What happens when: narrative and the changing sequence of plates in Blake's Jerusalem, Chapter 2.

Yoder, R. Paul

READINGS OF WILLIAM BLAKE'S JERUSALEM THE EMANATION OF THE Giant Albion have reached a consensus rather remarkable for such a difficult poem. Critics ranging from Joanne Witke to Morton Paley to V. A. de Luca to W. J. T. Mitchell all agree that Blake's last great epic poem has no coherent narrative spanning its 100 plates. (1) They may see the poem's chapters as "synoptic" like the gospels, or they may see the poem's events in a spatial rather than temporal relation to each other, or they may see the narrative as subordinate to the designs and blocked by impenetrable "walls of words," (2) but however they explain the structure of the poem, the majority of critics today read the poem with the assumption that its parts do not cohere linearly or chronologically, and that it is a fool's errand to search for a narrative in Jerusalem. Fred Dortort, for example, remarks in The Dialectic of Vision (1998), Among the easiest of these concepts to grasp is one of the most primary, the principle that in Jerusalem the crucial action or `meaning' of the text generally has little in common with the frequently fragmentary narrative of the surface `plot.' Efforts, therefore, to unravel the plot in a systematic manner consistently prove unfruitful. (94)

While Dortort would locate the "meaning" of Jerusalem in a space somewhere between what he sees as the illusory narrative the narrator claims he is writing and the text itself, most non-narrative readings could roughly be characterized by Morton Paley's term, "synchronic." Paley borrows this term from Joseph Mede's eighteenth-century reading of Revelation, where Mede explains, By a Synchronisme of prophecies, I mean when the things therein designed, run along in the same time; as if thou shouldest call an agreement in time or age: because prophecies of things falling out in the same time, run on in time together, or Synchronize (in Paley, Continuing City 288).

As Mede does with Revelation, Paley argues that Jerusalem "displays a coherent structure but one which must be explained according to synchronic rather than diachronic principles" (Continuing City 289).

But is this really the case? Paley begins his discussion of the form of Jerusalem by citing S. Foster Damon's discussion of perhaps the most famous problematic passage of the poem. Damon writes, It is perfectly evident from this synopsis that Blake had not developed his narrative powers. There are many incoherences, and even some contradictions. For example, Albion utters twice his last words in Eternity (23:26 and 47:17). The surmise is that Blake did not view the Fall as one steady act, but as a spiral alternating upward and downward; sometimes gleaming with old light, sometimes passing a point already passed before (in Paley, Continuing City 279).

To this Paley adds, "And if Jerusalem has a firm intellectual consistency, as Damon was the first to insist, it may also have a form that can accommodate, for example, the two utterances of Albion's last words" (279). Critics may disagree about the model or components of that intellectually consistent form, but for the most part they agree that this form is definitely not narrative.

In fact, however, Damon is wrong about those two utterances. Albion himself does not utter his last words twice. In the passage beginning at 23:26, it is indeed Albion who utters his last words; those words are actually many, a speech stretching from 23:29 to 24:60, but Albion's final words are "Hope is banished from me." (3) I shall examine plate 47 at greater length below, but for now suffice to say that the supposed second instance of Albion's uttering his last words is illusory. Instead, on plate 47 Albion's last words are not being uttered by Albion himself, but are being inscribed by the narrator under the direct command of the Savior who dictates the poem: "Shudder not, but Write, & the hand of God will assist you! / Therefore I write Albions last words. Hope is banished from me" (47:17-18). This repetition of Albion's last words is clearly a different dramatic, rhetorical, narrative moment. It is not the same event repeated twice, and so requiring a synchronic explanation. It is two distinct events, separated in time. The explanation for this repetition must be diachronic, even narrative.

In very different essays published side-by-side in Studies in Romanticism (1993), Paul Youngquist and Hazard Adams (who had weighed in as a proto-synchronist in 1975's "Jerusalem and Symbolic Form") each posit a narrative alternative to the synchronic approach to Jerusalem. (4) My own sense is that Adams' approach holds the most promise, but neither argument has been elaborated or applied by other critics. In what follows, I do not intend to offer a full reading of the poem's narrative. Instead, I want to use a narrative logic to examine the most vexing textual problem in Jerusalem, the two different orderings of plates in Chapter 2. By looking at the two sequences in this way, we shall see that Blake's changes are governed by issues of tone and storyline, and that the diachronic sequence of events--the narrative--is the key to understanding the different orderings of Jerusalem, Chapter 2.

1. Plate Tectonics

William Blake printed 5 copies of Jerusalem, known most conveniently as copies A, C, D, E, and F. The chronology of the copies is established by the watermarks: copies A and C are printed on paper watermarked 1818-19-20, copies D and E on paper watermarked 1820, and copy F on paper watermarked 1824 and 1826. Only one, copy E, is fully colored. Aside from this coloring, the most significant variation among the copies of Jerusalem printed by Blake himself is the two different sequences of the plates in Chapter 2. Of the five extant copies printed by Blake himself, A, C and F exhibit one sequence (that reproduced in Erdman's edition), while copies D and E exhibit a different sequence (reproduced in Keynes' edition and in the Princeton/Blake Trust edition (5)). Thus the chronology apparently suggests that after printing copies A and C, Blake rearranged Chapter 2 for copies D and E, and then returned to the original order for copy F. The plates in all copies are all the same, and all plates are included in both versions of Chapter 2; the only difference is the position of two blocks of four plates each. Paley has offered a useful diagram of the shifting blocks (plate numbers are for the ACF sequence):

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In this scenario, Blake moved block AC 43-46 from the end of the chapter to become DE 29-32 at the beginning of the chapter; the other plates shift down four positions except for block AC 38-41 which jumps over plate 42 to become DE 43-46. Only plates 28, 42, and 47-50 remain in the same position in both orderings. Keynes's choice of the DE sequence is based on the inference that the fully colored copy E represents Blake's fullest intention for the poem. Erdman's choice of the ACF sequence is based on the majority ruling of 3 of the 5 copies, as well as the inference from the chronology of copies that Blake returned in copy F to the "original" sequence, as if he was for some reason dissatisfied with the copy he had spent so much time and effort coloring. This last inference of Blake's "return" to the original sequence assumes that Blake himself determined the sequence of plates in Copy F, Chapter 2.

