SOURCE: Stevenson, W. H. “Blake's Jerusalem.” Essays in Criticism 9 (1959): 254-64.

[In the following essay, Stevenson explores the nature of Jerusalem in order to formulate a basic understanding of the work.]

Jerusalem is a tantalising work—like a money-box with no key. It promises much, but it has always proved difficult to get into. This article is not to be a new attempt to ‘explain’ Jerusalem so much as an attempt to find out what sort of a work it is. Blake seems to encourage his critics to venture into all sorts of other departments of learning, which would be a good thing, if it did not make them forget their own. I have therefore tried to look at Jerusalem in a more usual, more literary way. It is, of course, impossible to make any final assessment which does not include a poem's subject-matter and its significance; but there are more gates than one to Jerusalem.

The first impression of Jerusalem is of a vast idea lost in confusion, and it is also the abiding impression. Jerusalem has all the characteristics of Blake's earlier and shorter ‘epics’, magnified by greater size. Blake was essentially a small-scale writer; his finicking interest in detail, seen in his Notebook, is the mark of a lyric-writer, and his lyrics are often much the finer for it. But he had no corresponding control of large themes. There is enough material and plan in America to keep it going for 250 lines, but scarcely enough in Europe, while Urizen is wearing thin before the end. At first sight, there is also a sufficiency of material in Jerusalem—more than enough to smother the reader's comprehension. But there is a suspicious symmetry in the 4 (chapters) × 25 (plates) = 100 pages of Jerusalem which should warn us. This may be the kind of symmetry that naturally artificial writers such as Spenser might attempt, but Blake was not one of their kind. The extempore effusion, not the sonnet, was his style. Unfortunately, this artificially invertebrate structure has to make do for a true organic form.

Blake was trying to write a spiritual Iliad, a new Paradise Regained, and he had no idea of the techniques involved, or even of the problems he was facing. Unity in variety, and variety in unity of plot, its progress, divisions and order—he did not begin to appreciate any of these. There is in Jerusalem sufficient material for another poem like the Lambeth Books. But Blake has not begun to develop his theme so that it will be suitable for a diffuse epic; he has treated it like a balloon, simply puffing air into it until it has reached the required size. That is to say, he treated a grand theme concisely, not grandly: then, to fill up the book, he has not enlarged the theme, but added frills and flounces to it. The necessary length is produced by interpolation.

Could not the same be said of Paradise Lost, since Books V—VIII are almost entirely digressive? But they digress to some purpose. They expand the plot, and give the temptation of Adam and Eve its cosmic setting, as well as forming part of the narrative scheme—and it is clear what Milton is doing. Blake digresses here and there, in fits and starts, without plan and often in complete irrelevance to the plot. Therefore the reader's failure to follow Blake through Jerusalem is due less to his own ignorance than to Blake's uncertainty about what he really means to do.

Let us come to the particulars. What happens in Jerusalem? The first two lines announce it:

Of the sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life’

(iv, 1-2)

Albion (iv, 22), ‘the perturbed Man away turns down the valleys dark’, away from the Divine Vision, believing that Jerusalem is lost. After fourteen more plates, largely taken up by Los and his building of Golgonooza, the effect of his denial is to be seen:

‘Outstretch'd his Giant beauty on the ground in pain
                    & tears’.

(xviii, 46)

There follows a dispute between Jerusalem and Vala, which Albion (xx, 42) later joins, reminiscent of Visions of the Daughters of Albion, and Book I ends with his ‘recoil’ and ‘relapse’ (xxiii, 20, 26), and he is ‘sunk down in sick pallid languor’ as the Daughters of Beulah lament over him.

