Jerusalem (1951)
Title
Jerusalem (1951)
Original Date:
1804-1820
Facsimile Date:
1951
Publisher:
Trianon Press
Physical Description:
100 color plates ; 35 cm.
Background Information:
The Trianon Press produced four different versions of Jerusalem. Blake only finished one colored copy of the work, which never sold. A few uncolored versions, or tinted only in black and gray, also exist. This facsimile is of the fully colored version, copy E. Published in 1951, it was not only the first of Trianon’s four versions of Jerusalem, but the first of its reproductions of Blake, which the Press would continue to make over a period of nearly forty years. Trianon produced two different colored versions of Jerusalem in 1951, one in five paper-bound parts and one in a version with all of the plates bound together in a single volume. Union College holds copies of both versions. The version in parts was purchased by the Friends of the Library in 1974; the bound version was the gift of Hans Rozendaal. Union also holds two copies of an introduction to and commentary on Jerusalem, written by Joseph Wicksteed, and published by the Trianon Press in 1953. These copies were donated to the library by Hans Rozendaal and Walter Tower.
Student Commentary:
Overview: This poem, subtitled “The Emanation of the Giant Albion,” was Blake’s final, most complex, and most challenging illuminated book. It summarizes many aspects of his mythological universe and philosophical views. A host of characters from history and from other books by Blake figure strongly. These characters include Los (broadly representing creative energy) and “the Giant Albion” and Jerusalem (Albion's female counterpart, or emanation, with whom Albion must be reunited after his "fall," merging male and female energies into one). Reiterating parts of Blake’s unfinished “Vala, or The Four Zoas,” the poem directly addresses different religious viewpoints in its various sections. It concludes with Albion’s overarching “awakening to Eternal Life” as time ends and all figures, spirits, and energies unite in an apocalyptic whole. - Jessica Rosenthal '18