersands and only twentynine ands. I believe that there could be two possible answers to why Blakes later work exhibits this notable shift. The first answer could be that Blake figura serpentine. . . An ampersand (&) , also commonly called an and sign is a logogram representing the conjunction and. The word ampersand is a corruption of the phrase and per se and, meaning and [the symbol which] by itself [is]

nlike other elements of poetry analysis, the ampersand lacked a direct relationship to content, which led me to think about it in terms of style, but here too the style seemed lacking a clear thread of connection. So what was the ampersands role in poetry? With the help of other writers and friends, I came up with a short chronological list of poets who used the ampersand: William Blake E.E. Cummins Ezra Pound John Berryman D.A.Powel Matthhea Harvey Jorie Graham

What began as an Engraver s shortcut evolves into an expression that transforms the language into a visual interpretation and a spoken expression .
found in his engraving practices a simple, suitable, and easily recognizable shortcut in the ampersand. The second answer may lie in what two other important visual artists from the Romantic period, J.W. Turner and William Hogarth, came to believe about the ongoing fascination with the phenomenology of the vortex. Basically, these three artists regarded the spiral or the vortex as a crucial element in the perception and representation of space or volume. In W.J.T. Mitchells essay, Metamorphosis of the Vortex, Hogarth, Turner and Blake, he speaks directly to the vortex-like elements of the ampersand: Unquestionably, the spiral and vortex are central to Blakes graphic style. All of the affinities are with virtuistic linear styles that employ variations on the waving linethe and. . . . . For those of you who were leaning toward the engravers shortcut or the artistic fascination with the vortex and the spiral, Mitchell suggests here and in other writings . . . that it was most likely a fortuitous combination of both ideas. Blake was being an industrious visionary, capitalizing on the practical and symbolic implications of the ampersand. . . . .

This by no means is a definitive list, and admittedly there is a gap that stretches through the 70s and 80s. However, the poets I selected seemed to be a good cross-section of writers who brought to bear very particular stylistic choices in exactly how they incorporated this curious ligature into their poems. In William Blakes Songs of Innocence and Experience, he uses approximately 191 ands and thirty-four ampersands. However, eight years later, in the first

On the micro level, I think both [the conjunction and and the ampersand] are used to reflect a distinctive aspect, a style and a voice that make up each of the writers relationships with his or her content; however, on the macro level, the ampersands paratactic substitution creates an important thread of literary connections. What began as an engravers shortcut evolves into an expression that