This assumption, however, turns out to be wrong, according to Joseph Viscomi in Blake and the Idea of the Book. Viscomi writes: An examination of the page numbers [in Copy F] reveals two hands: one is Blake's and the other is not. Blake's set of numbers indicates that the initial order followed copies D and E, whereas the second and later set made emendations and created the final order. (6)

Viscomi argues that this second hand belongs to John Linnell, who "received copy F on Blake's deathbed and sent it to Ottley [its original purchaser] on 16 August 1827, five days after being paid and four days after Blake died" (358). Blake apparently did not finish numbering the pages, and so when Linnell finished numbering them, he used the sequence of the copy he himself owned, Copy C. Viscomi makes a strong case for the authority of the DE sequence, suggesting even that DE was in fact the first sequence, ACF being a revision from which Blake retreated in DE (341). Viscomi adds that Copy E "seems likely to have been printed as Blake's own copy" (356).

But if the "final" authority (such as it is) of the DE sequence now seems firm, it is also clear that Blake himself had doubts about how the chapter should work. Vincent De Luca has examined how the dynamics and interplay of visual composition among the plates change in the two sequences, but De Luca considers only the visual elements, virtually none of the events of the chapter, and he is working under the assumption that copy F represents Blake's final intention for the chapter. (7) De Luca does an impressive job of tracing the development of Chapter 2 through a series of hypothetical sequences, and despite what he takes as Blake's final intention in Copy F, he determines that the DE sequence is more balanced in terms of the visual composition of the plates.

De Luca's analysis does not, however, help us to understand the relationship between the different sequences and the events described on those plates. Here is an outline of the events/scenes in Jerusalem, Chapter 2:

Chapter 2 (AC, as in Erdman)

i. Albion and the Spectre's identification as "your Rational Power" (28:1-A29:24)

ii. Albion's unmanning at the power and beauty of Vala (A29:25-A30:16)

iii. Los bends the organs of perception as the Savior creates States, with commentary from the Council of Etemals (A30:17-A32:56)

iv. Los/Albion/Savior/Narrator: the Savior asks Albion, "If we have offended, forgive us" (A33:1-A35:11)

v. The Gate of Los, including the council of the Friends of Albion, the failure of force, the failure of rhetoric, and the confrontation between Los and Albion over "righteousness" (A35:12-42:81)

vi. The appearance of the Divine Vision, the testimony of the two witnesses, Los's prayer (A43:1-A45:1)

vii. Albion's interior in which Los searches for Albion's tempters; he hears Jerusalem and Vala discourse before Albion's interior is closed to him and the Sons of Albion build the Druid Temple around Albion's "golden couch"; the narrator's terror at the tale being dictated to him, with the Savior's reassurance and the building of the "Couch of repose" for Albion (A45:2-48:12)

viii. Jerusalem's escape from Albion's tomb, Erin's speech, the prayer of the Daughters of Beulah (48:13-50:30)

In this sequence the chapter comprises eight scenes, the longest of which is scene v, the "Gate of Los" episode. As a base line for further discussion, I want to expand my brief outline with a quick, scene-by-scene summary of the chapter's narrative as it appears in the AC sequence followed in Erdman's edition. Chapter 2 as a whole is about the efforts of Los and the Friends of Albion to prevent the confirmation of Albion's fall, and to determine the causes of his error. In AC, scene i opens the chapter with a reiteration of Albion's error, followed by the triumphing of the Spectre over him. Scene ii brings the return of Vala whose lies, beauty, and power unman Albion, who sinks lower. Scene iii shifts to the Los thread of the narrative, and depicts the appropriation of limits first by Los in the creation of Reuben's body, and then by the Savior in the creation of states that enables the sinner to be distinguished from the sin. The creation of states answers the prayers of the Daughters of Beulah that had closed Chapter 1. Scene iv of Chapter 2 depicts the Divine Family's initial response to Albion's turning away, the Savior's apology to Albion for any offense they may have committed; this apology apparently prompts a fit of visionary ecstasy from the narrator who emphasizes that he both sees and hears what he describes. Following the narrator's intrusion, scene v settles down into the Gate of Los episode; Albion flees through the Gate of Los into the wilderness, after which Los convenes the Friends of Albion. Los delivers a pep talk, and then the Friends try first to force Albion, and then to persuade Albion, to return from the wilderness, but both efforts fail. Los himself then tries a personal appeal to Albion, but he too fails (plate 42). Scene vi presents the lament of the Divine Vision who blames Albion's subjection to "the Reactor" for his fall; as if to offer a different level of explanation, the lament is followed by the testimony of two witnesses who have escaped from Albion's interior following a confrontation between Albion and Luvah. In Scene vii, Los enters Albion's interior to search out Albion's tempters; he fails to find the tempters, but he does hear a conversation between Vala and Jerusalem that leaves him stunned and astonished. This scene ultimately returns the narrative to the level of the divine dictation to address the narrator's terror at Albion's worsening situation. The eighth and final scene is set in Beulah, and the reader finds an account of Jerusalem's escape from Albion's tomb, Erin's speech to the Daughters of Beulah, and the Daughters' closing prayer for the removal of "the remembrance of Sin" (50:30).

