The Fall and Redemption of the Nations in William Blake's Symbolic Landscape

Abstract

In the poetry of William Blake, all of space and time, and all the forms which appear in the physical regions of earth, have their origin in the spiritual realms of Eternity. That is, all that exists first becomes manifest in the holy fires of God's love and imagination where "every Particular is a Man, a Divine Member of the Divine Jesus". This is so because, in Eternity, which Blake equates with the Golden Age of Innocence, all individual forms are so endowed with the spiritual qualities of the divine humanity with which they are consubstantial that each Cloud, Clod of Clay, Valley, Hill, Flower and Herb is endowed with a human face, form and voice (as may readily be gathered from the text and pictures of "The Book of Thel").