BLAKE/MILTON V

New York Public Library

Milton
Title Page

Northrop Frey was able to see the relationship which Blake attained with Milton on a spiritual, visionary level which transcended ordinary temporal experience. Until Blake was able to break Orc's chain of jealousy which bound him to Milton as a mentor, as a rival and as the embodiment of British poetic tradition, he could not be reborn into the fullness of his own imaginative capacity. An epiphany of breaking out of Time into Eternity resulted when Blake annihilated his Selfhood or ego in order to receive the completeness of Vision.

Fearful Symmetry, by Northrop Frye, Page 322:

"There is no such thing as 'reincarnation,' in the sense that a 'soul' may leave a 'body' and then enter another. 'In Eternity,' says Blake, 'one Thing never Changes into another Thing.' But there are two possible forms of rebirth. One the rebirth of Orc, the reappearance of life in a new form, which is the ordinary process of life. The other is the rebirth of Los, the recreation of one vision by another. Milton's imagination was the real Milton and a deliberate and conscious attempt to recreate his vision, as Paradise Lost was a deliberate and conscious attempt to recreate the vision of the Book of Genesis, is the rebirth of the real Milton into the imagination of the poet who makes the attempt.
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Page 323:
If Jesus had been nothing more than a reborn Orc, he would have been merely one more cycle of energy in nature, as Orc-Jesus is in Europe: the fact that the human imagination reaches finality in Jesus is expressed in the doctrine that the end of time is his second coming. Similarly, when Blake visualizes himself as a reborn Milton, he expresses the corollary of this. If, in the Jesus cycle of history, one man's vision returns to another and is recreated with final clarity, a permanent eternal form will appear in time and the fallen perspective of time as a vanishing current will be arrested."

---

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 556)
"In Eternity one Thing never Changes into
another Thing   Each Identity is Eternal consequently Apuleius's
Golden Ass & Ovids Metamorphosis & others of the like kind are
Fable yet they contain Vision in a Sublime degree being derived
from real Vision in More Ancient Writings[.] Lots Wife
being Changed into Pillar of Salt alludes to the Mortal Body
being renderd a Permanent Statue but not Changed or Transformed
into Another Identity while it retains its own Individuality.  A
Man can never become Ass nor Horse some are born with shapes of
Men who may be both but   Eternal Identity is one thing & Corporeal
Vegetation is another thing    Changing Water into Wine by Jesus &
into Blood by Moses relates to Vegetable Nature also"

Milton, Plate 20 [22], (E 115)
"Los saw them and a cold pale horror coverd o'er his limbs
Pondering he knew that Rintrah & Palamabron might depart:
Even as Reuben & as Gad; gave up himself to tears.
He sat down on his anvil-stock; and leand upon the trough.
Looking into the black water, mingling it with tears.            

At last when desperation almost tore his heart in twain
He recollected an old Prophecy in Eden recorded,
And often sung to the loud harp at the immortal feasts
That Milton of the Land of Albion should up ascend
Forwards from Ulro from the Vale of Felpham; and set free        
Orc from his Chain of Jealousy, he started at the thought"

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 117)
"for not one Moment
Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent
But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years               
Remains permanent: tho' on the Earth where Satan
Fell, and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more
They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last
The generations of men run on in the tide of Time
But leave their destind lineaments permanent for ever & ever.    

So spoke Los as we went along to his supreme abode."

Milton, Plate 40 [46],(E 141)
"Before Ololon Milton stood & percievd the Eternal Form
Of that mild Vision; wondrous were their acts by me unknown
Except remotely; and I heard Ololon say to Milton

I see thee strive upon the Brooks of Arnon. there a dread
And awful Man I see, oercoverd with the mantle of years.   
I behold Los & Urizen. I behold Orc & Tharmas;
The Four Zoa's of Albion & thy Spirit with them striving
In Self annihilation giving thy life to thy enemies
Are those who contemn Religion & seek to annihilate it
Become in their Feminine portions the causes & promoters       
Of these Religions, how is this thing? this Newtonian Phantasm
This Voltaire & Rousseau: this Hume & Gibbon & Bolingbroke
This Natural Religion! this impossible absurdity
Is Ololon the cause of this? O where shall I hide my face
These tears fall for the little-ones: the Children of Jerusalem  
Lest they be annihilated in thy annihilation."

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 555)
     "The Last judgment is one of these Stupendous
Visions. I have represented it as I saw it.
to different People it appears differently as every
thing else does for tho on Earth things seem Permanent they are
less permanent than a Shadow as we all know too well
     The Nature of Visionary Fancy or Imagination is very little
Known & the Eternal nature & permanence of its ever Existent
Images is considerd as less permanent than the things of
Vegetative & Generative Nature yet the Oak dies as well as the
Lettuce but Its Eternal Image & Individuality never dies. but
renews by its seed. just as the Imaginative Image
returns according to the seed of Contemplative
Thought   the Writings of the Prophets illustrate these conceptions
of the Visionary Fancy by their various sublime & Divine Images
as seen in the Worlds of Vision"

Vision of the Last Judgment, (E 555)
"This world of Imagination is the World of
Eternity it is the Divine bosom into which we shall all go after
the death of the Vegetated body   This World of Imagination is
Infinite & Eternal whereas the world of Generation or Vegetation
is Finite & for a small moment Temporal    There Exist
in that Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing
which we see are reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature
     All Things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the
Divine body of the Saviour the True Vine of Eternity
The Human Imagination who appeard to Me as Coming to Judgment.
among his Saints & throwing off the Temporal that the Eternal
might be Establishd. around him were seen the Images of
Existences according to their aggregate Imaginations a
certain order suited to my Imaginative Eye"