Argues that William Blake's illustrations for Thomas Gray's "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat" testify to the contradictions in Gray's poetry. States that Blake's designs offer another language, a contra-diction, that deconstructs Gray's conscious discourse and liberates his unconscious discourse. (RS)

Arguably, the profoundest classical treatment of literary truth, and by extension, of truth in the arts, can be found in Aristotle's "Poetics." But as the writings of two twentieth-century theorists show, Aristotle's insights can be taken in very different ways. In this essay, the author contrasts John Hospers's anti-cognitivist reading of…