ABSTRACT
Thel, Lyca, Oothoon, are in varying degrees like Persephone, at once the individual soul who “descends” into generation, and the soul of nature, the spirit of earth. The answer Thel failed to find is that the soul is not transient in the world, but the world transient in the soul. Vala’s story is, throughout the poem that bears her name, the story of the soul’s relationship with her divine lover, called her “maker” and her “creator.” Blake was able to find the new metaphysical statement he wanted in yet another classical myth, the story of Cupid and Psyche. However, it is not only, or principally, Psyche’s servants who are invisible to her; it is also the god himself, who visits her only by “night.” There is some confusion of the sexes of the rose and the worm in the early drafts of the poem.
