Blake: The Complete Poems

972 Pages·2007·8.75 MB·English

by  W.H. Stevenson

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Blake
The Complete Poems
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LONGMAN ANNOTATED ENGLISH POETS
General Editors: John Barnard and Paul Hammond
Founding Editor: F. W. Bateson
Titles available in paperback:
BLAKE: THE COMPLETE POEMS
(Third Edition)
Edited by W. H. Stevenson
DRYDEN: SELECTED POEMS
Edited by Paul Hammond and David Hopkins
THE POEMS OF ANDREW MARVELL
(Revised Edition)
Edited by Nigel Smith
MILTON: PARADISE LOST
(Second Edition)
Edited by Alastair Fowler
MILTON: COMPLETE SHORTER POEMS
(Second Edition)
Edited by John Carey
SPENSER: THE FAERIE QUEENE
(Revised Second Edition)
Edited by A. C. Hamilton
TENNYSON: A SELECTED EDITION
(Revised Edition)
Edited by Christopher Ricks
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Blake
The Complete Poems
Edited by
W. H. Stevenson
Third Edition
Routledge
Taylor Si Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
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First published 1971 by Pearson Education Limited
First paperback edition 1972
Second edition 1989
Third edition published 22000077
Published 2014 by Routledge
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711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright © 1971, 1989, 2007, Taylor & Francis.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN 13: 978-1-4058-3280-9 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Set by 35in 9.5/11.5pt Galliard
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Note by the General Editors x
Acknowledgements xii
Preface xiii
Chronological Table of the Life and Work of
William Blake xvii
Abbreviations xxiv
THE POEMS
1 Poetical Sketches 3
2 Poems written in a copy of Poetical Sketches 41
3 Songs from An Island in the Moon 43
4 All Religions are One and There is No Natural Religion 55
5 Songs of Innocence 58
6 Tiriel 79
7 Thel 99
8 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 106
9 The French Revolution 130
10 A Divine Image 149
11 Poems from the Notebook, c. 1791–2 149
12 Visions of the Daughters of Albion 179
13 America 193
14 Songs of Experience 214
15 Europe 229
16 The Song of Los 246
17 The First Book of Urizen 252
18 The Book of Ahania 274
19 The Book of Los 284
20 Verses written with illustrations to Gray’s Poems 291
21 Verses written c. 1798–1802 292
22 Vala, or The Four Zoas 293
23 ‘When Klopstock England defied’ 482
vii
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viii CONTENTS
24 Poems in letters (1800) 484
25 On the Virginity of the Virgin Mary and
Joanna Southcott 488
26 Poems to Mr & Mrs Butts 488
27 ‘He is a cock would’ 492
28 Notebook drafts, c. 1804 492
29a Preface to Milton 501
29 Milton 503
30 The ‘Pickering Manuscript’ 602
31 To Tirzah 617
32 ‘A fairy skip’d’ 618
33 To the Queen 619
34 Miscellaneous Verses, c. 1807–9 620
35 Miscellaneous Verses, 1809–12 634
36 Jerusalem, the Emanation of the Giant Albion 648
37 For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise 890
38 The Everlasting Gospel 895
39 The Ghost of Abel 910
Appendix: Doubtful and Spurious Attributions 914
Index of Titles and First Lines 916
Index to Notes and Relevant Passages 927
Index to Prose Quotations 928
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List of Illustrations
William Blake c. 1825 Frontispiece
(pencil, by John Linnell [1792–1882])
maps
Page
Biblical Palestine, to illustrate Blake’s works 601
Blake’s London c. 1810 (a) 649
(b) 650
(c) 651
plates
1. London (Songs of Experience, 1794)
2. Nurse’s Song (Songs of Innocence, 1789)
3. Nurse’s Song (Songs of Experience, 1794)
4. America, pl. 5. 1793
5. Europe, pl. 5. 1794
6. Newton. Colour-print, 1794–5
7. Urizen, pl. 5. 1794
8. From the Paradise Lost series, 1808
9. Jacob’s Dream, 1805
10. The Whore of Babylon, 1809
11. Milton, pl. 16. ca. 1810–11
12. Jerusalem: Titlepage (ca. 1820)
13. Jerusalem: pl. 70.
14. From 1825. pl. 3.
15. From 1825, pl. 14.
16. From the Dante series, 1824–7
ix