As the Second Book opens, we see again Albion in his error (xxviii), but also a hope for the future:

‘the Divine Vision like a silent Sun appear'd above
Albion's dark rocks’

(xxix, 1-2)

promising that, in spite of all, ‘Albion shall rise again’ (xxix, 26). Then the Spectre and Emanation of Los emerge ‘from Albion's darkening rocks’ (xxix, 28), and the following passages, and much of the whole poem, are concerned with Los's watch over Albion, who is now on the point of falling ‘into Non-Entity’ (xxxii, 2). The theme is clouded over, but (xxxvii) we find it again, little changed: Los, as one of the ‘Divine Family’, challenges Albion, but with compassion ‘follows merciful’ (xxxvii, 11). Albion's ‘Friends’, the cathedral cities, realising his state, gather round (xl) and try, but fail, to drag him back from the Void (xliv, 1-7), for

‘the Will must not be bended but in the day of Divine
Power’.

(xliv, 18)

They have to be content to leave Los to watch.

The situation worsens—

… ‘I write Albion's last words: ‘Hope is banished from me’ (xlvii, 17); the Second Book also closes with lamenting in Beulah, and the Third opens with Albion's fall (liv, 6-8, 9-32). But Los stays at his post, against the host of his enemies. Then (lx) Jerusalem is revealed, imprisoned but encouraged and strengthened by the Lamb (lx, 39-69; lxii, 1-29). There is little more of substance in Book III, as Los watches on, and the Sons and Daughters of Albion give way to wild orgies. The same themes run on well into Book IV. Perhaps the next passages of significance are Los's Song of Jerusalem (lxxxv, 22-lxxxvi, 32), and his manifesto (xc, 28 ff).

Then, suddenly, everything happens at once. We are still with Los, when he sees signs of reconciliation in his furnaces (xcii, 1-6). He and Enitharmon pronounce on the significance of the things to come, and our eyes are turned to Albion on his rock (xciv, 1-17). The Divine Breath breathes on him, ‘England, who is Brittannia’, awakes and, by speaking, wakes Albion (xciv, 18-xcv, 4), The rest is coda; Jesus appears with Albion in f.96 and teaches Albion, in a moment's terror, what the true stuff of life is. Then the poem rises to a dazzling conclusion with the triumphal march of all creation:

‘All Human Forms identified, even Tree, Metal, Earth & Stone: all
Human Forms identified, living, going forth & returning wearied
Into the Planetary lives of Years, Months, Days and Hours; reposing,
And then Awaking into his Bosom in the Life of Immortality.
And I heard the Name of their Emanations; they are named Jerusalem.’

(xcix, 1-5)

Now this summary of the theme leaves large areas of Jerusalem uncovered—which is not surprising, for it is a patchwork book with many interpolations. The theme is almost less important than the interpolations, which merit closer consideration. Some of them are obvious, and others can be discerned without much difficulty. F. lxi is clearly a late addition; the text reads sensibly from lx, 69 straight to f. lxii—

                                                                                          ‘“Fear not, trembling Shade,
Repose on me till the morning of the Grave. I am thy life.”’

At present, f. lx is made to read on to f. lxi but f. lxi is not connected to the detached line lxii, 1.

Again, f. x reads like an interpolation, designed to lead on (as f. ix can) to the first line of f. xi. If f. x is omitted, the ‘Spaces of Erin’ of ix, 34 are brought nearer to the ‘comingforth’ of Erin in xi, 8. Golgonooza is such a vast structure that it can hardly be called an interpolation; yet after describing it (f. xii-xiv) Blake returns to an earlier theme, the reluctant Spectre (f. xvii). And the description of Golgonooza appears to have a series of false endings, or after-thoughts, at xiii, 55, xiv, 1, xiv, 15, xiv, 30. Then there are many unrelated passages (xxxvi, 42 f, xliv, 38-42) and many passages in series which tend to break apart (ff. lxiii-lxv and further). Careful analysis would probably reveal the archaeological story of Jerusalem, the lowest stratum being another myth of the Four Zoas, who still appear from time to time in a curiously unsatisfying way.

Two more examples of this ‘archaeology’ will suffice; Reuben and the ‘Friends of Albion’. In xxxiv, 43 Reuben suddenly appears. F. xxxv interrupts and digresses, but his story is taken up again in f. xxxvi, only to make way for the Zoas by line 25. It emerges again by line 40, but only for a moment, and then he disappears, except for a few stray references in later parts of the book (e.g. lxxiv, 42). One line has been erased from the plate: did Blake clear the Zoas from the lower part of the plate (and the top as well) to make way for something new?

