Degree Year
1973
Document Type
Thesis - Open Access
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
English
Advisor(s)
Robert Longsworth
Keywords
Four Zoas, William Blake
Abstract
In The Four Zoas, Blake wages mental war against nature and mystery, reason and tyranny. As a dream in nine nights, the world of The Four Zoas illustrates an unreal world which nevertheless represents the real world to Albion, the dreamer. The dreamer is Blake's archetypal and eternal man; he has fallen asleep among the flowers of Beulah. The world he dreams of is a product of his own physical laziness and mental lassitude. In this world, his faculties vie with each other for power until the ascendance of Los, the imaginative shaper. Los heralds the apocalypse, Albion reawakes, and the world takes on once again its original eternal and infinite form.
Repository Citation
Shaw, Cathy, "Nature, Reason, and Eternity: Images of the Divine Vision in The Four Zoas" (1973). Honors Papers. 754.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/honors/754
