There is a Void, outside of Existence, which if enterd into
Englobes itself & becomes a Womb, such was Albions Couch
A pleasant Shadow of Repose calld Albions lovely Land…
(Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion: Plate 1.1-3)
As foretold, I continue my survey of William Blake with a summary and analysis of Blake’s final poem in the zoa-cycle, Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion. A word of caution: if you thought my summary of Vala, or the Four Zoas hard to follow, things aren’t going to get easier. Jerusalem defies all narrative constructs and theories: the reader is advised to simply accept the poem as it comes (a once-over of the Book of Revelation and Paradise Lost wouldn’t hurt either). I also would recommend studying one of the original copies to get a feel for Blake’s artistic style.
Jerusalem is comprised of 100 plates. The book itself was composed anywhere from 1804 to 1820 (Ward 183).
Incorporating B[lake]’s various earlier mythologies into a single self-consistent myth, it tells the story of the Fall of Albion—who is Blake’s Mankind—from union with Jesus, the Divine Vision; Albion’s rejection of his Emanation, Jerusalem, and his seduction by the lower female principle of Vala; the labours of the prophet Los—who embodies man’s visionary and creative powers—to save him from the violent and cruel nightmare of his ensuing history; and his final regeneration and reunion with Jesus.
(Ostriker 993)
Albion, as the protagonist, is both a giant man, an idea, and a place. Within Albion the Place, Blake equates various cities of Britain to various cities in biblical Israel (e.g. Lambeth=Bethlehem), giving him lots of space to draw parallels between the perceived moral decline of his day with the apostasy of the Jews. Like Christ appealing to the Seven Churches in Revelation, Blake exhorts the metropolises of Britain to awaken from the slumber of Rationalism. In this sense, he employs one of my favorite literary devices, native mythology, or writing from one’s unique experience of a particular location, to reference persons, places, and events his contemporaries could appreciate. Albion’s Twelve Sons and Daughters both correspond to the Twelve Tribes of Israel and facilitate secular history. The Sons are named after Blake’s personal enemies,1 and the Daughters are named after queens from British history. Similar to Vala, Jerusalem possesses multiple aspects of meaning: foremost, at least in my mind, is that of the religious-sexual.
The ‘body’ of the faithful is to Blake a human body, in which male and female are one, and both are one in Jesus. All restrictions on human sexuality…form barriers. For sexual impulses, however ‘sinful’, must be expressed to be transcended. To show the identity of these issues, Blake presents….all that is…’sacred’, ‘holy’ and untouchable…through imagery of a chaste feminine body. As the veil of the temple was rent when Jesus died, so must organized religion, and the moral laws it enforces, fall before the higher union of man, woman, and God.
(Ostriker 995)
Not entirely orthodox, perhaps, but nevertheless one of Blake’s primary tenets. An abbreviated form of the same concept can be found in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. From enshrining the ideal of a union between the two extremes, be they heaven or hell, man and woman, or emotion and intellect, Blake distinguishes himself as the Pre-Romantic. Unlike the Romantics, he does not approve of the divorce of the dichotomy (in favor of the emotions, to the detriment of the intellect). As seen in Vala, he does not condemn the existence of Urizen, but rather the tyranny of Urizen. In keeping with his other “prophetic” books, Blake doesn’t fail to showcase the visionary: Los, reflects Blake’s own struggles as an artist, and even more poignantly in Jerusalem than in other poems. His task is to hold to the vision of Golgonooza, the city of light, in spite of universal darkness. In both an historical and theological sense, we can view Los’s actions as God's will covertly at work, primarily using the creating spirit in His children. However, creativity in a vacuum is incapable of saving humanity: it will take an act of the Prime Mover Himself to give any good labor of mankind purpose or agency in bringing about the salvific end to evil.
Blake prefaces the book with naming the dichotomies he must reconcile. The reader is introduced to Albion, who immediately rejects his Savior. To maintain order apart from the Divine, Albion establishes moral virtue:
Every ornament of perfection, and every labour of love,
In all the Garden of Eden, & in all the golden mountains
Was become an envied horror, and a remembrance of jealousy:
And every Act a Crime, and Albion the punisher & judge.
And Albion spoke from his secret seat and said
All these ornaments are crimes, they are made by the labours
Of loves: of unnatural consanguinities and friendships
Horrid to think of when enquired deeply into; and all
These hills & valleys are accursed witnesses of Sin
I therefore condense them into solid rocks, stedfast!
A foundation and certainty and demonstrative truth:
That Man be separate from Man, & here I plant my seat.
(Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, Plate 28.1-12)
He tries to govern the world with his ideal of beauty, but realizes that without the objective truth of his Creator to guide him, there can be no real beauty.
Los exhorts the now-recumbent Albion to awaken;2 his efforts are aided by the other Zoas and the cathedral cities of Britain, each of which is embodied by an angel, and all of which embody Albion’s conscience. These 28 cities are the seats of religion and the convicting spirits which ally themselves with the Four Zoas to effect Albion’s arousal. Albion “rejects all help and falls into non-entity” (Ostriker 1006), and his lethargy affects the friends of Albion.
With one accord in love sublime, & as on Cherubs wings
They Albion surround with kindest violence to bear him back
Against his will thro Los's Gate to Eden: Four−fold; loud!
Their Wings waving over the bottomless Immense: to bear
Their awful charge back to his native home: but Albion dark,
Repugnant; rolld his Wheels backward into Non−Entity
Loud roll the Starry Wheels of Albion into the World of Death
And all the Gate of Los, clouded with clouds redounding from
Albions dread Wheels, stretching out spaces immense between
That every little particle of light & air, became Opake
Black & immense, a Rock of difficulty & a Cliff
Of black despair; that the immortal Wings labourd against
Cliff after cliff, & over Valleys of despair & death:
The narrow Sea between Albion & the Atlantic Continent:
Its waves of pearl became a boundless Ocean bottomless,
Of grey obscurity, filld with clouds & rocks & whirling waters
And Albions Sons ascending & descending in the horrid Void.
[...]
Strucken with Albions disease they become what they behold;
They assimilate with Albion in pity & compassion;
Their Emanations return not: their Spectres rage in the Deep
The Slumbers of Death came over them around the Couch of Death
Before the Gate of Los & in the depths of Non Entity
Among the Furnaces of Los: among the Oaks of Albion.
(Jerusalem, 39.1-17, 32-37)
In the preface to Chapter 3, “To the deists”, Blake unleashes a great homily against Rationalism:
Man must and will have some religion; if he has not the religion of Jesus, he will have the religion of Satan, and will erect the synagogue of Satan, calling the Prince of this World ‘God’, and destroying all who do not worship Satan under the name of God. Will any one say: ‘Where are those who worship Satan under the name of God?’ Where are they? Listen! Every religion that preaches Vengeance for Sin is the religion of the Enemy and Avenger, and not of the Forgiver of Sin, and their God is Satan, named by the Divine Name. Your Religion, O Deists! Deism is the worship of the God of this World by the means of what you call Natural Religion and Natural Philosophy, and of Natural Morality or Self-Righteousness, the selfish virtues of the Natural Heart. This was the religion of the Pharisees who murdered Jesus. Deism is the same, and ends in the same.
(52.19-34)
The interlude serves as a valuable reminder of the fact that “there is no natural religion”, that the religious truths which are the backbone of civilization cannot be inferred from the general revelations of nature. Continuing the narrative, the forces of Rationalism rally. In an oxymoronic twist, this is accomplished through the druidic means of human sacrifice. Blake saw druidism as a proto-religion, the natural morality of Britain before the advent of Christianity. He goes further still and equates the druids to Old Testament patriarchs under the Mosaic law. But as St. Paul wrote,
…[T]here shall no flesh be justified in [God’s] sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe[.]
(Romans 3.20-21 KJV)
Albion, Blake is saying, is no longer obligated to the ceremonial laws of the Hebrews. To reinstate druidism would be an act of regression, a devolution of society. The idea of wizards using some sort of earth magic smells strongly of C.S. Lewis, when Screwtape is writing to Wormwood on how a fusion of modern materialism with archaic black magic:
When humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, only believe in us, we cannot make the materialists and ethics. At least, not yet. I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotional lies and mythologize their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in us (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to believe in the Enemy. The “Life Force,” the worship of sex, and other aspects of psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work — the materialist magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshiping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits” — the end of the war will be in sight.
(The Screwtape Letters, Letter 7)
Both authors perfectly encapsulate modern culture, which has merchandised the occult and substituted “religion” for “spirituality”—as if the two are mutually exclusive.
Throughout Chapter 3, there is war among the Divine Enclave and the forces of Rationalism, led by pagan deities, as a desperate Los continues to build Golgonooza. As the feminine form, or Emanation, of Albion, Jerusalem is given a vision of the forgiveness of sins.
