ABSTRACT
Urizen is a turning point in Blake's (B.) work, as Marriage, whose prophecies remain unfulfilled, is not. Adam has not returned to Paradise the song of Liberty has not been sung. In France, the revolution has been debauched by blood, and has fallen into the hands of committees; at home, Government is ever more repressive. The balance of Orc and Urizen has changed. Most of all, B'. s mood too has changed. Urizen, still shown as the tyrannical author of the earth's darkness, has become a tragic tyrant, architect of his own downfall. B'. s religious and mystical sources lack his constant social and moral fury. Jacob Boehme says much of introspection, but nothing of tyranny and social or personal. At the beginning of his myth, B. traces this despotism to Urizen's primeval selfishness and self-withdrawal, which is expanded to show that from this self-centred separation of souls spring all other evils, including Los's jealousy.
