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| Commons Wikipedia America 9 |
PLATE 9
Enitharmon slept,
Eighteen hundred years: Man was a Dream!
The night of Nature and their harps unstrung:
She slept in middle of her nightly song,
Eighteen hundred years, a female dream!
_______________________________
Shadows of men in fleeting bands upon the winds:
Divide the heavens of Europe:
Till Albions Angel smitten with his own plagues fled with his
bands
The cloud bears hard on Albions shore:
Fill'd with immortal demons of futurity:
In council gather the smitten Angels of Albion
The cloud bears hard upon the council house; down rushing
On the heads of Albions Angels.
One hour they lay buried beneath the ruins of that hall;
But as the stars rise from the salt lake they arise in pain,
In troubled mists o'erclouded by the terrors of strugling times.
(Erdman 63)
About the Text
Eighteen hundred years, a female dream!: Blake sums up history of 'Christianity'.
Till Albions Angel: the 'till' brings us up to Blake's day.
Angels of Albion: multiple angels represent the government in the 'council house'
"One hour they lay" ???
About the Image
Works shows images with marked differences in the color ot the two portions.
A gigantic 'S' beginning at the upper left divides the Image into upper and lower portions.
The general shape of the image suggests that we have to do with a dream.
In the upper half are two figures; Erdman (Illuminated Blake p.167) calls them "fairies...
He spoke of an 'S curve' of ripe grain". (How he gets ripe grain I don't know; explain it to us.)
Other images in Works show pronounced differences in the color of the two portions.
Other images in Works show pronounced differences in the color of the two portions.
The lower half contains the Text, announced by a flower (Lilly?) at the middle right where the
big 'S' makes its turn down.
big 'S' makes its turn down.
The first five lines are separated by strange figures from the rest of the text.
The Illustration description of Works sees the C for the lower portion of the Image. In the bottom
it reveals grain stems that go beyond the C and through to the rest of the S. The female has a horn; her male companion also blows a trumpet.
To Blake the trumpets represent the course of the last 18 centuries. The black spots of the grain seem to come from the trumpets.
Blake is telling us of the misery: war, famine, plague, etc that have characterized our world.
The Illustration description of Works sees the C for the lower portion of the Image. In the bottom
it reveals grain stems that go beyond the C and through to the rest of the S. The female has a horn; her male companion also blows a trumpet.
To Blake the trumpets represent the course of the last 18 centuries. The black spots of the grain seem to come from the trumpets.
Blake is telling us of the misery: war, famine, plague, etc that have characterized our world.
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