![Europe](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Europe.k.p13.100.jpg)
''Europe a Prophecy'' is a 1794
prophetic book by the British poet and illustrator
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
. It is engraved on 18 plates, and survives in just nine known copies. It followed ''
America a Prophecy
''America a Prophecy'' is a 1793 prophetic book by the English poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on eighteen plates, and survives in fourteen known copies. It is the first of Blake's ''Continental prophecies''.
Background
Dur ...
'' of 1793.
Background
During autumn 1790, Blake moved to
Lambeth
Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
, Surrey. He had a studio at the new house that he used while writing what were later called his "Lambeth Books", which included ''Europe'' in 1794. Like the others under the title, all aspects of the work, including the composition of the designs, the printing of them, the colouring of them, and the selling of them, happened at his home. Early sketches for ''Europe'' were included in a notebook that contained images were created between 1790 until 1793. Only a few of Blake's works were fully coloured, and only some of the editions of ''Europe'' were coloured.
When ''Europe'' was printed, it was in the same format as Blake's ''America'' and sold for the same price. It was printed between 1794 and 1821 with only 9 copies of the work surviving. The plates used for the designs were 23 x 17 cm in size. In addition to the
illuminations
Illuminations may refer to:
Shows and festivals
* IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, a nightly fireworks show currently at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resort
*'' IllumiNations'', original nightly firework show at Epcot at Walt Disney World Resor ...
, the work contained 265 lines of poetry, which were organized into septenaries.
Henry Crabb Robinson
Henry Crabb Robinson (13 May 1775 – 5 February 1867) was an English lawyer, remembered as a diarist. He took part in founding London University.
Life
Robinson was born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, third and youngest son of Henry Robinson (17 ...
contacted
William Upcott
William Upcott (1779–1845) was an English librarian and antiquary.
Life
Born in Oxfordshire, he was the illegitimate son of Ozias Humphry by Delly Wickens, daughter of an Oxford shopkeeper, called Upcott from the maiden name of Humphry's mothe ...
on 19 April 1810 inquiring about copies of Blake's works that were in his possession. On that day, Robinson was allowed access to ''Europe'' and ''America'' and created a transcription of the works. An edition of ''Europe'' for Frederick Tatham was the last work Blake produced, and ''
The Ancient of Days'' was completed three days just prior to his death.
Poem
The book is prefaced by an image known as ''
The Ancient of Days'', a depiction of
Urizen
In the mythology of William Blake, Urizen () is the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensna ...
separating light and darkness. The poem begins with a description of the source for the vision:
The poem then explains that it is about:
The poem describes the creation of the serpent:
The poem concludes with Los calling his sons to arms:
Themes
''Europe'', like many of Blake's other works, is a mythological narrative and is considered a "prophecy". However, only ''America'' and ''Europe'' were ever given that title by Blake. He understood the word not to denote a description of the future, but the view of the honest and the wise. The vision within the poem, along with some of the other prophecies, is of a world filled with suffering in a manner that is connected to the politics of 1790s Britain.
God in ''The Ancient of Days'' is a "
nous
''Nous'', or Greek νοῦς (, ), sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, is a concept from classical philosophy for the faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is true or real.
Alternative English terms used in p ...
" figure, a creative principle in the universe that establishes mathematical order and permanence that allows life to keep from becoming nothingness. In such a view, Jesus is seen as a Logos figure that is disconnected from the nous in that Logos constantly recreates what is beautiful. As such,
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
, as well as the
Holy Spirit
In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as ...
, are connected in Blake's mythology to the image of the universal man as opposed to
God the Father
God the Father is a title given to God in Christianity. In mainstream trinitarian Christianity, God the Father is regarded as the first person of the Trinity, followed by the second person, God the Son Jesus Christ, and the third person, God t ...
. The image is also connected to
John Milton
John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...
's ''
Paradise Lost
''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse (poetry), verse. A second edition fo ...
'' in which God uses a golden compass to circumscribe the universe. Blake's version does not create the
Garden of Eden
In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan-Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the Bible, biblical paradise described in Book of Genesis, Genes ...
but instead is creating the serpent of the poem's frontispiece. The image is also connected to a vision Blake witnessed at the steps inside of his home. There are parallels between the actions of women within ''Europe'' and the 1820s images titled ''Drawings for
The Book of Enoch''. The latter work describes the seduction of the
Watchers of Heaven by the Daughters of Men;
giants born of their union then proceed to ravage the land. Both works emphasise the dominance of women.
Blake had many expectations for the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, which is described in a prophetic way within the poem. However, he was disappointed when the fallen state of existence returned without the changes that Blake had hoped. To Blake, the French promoted a bad idea of reason, and he was disappointed when there was not a sensual liberation. After Napoleon declared himself emperor in 1804, Blake believed that the revolutionary heroes were instead being treated as god kings that no longer cared about freedom. He continued to believe in an apocalyptic state that would soon appear, but he no longer believed that Orc man, the leader of a revolution, would be the agent of the apocalypse. Instead, he believed that God could only exist in men, and he distrusted all hero worship.
Critical response
Robinson wrote an essay about Blake's works in 1810 and described ''Europe'' and ''America'' as "mysterious and incomprehensible rhapsody". Blake's fame grew in 1816 with an entry in ''A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland'', which included ''Europe'' among the works of "an eccentric but very ingenious artist".
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.
Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symmet ...
regarded it as Blake's "greatest achievement" in "a kind of 'free verse' recitativo in which the septenarius is mixed with lyrical meters." According to
John Beer
John Bernard Beer, FBA (31 March 1926 – 10 December 2017) was a British literary critic. He was emeritus professor of English literature at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Best known as a scholar and critic ...
: "The drift of the argument in ''Europe'' is to show how a Christian message that has been veiled, and cults exalting
virginity
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
, have together fostered the so-called
Enlightenment philosophy
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
which left no place for the
visionary
A visionary, defined broadly, is one who can envision the future. For some groups, this can involve the supernatural.
The visionary state is achieved via meditation, lucid dreams, daydreams, or art. One example is Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-c ...
."
[Beer 2005 p. 82]
Notes
References
* Beer, John. ''William Blake: A Literary Life'' 2005.
* Bentley, G. E. (Jr). ''The Stranger From Paradise''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
*
* Damon, S. Foster. ''A Blake Dictionary''. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1988.
* Frye, Northrop. ''Fearful Symmetry''. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.
* Mee, Jon. ''Dangerous Enthusiasm''. Oxford: Clarendon, 2002.
External links
Full Poem and record of extant copiesat the
William Blake Archive
The William Blake Archive is a digital humanities project started in 1994, a first version of the website was launched in 1996.{{cite journal, last1=Crawford, first1=Kendal, last2=Levy, first2=Michelle, journal=RIDE: A Review Journal for Digital E ...
{{William Blake, lit
Poetry by William Blake
Art by William Blake
William Blake's mythology
1794 poems
1794 poetry books
Illustrated books