Artifact 7--William Blake

William Blake

The prophetic books of the English poet and artist William Blake contain a rich invented mythology, in which Blake worked to encode his revolutionary spiritual and political ideas into a prophecy for a new age. This desire to recreate the cosmos is the heart of his work and his psychology. His myths often described the struggle between enlightenment and free love on the one hand, and restrictive education and morals on the other.

The Fall of Albion

The relationship of the four zoas, as depicted by Blake in Milton: a Poem

The longest elaboration of this private myth-cycle was also his longest poem—The Four Zoas: The Death and Judgment of Albion The Ancient Man—left in manuscript form at the time of his death. In this work, Blake traces the fall of Albion, who "was originally fourfold but was self divided.

Albion is divided into four Zoas:

• Tharmas: representing instinct and strength
• Urizen: tradition; a cruel god resembling the Gnostic Demiurge.
• Luvah: love, passion and emotive faculties; a Christ-like figure, also known as Orc in his most amorous and rebellious form.
• Urthona, also known as Los: inspiration and the imagination

The Blake Pantheon also includes feminine emanations that have separated from an integrated male being, as Eve separated from Adam:

• The maternal Enion is an emanation from Tharmas.
• The celestial Ahania is an emanation from Urizen.
• The seductive Vala is an emanation from Luvah.
• The musical Enitharmon is an emanation from Los.

The fall of Albion and his division into the Zoas and their emanations are also the central themes of Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion.

Rintrah first appears in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, personifying revolutionary wrath. He is later grouped together with other spirits of rebellion in The Vision of the Daughters of Albion:

• The loud and lustful Bromion
• The "mild and piteous" Palamabron, son of Enitharmon and Los (also appears in Milton)
• The tortured mercenary Theotormon