SEA OF TIME & SPACE II

The distinctive characteristic of the Arlington Tempera is the incorporation in it of a full cycle of creation, fall, redemption, and apocalypse. The process that absorbed Blake's attention throughout his work is presented in this one inclusive image. That Blake could use the myth of the return of Odysseus from the Trojan War as the metaphor for the cycle of wandering experienced by people seeking wholeness in innumerable settings, speaks to his mastery of a universal myth. Although Blake first assimilated the accounts of man's creation, alienation, seeking and resolution from reading the accounts in the Bible of the the tribe of Israel, he could appreciate that the same process was repeated in the tales of peoples throughout time and space. Thus he turned to a legend from Greek mythology to represent in a single picture the summary of the soul of man journeying through his process of experiencing mortal life. 

Morgan Library and Museum

The Circle of the Life of Man

Preliminary Sketch for Arlington Tempera

ca. 1821

These posts treat the individual images incorporated in the complete symbolic representation:

THE SOUL'S JOURNEY
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY II
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY III
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY IV
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY V
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY VI
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY VII
THE SOUL'S JOURNEY VIII

Milton, Plate 17 [19], (E 111) 
"For travellers from Eternity. pass outward to Satans seat, 
But travellers to Eternity. pass inward to Golgonooza."

Jerusalem, Plate 62, (E 213)
"Jesus replied. I am the Resurrection & the Life.
I Die & pass the limits of possibility, as it appears
To individual perception. Luvah must be Created                  
And Vala; for I cannot leave them in the gnawing Grave.
But will prepare a way for my banished-ones to return
Come now with me into the villages. walk thro all the cities.
Tho thou art taken to prison & judgment, starved in the streets
I will command the cloud to give thee food & the hard rock       
To flow with milk & wine, tho thou seest me not a season
Even a long season & a hard journey & a howling wilderness!
Tho Valas cloud hide thee & Luvahs fires follow thee!
Only believe & trust in me, Lo. I am always with thee!"