Myth in Blake 3

When Larry wrote his unpublished book, Ram Horn'd with Gold, he gave the title Myth to Chapter 3. This summary of The Four Zoas (Blake's first attempt at epic poetry) was included in the hardcopy of Chapter 3 but didn't make it into the digital version which is on line as the Primer.

The Four Zoas

Many a musical masterwork on its initial performance has met a cold reception. In the same way the taste for many foods grows with experience; young children often reject what their parents keenly enjoy; in due course they may develop a taste for what they at first found exotic and repulsive.

4Z is a very exotic masterpiece and most definitely an acquired taste. The reader initially encounters an appalling mass of strange ideas and much that appears to be sheer gibberish. But with perseverance the strange ideas become familiar bit by bit, and the gibberish clarifies into some of the most exalted thought forms of the human mind. To the seasoned reader 42 is a treasure house of imaginative delights. Or call it a mine that releases its gold to the pertinacious. The same could be said of the Bible!

Manuscript

Vala or The Four Zoas

Page 3

Blake wrote the poem over a period of years while his mind and spirit were rapidly developing and changing. It began as the story of Vala, the incarnation of the Female Will. Later it became an account of cosmic and psychic history written in terms of the four Giant Forms--their breakup and struggle for dominion. At Blake's spiritual crisis this seedbed gave birth to Jesus and Jerusalem, his bride. Blake then made an attempt to rewrite 4Z to reflect his new spiritual orientation but after a while he gave up. 4Z was aborted because Blake's world had fundamentally changed, and he was ready to start over. After many years of looking for the New Age he had become a New Man. The New Man wrote 'Milton' and 'Jerusalem' using 4Z as a quarry. 4Z is fascinating in its own right, although unfinished, but most significant as a platform from which to rise to the ethereal glory of the mature poems.

TO BE CONTINUED

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