ABSTRACT
In the first book of Virgi l's Aeneid, Juno, still nursing an animus against Troy, entices Aeolus to blow Aeneas off his epic course, In reply Neptune rises to command the winds: "Speed your night, and say this to your king [Aeolus]: n0110 him but to me fate granted the empire of the sea [imperium pelagiJ and the stern trident" (Virgi l 1:138-39).1 Neptune's response sets the tonc and supplies the theme for a tradition of English imperial poelry that stretches from Shakespeare's Henry V (1599) through Edward Young's " Imperium Pelagi" (1730) 10 Blake's " King Edward the Third" (composed c. 1778-80, publ ished 1183),2 For my purposes, this tradition culminates in the work of George Ill 's poet laureate William Whitehead, whose royal odes form the most immediate target of Blake's parody in "Edward,"3 In this early work from Poetical Sketches, Blake combines satiric allusion and prophetic stanc:e in a way that defines his anti-imperialist conception of poetry.
