William Blake's The Four Zoas is one of the most challenging poems in the English language, and one of the most profound. It is also one of the least read of the major poetic narratives of the Romantic period. This book presents an introduction to the poem, and is the first study to examine in detail Blake's numerous manuscript revisions of the poem. It offers a staged reading, one that moves, as Blake himself moved, from simpler to more complex forms of writing. The book reads the poem in the light of two competing views of history: the biblical, which places history within the framework of F ... More

William Blake's The Four Zoas is one of the most challenging poems in the English language, and one of the most profound. It is also one of the least read of the major poetic narratives of the Romantic period. This book presents an introduction to the poem, and is the first study to examine in detail Blake's numerous manuscript revisions of the poem. It offers a staged reading, one that moves, as Blake himself moved, from simpler to more complex forms of writing. The book reads the poem in the light of two competing views of history: the biblical, which places history within the framework of Fall and Judgement, and that of the Enlightenment, which sees history as progress from primitive life to civil order. In so doing, the book offers an account of the narrative that is more coherent — and accessible — than much previous criticism of the work, and Blake's much misunderstood poem emerges as the most extraordinary product of the eighteenth-century tradition of philosophical history.