Milton A Poem and the Final Illuminated Works

William Blake's Milton, one of his two great illuminated epics, is featured in this fifth volume of the Blake Trust collected edition of Blake's illuminated books. This is the first-ever reproduction of the magnificent copy of Milton in the New York Public Library, presented here in full colour. As the editors demonstrate, this was Blake's own copy and reflects his final intentions for one of his most sublime, and at the same time most personal, poems. Blake's three final works in illuminated printing, The Ghost of Abel, On Homers Poetry [and] On Virgil, and Laocoon, are also included in this volume. Although brief, these texts and their accompanying designs present some of Blake's most important statements on art, religion, and the spirit of imagination they share. Nineteen additional illustrations of related drawings and variant printings of the plates, many in colour, supplement all four works. Milton is a difficult and cryptic poem for those uninitiated in the ways of Blake's allusive and allegorical style. In an introductory essay, the editors directly address the nature of the poem's complexity, demonstrate how Blake's methods set out to disconcert conventional concepts of time, space, and human identity, and suggest some ways readers coming to Milton for the first time can understand and enjoy the challenges it offers. The editors also present a plate-by-plate commentary on how the illustrations contribute to the creation of a composite, visual-verbal experience. The extensive notes to the newly-edited letterpress text will also assist readers through Milton, its central themes and its byways, its heights and its depths. An equally helpful introduction and notes are provided for the three shorter works. Scholars will find much new information in this volume. The editors describe the experimental graphic techniques Blake used in Milton and uncover the multiple layers of revision he lavished on the copy reproduced. A previously unrecognized version of one of the most important full-page designs is described for the first time, while the generally-accepted dates of composition for the three final illuminated works have been revised substantially. The introduction and notes offer fresh insights into the difficult relationship between Blake and his patron William Hayley that in turn shaped Blake's sense of his great predecessor, John Milton, and the role he would play in Milton.