This is how most readers know Chapter 2, the AC sequence from Erdman's edition. When we think of the two versions, we do as Paley and others do, and assume not only that any changes in DE are variations from this original intention, but also that Blake returned finally to this sequence. As we have seen, according to Viscomi, both assumptions are wrong. Instead of only one set of changes as diagrammed by Paley, we have two:

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In the diagram on the left the plate numbers are given as Blake originally numbered them (DE), and the arrows indicate the changes he made before printing copies A and C. In the diagram on the right, the plate numbers are given as in AC (Erdman), and the arrows indicate the changes made in copies D and E to return to the original sequence. The value of the first diagram is that it makes clear that the changes Blake made in the chapter pivot around plate 42 and the essentially narrative question of what should come before and after the personal appeal of Los to Albion depicted on that plate.

What this means is that, as Blake had originally intended, and as he apparently finally intended, what I have called scenes vi and vii in the AC sequence are actually scenes ii and iii, and that plate 42 occurs earlier in the Gate of Los episode rather than later. All the same events occur, but they are all different because their narrative sequence is different. Here is a revised outline of the scenes as they appear in DE:

Chapter 2 (DE, as in Keynes and Princeton/Blake Trust)

i. Albion and the lament of Divine Vision (28:1-E29:27)

ii. The testimony of the two witnesses, Los's prayer (E29:28-E31:1)

iii. Albion's interior in which Los searches for Albion's tempters; he hears Jerusalem and Vala discourse before Albion's interior is closed to him and the Sons of Albion build the Druid Temple around Albion's "golden couch" (E31:2-E32:15)

iv. The triumphing of the Spectre and his identification as Albion's "Rational Power," with Albion's unmanning by the beauty and power of Vala (E33:1-E34:16)

v. Los bends the organs of perception as the Savior creates States, with commentary from the Council of Eternals (E34:17-E36:56)

vi. Los/Albion/Savior/Narrator: the Savior asks Albion, "If we have offended, forgive us" (E37-E39:11)

vii. The Gate of Los, including the council of the Friends of Albion, the confrontation between Los and Albion over "righteousness," the failure of force, and the failure of rhetoric to turn Albion from his error; the narrator's terror at the tale being dictated to him, with the Savior's reassurance and the building of the "Couch of repose" for Albion (E39:12-48:12)

viii. Jerusalem's escape from Albion's tomb, Erin's speech, the prayer of the Daughters of Beulah (48:13-50:30)

In order to see how these changes impact the narrative, we must consider them in more detail.

2. Narrative Difference

In The Continuing City, Morton Paley points to the changing sequences of Chapter 2 and asks, "What kind of form is it ... in which more than one arrangement of pages is possible," and he says that "If we can answer this question satisfactorily with respect to Chapter 2, we shall be well on the way to demonstrating what kind of form characterizes the work as a whole" (295). Paley concludes that the changing sequence of plates means that finally the sequence is not all that important: "There is a story in Jerusalem, consisting of many episodes, but this diachronic aspect of the work is for the most part subordinated to its synchronic aspect: the interrelationship of themes as manifested in its `spatial form'" (303). Thus he says, "Jerusalem is primarily to be read not for its relatively subordinated story but for the way in which its interrelated parts explain one another" (303). But if the sequence, the story line is so subordinated, then why did Blake trouble himself with the changes? Indeed, the evidence for Paley's conclusion that the story line is not important also demonstrates that the story line is important. Yes, Blake rearranged the plates of Chapter 2. Clearly he was troubled by the sequence of events by which Chapter 2 unfolded. That is, the sequential story line mattered enough to Blake for him to change it.

In what follows I want to show why the sequence mattered for Blake. First, he was concerned about how the chapter should open, what tone it should set, and which narrative thread it should follow. Blake addressed these questions by moving a block of plates from the beginning of the chapter to the end of the chapter; as a result, questions of tone and storyline at the beginning of the chapter are mirrored by similar questions at the end. Blake's second concern was about the sequence of particular actions in what I have called the "Gate of Los" episode. Blake addressed this concern by moving a block of plates on either side of plate 42, the only interior plate whose position remains the same in both sequences. The result is that the personal appeal of Los to Albion on plate 42 is in one sequence an initiating action of the Gate of Los episode, while in the other sequence it is the climax of the episode.

In both sequences Chapter 2 opens with a prospect of the implications of Albion's rejection of Jerusalem at the end of Chapter 1: Every ornament of perfection, and every labour of love, In all the Garden of Eden, & in all the golden mountains Was become an envied horror, and a remembrance of jealousy: And every Act a Crime, and Albion the punisher & judge. (28:1-4)

Albion himself speaks as if to confirm these implications, stating that he "condense[s]" the "hills & valleys ... accursed witnesses of Sin / ... into solid rocks, stedfast! / A foundation and certainty and demonstrative truth: / That Man be separate from Man" (28:9-12). After the "deadly Tree" named "Moral Virtue" spreads its "cold shadows" over Albion, he begins to "erect twelve Altars" named "Justice & Truth" upon which his own sons would have been the first victims, but they flee to the mountains to "seek ransom: building A Strong / Fortification against the Divine Humanity and Mercy, / In Shame & Jealousy to annihilate Jerusalem" (28:14-27).

