‘Real Acting’: ‘Felpham Billy’ and Grayson Perry Try It On

Abstract

This chapter complements my discussion of the ways Blake’s friendship with Ann Flaxman tempted the artist to delve into the pleasures of feminine aesthetics (Bruder 2007b). Ample, beautiful evidence for that transgendered play was found in the unique set of watercolour sketches William produced as a gift for Ann (1797) and here I chart a further sexually experimental step, into textual transvestism, by focusing on an unprecedented verbal collection— one so unusual that Blake never named it, though it is now (flu- idly) titled The Pickering Manuscript or The Ballads or The Auguries Manuscript (1800–07).¹ My spirit-guide will be the peerless transvestite creator Grayson Perry, whose autobiographical, cartoon and cartographic works in particular provide an invaluable rudder for my adventurous hand; but before consid- ering the eager passion some heterosexual male artists have for absorbing and performing femininities, it’s vital to explore some suggestive aspects of the unique years which may well have animated the ‘Real Acting’ I perceive within ‘Felpham Billy [’s]’ poems (E764, 504).