Blake's Prophetic Workshop: A Study of The Four Zoas"While William Blake's The Four Zoas may be fascinating to Blake scholars, it presents formidable obstacles to even the most ardent Romanticist, let alone interested critics or the general reader. Blake's Prophetic Workshop attempts to clear some of these obstacles by studying the work from a variety of critical perspectives. It assumes some familiarity with Blake's prophecies, but is cast between the introductory and advanced levels of the two previous books published on the poem." "Although the major reading strategy is close textual analysis, the poem is marked by various cultural and social contexts that need elucidation. Chapters alternate between sketching these contexts and traditions and providing detailed readings within these contexts. The first chapters give a reception history of the work and set it within the tradition of the eighteenth-century "long poem," namely Thomson's Seasons, Pope's An Essay on Man, and Young's Night Thoughts, texts that Blake critiques as Newtonian substitutions of Miltonic prophecy. Chapter three tests these assertions by reading the poem's creation narratives in terms of Anglican-Dissenting apologetics. The final chapters sift the cultural contexts that shape Blake's use of biblical typology and scrutinize several continental philosophies of history, and how they encroach on The Four Zoas, as well as situate the poem in the apocalyptic moment of the 1790s." "While a pluralist approach is followed, author George Anthony Rosso, Jr., subscribes to a fundamentally historical theory that places The Four Zoas in the broad and eclectic tradition of English poetic prophecy. Aware of recent critiques of "the prophetic," Rosso pursues his theory with flexibility and tolerance for other viewpoints." "An appendix provides a useful commentary on the relations between the text and certain designs, drawings, and sketches in the manuscript. Its aim is to show that Blake repeats key images in various frames to provide a sense of context and development, and that the drawings expose what the narrative represses, often in graphic sexual detail. Rosso presents a Blake who is both deadly serious and disarmingly ironic about the relevance of prophecy in the modern world."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Contents
| 23 | |
The Uses of Obscurity The Four Zoas in EighteenthCentury Literary History | 48 |
Plotting the Fall Creation Narratives in The Four Zoas | 64 |
Blakes Typology in Historical Context | 94 |
Repetition and Simultaneity Typological History in The Four Zoas Nights IVIIa | 109 |
Consolidating Error History and Apocalypse in Nights VIIbIX | 130 |
Drawings from The Four Zoas | 153 |
A Commentary on the Drawings | 164 |
Notes | 180 |
Works Cited | 191 |
| 198 | |
| 201 | |
Common terms and phrases
Ahania Albion ancient apocalypse argues Ault Bentley Bible biblical Blake's narrative Blake's prophetic Blakean chain Christian Circle of Destiny contemporary context cosmology cosmos creation creation-fall critique crypsis cultural Damon dark Deism DiSalvo divine Donald Ault drawing eighteenth-century Enion Enitharmon epic Erdman and Magno Essay Eternal Death Fall fallen female figure Four Zoas Frye Genesis Gilchrist heaven higher critics human individual kerygma kerygmatic Lamb Los's Lowth Luvah Milton moral Murry myth narrator natural religion Newtonian Night Thoughts Night VII obscurity Orc Cycle Orc's Paradise Lost perspective poem poem's poet poetic poetry political prophecy Rahab readers redemptive repetition Revelation revolutionary Romantic Satan Shadow social Spectre spiritual strategy Swinburne symbolic textual Tharmas Tharmas's thou tion tradition Tree of Mystery turn typology University Press Urizen Urthona Urthona's Spectre Vala Vala's VIIa VIIb VIII vision visionary visual William Blake Wittreich Yeats Young's Youngquist zoas and emanations