William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books

by Blake, William; Bindman, David

• ISBN13: 9780500282458
• ISBN10: 0500282455
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-17
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

In his Illuminated Books, William Blake combined text and imagery on a single page in a way that had not been done since the Middle Ages. For Blake, religion and politics, intellect and emotion, mind and body were both unified and in conflict with each other: his work is expressive of his personal mythology, and his methods of conveying it were integral to its meaning. There is no comparison with reading books such as Jerusalem, America , and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in Blake's own medium, infused with his sublime and exhilarating colors. 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. Blake's hope that his books would obtain wide circulation was unfulfilled: some exist only in unique copies and none was printed in more than very small numbers. Now, for the first time, the plates from the William Blake Trust's Collected Edition have been brought together in a single volume, with transcripts of the texts and an introduction by the noted scholar David Bindman. Includes: Jerusalem; Songs of Innocence and of Experience; All Religions are One; There is No Natural Religion; The Book of Thel; The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Visions of the Daughters of Albion; America a Prophecy; Europe a Prophecy; The Song of Los Milton a Poem; The Ghost of Abel; On Homers Poetry [and] On Virgil; Laocoon; The First Book of Urizen; The Book of Ahania; The Book of Los.

Table of Contents

Foreword	6	(1)
Introduction	7	(5)
David Bindman
Looking Further into Blake	12	(1)
A Chronology of Blake and his Times	13	(5)
The Illuminated Books
All Religions are One	18	(10)
There is No Natural Religion (c. 1794)	28	(3)
There is No Natural Religion (c. 1795)	31	(12)
Songs of Innocence and of Experience	43	(55)
The Book of Thel	98	(9)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell	107	(28)
The Gates of Paradise	135	(7)
Visions of the Daughters of Albion	142	(12)
America a Prophecy	154	(20)
Europe a Prophecy	174	(20)
The Song of Los	194	(9)
The First Book of Urizen	203	(29)
The Book of Ahania	232	(8)
The Book of Los	240	(6)
Milton a Poem	246	(52)
Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion	298	(102)
The Ghost of Abel	400	(2)
On Homers Poetry [and] On Virgil	402	(1)
Laocoon	403	(3)
Transcripts of Blake's Texts
Songs of Innocence and of Experience	406	(5)
The Book of Thel	411	(1)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell	412	(5)
The Gates of Paradise	417	(1)
Visions of the Daughters of Albion	417	(2)
America a Prophecy	419	(3)
Europe a Prophecy	422	(2)
The Songs of Los	424	(2)
The First Book of Urizen	426	(3)
The Book of Ahania	429	(1)
The Book of Los	430	(1)
Milton a Poem	431
Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion	297	(182)
The Ghost of Abel	479	(1)
On Homers Poetry [and] On Virgil	479	(1)
Laocoon	479