Flexible design : revisionary poetics in Blake's Vala or The four Zoas / John B. Pierce.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pierce, John Benjamin, 1957-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Blake, William, 1757-1827. Four Zoas.

Blake, William.

Blake, William, 1757-1827. Four Zoas--Criticism, Textual.

Blake, William, 1757-1827--Technique.

Narration (Rhetoric)--History--18th century.

Narration (Rhetoric).

Poetics--History--18th century.

Poetics.

Physical Description:

xxvii, 206 p., 8 p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, c1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Using the idea of a "flexible design," John Pierce examines the ways in which Blake's mythology and his poem possess a flexibility that allows for significant change to characters, symbols, and poetic techniques within a previously constructed framework. Pierce traces how, in the process of revision, Blake experimented with characterization, increased the importance of Christian symbolism, and developed a mode of narrative presentation controlled less by chronological sequence than by the use of thematic juxtaposition and typology.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Textual Note

Preface

Introduction: Manuscript and Poetics

Narrative

Beginnings and Creation

Experiments in Structure

Character

Recasting the Copperplate

Completing the Four Zoas

The Revelations of Rahab

Conclusion: Revisionary Poetics

The Copperplate Text of Vala

Stages in the Development of Nights vii through ix of Vala or The Four Zoas

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [193]-201) and index.

ISBN:

1-282-85488-7

9786612854880

0-7735-6698-8

OCLC:

929121439