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.
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.
S. Foster Damon in his Blake Dictionary states that Fuzon represents fire in the four classical elements. His siblings representing the other elements are Utha, Grodna and Thiriel. Damon notes parallels in Greek mythology with the castration of Uranus, by Cronus (Saturn); and in the Freudian Oedipus complex. [1]
David V. Erdman proposed an identification of Fuzon with Robespierre; Harold Bloom supported it as "probable" in "historical allegory", adding that in "moral allegory" he is a "Promethean version of Moses". [2] Northrop Frye finds a connection of Fuzon with the biblical Absalom. [3]
Fuzon appears as a rebel in The Book of Ahania, a sequel of sorts to The Book of Urizen . Hobson writes
If the Fuzon material in Ahania is read continuously with Urizen, the sequence of events is that Orc is bound, and his cries awaken the dead and, by implication, awaken Urizen's sons [...], one of whom, Fuzon, leads the revolt that begins in Urizen [...], and continues in Ahania. [4]
According to Davis, Fuzon, who leads an exodus of children of Urizen as a pillar of fire, is an "Orc-like rebel who represents Passion". [5]
Fuzon's fate is bound up with the Tree of Mystery, introduced in the poem The Human Abstract . Urizen shoots Fuzon with a poisoned rock, and crucifies him on the Tree, for a period of forty years. [1] [6]
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.
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.
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, Utha is the second son of Urizen.
In the mythological writings of William Blake, Grodna is the third son of Urizen.
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, Luvah is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. He represents love, passion, and rebellious energy. His Emanation is Vala; his fallen form is Orc. Throughout Blake's mythological system, he is opposed to Urizen, the representation of reason. He is also connected to Jesus, who takes upon his form as the being of love after Luvah falls and turns to a being of hate.
The Spectre is one aspect of the fourfold nature of the human psyche along with Humanity, Emanation and Shadow that William Blake used to explore his spiritual mythology throughout his poetry and art. As one of Blake's elements of the psyche, Spectre takes on symbolic meaning when referred to throughout his poems. According to professor Joseph Hogan, "Spectre functions to define individuals from others [...] When it is separated [from Emanation], it is reason, trying to define everything in terms of unchanging essences." Thus, according to Samuel Foster Damon, Spectre epitomizes "Reason separated from humanity" and "Self-centered selfhood" or, as Alexander S. Gourlay puts it, Spectre is "characterized by self-defensive rationalization".
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". 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.
Vala, or The Four Zoas refers to 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, in 1893, by the Irish poet W. B. Yeats and his fellow collaborator, the English writer and poet Edwin John Ellis, in their three-volume commentary book about William Blake's works, 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 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. 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. 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.
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.
In the mythological writings of William Blake, Vala is an Emanation/mate of Luvah, one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. She represents nature while Luvah represents emotions. Originally with Luvah, she joins with Albion and begets the Zoa Urizen. In her fallen aspect, she is the wandering figure known as the Shadowy Female. After the Final Judgment, she is reunited with Luvah but placed under the dominion of the restored Urizen.