Other Versions
Blake had earlier depicted Nebuchadnezzar on Plate 24 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell naked on hands and knees carrying his crown. Nebuchadnezzar is represented as being in the wilderness and is, according to Samuel Palmer, similar to an older German woodcut where "almost the very same figure appears. Many years had elapsed after making his own design before Blake saw the wood cut." A further depiction was added to Edward Young's Night Thoughts Volume VII.
The image of Nebuchadnezzar is connected in Blake with the apocalypse in which the three people that the biblical Nebuchadnezzar burned to death were united with the Son of God, and this image is also connected to Blake's belief in four states of existence in which those burned are able to transcend into the final stage of human existence. Also, Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a statue represents human history from the beginning until the Apocalypse, and the image of Nebuchadnezzar's rule is connected to Blake's myth of Albion in The Four Zoas.
Read more about this topic: Nebuchadnezzar (Blake)
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