Blake's Los: the Eternal Prophet's 'fall into Division & his Resurrection to Unity'

Thesis

This thesis re-evaluates William Blake’s Los the Eternal Prophet, traditionally read as a straightforwardly redemptive figure. Through close analysis of Blake’s texts and images from Europe (1794) to Jerusalem (1804–c.1820), it argues that Los is not a static redeemer but a shifting character who dramatizes Blake’s development of prophecy in his canon. The thesis traces Los’s ‘fall into Division’, dividing the world and being divided from Enitharmon and the Spectre, and his eventual ‘Resurrection to Unity’, creating and revealing visionary gateways while embracing his counterparts in Self-Annihilation. This study of Los challenges the prevailing view of the character as an infallible redeemer by confronting the troubling implications of his actions, including his tyranny, misperception, and violence. Rather than a simple allegory for the artist or poetic genius, Los both satirises eighteenth-century prophetic discourse and facilitates Blake’s and the reader’s visionary awakening. Los does not directly reunify the divisions he creates in the Fall; as a Vehicular Form, he provides opportunities for others to choose vision freely. His redemption is brief and anticlimactic, but this creates a space for the reader to complete the Illuminated Books’ task of opening humanity’s eyes to Eternity themselves. By focusing on the Minute Particulars of Blake’s depictions, the thesis shows that Los is not an ideal but a dynamic, often flawed figure whose fluctuation mirrors Blake’s prophetic progression. Approaching Blake through one of the most significant figures in his work, the thesis argues that Los is a process of vision and re-vision, and proposes an approach Blake’s prophetic books grounded in fallibility, multiplicity, and ongoing imaginative renewal.

Authors: Mahmoud, J

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-pvbn4mrwr
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: William Blake; gender; prophecy; fall; time; apocalypse; myth
• Subjects: Romanticism; English Literature; William Blake