At xl, 21 we meet the ‘the Twenty-Four’. After line 24 Blake digresses again; but then we learn that the ‘Divine Family’ of twenty-four are the cathedral cities of England and Wales, seven ending with Bath being named in the plate. But Bath seems to have inspired Blake several times, for three more plates take up the name in their first line—xli, xlv and xlvi. Any one of these can be read as a sequel to f. xl. I surmise that originally the text went, with the list, straight from f. xl to f. xlvi. F. xlv was then fitted in, when Blake had another idea—but here a complication arises. Blake, apparently in pursuit of his favourite ‘fourfold’ symmetry, has summed up the Twenty-four in Four other towns, so that in one world there are twenty-eight cities, in the other Twenty-four-in-Four.

There remains the intervening section, ff. xli-xliv, where the cities may be twenty-four or twenty-eight. Much of this appears to be irrelevant, or at least inessential: and the Zoas have a disconcerting tendency to float in and out, perhaps related to the cities, perhaps not. The general theme is that something has gone wrong with the cities, and Albion has imprisoned them (f. xli): but they still remain faithful, though impotent (xlii, 57 ff). Los is then seen to persuade them (they are at least free enough for this) to try to save Albion by force (ff. xliii-xliv). This fails, and a reaction follows, which is forgotten as we return to the earlier scheme with a speech by Bath, ‘healing city’ (xlv, 1). After so much ado, Blake has returned to his earlier position and continues his list unconcerned—until a completely different theme claims his attention in f. xlvii. And so the poem goes on, with much activity and little progress, until the predestined norm of 100 pages is attained.

Much of Jerusalem, then, is static. It is not a narrative, but a series of pageants. In only one of these is dramatic movement inevitable—the central theme of the fall and regeneration of Albion. The others—Los's continual building and watching, the continual orgy of the children of Albion, the continual weaving and talking of Vala—are essentially endless processes not governed by the main theme. They are all part of Blake's scheme, but not of a completed plot. (The same problem made his King Edward the Third impossible. He saw the characters, and made them talk, but he could never quite make them do anything.) To be blunt, most of Jerusalem is padding. This is fairly obviously true of the pseudo-Biblical genealogies and geography; and of the recurrent, but generally aimless appearances of the Sons and Daughters of Albion. For, in spite of their fearsome appearance, their only real part in the action is to give an occasional push to Albion and to turn against Los or the ‘Divine Family’. Even Los, strictly speaking, is padding; for what does he do? He watches ceaselessly; he builds Golgonooza: but to no apparent purpose, since he can only watch, and in the end Albion's resurrection does not come through him. He is the chorus, not an actor, in a drama where the protagonist is almost entirely passive. It is not surprising that the satyrs come on out of turn.

I have said that Blake was a ‘short-story’ writer (in so far as he was a narrative-writer at all), and the significance of this is now clear. Blake's method in composing Jerusalem was essentially the lyric-writer's; he chiselled away at the details (as at, e.g., ‘My Myrtle Tree’). But the assumption of unity that can be made over a dozen lines cannot be made over four thousand, and if the poet is going to introduce diversions he must allow for them in his form—as Spenser and James Thomson did, and as Blake (mistakenly following Milton) did not. And so we have a number of incidents, but no real purpose: the round is endless, and a deus ex machina is required to stop it.

Then, if we cannot find an epic, can we find instead a series of short poems of value? Not really. Few even of the finer passages will stand alone (e.g. xxxviii, 40-xxxix, 6), and much is turgid and tedious—even if we except the genealogies and lists. Blake seems to lose control of his visualising power, in spite of his talk about the clear outline:

‘In eternal labours loud the Furnaces & loud the Anvils
Of Death thunder incessant around the flaming Couches of
The Twenty-four Friends of Albion and round the awful Four …’

(liii, 20-2)

As Reuben fled before the Daughters of Albion, Taxing the Nations.’

