The Mythology and The Prophetic Books
Scholarship on Blake has not recovered a 'perfected' version of Blake's myth. The characters in it have to be treated more like a repertory company, capable of dramatising his ideas (which changed, over two decades). On the other hand the psychological roots of his work have been revealed, and are now much more accessible (with study) than they were a century ago.
America, a Prophecy is also one of the "prophetic works". Here, the "soft soul" of America appears as Oothoon.
Other works concerning this pantheon:
- America a Prophecy
- The Book of Urizen
- The Book of Los
- The Book of Ahania
- Visions of the Daughters of Albion
Read more about this topic: William Blake's Mythology
Famous quotes containing the words mythology, prophetic and/or books:
“One memorable addition to the old mythology is due to this era,—the Christian fable. With what pains, and tears, and blood these centuries have woven this and added it to the mythology of mankind! The new Prometheus. With what miraculous consent, and patience, and persistency has this mythus been stamped on the memory of the race! It would seem as if it were in the progress of our mythology to dethrone Jehovah, and crown Christ in his stead.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Talk of Columbus and Newton! I tell you the child just born in yonder hovel is the beginning of a revolution as great as theirs. But you must have the believing and prophetic eye.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Like dreaming, reading performs the prodigious task of carrying us off to other worlds. But reading is not dreaming because books, unlike dreams, are subject to our will: they envelop us in alternative realities only because we give them explicit permission to do so. Books are the dreams we would most like to have, and, like dreams, they have the power to change consciousness, turning sadness to laughter and anxious introspection to the relaxed contemplation of some other time and place.”
—Victor Null, South African educator, psychologist. Lost in a Book: The Psychology of Reading for Pleasure, introduction, Yale University Press (1988)