The continental prophecies is a group of illuminated books by William Blake that have been subject of numerous studies due to their recurrent and unorthodox use of political, literary and sexual metaphors.
They, like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, describe the story of Orc as the works all portray these events with a focus on satire, society, liberty found in revolution, and the apocalypse.
The work describes the entrapment of men and women into constrictive gender relationships, and the serpent was originally the infinite bound up by the finite under God's tyranny.
The story begins in Africa with Los singing of Adam, Noah, and Moses were witnesses to Urizen granting laws to humanity.
These laws involve abstractions being granted to Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, gospel being given to Jesus, a bible for Mahomet, and a book on war given to Odin.
[10] Scholars such as Stephen Behrend have stressed the mutual interdependence of the series pointing out the subject of slavery as a recurrent motive.
[12] Each of the works deal with satire, with a particular focus on Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, and John Locke as a Cerberus figure when he attacked all three.
[13] Blake's specific criticism of individuals is based on the type of threat he believed they posed, especially when a work uses true beliefs but in a misleading manner.