Descriptive Catalogue, (E 543) "All these things are written in Eden. The artist is an inhabitant of that happy country, and if every thing goes on as it has begun, the world of vegetation and generation may expect to be opened again to Heaven, through Eden, as it was in the beginning."
[5] And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
[6] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
[7] And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
[8] And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 3
[22] And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
[23] Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
[24] So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
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| British Museum Europe Frontispiece |
Sometime after 1794 Blake's friend Ozias Humphry purchased from him a copy of Europe. On Humphry's copy another friend of Blake, George Cumberland, inscribed quotations from poetry related to the particular plate. On the Frontispiece he wrote a passage from the seventh chapter of Milton's Paradise Lost. Whatever Blake wanted to convey in his picture would have been colored by the influence which Milton had on him. It was inevitable that in the hours Blake spent in coloring copies of the Frontispiece and of separate prints of the image, that his thoughts would have turned to Milton's epic with its accounts of angels and devils, creation and fall, the God of wrath and the God of mercy.
Blake felt an intense affinity to Milton. The two men struggled to find answers to the same questions. They desired to discern God's ways in order to inform their readers of the reasons that the world which was created good had become so bad.
Milton and Blake sought God's guidance as they entered the Imagination to create their myths.
Paradise Lost
Milton
Book I
Jerusalem, Plate 5, (E 147)
"Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish'd at me.
Yet they forgive my wanderings, I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination
O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love:
Annihilate the Selfhood in me, be thou all my life!
Guide thou my hand which trembles exceedingly upon the rock of ages,
While I write of the building of Golgonooza, & of the terrors of Entuthon:
Of Hand & Hyle & Coban, of Kwantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd & Hutton:
Of the terrible sons & daughters of Albion. and their Generations."
This is Milton's creation account as told to Adam by the archangel Raphael:
Paradise Lost, Book VII
"Mean while the Son
On his great expedition now appeared,
Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crowned
Of Majesty Divine; sapience and love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were poured
Cherub, and Seraph, Potentates, and Thrones,
And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots winged
From the armory of God; where stand of old
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them Spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord: Heaven opened wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.
On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore
They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's heighth, and with the center mix the pole.
Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace,
Said then the Omnific Word; your discord end!
Nor stayed; but, on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice: Him all his train
Followed in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centered, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure;
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, Oh World,
Thus God the Heaven created, thus the Earth,
Matter unformed and void: Darkness profound
Covered the abyss: but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,"
In the original state for Blake there was Perfect Unity - no division between God and Man and no divisions within Man. Creation was unnecessary because God included all possibilities.The nature of the forces which brought about the first separation is unknowable but it brought about a cascade of consequences.
Four Zoas, Night I, Page3, (E 300)
"Four Mighty Ones are in every Man; a Perfect Unity
(John XVII c. 21 & 22 & 23 v)
Cannot Exist. but from the Universal Brotherhood of Eden
(John I c. 14. v)
The Universal Man. To Whom be Glory Evermore Amen
the Natures of those Living Creatures the Heavenly Father only
Knoweth no Individual Can know in all Eternity
Los was the fourth immortal starry one, & in the Earth
Of a bright Universe Empery attended day & night
Days & nights of revolving joy, Urthona was his name
PAGE 4
In Eden; in the Auricular Nerves of Human life
Which is the Earth of Eden, he his Emanations propagated
Fairies of Albion afterwards Gods of the Heathen, Daughter of Beulah Sing
His fall into Division & his Resurrection to Unity
His fall into the Generation of Decay & Death & his Regeneration
by the Resurrection from the dead"
For Blake there was no creation which was not
also a fall. Since the original state was a Perfect Unity, when divisions began to occur the fall was already in
progress. 'Heaven and Earth' and 'Let there be Light' imply the
first divisions. Blake considered that Creation, Fall, and
Regeneration were occurring continually and simultaneously. However when at the end
of the Four Zoas, Urthona
was no longer divided, it was a creative moment of a new
beginning (Apocalypse.)Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 139, (E 407)
"Urthona is arisen in his strength no longer now
Divided from Enitharmon no longer the Spectre Los
Where is the Spectre of Prophecy where the delusive Phantom
Departed & Urthona rises from the ruinous walls
In all his ancient strength to form the golden armour of science
For intellectual War The war of swords departed now
The dark Religions are departed & sweet Science reigns
End of The Dream"
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