The Dorothy Gott Project
This Panacea Society-funded project aims to recover the life and writings of the ex-Quaker prophetess Dorothy Gott (1748-1812) in order to broaden our understanding of turn-of-the-eighteenth-century:
- millenarian literature and ideas
- women's writing
- religious and spiritual cultures
- and female roles in society.
Project information
Dorothy Gott was a millenarian who, after the death of her husband in 1785, published three pamphlets predicting the imminent Second Coming of Christ:
"The Midnight Cry, 'Behold, the Bridegroom Comes!' OR, an Order from God to get your LAMPS lighted, Otherwise you must go into DARKNESS, where there will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of Teeth. […] This is my experience (1788)."
"Christ the Standard of Truth Set Up, By the Light of the Morning Star, The Spirit of Truth; and Satan, the Son of Perdition, Revealed, By the Same Light. Containing A Short Account of the CREATION and FALL in HEAVEN, with an Account of CHRIST REIGNING WITH HIS SAINTS in his espoused Church, on Earth, for ONE THOUSAND YEARS, till he hath made his BRIDE ready: when he will descend with all his holy Angels and found the Trumpet at the Gate of the holy city, to call all to Judgement (1798)."
"The Noon-Day Sun; A Revelation from Christ, To Dispel the Night of Apostacy [sic], To Make an End to Sin, To bring an Everlasting Righteousness, To Seal up the Visions and Prophecies in Oblivion, To anoint The Most Holy King of every Motion; For the Lord God and the Lamb will be Light thereof For there shall be no Night there (1811)."
Although now a neglected figure, according to Swedenborg Society records the visionary poet and painter William Blake -- together with his wife, Catherine -- met Dorothy Gott in April 1789. This signaled an unexpected preemption for our understanding of Blake as a prophetic writer about to embark on his series of prophetic illuminated books. The series includes Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), which figures in it the prophetic female character, Oothoon.
The first year of the Project has focused on retrieving the details of Gott's life in order to provide the context for understanding her writings, prophetic thought and assessing her position within the intricate and complex spiritual cultures of London c. 1800. The information recovered includes the following.
The death of her baby in 1771
Her disownment from the Society of Friends (Quakers) in 1773
The death of her husband in 1785
Her own death in 1812
Prophetic writing
The second year of the Project will concentrate on investigating Gott's writings paying close attention to her prophetic ideas, spiritual identity, strategies for claiming power, position within society, and proto-feminist biblical exegesis.
For instance, Gott's visionary imagination and prophetic language was influenced by contemporary developments in optical science. In The Midnight Cry, she described the effect of Christ's second coming into the sinful world in terms of 'the solar microscope', a contemporary image projection device, which she said: 'represents Christ's coming, which will enlighten your hearts, and shew yourselves as you really are' (82). She juxtaposed this image in relation to John Murray's camera obscura:
'Murray's camera represents the people walking in darkness, and the solar microscope represents Christ enlightening our hearts by fresh objects being brought to our view, as though through a glass, by the power of the sun' (The Midnight Cry, 66).
She also offered her own proto-feminist interpretations of the Bible which she asserted had been divinely manifest in her visionary readings of the scriptures.
For more information on Dorothy Gott, please contact the Project Leader Professor David Worrall and/or Research Fellow Dr Nancy Jiwon Cho.
The following publications may also be consulted:
- David Worrall, William Blake, the Female Prophet and the American Agent: The Evidence of the Swedenborgian Great East Cheap Conference, in Blake and Conflict, eds. Jon Mee and Sarah Haggarty, (Houndmills, 2009), 48–64
- Nancy Jiwon Cho and David Worrall, William Blake's Meeting with Dorothy Gott: The Female Origins of Blake's Prophetic Mode, forthcoming in Romanticism (Edinburgh University Press)
- Nancy Jiwon Cho, Dorothy Newberry Gott, forthcoming in Biographical History of Women Biblical Interpreters (Baker Academic Press)
- Nancy Jiwon Cho, Waiting for Gott: Recovering the Life of Dorothy Gott (c 1748-1812) forthcoming in Quaker Connections.
Find out more on the The Panacea Society website.
