William Blake's Milton: "Paradise Lost and Regained"
For Karin! Happy Birthday!!! Besitos, Amalia http://www.youtube.com/user/mmbmbmbmb/featured 00:00 - Illustrations to Milton's Paradise Lost -- The Thomas Set 1807, The Butts Set 1808 and The Linnell Set, 1822 02:06 - Illustrations to Milton's Paradise Regained 1816-20 In 1807, Blake produced the set of Paradise Lost designs presented here. These were also acquired, and probably commissioned, by Thomas. The date of composition is established by the "1807" date inscribed on five of the designs. Blake executed another series of twelve Paradise Lost designs, with a larger format, in 1808 for his chief patron Thomas Butts. In this later group, eleven of the designs are variants of those in the Thomas set, but the fourth design of 1807, "Satan Spying on Adam and Eve and Raphael's Descent into Paradise," is replaced with a different subject, "Adam and Eve Asleep." Blake began a third series of Paradise Lost designs for John Linnell in 1822, but apparently completed only the three water colors now extant. Here, as usual in his work as an illustrator of other poets' works, Blake paid close attention to the text, but this disciplined approach did not preclude his own interpretations. For example, Blake's choice of subjects places greater emphasis on Christ's role in Milton's epic than most series of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century illustrations of Paradise Lost. The Paradise Regained designs exemplify Blake's mature style as a water colorist and his close attention to the text he is illustrating. Many of the designs significantly juxtapose the dignified symmetry and calm repose of Blake's portrayals of Christ with the anxious and twisting energies of Satan. Through the deployment of such postures and gestures, Blake dramatizes the poem's conflict between divine imagination and satanic materialism. This struggle offers a pictorial analogue to the contests between the Zoas and their Spectres or Selfhoods in Blake's epic poems. Music: " World" Gregorian
