Blake : a psychological study

1 The nature of imagination. 2 The supreme introvert. 3 The four Zoas. 4 The birth of the functions. 5 The anatomy of disintegration. 6 The conflict of the Zoas. 7 Reintegration. 8 Blake's map of the psyche. 9 An introvert looks at the world. Appendix - The use of the symbol in the Romantic poets

'At the begining of his work stand the Songs of Innocence and Experience, a mine for the anthologist; beyond we stumble into a mythological maze comparable with that of the Hindu pantheon, a veritable jungle of symbols. These "Prophetic Books" are a region into which few would venture were it not for the magnificent poetry to be found within. But they remain as a whole, incomprehensible to the general reader. The object of the present work is to indicate a path through the Blakean jungle, to provide a plan of the maze. It is only within recent years that the problems of mythology and symbolism have been attacked scientifically, by the psychologists of the school of Jung, and the instrument of the Jungian psychology can provide a key for the understanding of Blake. Using this key, we shall find that the mythical activities of the strangely named characters which make up the "Prophetic Books" are not something outside our own experience. In studying Blake we shall discover psychic patterns which are to be found within the soul of every man. The Blakean figures (altered indeed by the circumstances of each one's individuality) are to be found in all our dreams.' --Introduction

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