In the AC sequence this prospect of the effects of Albion's rejection of Jerusalem is followed by the appearance of Albion's Spectre, who identifies himself as Albion's "Rational Power," and who the narrator says, "is the Great Selfhood / Satan: Worshipd as God by the Mighty Ones of the Earth" (A29:3-5, 17-18). The Spectre's appearance is followed by what I have identified as scene ii, in which Vala returns to Albion, claiming falsely that "Vala was Albions Bride & Wife in great Eternity" (A29:39), urging him to "Know me now Albion: look upon me I alone am Beauty / The Imaginative Human Form is but a breathing of Vala" (A29:48-49). Her beauty and power unman Albion ("all manhood is gone!" [A30:4]) until "Albion the high Cliff of the Atlantic is become a barren Land" (A30:16).

By contrast, in the DE sequence the statement of the effects of Albion's rejection of Jerusalem (erecting the twelve altars named "Truth & Justice") is followed by the appearance not of the Spectre but of the "Divine Vision like a silent Sun above / Albion's dark rocks" (A43/E29:1-2). These "dark rocks" establish a narrative continuity with Albion's condensation of the hills and valleys into "solid rocks" from plate 28, and the Voice Divine speaks, lamenting Albion's error (A43/E29:6-26). Following this lament two witnesses, "two Immortal forms," emerge from "Albion's darkning [r]ocks" (A29/E43:28), having fled from Albion's interior, and they report to Los the conflict between Albion and Luvah, in which "Luvah strove to gain dominion over Albion" (A43/E29:61). After this report Los undertakes to enter into Albion's bosom "in all the terrors of friendship ... / ... to search the tempters out" (A45/E31:3-5). He does not find these tempters, but he does hear an exchange between Vala and Jerusalem that leaves him stunned: "Los was all astonishment & terror: he trembled sitting on the Stone / Of London: but the interiors of Albions fibres & nerves were hidden / from Los" (A46/E32:3-5).

Thus in the two sequences of Chapter 2 we can see Blake's apparent uncertainty about what should follow the chapter's opening reiteration of Albion's rejection of Jerusalem. In the AC sequence the building of Albion's twelve altars of Justice and Truth is followed immediately by the rise of the Spectre, worshipped as God, and the un"man"ning of Albion (suggesting both dehumanization and sexual impotence) in the face of Vala's deceit, beauty and power. In the DE sequence the building of the twelve altars is followed immediately by a scene diametrically opposed to the AC scene; in place of the triumphing of the Spectre and Vala over Albion, Blake puts the lament of the Divine Vision, the testimony of the two witnesses, and Los's brave but failed attempt to search out Albion's tempters. In DE the Spectre's rise to power and Albion's subjugation to Vala do not occur until after these more sympathetic scenes. The AC sequence sets a more "gothic" tone earlier with its emphasis on the Spectre, and it might even be seen as heavy-handed in its juxtaposing the worship of the Spectre with the altars of "Justice & Truth"; the DE sequence, on the other hand, opens the chapter more poignantly with its emphasis on the Divine Vision's sense of disappointment at Albion's error, and the sympathy of Los for his fallen friend.

The changes also affect the narrative threads pursued at the beginning and end of the chapter. In AC, the narrative maintains its focus on Albion. Except for its closing prayer by the Daughters of Beulah, Chapter 1 ends with an extended scene between Albion, Jerusalem and Vala. In AC, the opening of Chapter 2 seems to pick up where Chapter 1 had ended--Albion's subjection to his Rational Power, and the confirmation of Vala's power over Albion. With the exception of scene iii, the creation of human limits by Los and of states by the Savior, Chapter 2 (AC) pursues the Albion thread all the way through the Gate of Los episode, a span of almost 13 of the first 15 plates. In DE, the narrative quickly shifts to the Los thread after the chapter's opening plate, breaking the chapter-to-chapter momentum of AC; this break in narrative momentum is countered, however, at the end of the chapter where in DE the Gate of Los episode leads directly into the narrative crisis depicted on plate 47 (see below). In AC the narrative crisis is separated from the confirmation of Albion's error in the Gate of Los episode by scenes along the Los thread that inquire into the causes of Albion's fall.

Given Viscomi's chronology we now know that Blake had originally wanted Chapter 2 to open more poignantly with the lament of the Divine Voice over Albion's error and Los's attempt to search out the tempters. He also intended for the chapter to build momentum along the Albion narrative thread later in the chapter so that the climactic Gate of Los episode would lead directly into the narrative crisis on plate 47. When Blake printed the first copies of Jerusalem, however, he switched the sequence, opting instead to maintain the narrative momentum from Chapter 1, and to open Chapter 2 with the terror of the Spectre and Vala triumphing over Albion. For the next two copies, Blake switched back to the original narrative sequence, the sequence he used for the fully colored copy E. For the final copy he printed, Blake intended to maintain the original narrative, but died before he finished numbering the pages.