(lxiv, 34)

‘And Los's Furnaces howl loud, living, self-moving, lamenting
With fury & despair, & they stretch from South to North
Thro' all the Four Points.’

(lxxiii, 2-4)

Too often this sort of thing indicates that Blake is not using his imagination. Images have become formalised and abstracted into ideas without material significance. We can understand the Furnaces, and we can see figures in the flames. But when they begin to howl and thunder, to float round couches and stretch across the world, we may reasonably confess to some bewilderment. And in such ways the soul of too many good ideas and promising passages is destroyed. In spite of his artist's training, one is driven to the conclusion that Blake's visualising power must have been wool-gathering when he wrote Jerusalem. Many of his images are not images at all, but ideas expressed, through force of habit, in figures of speech.

For example, what is Los? He is a smith (f. v-x, etc.), a master-builder (xii-xiv, liii), a guardian (xxxi, lxxxiii) and once an iron-founder (xi, 1-7): and these rôles are not always kept separate. The character of a smith is useful when Blake wants to show us Los's determination and might. But a smith's creations are not big enough, so that Los has to turn town-planner, when Blake wants us to see the grandeur of what is actually being made. Often in these passages Los is less important than Golgonooza, his fury disappears for a moment, and he becomes a new Nehemiah, walking the walls, supervising the building, and watching the enemy. But at any moment he is likely to get out his hammer (lxxxvi, 33-41).

At least we can recognise Los. Blake commits a more serious offence in lines like this:

‘Then Gwendolen divided into Rahab & Tirza in Twelve Portions’

(xxxiv, 52)

A poet may either select characters already known to his audience, or invent them. If he chooses to invent, he has the more freedom, but he takes upon himself the responsibility of explaining them. Blake continually refuses this responsibility, treating strange names, or names out of context (e.g. Tirza and Beulah), as if they should be perfectly familiar to his readers. For the same reason he gives us those long lists of names and places, to him significant, to us tedious. Basically, this is the same failure of communication as with his imagery; he is so full of the idea that he fails to see the need to connect it carefully to the reader's mind and world, and he cannot see the object he uses as image.

But we must be wary of criticising ignorantly. Much that appears at first sight to be broken-down imagery of the kind I have described is valid—according to Blake's premisses. To him, personality was not exclusive. Albion is one, and many; so that in one place he may be the Giant on his rock, watched by all the other figures; and in another all the figures may be inside him, and part of him:

‘Forthwith from Albion's dark'ning locks came two Immortal forms’ …

(xxix, 28)

‘Albion the mildest son of Heaven! The Place of Holy Sacrifice
Where Friends Die for each other …’

(xlviii, 55-56)

‘For in the depths of Albion's bosom in the eastern heaven
They sound the clarions strong, they chain the howling Captives.’

(lxv, 5-6)

                                                                                          ‘& they walked
‘To & fro in Eternity as One Man, reflecting each in each …’

(xcviii, 38-9)

Blake intends us to have this idea before us all the time.

It is not as difficult as it sounds. Britannia (let us say for the sake of argument) was intended by Providence to rule the waves. Her Sons must take an active part in the fulfilment of her destiny; and as one song contains Britannia regent and Britons unenslaved, we have the elements of Blake's ‘fourth dimension’. But Blake takes this much further, so that it ceases to be a figure of speech and becomes a metaphysical theory, in the idea of Spectre and Emanation; in the union of Vala and the ‘Infinite Spectre, who is the Rational Power’ into the ‘dark Hermaphrodite’ of f. lxiv; or in the Polypus of f. lxix, ‘all the Males conjoined into one Male’. And as Blake is nothing if not absolute, we must realise that the divided and the undivided figures are equal personalities, capable of interaction. On f.xxxviii, London calls as a friend to Albion to return, and offers to sacrifice himself for Albion: the cell has become the equal of the body.

