MILTON: The Emergence of Prophetic Destiny

Abstract

<p>William Blake's analysis of the influence of John Milton's beliefs led him to a spontaneous insight into the link between the origins of religion and poetry on the one hand, and human creativity on the other. The common thread of divinity which Blake discerned in mankind was what he called the Poetic Genius. Manifesting itself in various ways throughout history, this highest of human faculties was the source of man's bondage and liberty. In Milton Blake re-casts the cosmology of human existence as the story of the emergence of the Poetic Genius. His prophetic myth renders the most basic of physical limitations - space and time - as the embryonic substance from which mankind must eventually be reborn into Eternity.</p>