The changes I have discussed so far result from Blake's moving of one four-plate block. Blake also moved a second four-plate block. It is impossible to tell which block Blake moved first, but Blake's apparent uncertainty about how the chapter should open is clearly related to changes he wanted to make later in the chapter in the Gate of Los episode. If changing the opening of the chapter was Blake's only objective, then when he moved A43-46 to become E29-32 (or vice versa), it would have been easy enough for him simply to move the rest of the plates down (or up) four positions. But instead of doing that, Blake took the four plates in front of plate 42 and moved them to follow immediately after plate 42. This suggests that either there was some compelling reason that Blake wanted to keep plate 42 four plates away from plate 47, or that Blake's initial motive in rearranging Chapter 2 was to move those four plates in front of plate 42 to the position behind it. De Luca suggests that in the evolving dynamics of visual composition, plate 42 remains in the same place almost by accident. He even says that in AC, plate 42 is "inessential to narrative continuity" (200), and that in DE its position is "wholly illogical from the standpoint of narrative continuity" (201). If De Luca is correct, why did Blake not simply move plate 42 down four places to position 46? He did not because in narrative terms, terms discounted by de Luca, Paley and other synchronists, plate 42 is pivotal in the Gate of Los episode. In a scene that foreshadows the climax of the entire poem, in which the Savior appears to Albion in the "likeness and similitude of Los," plate 42 depicts the personal effort of Los, the friend who best loved Albion, to persuade him of his error. The changes Blake makes in the Gate of Los episode determine when that personal appeal occurs in relation to the efforts of the other Friends of Albion.

Edward J. Rose has called the Gate of Los through which Albion flees a "visionary portal" or "visionary passage." (8) It is the point of differentiation between the world of vision and the "Eternal Death" that Albion seeks in his delusion (A35/E39:16). The Gate of Los episode, the narrative scene surrounding Albion's flight through this visionary portal, spans eight full plates, AC 35-42 or DE 39-46, and it depicts the efforts and failure of Los and the Friends of Albion to save Albion from his error. It is a very dramatic episode, with several long, and moving speeches (including Los's wonderfully dramatic speech that begins, "Why stand we here trembling around"). Moreover, the Gate of Los episode is particularly important because it is one of the only instances in the poem in which Albion and his defenders, including Los, actually communicate with each other; it is one of the only scenes in which two narrative threads interact.

In both AC and DE sequences, the episode opens with the same three plates (A35-37/E39-41), which recount how Albion flees through the Gate of Los, after which Los convenes the Friends of Albion to discuss what to do. This three-plate opening of the Gate of Los episode is followed in AC by one of the four-plate blocks (AC 38-41) that Blake moved. In this sequence, the convened Friends of Albion are indecisive, and Los delivers his urgent "Why stand we here" speech as a reaction to their paralysis. Los's speech is so powerful that it motivates the Friends of Albion to try to force Albion "with kindest violence" and "against his will" back through "Los's Gate to Eden." But of course the necessary action, the necessary change of heart, must come from Albion himself, and so the Friends fail in this attempt to save Albion from his own judgment and punishment.

After the failure of their "kindest violence," the Friends change tactics, and mount an effort to use eloquence to persuade Albion of his error. First, however, the Friends of Albion, feeling "the damps of death," delegate Los to "watch over them / Till Jesus shall appear," giving him their power, "Naming him the Spirit of Prophecy, calling him Elijah" (A39:28-31). After the Friends have delegated their representative in case they themselves fail, the voice of Bath is heard, "faint as the voice of the Dead in the House of Death" (A39:44). Bath eulogizes Albion, lamenting the fall of "this Man whose great example / We all admir'd & lov'd," who is now "A piteous example of Oblivion" (A40:4,9); in order "that we may omit no office of the friendly spirit," Bath urges Oxford to take "leaves from the Tree of Life: with eloquence / That thy immortal tongue inspires; present them to Albion: / Perhaps he may receive them, offerd from thy loved hands" (A40:29-32). Despite Oxford's straightforward rhetoric ("Thou art in Error Albion" [A41:10]), this second attempt by the Friends of Albion to save him also fails, and the four-plate block ends with the four cities, Verulam, London, York and Edinburgh mourning, envisioning a time when "a mans worst enemies / Shall be those of his own house and family: in a Religion / Of Generation to destroy by Sin and Atonement happy Jerusalem." Bath's failure ends the four-plate block that Blake moves, closing it with the cities' affirmation that "O God thou art Not an Avenger."

After this double failure, of force and of eloquence, to save Albion, Los himself finally confronts Albion on plate 42, the final plate in the AC sequence of the Gate of Los. Without going into great detail, it is fair to say that in their confrontation Albion and Los argue about the nature of "righteousness": Albion demands "righteousness & justice" (42:12) to which Los responds, "Righteousness & justice I give thee in return / For thy righteousness! but I add mercy also, and bind / Thee from destroying these little ones" (42:19-21). In AC their exchange follows a narrative logic in which the Friends of Albion have chosen a representative who then confronts Albion about his error after their efforts fail. After the failure of force and of eloquence by the Friends, the whole episode climaxes with this effort of Los, the representative of the Friends, indeed "the friend of Albion who most lov'd him" (A35:12), to persuade Albion of his error. Despite his privileged position, however, Los also fails, and Albion calls upon Hand and Hyle to "seize the abhorred friend" (42:47). The Gate of Los episode thus ends in the AC sequence in a sort of stalemate: "And as Albion built his frozen altars, Los built the Mundane Shell" (42:78).

