ABSTRACT
In Europe, Blake (B.) encloses one poem of the Prophecy that describes Enitharmon's night of pleasure in the heavens, and its violent ending. In the Prophecy itself, Enitharmon takes centre stage. Shadowy Female is a reflection, surely, of the radical's familiar image of the reviled Marie Antoinette as a corrupt, luxury-loving queen, who, like Enitharmon, did not see the dangers ahead. Enitharmon here is Blake's first representation of a more universal figure, one he resents and perhaps fears, the dazzling female, rich in beauty and spirit, who seeks to dominate and bind man by the 'soft delusions' of seduction. In the Preludium, the Shadowy Female laments the passing of the excited hopes of her mating with Orc, for their children have been marked as Enitharmon's playthings. B'. s pantheon begins to take uncertain shape; it is hard to know if it were devised complete at the outset.
