ABSTRACT
William Blake's method in Jerusalem is to construct and reconstruct the identities of his characters, their relationships and their practices. Blake's aim is to demonstrate in hundreds of ways how regeneration of the sexes into 'Human Forms' is possible and where and how it fails, but also to invite his audience to engage in this effort of regenerating our selves. In Blake's terms, the 'Sexual Machine' that operates in the community of Albion, can be damaged, eluded or even broken, at least for a time. For no regeneration or redemption or 'going forward irresistible from Eternity to Eternity' is a permanent, stable state. The characters own irresolution or 'incoherencies' mesh with and resist the force of the cultural machinery of religion, law and custom; nevertheless, their attempts are the seeds or embryonic forms of further regenerations, even though Jerusalem and Vala remain enmeshed in punitive codes of sexual behaviour.