In the DE sequence the order of the events is inverted in relation to plate 42 and Los's personal appeal to Albion. In DE, Los's appeal to Albion is not a last effort by the representative of the Friends of Albion to prevent Albion's error; rather it is the first approach that the Friends try. In DE Los's "Why stand we here" speech comes after his confrontation with Albion, not before. In AC the context of this speech is the paralysis of the Friends of Albion, and Los's frustration is almost entirely in response to their indecision. In DE, on the other hand, the context for the speech is Los's confrontation with Albion, and his frustration has much more to do with Albion than with the Friends to whom he speaks. In AC Los's failure to convince Albion that mercy is as much a part of righteousness as is justice is followed by the Divine Vision's lament of Albion's error (what becomes DE29), so that the lament of the Divine Vision helps to punctuate the failure of the Friends of Albion and of Los to save Albion from his error. In the DE sequence, that confrontation on plate 42 is not the climax of the Gate of Los episode, but only a prelude to the further efforts of the Friends of Albion to save him from his error. In AC the first reaction of the Friends of Albion (once roused) is force, "kindest violence," then formal eloquence, and finally personal appeal. In DE that personal appeal of friend to friend is the first move, and the Gate of Los episode ends not with Los's confrontation with Albion, but with Oxford's failure to convince Albion of his error, and the narrator's lament that Alas!--The time will come, when a mans worst enemies Shall be those of his own house and family: in a Religion Of Generation, to destroy by Sin and Atonement, happy Jerusalem, The Bride and Wife of the Lamb. O God thou art Not an Avenger!

(A41/E46:25-28)

In DE this failure to prevent Albion's error immediately precedes plate 47, and in both sequences plate 47 returns the reader to the scene of the narrator's writing from divine dictation, last seen immediately prior to the Gate of Los episode. The earlier scene of dictation had witnessed a moment of crisis for Albion and the Divine Family, whose initial approaches Albion had rejected; these efforts, however, do bring on a sort of visionary ecstasy in the narrator. The later scene records a moment of crisis for the narrator, who is apparently so terrified at the tale being dictated that he is unable or unwilling to continue. In the last verse paragraph of the plate, the Divine Voice urges the narrator, Hark! the mingling cries of Luvah with the Sons of Albion Hark! & Record the terrible wonder! that the Punisher Mingles with his Victims Spectre, enslaved and tormented To him whom he has murderd, bound in vengeance & enmity Shudder not, but Write, & the hand of God will assist you! Therefore I write Albions last words. Hope is banished from me.

(47:14-19)

The "terrible wonder" is that the Punisher (recall Albion as "punisher & judge" [28:4]) is himself enslaved by the punishment he or she inflicts. The dynamic of this relationship recalls the torments of Theotormon in The Visions of the Daughters of Albion, and it clearly corresponds to what Los learns in his failed search for Albion's tempters: What shall I do! what could I do, if I could find these Criminals I could not dare to take vengeance; for all things are so constructed And builded by the Divine hand, that the sinner shall always escape, And he who takes vengeance alone is the criminal of Providence;

(A45/E31:29-32)

Los discovers that all he can do finally is to keep the divine vision in time of trouble, and the Divine Voice urges a similar action for the narrator: listen and write it down.

In AC the narrator's moment of crisis on plate 47 is separated from the Gate of Los episode by 4 plates; it occurs immediately following the scene of Los's failed search and recognition of the "terrible wonder." In DE the narrator's crisis follows immediately the Gate of Los and the failure of the Friends of Albion to persuade him of his error, and Los's failed search comes much earlier in the chapter. Blake may have settled finally on the DE sequence because he felt that this sequence, in which the Gate of Los leads immediately into the narrator's crisis, generated more momentum going into the chapter's conclusion, but in neither sequence is the transition to plate 47 very smooth. Both A46 (E32) and E46 (A41) end on a note of finality: In stern defiance came from Albions bosom Hand, Hyle, Koban Gwantok, Peachy, Brertun, Slaid, Huttn, Skofeld, Kock, Kotope Bowen: Albions Sons: they bore him a golden couch into the porch And on the Couch reposd his limbs, trembling from the bloody field. Rearing their Druid Patriarchal rocky Temples around his limbs. (All things begin & end, in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore.)

(A46/E32:10-15) And these are the Four in whom the twenty-four appear'd four-fold: Verulam, London, York, Edinburgh, mourning one towards another Alas!--The time will come, when a mans worst enemies Shall be those of his own house and family: in a Religion Of Generation, to destroy by Sin and Atonement, happy Jerusalem, The Bride and Wife of the Lamb. O God thou art Not an Avenger!

(E46/A41:23-28)

That God is not an avenger is certainly implied in the "terrible wonder" that makes the narrator shudder on plate 47, and the action of the Sons of Albion is part of what the narrator is told to harken to: "Hark! the mingling cries of Luvah and the Sons of Albion." However, neither A46 nor E46 prepares the reader for the opening of plate 47: From Camberwell to Highgate where the mighty Thames shudders along, Where Los's Furnaces stand, where Jerusalem and Vala howl: Luvah tore forth from Albions Loins, in fibrous veins, in rivers Of blood over Europe: a Vegetating Root in grinding pain. Animating the Dragon Temples, soon to become that Holy Fiend The Wicker Man of Scandinavia in which cruelly consumed The Captives reard to heaven howl in flames among the stars Loud the cries of War on the Rhine & Danube, with Albions Sons, Away from Beulahs hills & vales break forth the Souls of the Dead, With cymbal, trumpet, clarion; & the scythed chariots of Britain.

(47:2-11)

The narrator's crisis is brought on by more than simply the "terrible wonder" of the prohibition against punishment or vengeance. The story being dictated to him has opened into a blood bath of sacrifice and war across Europe in which Albion is deeply involved. The lines refer at least in part to the Napoleonic Wars, but the narrative seems to have gotten ahead of itself, for with its references to "blood over Europe," "Dragon Temples," "The Wicker Man of Scandinavia," and "the cries of War on the Rhine & Danube" (47:5, 6, 7, 9) the passage seems more appropriate to the battles of Chapter 3 than to the negotiations of Chapter 2. The narrator seems as shocked by the bloodshed as the reader may be.

