Blake's two finished epics have been widely regarded as combinations of brilliant set pieces which yield to no systematic rhetorical criticism. Susan Fox contests this view, discovering in Milton an elaborate verbal structure that is fully congruent with the poem's philosophy. She has made the first full exposition of the formal principles of a late Blake poem, and it suggests that the late prophecies are as profound in their artistic structures as they are in their thematic ones. The author begins by tracing throughout Blake's poetry the development of the techniques found in Milton. She then provides an analysis in two chapters organized, as she perceives the poem to be, in parallel three-part units. Her examination reveals the exhaustive parallelism of the poem's books, as well as more local devices such as paired stanzas and circular rhetoric. The rhetorical pattern which emerges raises several major thematic issues which are treated in the concluding chapter. In demonstrating the coherence and control of the intricate formal patterns of Milton, this study provides a new measure of Blake's late verbal art. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Poet, painter, and engraver William Blake died in 1827 in obscure poverty with few admirers. The attention paid today to his remarkable poems, prints, and paintings would have astonished his contemporaries. Admired for his defiant, uncompromising creativity, he has become one of the most anthologized and studied writers in English and one of the most studied and collected British artists. His urge to cast words and images into masterpieces of revelation has left us with complex, forceful, extravagant, some times bizarre works of written and visual art that rank among the greatest challenges to plain understanding ever created. This Companion aims to provide guidance to Blake s work in fresh and readable introductions: biographical, literary, art historical, political, religious, and bibliographical. Together with a chronology, guides to further reading, and glossary of terms, they identify the key points of departure into Blake s multifarious world and work.

Milton is a difficult and cryptic poem for those uninitiated in the ways of Blake's allusive and allegorical style. In an introductory essay, the editors directly address the nature of the poem's complexity, demonstrate how Blake's methods set out to disconcert conventional concepts of time, space, and human identity, and suggest some ways readers coming to Milton for the first time can understand and enjoy the challenges it offers. The editors also present a plate-by-plate commentary on how the illustrations contribute to the creation of a composite, visual-verbal experience. The extensive notes to the newly-edited letterpress text will also assist readers through Milton, its central themes and its byways, its heights and its depths. An equally helpful introduction and notes are provided for the three shorter works. Scholars will find much new information in this volume.

This carefully crafted ebook: "Milton A Poem (Illuminated Manuscript with the Original Illustrations of William Blake)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. 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. William Blake was a poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver. During his life the prophetic message of his writings were understood by few and misunderstood by many. However Blake is now widely admired for his soulful originality and lofty imagination. The poetry of William Blake is far reaching in its scope and range of experience. The poems of William Blake can offer a profound symbolism and also a delightful childlike innocence. Whatever the inner meaning of Blake's poetry we can easily appreciate the beautiful language and lyrical quality of his poetic vision.

In his illuminated books,William Blake combined his handwritten text with his exuberant imagery on pages the like of which had not been seen since the great decorated books of the Middle Ages. To read such books as Jerusalem, America and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in cold letterpress bears no comparison to seeing and reading them as Blake conceived them, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colours. At times tiny figures and forms dance among the lines of the text, flames appear to burn up the page, and dense passages of Biblical-sounding text are brought to a jarring halt by startling images of death, destruction and liberation. This edition, produced together with The William Blake Trust, contains all the pages of Blakes twenty or so illuminated books reproduced in true size, an appendix with all Blakes text set in type and an introduction by the noted Blake scholar, David Bindman. They can at last become part of the lives of all lovers of art and poetry.