The Book of Los is a 1795 prophetic book by the English poet and painter William Blake. It exists in only one copy, now held by The British Museum. [1] The book is related to the Book of Urizen and to the Continental prophecies ; it is essentially a retelling of Urizen from the point of view of Los. [1] The book has been described as a rewriting of the ancient myth of creation that equates fall with the loss of spiritual vision brought about by selfhood. [2] [3]
During autumn 1790, Blake moved to Lambeth, Surrey. He had a studio at the new house that he used while writing what were later called his "Lambeth Books", which included The Book of Los in 1795. Like the others under the title, all aspects of the work, including the composition of the designs, the printing of them, the colouring of them, and the selling of them, happened at his home. [4] The Book of Los was one of the few works that Blake describes as "illuminated printing", one of his colour printed works with the coloured ink being placed on the copperplate before being printed. [5]
Both The Book of Los and The Book of Ahania were the same size, produced at the same time, and were probably etched on opposing sides of the same copper-plates. Both works were the only ones by Blake to have intaglio etchings instead of relief etchings. [6] Likewise, both works were colour-printed, where the various coloured inks were directly applied to the etching instead of added in later. [7]
The story describes how Los fell and how he was given a human form. After the events of The Book of Ahania, Los grants Urizen a human form: [8]
Upfolding his Fibres together
To a Form of impregnable strength
Los astonish'd and terrified, built
Furnaces; he formed an Anvil
A Hammer of adamant then began
The binding of Urizen day and night
...
[...].till a Form
Was completed, a Human Illusion
In darkness and deep clouds involvd. [9]— Chapter IV, stanzas 2 and 9b (Plate 5, lines 18-23, 55-57)
The Book of Los, along with The Book of Ahania, serves as an experimental revision of The Book of Urizen. [6] The Book of Los, last of the "Lambeth Books", goes back to The Book of Urizen to analyse both the self and the nature of the prophet-priest. The story's relationship to The Book of Urizen parallels the Book of Genesis as the second chapter is a retelling of the first under a new perspective. [10] The poem starts at the fourth chapter in The Book of Urizen. [11] Within the work, Los is bound and is forced to watch the world and the fallen Urizen. Los, struggling against desire and his prison, creates only problems for him and he is trapped in a manner similar to Urizen. [12]
The point of both The Book of Urizen and the retelling in The Book of Los is to describe how Newtonian reason and view of the universe traps the imagination. In the Newtonian belief, the material universe is connected through an unconscious power, which, in turn, characterises imagination and intellect as accidental aspects that result from this. Additionally, imagination and intelligence have a secondary place to force. This early version of a survival-of-the-fittest universe is connected to a fallen world of tyranny and murder in Blake's view. The work also describes evolutionary states and Los's relationship with creation. Los is part of the fallen world as the fire of imaginative energy and falls when he becomes mechanical and regular. Los is the creator of life systems and of the sexes, which leads to the creation of his partner Enitharmon. Eventually, human forms are created after consciousness appears, and Orc is born as an evolution of life. [13]
Throughout the work, Blake relies on elision in a manner similar to Biblical prophecies in order to emphasise the prophetic nature of the work. This emphasis allows for discussion on the relationship of the prophet-bard figure and the druid-priest figure, his opposite. The work also emphasises the language of revelation and how Biblical prophecy operates. Los, as the prophetic figure, is not trying to bring people to God in the Biblical sense, but is instead opposed to the creator figure Urizen. The emphasis within his prophetic ideas is on the divine aspects within humanity and that desire is part of the divine aspect instead of being sinful. As such, Blake reverses the seven deadly sins while claiming that standard morality actually creates more problems than it fixes. Once fallen, Los tries to overcome desire and is forced by these actions into a state similar to Urizen's own. As such, he degenerates from the form of a prophet to a priestly slave. The poem describes how the prophet must struggle against a force while also trying to resist it himself, an idea that reappears in The Four Zoas. [14]
Allan Cunningham, a friend of Blake's, claimed "the merit or the fault of surpassing all human comprehension ... what he meant by them even his wife declared she could not tell, though she was sure they had a meaning, and a fine one" and that "it is not a little fearful to look upon; a powerful, dark, terrible, though undefined and indescribable, impression is left on the mind—and it is in no haste to be gone". [15]