Despite the apparent incongruities, on closer examination plate 47 and the first 12 lines of plate 48 do yield to the reader's narrative desire, and graft themselves onto the preceding scene in both sequences. In both sequences the bloodshed follows immediately on an inability to help Albion. In AC Los has been unable to discover Albion's tempters, and the Sons of Albion make off with his body. In DE Los and the Friends of Albion have tried personal persuasion, force, and formal eloquence to persuade Albion of his error, but have failed again. In both sequences, Albion's error seems on the point of being confirmed. Sacrifice and war can hardly wait to make their appearance. The narrator suffers a failure of nerve at the story he must tell, at which point the divine dictator moves to the foreground and returns the poem to the immediate scene of writing, promising divine aid as the narrator must write Albion's last words, "Hope is banished from me." At this point Albion's words reflect not only his own thoughts, but also the thoughts of Los and of the narrator who both clearly recognize the impending consequences of Albion's error. Nevertheless, hope is not completely lost for the Savior "Receiv'd [Albion], in the arms of tender mercy," and creates for him "a couch of repose" made up of the books of the Bible (48:1-11).

Whatever else Blake hoped plate 47 would do, he clearly wanted it to include Albion's last words. As Blake originally etched the copper plate, it opened with the line, "When Albion utterd his last words Hope is banishd from me." But Blake gouged out this opening line, and instead moved Albion's last words to the bottom of the plate and to a different and more definite rhetorical and dramatic context. In the final verse paragraph on plate 47, the narrator has clearly reached a crisis in his reception of the Divine dictation, so much so that the Saviour tells him, "Shudder not, but Write, & the hand of God will assist you! / Therefore I write Albion's last words. Hope is banish'd from me" (47:17-18). The change in the position of Albion's last words on the plate facilitates the transition to plate 48 which opens, "These were his last words." But the change in context is more telling. As Blake originally etched the plate, Albion's last words appear to occur along the "Albion" thread of the narrative; they are part of the narrative present of that thread, and as such have provided evidence for the synchronic readings of the poem. Readers ask how Albion can utter his last words in Chapter 2 when he has already uttered them in Chapter 1. But on plate 47, as Blake finally printed it, this problem does not arise. Albion's last words clearly are not uttered along the "Albion" narrative thread, but along the narrator's narrative thread: "Therefore I write Albion's last words." Chapter 2 of Jerusalem is primarily concerned with efforts to prevent Albion from confirming his error; whatever else, Blake's point on plate 47 seems to have been to confirm that error by repeating Albion's last words. Blake's problem was how to fit the repetition of those last words into the narrative. His answer was to shift the narrative context away from Albion's uttering of his last words, to the narrator's recording of that utterance.

The image on plate 47 reflects both the power dynamics being confirmed in Albion's error and the problems of fitting the narrative together. The design takes up about half of the page and divides the text almost evenly. The picture is Mannerist in style, and it depicts Vala on the viewer's left, standing in what Paley calls the "beauty contest" pose (hands behind her head, elbows spread) with her feet on Jerusalem's shoulders ("Notes," Jerusalem, ed. Paley, 205). Jerusalem appears to be falling and/or being trampled upon; her feet are over her head, her left arm reaching up (parallel to Vala's body), and her facial expression distressed or pleading. Jerusalem's left leg is bent, while the right leg is extended at an angle toward the top right corner of the image. The view of her foot is blocked by the twisted body of Albion (presumably), who is standing on his left leg, stepping up with his right leg, his torso twisted away from the viewer, his arms lifted as if he is covering his eyes in his turned-away face. The image is memorable not only for the contortions of the bodies of all three figures, but also because their positioning relative to each other seems to suggest some sort of pattern, a human alphabet perhaps, or human threads weaving together. Under the picture is a sort of caption--the line is separated from the verse paragraph below it--that reads, "And the Veil of Vala is composed of the Spectres of the Dead" (47:12). The position of the three characters suggests that Vala's Veil is woven of the bodies of the characters, of human bodies, and even more, of the power dynamics that define those human characters and their bodies. The bodies are joined together in disturbing and uncertain ways, much like the plates of Chapter 2 itself.

3. Chapter 2 as Palimpsest

With the weight of both the high finish of copy E and Viscomi's determination about the pagination of copy F, the DE sequence would seem to have clear authority as Blake's "final word" on Jerusalem, Chapter 2. Nevertheless, Blake did issue two copies of the poem in the AC sequence; moreover, if Viscomi is correct about copy F's being paginated by John Linnell, Blake apparently did not tell his friend of the changes he had made, in effect allowing the AC sequence to stand. We cannot simply discard the AC sequence, although given the pressures of anthologies, this may well happen. Geoffrey Keynes published only the DE sequence in his edition, high finish winning out over apparent majority; David Erdman published only the AC sequence in his later edition, noting the majority of copies and Blake's apparent return to the "original" sequence. Erdman's edition has gained authority both by its receiving the emblem of approval from the MLA Committee on Scholarly Editions, and from its being posted on the internet thanks to the generosity of the Erdmans and the work of Nelson Hilton and company. It is the text of choice for scholarly work on Blake. However, the authority of the AC sequence granted by Erdman has been undermined both by Viscomi's findings, and also by the publication of the Blake Trust/Princeton edition of copy E at a relatively affordable price.

