Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion - Summary of The Poem

Summary of The Poem

Jerusalem tells the story of the fall of Albion, Blake's embodiment of man, Britain, or the western world as a whole.

The poetic narrative takes the form of a "drama of the psyche", couched in the dense symbolism of Blake's self-constructed mythology.

Because it includes a cast of billions, Jerusalem can seem confusing. The poem does not have a linear plot. Characters morph in and out of each other. A character can be a person and a place. Jerusalem, the Emanation of Albion, is a woman and a city. Albion, "the Universal Humanity," is a man and a land (Britain). He contains twelve sons who co-inhere with the twelve tribes of Israel, as well as Four Zoas. Every Zoa (embodying a life principle) has an Emanation (a feminine figure through which the human can become divine). The Zoas and Emanations include:

• Tharmas, the primal man, linked with Enion, an earth mother.
• Urthona, the spirit of inspiration, embodied in Los, the prophetic artist, who forges a city of art in his furnaces. Enitharmon, his Emanation, weaves beams of beauty.
• Luvah, the "feeling-function" Zoa is Albion's spectre, whose counterpart, Vala, is Jerusalem's shadow. Vala eroticises war.
• Urizen embodies Reason. Gracious Ahania is his Emanation.