Friday, January 06, 2012

Plate 26

This short plate is a conclusive statement of what Blake tried to do in Chapter One of the poem:

SUCH VISIONS HAVE APPEARED TO ME
AS I MY ORDERED RACE HAVE WON
JERUSALEM IS NAMED LIBERTY
AMONG THE SONS OF ALBION

The form of this poem is often thought of as formless; for example the last plates (but this one) have a colloquy stretching over about four of them.

Often there appears to be no resemblance in the mental dimension of pictures and text.

Here at the end of Chapter Two Blake rises to prose; he tells us in factual terms what he has done with the 'visions that appeared to him'. (You may remember that the 'Visions' had deserted Blake for the 20 years preceding a new liberty that came to him in 1804.) His output in the earlier years became a source with which he improved on the ideas of "The Unholy Bible" and The Four Zoas. In fact he glorified them with the heavenly wisdom that you and I may strive for with our devotions.

In Chapter One Blake was trying to reach ordinary people (is it succeeding for us?). The successive chapters were addressed To the Jews, To the Deists, and To the Christians. I like to think that To the Christians was especially to those Christian poets who had received him gladly in his last years.


No comments: