ABSTRACT
Between 1815 and 1820, William Blake substantially reworked four proof impressions of the title page of Europe. These altered proofs are so different from the published design that Erdman describes them as apparently "intended not so much as a trial revision for a new printing as a caricature or criticism of the original work". One of the primary objects of this criticism is the apparently self-standing and indivisible identity of Urizen and of Orc, as exemplified by the poem's frontispiece and title page. The revisions blur the boundaries between these plates in order to embed Urizen and Orc in a complex network of relations. The chapter discusses the revisions with an account of the way in which they re-figure or re-vision the apparently intractable oppositions and relatively univocal visual field of the title page and frontispiece into a site where different narratives and trajectories intersect.
