The Urizen Books (The Illuminated Books of William Blake, Volume 6)
The last volumes in the series of William Blake's Illuminated Books reveal the writer and artist as a prophet driven by a sense of apocalyptic urgency. Blake conceived and executed The Continental Prophecies and The Urizen Books in the early 1790s, capturing the intellectual and spiritual turmoil of the American and French revolutions. Here, for the first time, the general reader will encounter Blake's most intense vision in reproductions that do justice to the originals, accompanied by texts, comprehensive notes and commentaries, and detailed interpretations of the designs.
The Urizen Books, made up of "Urizen," "The Book of Los," and "Ahania," describes the dissemination of the autocratic mythology of Urizen, Blake's inflexibly rationalist and myopic law-giver. These books stand as the author's sensible and considered response to the events of his time. The illuminated text of "Urizen" and the ten full-page illustrations from copy D in the British Museum, never before reproduced, represent a tour de force in Blake's specialist process of color printing.
These volumes complete the six-part series of William Blake's Illuminated Books, including Jerusalem, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Early Illuminated Books, and Milton, A Poem, all published by Princeton University Press
These three works in some ways develop the characters Blake used in the three Continental Prophecies. But don't expect any kind of coherent development or to be able to fathom out any kind of understandable timeline. This is Blake after all. Most of this book is helpful introduction, commentary, notes, and supplementary materials.
"The First Book of Urizen" is the longest of the three and the most illustrated. It has images that are absolutely unforgettable. They have a power and emotional impact that holds the viewer. I have met people who find them repulsive. I think they emotional impact makes them uncomfortable so they want to get away from the images and so push them away.
"The Book of Ahania" and "The Book of Los" are much shorter and the illustrations are limited to the title page and the last plate ("The Book of Los" also has an illustration on the opening page of text.). The other pages are done in particularly fine Blake script.
As with the rest of the volumes in this series the quality of reproduction is very high and these images are delightful to study. The scholarship is quite good and the writing is focused on opening these works up to the general reader - at least a general reader who enjoys studying Blake and is willing to put in the time it takes to fathom these rather wonderfully strange works. A treasure for the shelf of any Blake lover. --Reviewer: Craig Matteson from Ann Arbor, MI
