Current PhD Students

Elizabeth Potter

Thesis Title:

William Blake, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Marginalia

Supervisor:

Professor Jon Mee

Description:

Inside of William Blake’s copy of The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1798) are extensive annotations; some contentious, others concurring, some poetic, others dismissive. Despite the fading manuscript notes, the impact of the marginalia has been felt in biographies of both Blake and Reynolds, as evidence for Blake’s aesthetics and philosophy, and to historicize or criticize the Royal Academy. Her thesis examines Blake’s marginalia on material and conceptual levels to better understand Blake’s views of the eighteenth-century British art world and what it may reveal about his later writing and art. Beyond her thesis, she is interested in Indigenous American studies, visual culture, and affect theory.

Email: emp534@york.ac.uk