Flexible Design

by Pierce, John Benjamin

• ISBN13: 9780773516823
• ISBN10: 0773516824
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-02-01
• Publisher: McGill Queens Univ

Summary

Using the idea of a "flexible design," John Pierce examines the ways in which Blake's mythology and his poem possess a flexibility that allows for significant change to characters, symbols, and poetic techniques within a previously constructed framework. Pierce traces how, in the process of revision, Blake experimented with characterization, increased the importance of Christian symbolism, and developed a mode of narrative presentation controlled less by chronological sequence than by the use of thematic juxtaposition and typology.

Author Biography

John B. Pierce is associate professor of English, Queen's University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Textual Note	p. xi
Preface	p. xiii
Illustrations	p. xxix
Introduction: Manuscript and Poetics	p. 3
Narrative
Beginnings and Creation	p. 25
Experiments in Structure	p. 39
Character
Recasting the Copperplate	p. 65
Completing the Four Zoas	p. 110
The Revelations of Rahab	p. 127
Conclusion: Revisionary Poetics	p. 140
Appendices
The Copperplate Text of Vala	p. 151
Stages in the Development of Nights VII through IX of Vala or The Four Zoas	p. 166
Notes	p. 169
Bibliography	p. 193
Index	p. 203
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