Blake's Night Thoughts gives a close reading of Blake's texts - both lyric and prophetic - in relation to Maurice Blanchot and Emmanuel Levinas on the night as outside, as the void drawing thought out, fragmenting it. Considering the representations of night in Milton and in Edward Young, whose Night Thoughts Blake illustrated, and the relation between poetry of the night and graveyard poetry, this original new study examines the meanings of night for Blake, as the alternative to day, as as aligning writing to melancholia and madness.Including detailed analysis of major works such asThe Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Four Zoas as well as less commonly studied texts including the Night Thoughts illustrations, For the Sexesand the Dante illustrations, this book provides a welcome new perspective from the usual preoccupations of Blake studies in its use of a theoretical framework. Tambling also discusses Blake's work on Young and Dante as well as his social and sexual contexts and relationship with London, and presents an original view of Blake as a poet fascinated by what is found at the boundaries of thought.