This can have curious results. In f. xxxii, Albion is at once the ‘father’ of his Twelve Sons and their scene of action. Again, between xxxviii, 55 and xxxix, 11:

‘There is in Albion a Gate of precious stones and gold …
It is the Gate of Los. …
Albion fled thro' the Gate of Los and he stood in the Gate.’

Blake insists on having it all ways. The Gate of Los is an eternal and universal thing, and so Albion can pass through it; it is part of the temporal lives of the blessed, and so can be seen by them in the prosaic land of Albion—to be precise, it ‘bends across Oxford Street’ (xxxviii, 57).

Blake claims the right to use this fourth dimension; is anything gained by it to balance the confusion is causes? I think there is, even in this curious passage about the Gate of Los, which shows that Blake had not forgotten the word ‘Innocence’; and it is doubtful whether infinity can be directly described more effectively than by such a kind of paradox.

We must return to the earlier statement that Blake is a writer on the small scale. He means us to see that this impossibility is actual;

‘When in Eternity Man converses with Man, they enter
Into each other's Bosom (which are Universes of delight)
In mutual interchange.’

(lxxxviii, 3-5)

And if this leads us to confusion, illogicality and inconsequence in the narrative, we must remember that, in Jerusalem, each moment is a law to itself, and is not to be bound by the circumstances of earlier or later events. The great paradox cannot be displayed on a large scale; and in any case the panoramic view seemed to him neither possible nor desirable—hence the dogmatism about the ‘Minute Particular’ and the ‘bounding line’. For him the present moment matters, and this is the order of Jerusalem.

There is one great snag. An epic with the panoramic view can sweep over a few awkward moments where the Minute Particulars do not quite fit the grand vision; but Blake will not allow them to be distorted in this way, and gives himself the impossible task of fitting together a large number of little visions which must not be altered. If Los can rightly be said to be at his Furnaces, and just as rightly to be ‘on Mam-Tor’ (xxxiv, 17-41), both must go in. No fraction of the truth may be omitted:

‘So spoke the hard cold constrictive Spectre: he is named Arthur,
Constricting into Druid Rocks round Canaan, Agag & Aram & Pharoh.

(liv, 25-6)

What is left of Jerusalem? We turn to see what came of the great care and concentration which Blake gave to detail. There are certainly moments of greatness, but they are interwoven in one piece with the failures. It is difficult to select satisfactorily from any epic, and in Blake inspiration emerges from jargon, and may soon be lost in it again. As with most writers, we must accept the bad as necessary in the creation of the good; but whereas it is easy to ignore the Ecclesiastical Sonnets, it is not easy in Jerusalem to skip from moment to moment of hard, gem-like inspiration.

Is Jerusalem worth reading again, or should it go into the limbo of forgotten epics, where the shades declaim (but do not listen) to one another? One thing sets Blake apart from these. The many children of Orm are forgotten because they build giant structures to house pigmy mice, or chase their tails in the belief that they have caught the serpent that circles the earth. But Blake, in spite of his bombast and tortured obscurity, always has something real and great in his mind. It might be done better, but then it would not be Blake. He was, in many ways, an ordinary, semi-educated man with a bursting desire to express something. Such people are generally rather inarticulate, but often worth listening to. Even the most tortured passages of Jerusalem partake of the Vision—

‘Imputing Sin & Righteousness to Individuals, Rahab
Sat, deep within him hid, his Feminine Power unreveal'd,
Brooding Abstract Philosophy to destroy Imagination, the Divine—
Humanity: A Three-fold Wonder, feminine, most beautiful, Three-fold
Each within other.’

(lxx, 17-21)

It is odd—Mr. Auden has, with good reason, used the word ‘dotty’—but we must appreciate what this grotesqueness meant to Blake if we are to grasp Jerusalem at all. Blake cannot be bowdlerised. His vision is all personal and grotesque (although by chance some parts are more acceptable than others), and we must take all or nothing. If Hayley had been able to educate him and rub the corners off him, Blake might have written a more successful epic, but it would not have replaced Jerusalem. Wisdom is justified of her children, even though they are unruly at times. It is a mistake to put them in the care of the authorities.