In 2002, Jon Mee claimed that "The Book of Los is perhaps the most opaque of all the work Blake produced in the 1790s." [16] G. E. Bentley, in 2003, stated that the book "seems to many today to be one of the most succinct and powerful of Blake's mythological works" and that it "apparently surpassed the comprehension of all his contemporaries, even of his wife." [17]
In the mythology of William Blake, Urizen is the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensnares people in webs of law and conventional society. Originally, Urizen represented one half of a two-part system, with him representing reason and Los, his opposition, representing imagination. In Blake's reworking of his mythic system, Urizen is one of the four Zoas that result from the division of the primordial man, Albion, and he continues to represent reason. He has an Emanation, or paired female equivalent, Ahania, who stands for Pleasure. In Blake's myth, Urizen is joined by many daughters with three representing aspects of the body. He is also joined by many sons, with four representing the four elements. These sons join in rebellion against their father but are later united in the Last Judgment. In many of Blake's books, Urizen is seen with four books that represent the various laws that he places upon humanity.
The prophetic books of the English poet and artist William Blake contain an invented mythology, in which Blake worked to encode his 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.
Orc is a proper name for one of the characters in the complex mythology of William Blake. A fallen figure, Orc is the embodiment of rebellion, and stands opposed to Urizen, the embodiment of tradition.
Milton is an epic poem by William Blake, written and illustrated between 1804 and 1810. Its hero is John Milton, who returns from Heaven and unites with Blake to explore the relationship between living writers and their predecessors, and to undergo a mystical journey to correct his own spiritual errors.
The Book of Urizen is one of the major prophetic books of the English writer William Blake, illustrated by Blake's own plates. It was originally published as The First Book of Urizen in 1794. Later editions dropped the "First". The book takes its name from the character Urizen in Blake's mythology, who represents alienated reason as the source of oppression. The book describes Urizen as the "primeaval priest" and tells how he became separated from the other Eternals to create his own alienated and enslaving realm of religious dogma. Los and Enitharmon create a space within Urizen's fallen universe to give birth to their son Orc, the spirit of revolution and freedom.
Ahania is the Emanation, or female counterpart, of Urizen, Zoas of reason, in William Blake's mythology. She is the representation of pleasure and the desire for intelligence. Although Urizen casts her out as being the manifestation of sin, she is actually an essential component in Blake's system to achieving Divine Wisdom. She is a figure of the goddess of wisdom. It is through her that the sons and daughters of Urizen are born. In the original myth, her son Fuzon rebels against his father and is responsible for separating Urizen and Ahania. In his later version, Ahania is separated from Urizen after he believes that she is sinful.
The Book of Ahania is one of the English poet William Blake's prophetic books. It was published in 1795, illustrated by Blake's own plates.
In the mythological writings of William Blake, Fuzon is the fourth and final son of Urizen, associated with the classical element of fire. In The Book of Ahania he fights Urizen for control of the world.
The prophetic books of the 18th-century English poet and artist William Blake are a series of lengthy, interrelated poetic works drawing upon Blake's own personal mythology. They have been described as forming "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". While Blake worked as a commercial illustrator, these books were ones that he produced, with his own engravings, as an extended and largely private project.
Enitharmon is a major female character in William Blake's mythology, playing a main part in some of his prophetic books. She is, but not directly, an aspect of the male Urthona, one of the Four Zoas. She is in fact the Emanation of Los, also male. There is a complex verbal nexus attached. The Zoa Tharmas has emanation Enion, and Eni-tharm(as)-on is one derivation of her name. That should perhaps be read in the inverse direction though, as a construction of the Tharmas/Enion pair's names. Within Blake's myth, she represents female domination and sexual restraints that limit the artistic imagination. She, with Los, gives birth to various children, including Orc.
