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.
In Blake's illuminated book America a Prophecy , Orc is described by his mythic opponent, "Albion's Angel" as the "Lover of Wild Rebellion, and transgressor of God's Law". He symbolizes the spirit of rebellion and freedom, which provoked the French Revolution.
The name Orc is possibly an anagram of the word cor (heart), in that he was stated in Blake's myth to be born of Enitharmon's heart, or orca (whale) because he sometimes takes the form of a whale. Orcus is also the Latin word for Hell, and Orc is presented as a rebellious, Luciferian character. He was created to serve as Blake's analysis of the revolutions in the United States and France. [1]
In Blake's myth, Orc is seen as the first child of Los with Enitharmon and sometimes either replaced in that position by another or not mentioned as a child at all. In the Four Zoas, the children of Los represent a just form of wrath, pity, frustrated desire and logic, which serve as an analysis of Orc's being. Orc's creation was based on the split between Los and Enitharmon, and he transformed from a worm into the form of a serpent. Based on Orc's relationship with Enitharmon, there is a split between him and Los. Los uses the Chains of Jealousy to bind Orc upon a mountain, and Orc becomes part of the rock. While bound, his imagination is able to exist in a cave located in Urizen's kingdom, which wakes up Urizen. When Urizen seeks out Orc, Orc is freed as he changes into a serpent. The form is corrupted and he is turned into a satanic image. Orc spends his time rebelling against Urizen, and it is only when Urizen stops fighting Orc that Orc is able to become Luvah. [4]
Orc is a force of revolution, revival, and of passion who is the polar opposite to Urizen, the cruel and tyrannous god. Orc is the force of new life in the cycle and Urizen represents the older version of Orc that dies at the end of the cycle. As such, Orc and Urizen appear in their evolution from one to the other in the "Seven Eyes of God", or the seven historical cycles of Blake's myth. Each cycle is divided into three phases, which begins with Orc's birth and then describes Orc's binding, which is connected to the time in a human's life where they are at their imaginative greatness. This is followed by the creation of abstract religion and a view of the universe as mechanical. This is then followed by rationalism, which led to Aristotle, Bacon, Locke and other empirical-based scientists. The second phase is where Urizen takes over the fallen world, which is represented by the Enlightenment in the seventh cycle. This leads to materialism, the death of the soul, and warfare. This phase ends with prophets declaring that Orc will appear. The third phase describes Orc's crucifixion and a return of human life to nature. [5]
The character Orc is connected to the Biblical serpent, the image of being hanged on a dead tree, and to the sun. Of the latter, Orc's hair is like the sun and connects Orc to other stories, including that of Samson or of the death of the god Balder. Likewise, the tree image is similar to Odin's being speared and hanged upon a gallows-tree as a sacrifice. Since Odin is a hanged god and a tyrant, the image further connects the image of Orc with that of Urizen. Another image connected to Orc is that of the spear, a phallic symbol connected to the imagination. Orc uses the spear to attack Urizen, and the image also connects Orc to both Jesus and Odin as sacrifices to themselves. Like Jesus, Orc is also born around the winter solstice, a time when the sun is unable to warm the cold earth. [6]
Orc is also connected to the inner workings of the human self. After Blake renounced the Orc men, the revolutionary leaders who he thought were like Orc, he distrusted all hero worship. Likewise, Blake believed that the imagination, represented by Orc, was purely mental and could not have the same form as a physical thing. Instead, it was part of the divine energy in man. As such, Orc is an internal life cycle that ends with a rebirth of the self. In general, Orc represented the freedom of the self in a Promethean manner, which connects Orc to Milton's version of Satan. In Blake's version, the true Satan was God, who created the physical reality, and the Satan/Orc figure represents the human desire which is transformed into accepting of law and reason. As such, Blake dismisses Milton's epic as lacking a hero and keeps Orc from being seen as a heroic figure. [7]
In America a Prophecy (1793), Orc is described as a threat to the British colonies in America and to society. The angel of Albion sees Orc as an antichrist figure, and Orc views the prince of Albion as a dragon. During the work, Orc has an apocalyptic vision where the empire is destroyed and the oppressors of the world are stopped. Following the vision, Orc is able to get the Americans to rise up in revolution and they begin to attack their oppressors through a mental revolution. [10] In Europe a Prophecy (1794), Orc is connected to the revolution in France but it is Los who calls the people to revolution. [11] In The Song of Los, Orc provokes thought within the second half, "Asia", which unsettles the kings of earth, and Orc is described as raging across Europe. [12] In these continental works, Los and Orc are seen as describing an apocalypse that would result in freedom. [13]
In The Book of Urizen, the African civilization ends along with the third cycle, describing Adam and Eve, ending. Orc, symbolized as the serpent in the Garden of Eden, is cursed. This is followed in The Book of Ahania of a new cycle beginning in Asia, which parallels Exodus. Within the Israelite civilization, an Orc and an Urizen figure battles against each other with Orc representing a pillar of fire that guides the Israelites during the night while Urizen is a pillar of cloud that seeks to mislead them. Urizen is able to win over the Israelites by giving them the ten commandments and moral laws. These commandments are attacked by Orc in America a Prophecy. [14]
Later in Vala, Orc describes the divided aspects of the soul, which, in Blake's mythological system, God has a twofold essence that is capable of good and evil. This idea parallels Blake's personal belief that there was a division within himself. [15] In this later work, Orc is born during the winter solstice and Urizen begins to search for him. Urizen, during this time, becomes witness to the life cycles of which Orc is a part. When Urizen finally reaches Orc, the view of the Orc cycle is described in a deistic manner, a perspective which is arguably the opposite of Blake's own theological convictions. Urizen, believing that Orc is connected to chaos, seeks predictability and order. He seeks to do so by creating laws which enslave humankind. Urizen crucifies Orc, in the form of a serpent, and war spreads over the land. [16]
In The Four Zoas this is overridden: there the parents produce the four sons Rintrah, Palamabron, Bromion and Theotormon. This is a double-dialectical analysis, rather than an inconsistency as such.
On the other hand Orc is connected to Luvah in The Four Zoas VIII.
In his World of Tiers series, Philip Jose Farmer included numerous characters with Blakian names; two are "Blind Orc" and "Red Orc". They are not Tolkien orcs, but are human-like "Lords" who create artificial worlds. Red Orc is the "secret Lord of Earth".
In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982), one of the lines by Roy Batty is a misquote of Blake's poem: "Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc". This line was suggested by Rutger Hauer, adapted from Blake's America: a Prophecy. "Fiery the angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd. Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc."
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.
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 narrates 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.
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, Tharmas is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. He represents sensation, and his female counterpart is Enion, who represents sexual urges. He is connected to the God the Father aspect of the Christian Trinity and is the begetter of Los. Tharmas is mostly peaceful, and flees during most of his fights with Urizen. He is depicted in various ways ranging from a youth with wings to an old bearded man.
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.
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.
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".
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 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.
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.
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.