In the fourth and final chapter, hope dawns as the seductive Daughters of Albion discover they have been tricked into serving Los’s ends:
Gwendolen saw the Infant in her siste[r]s arms; she howld
Over the forests with bitter tears, and over the winding Worm
Repentant: and she also in the eddying wind of Los’s Bellows
Began her dolorous task of love in the Wine-press of Luvah
To form the Worm into a form of love by tears & pain.
The Sisters saw! trembling ran thro their Looms! soften[in]g mild
Towards London: then they saw the Furna[c]es opend, & in tears
Began to give their souls away in the Furna[c]es of affliction.
(82.72-79)
Los is invigorated by the vision he receives of the new Jerusalem, but just as things are looking up, Enitharmon rebels. The passage is reminiscent of Eve’s dialogue with the Serpent in Book 9 of Paradise Lost. The Covering Cherub is revealed as the Antichrist, and like Satan in the Four Zoas, is a hermaphrodite.
His Loins inclose Babylon on Euphrates beautiful
And Rome in sweet Hesperia, there Israel scatterd abroad
In martyrdoms & slavery I behold: ah vision of sorrow!
[...]
A Double Female now appeard within the Tabernacle,
Religion hid in War, a Dragon red & hidden Harlot
Each within other, but without a Warlike Mighty-one
Of dreadful power…
(89.38-40, 52-55)
Notice how similar the imagery is to Revelation.
Time ends, and if it were any mystery as to who was running the show, Christ raises dead Albion to life:
…[A]round
Them howls the Wolf of famine deep heaves the Ocean black thundering
Around the wormy Garments of Albion: then pausing in deathlike silence
Time was Finished! The Breath Divine Breathed over Albion
Beneath the Furnaces & starry Wheels and in the Immortal Tomb
And England who is Brittania awoke, from Death on Albions bosom
She awoke pale & cold she fainted seven times on the Body of Albion
O pitious sleep Sleep O pitious Dream! O God O God awake I have slain
In Dreams of Chastity & Moral Law I have Murdered Albion! Ah!
In Stone-henge & on London Stone & in the Oak Groves of Malden
I have Slain him in my Sleep with the Knife of the Druid O England
(94.15-25)
In one of those intensely beautiful scenes in which the poet allows us as full a glimpse as possible of the Divine, Albion the Man and Albion the Nations are united to the Savior:
Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion knew that it
Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion saw his Form
A Man & they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los
Albion said. O Lord what can I do! my Selfhood cruel
Marches against thee deceitful from Sinai & from Edom
Into the Wilderness of Judah to meet thee in his pride
I behold the Visions of my deadly Sleep of Six Thousand Years
Dazling around thy skirts like a Serpent of precious stones & gold
I know it is my Self: O my Divine Creator & Redeemer
Jesus replied Fear not Albion unless I die thou canst not live
But if I die I shall arise again & thou with me
This is Friendship & Brotherhood without it Man Is Not
(96.3-16)
In critiquing his own era, Blake inadvertently prophecies ours, particularly in regards to that enchanted island, Albion. England is now a post-Christian society, a Waste Land none of the classical poets could have conceived of. Though there are and will be uncounted attempts to foil Los’s construction of the Heavenly City, Albion will, at the end of all things, be raised to life once more. Only through the Generation of the “Covenant of Jehovah” will the Eternal Man be reunited with God and his emanation, Jerusalem.
-“Blake’s Living Form.” Nineteenth-Century Literature, vol. 63, no. 4, Mar. 2009, pp. 461–85. https://doi.org/10.1525/ncl.2009.63.4.461.
-Building Jerusalem: Composition and Chronology | Aileen Ward | Blake/an Illustrated Quarterly | Volume 39, Issue 4. bq.blakearchive.org/39.4.ward.
-Kiralis, Karl. “The Theme and Structure of William Blake’s Jerusalem.” ELH, vol. 23, no. 2, June 1956, p. 127. https://doi.org/10.2307/2871948.
-Not From Troy, but Jerusalem: Blake’s Canon Revision | R. Paul Yoder | Blake/an Illustrated Quarterly | Volume 31, Issue 1. bq.blakearchive.org/31.1.yoder.
-“‘Sublime Labours’: Aesthetics and Political Economy in Blake’s ‘Jerusalem’ on JSTOR.” www.jstor.org. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25602084.
-The Bird-Man of William Blake’s Jerusalem | Judith Ott | Blake/an Illustrated Quarterly | Volume 10, Issue 2. bq.blakearchive.org/10.2.ott#n16.
-“The Complete Poems [of] William Blake.” Penguin Books, 1977.
Evidence of a perhaps over-contumelious spirit in Blake.
Blake takes "Newton's sleep" quite literally.