This site contains the texts of William Blake's Urizen books (The [First] Book of Urizen [1794], The Book of Ahania [1795], and The Book of Los [1795]) with links to the plates, notes, a glossary, and other materials useful for understanding the texts. These books were produced by Blake during one of his most fruitful periods (1793-1795) while he was living in Lambeth. This period also saw the publication in illuminated printing of The Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), America a Prophecy (1793), Europe a Prophecy (1794), and The Song of Los. These seven illuminated books (often referred to as the Lambeth prophecies) treat issues of oppression/repression and liberation in the realms of politics, religion, and psycho-sexual dynamics.
For Blake oppression/repression in all these realms are interrelated and arise out of the same forces. He uses his evolving mythology as an analytical tool to investigate the way these dynamic forces interact to create oppression and at the same time to explore how the oppressive forces can be thwarted to restore liberty to the individual and society. The Visions of the Daughters of Albion addresses issues of sexual oppression and repression directly. America, Europe, and The Song of Los focus on political oppression. The Urizen books treat religious oppression but also explore the spiritual and psychological underpinnings of other forms of oppression/repression in this story of the creation of the fallen world and the fall of its denizens.
The Book of Urizen is the Genesis and Exodus of Blake's "Bible of Hell" (Marriage of Heaven and Hell 24). It tells of Urizen's fall into solipsism and its consequences for his companions, in particular Los but also others drawn into his vision of the world. The world is created out of this fall. The book ends with Fuzon, a Moses figure, leading his people out of Egypt (Urizen's world). The Book of Ahania continues the story of Fuzon's conflict with Urizen. Urizen's sexual repression and its consequent prudery are further explored. The Book of Los retells the story of the creation of the world from a different point of view, exploring Los's motivation as the demiurge of this world who gives concrete form to Urizen's abstractions.
This site is still under construction. The full set of links for The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los are being developed. This site was tested with Netscape 3. It has not been tested with other browsers.
Text: You can gain access to the text from the Contents for each poem, from the Plates, or from the Outlines. The highlighted words and phrases in the text are linked to notes (for words and phrases) or the Glossary (for names such as "Los" or basic concepts such as "Eternity"). The Plate numbers and line numbers in the right margin are linked to the Plates. The letter preceding the line numbers indicates the book: U for The Book of Urizen, A for the The Book of Ahania, and L for The Book of Los. (Note: If the lines of poetry are wrapped to the next line, the line numbers will be thrown off. You can adjust this by changing the size of the window or the size of the font your browser is using.)
Notes: At the end of each note, there is a button to take you back to your place in the text.
Glossary: Since there are multiple links to each entry in the Glossary, use the browser's back key to return to your position in the text, notes, or plates.
Plates: The initial link to a Plate will be to a description of the Plate. There are links to various copies of the Plate at the bottom of the description. These copies will be at external sites, so you will need to use the browser's back key to return to this site. Any buttons on a page with of one of the copies will link you to other parts of the distant site, not to this site. The «Back to the Text» button at the end of the description of each Plate will take you back to the first line of that Plate or to the position in the text where the plate falls for those without text.
William Blake, a Chronology: A site created and maintained by Charles Beauvais (Connecticut College) that offers a year by year chronology of the events in Blake's life. It contains numerous links to other Blake sites on the web.
A Chronology of the Romantic Period: A site developed and maintained by Laura Mandell (Miami U of Ohio) and Alan Liu (U of California, Santa Barbara) that offers a year by year chronology of the major events of the Romantic period. It contains links to yet other sites.
Outlines: An outline of the plot with links to text gives an overview of each poem.
Bibliography: An short annotated bibliography of books on Blake suggests further reading.
Web Sites: Blake and Romanticism: A page of links of selected WWW sites on Blake and the Romantic period offers further ways to explore Blake and the Romantics.
Other Related Poems: These poems are useful for understanding the Urizen books.
I wish to thank Roger Yin and his assistants at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Multi-media Lab for technical help and advice while I worked on this project.
Special thanks must go to David Erdman who has generously given permission to reproduce his edition of The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake in electronic form. Special thanks must also go to Nelson Hilton who has made The Electronic Erdman a reality and who has generously given others permission to use the text to develop sites such as this one.
Please send any comments you have about this site to Joseph Hogan, hoganj@uwwvax.uww.edu.
Joseph Hogan's home page.