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An Island in the Moon
''An Island in the Moon'' is the name generally assigned to an untitled, unfinished prose satire by William Blake, written in late 1784. Containing early versions of three poems later included in ''Songs of Innocence'' (1789) and satirising the "contrived and empty productions of the contemporary culture,"〔Hilton (2003: 193-194)〕 ''An Island'' demonstrates Blake's increasing dissatisfaction with convention and his developing interest in prophetic modes of expression. Referred to by William Butler Yeats and E. J. Ellis as "Blake's first true symbolic book,"〔Ellis and Yeats, ''The Works of William Blake, Poetic, Symbolic and Critical'' (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1893); Volume I, 194〕 it also includes a partial description of Blake's soon-to-be-realised method of illuminated printing. The piece was unpublished during Blake's lifetime, and survives only in a single manuscript copy, residing in the Fitzwilliam Museum, in the University of Cambridge.
==Background==
The overriding theory as to the main impetus behind ''An Island'' is that it allegorises Blake's rejection of the bluestocking society of Harriet Mathew, who, along with her husband, Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew organised 'poetical evenings' to which came many of Blake's friends (such as John Flaxman, Thomas Stothard and Joseph Johnson) and, on at least one occasion, Blake himself.〔Ackroyd (1995: 82-85)〕 The Mathews had been behind the publication in 1783 of Blake's first collection of poetry, ''Poetical Sketches'',〔Ackroyd (1995: 94)〕 but by 1784, Blake had supposedly grown weary of their company and the social circles in which they moved, and chose to distance himself from them. This theory can be traced back to an 1828 'Biographical Sketch' of Blake by his friend in later life, the painter J.T. Smith, published in the second volume of Smith's biography of Joseph Nollekens, ''Nollekens and his times''. Smith's references to the Mathew family's association with Blake were taken up and elaborated upon by Blake's first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist, in his 1863 biography ''Life of William Blake, Pictor Ignotus.'', and from that point forth, the prevailing belief as to the primary background of ''An Island'' is that it dramatises Blake's disassociation from the social circles in which he found himself.〔See Erdman (1977: 93n12)〕
Critical work in the second half of the twentieth century, however, has often challenged the assumption that ''An Island'' originated in Blake's rejection of a specific social circle. Foremost amongst such work is that of David V. Erdman, who suggests instead that the main background to the ''An Island'' is Blake's belief in his own imminent financial success. In early 1784, Blake opened a print shop at No. 27 Broad Street with James Parker, alongside whom he had served as an apprentice to the engraver James Basire during the 1770s. At the time, engraving was becoming an extremely lucrative trade, accruing both wealth and respectability for many of its practitioners, and Erdman believes that the increasing prosperity for engravers in the early 1780s represents the most important background to ''An Island'', arguing that the confidence which Blake and Parker must have felt informs the content more so than any sense of social rejection;〔Erdman (1977: 90)〕 "the kind of envy that breeds satire is that of the artist and artisan who is anticipating the taste of success and is especially perceptive of the element of opportunism."〔Erdman (1977: 101)〕 Erdman also sees as important the fact that the character based on Blake, Quid the Cynic, partially outlines a new method of printing, not unlike Blake's own, as yet unrealised, illuminated printing. Quid argues that he will use this new method of printing to outdo the best known and most successful of artists and writers, such as Joshua Reynolds, William Woollett, Homer, John Milton and William Shakespeare. Behind this claim, argues Erdman, "lies the vision of a man () who begins to see a way to replace the division of labour with the harmony of One Man, to renew and join together the arts of poetry and painting without going outside his own shop and his own head."〔Erdman (1977: 99)〕 As such, it is Erdman's contention that the primary background factor for ''An Island'' is the sense of anticipation and exuberance on the part of Blake, expectation for his new business venture and excitement regarding his new method of printing; ''An Island'' was thus borne from anticipation.
Nevertheless, writing in 2003, Nick Rawlinson, who also disagrees with the 'rejection theory', points out that "the general critical consensus is that the eleven surviving chapters of this unpublished manuscript form little more than Blake's whimsical attempt to satirise his friends, neighbours and fellow attendees of 27 Rathbone Place, the intellectual salon of the Reverend and Mrs AS Mathew; a kind of pleasing cartoon wallpaper on which he couldn't resist scrawling a few grotesque caricatures of his favourite scientific and philosophic bugbears."〔Rawlinson (2003: 98)〕
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