In the mythological writings of William Blake, Urthona is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. Specifically, he is the Zoa of inspiration and creativity, and he is a blacksmith god. His female counterpart is Enitharmon. Urthona usually appears in his "fallen" form, that of Los.
Tiriel is the eponymous character in a poem by William Blake written c.1789, and considered the first of his prophetic books. The character of Tiriel is often interpreted as a foreshadowing of Urizen, representative of conventionality and conformity, and one of the major characters in Blake's as yet unrealised mythological system.
In the mythological writings of William Blake, Los is the fallen form of Urthona, one of the four Zoas. He is referred to as the "eternal prophet" and creates the visionary city of Golgonooza. Los is regularly described as a smith, beating with his hammer on a forge, which is metaphorically connected to the beating of the human heart. The bellows of his forge are the human lungs. Los's emanation, Enitharmon, represents spiritual beauty and embodies pity, but at the same time creates the spatial aspect of the fallen world, weaving bodies for men and creating sexual strife through her insistence upon chastity. In the Book of Urizen (1794), Los and Enitharmon have a child, Orc, who is the embodiment of the spirit of revolution. The name Los is, by common critical acceptance, an anagram of Sol, the Latin word for "sun". Los is also the plural form of El, an ancient Hebrew deity. Such innovations are common in many of Blake's prophetic poems.
Tiriel is a narrative poem by William Blake, written c.1789. Considered the first of his prophetic books, it is also the first poem in which Blake used free septenaries, which he would go on to use in much of his later verse. Tiriel was unpublished during Blake's lifetime and remained so until 1874, when it appeared in William Michael Rossetti's Poetical Works of William Blake. Although Blake did not engrave the poem, he did make twelve sepia drawings to accompany the rough and unfinished manuscript, although three of them are considered lost as they have not been traced since 1863.
Europe a Prophecy is a 1794 prophetic book by the British poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on 18 plates, and survives in just nine known copies. It followed America a Prophecy of 1793.
Vala, or The Four Zoas is one of the uncompleted prophetic books by the English poet William Blake, begun in 1797. The eponymous main characters of the book are the Four Zoas, who were created by the fall of Albion in Blake's mythology. It consists of nine books, referred to as "nights". These outline the interactions of the Zoas, their fallen forms and their Emanations. Blake intended the book to be a summation of his mythic universe but, dissatisfied, he abandoned the effort in 1807, leaving the poem in a rough draft and its engraving unfinished. The text of the poem was first published, with only a small portion of the accompanying illustrations, in 1893, by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and his collaborator, the English writer and poet Edwin John Ellis, in their three-volume book The Works of William Blake.
America a Prophecy is a 1793 prophetic book by the English poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on eighteen plates, and survives in fourteen known copies. It is the first of Blake's Continental prophecies.
The Song of Los is one of William Blake's epic poems, known as prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia". In the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames on both the African slave trade and enlightenment philosophers. The book provides a historical context for The Book of Urizen, The Book of Ahania, and The Book of Los, and also ties those more obscure works to The Continental Prophecies, "Europe" and "America". The second section consists of Los urging revolution.
The continental prophecies is a group of illuminated books by William Blake that have been subject of numerous studies due to their recurrent and unorthodox use of political, literary and sexual metaphors. They consist of America, Europe and The Song of Los.
Poetical Sketches is the first collection of poetry and prose by William Blake, written between 1769 and 1777. Forty copies were printed in 1783 with the help of Blake's friends, the artist John Flaxman and the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew, at the request of his wife Harriet Mathew. The book was never published for the public, with copies instead given as gifts to friends of the author and other interested parties. Of the forty copies, fourteen were accounted for at the time of Geoffrey Keynes' census in 1921. A further eight copies had been discovered by the time of Keynes' The Complete Writings of William Blake in 1957. In March 2011, a previously unrecorded copy was sold at auction in London for £72,000.