The obvious way to keep one or the other sequence from disappearing is to publish them together, but even that will not help much if we do not understand the relationship between the two. We need to be able to read the two sequences of Chapter 2 in terms of each other, to read one through the other like a palimpsest. When we read the lament of the Divine Voice on E29, we must also see the Spectre triumphing over Albion on A29. This is the sort of mirror-vision that Jerusalem urges upon the reader, but it is not a synchronic, simultaneous vision. The two orderings show that Blake deliberately manipulated the sequence of events in Chapter 2 in ways that address concerns that are clearly narrative. Chapter 1 establishes two major narrative lines: Los with his Spectre and Emanation, and Albion with Jerusalem and Vala. At the beginning of Chapter 2, Blake tries first one and then the other of these narrative lines, moving the plates in ways that change the narrative momentum at the beginning and at the end of the chapter. In the second block of plates that Blake moved, he reversed the order of events in a crucial narrative scene, the Gate of Los. Ultimately it may not matter whether the Friends or Los is the first to try to persuade Albion of his error; given the other chapters, we know that Albion falls. But Blake recognized that it would matter in the reader's construction of the poem and understanding of the characters. Los's "Why stand we here" speech reveals much about his character, but it reveals a somewhat different character depending on whether it appears as a response to Los's own personal failure to persuade Albion (DE), or as a response to the indecision and paralysis of the Friends of Albion (AC). Likewise, Albion's hostility to Los on plate 42 reveals different aspects of his character depending on whether Albion has already been assaulted (that "kindest violence") and harangued by his Friends (AC), or if those events are still to come (DE).

We know that Blake pieced all of the chapters together over a period of almost 20 years, but with the other chapters he settled on one sequence. Why the trouble with Chapter 2? In Chapter 2 Albion's fall is not yet confirmed. The cries of war that intrude on plate 47 are forced back by the Savior's intrusion into the narrative; that is stuff for Chapter 3. Chapter 2 is about the possibility of saving Albion from himself. In some ways the AC sequence allows the reader more hope because whatever gothic chills the Spectre may bring early in the chapter, the Divine Voice does not lament Albion until after the Gate of Los failures; there is a chance that Los might succeed where the Friends have failed. DE might be seen as more tragic; with this ordering's early focus on the Divine lament and Los's failure to discover Albion's tempters, the reader can only imagine that things will grow relentlessly worse despite the efforts that still must be made. The role of Chapter 2 in the narrative of Jerusalem is to hold open the moment of Albion's fall, in the possibility that it might be understood and prevented. Only after that possibility has been tried, only after the narrator manages to "shudder not" and write Albion's last words on plate 47, will the wars of Chapter 3 commence.

If Paley is correct, and understanding the structure of Chapter 2 can help us to understand the structure of all of Jerusalem, the two sequences should help us to understand that narrative is a more important aspect of Jerusalem than we have come to think. On plate 42 Los tells Albion that the Savior created the limits of man and woman, "That / Himself may in process of time be born Man to redeem" (42:34). Los's words recall the conclusion of one of Blake's earliest books, There is No Natural Religion, that "God becomes as we are, / that we may be as he / is" (E3). In Blake's system, Jesus redeems humanity by becoming human, by accepting human form and thereby making everything about that human form Christ-like. Part of that human form is the "process of time"--temporality--and the literary form of temporality is narrative. The synchronic readings of Jerusalem have brought us many insights about Blake's poem, but they cannot tell the whole story. Indeed, they do not tell any story at all. Blake's problems with Chapter 2, and the two versions he left us, force us to recognize that even if the outcome remains the same, it matters how you get there. It matters what happens when.

(1.) For a useful summary of these positions, see Morton D. Paley, The Continuing City: William Blake's Jerusalem, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983) 279-94, and Fred Dortort, The Dialectic of Vision: A Contrary Reading of William Blake's Jerusalem (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill P, 1998) 421-48.

(2.) V[incent A[rthur] De Luca, "A Wall of Words: The Sublime as Text," Unnam'd Forms: Blake and Textuality, eds. Nelson Hilton and Thomas A. Vogler (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: U of California P, 1986) 218-41.

(3.) William Blake, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, commentary by Harold Bloom, newly revised edition (New York, London, et al.: Doubleday, 1988) 24:60. All references to Blake's work are to this edition unless otherwise noted. References to the illuminated books are given in plate and line number where possible; in other cases, page numbers are indicated.

(4.) Hazard Adams, "Blake, Jerusalem, and Symbolic Form," Blake Studies 7.2 (1975): 143-66, and "Jerusalem's Didactic and Mimetic-Narrative Experiment," SiR 32.4 (Winter 1993): 627-54, and Paul Youngquist, "Reading and Apocalypse: The Narrativity of Blake's Jerusalem," SiR 32.4 (Winter 1993): 601-255.

(5.) William Blake, Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion, ed. Morton Paley (Princeton: The William Blake Trust and Princeton UP, 1991) and Blake: Complete Writings with Variant Readings, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (1957; Oxford, New York: Oxford UP, 1972).

(6.) Joseph Viscomi, Blake and the Idea of the Book (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1993) 357.

(7.) V[incent] A[rthur] De Luca, "The Changing Order of Plates in Jerusalem, Chapter 11," Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly (Spring 1983): 192-205.

(8.) Edward J. Rose, "The Gate of Los: Vision and Symbol in Blake," Texas Studies in Language and Literature 20.1 (Spring 1978): 4.

University of Arkansas at Little Rock

PAUL YODER is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He specializes in literary history from Milton to Keats, especially Blake and the Romantics. He has published articles on Milton, Samuel Richardson, Thomas Gray, Wordsworth, and Blake, and has co-edited with Wallace Jackson two collections of essays on Alexander Pope. He is currently working on a book on the implications of narrative for reading Blake's Jerusalem.