Blake abandoned ‘Vala’, and resumed it as ‘The Four Zoas’

The British Library

In the late 1790s, William Blake (who was born #onthisday in 1757) began work on an epic poem, originally titled ‘Vala’. It was a lengthy exposition of the mythology of eternal man, whose ‘Perfect Unity’ is divided after the ‘Fall’. Planned as nine books, or nights, it was reworked over a period of 10 years, each iteration more complex than the last.

In this work, Blake sets out an intricate view of the spiritual. The two states of the human soul, as seen in the Songs of Innocence and of Experience, become four ways to consider eternal man: the heart, the head, the genitals, the whole being.

Blake abandoned ‘Vala’, and resumed it as ‘The Four Zoas’ after a period of depression. While the early parts deal with intellectual judgement and spiritual despair, the later stages of the poem hold out more hope. See the pages of the illustrated manuscript with #BLTreasures http://bit.ly/2ON6zrO