Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion

Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (1804–1820, with additions made even later) is a prophetic book by English poet William Blake.

Etched in handwriting, accompanied by small sketches, marginal figures and huge full-plate illustrations, it has been described as "visionary theatre".

The lyric to the famous hymn Jerusalem (text also by Blake, with music by Sir Hubert Parry) is not connected to this poem.

The poem, which was produced between 1804 and 1820, consists of 100 etched and illustrated plates, thus making it Blake's longest single work.

[3] The design corresponds to the following lines originally incised in the plate (see below the Separate proof in Fitzwilliam Museum), but erased later: There is a Void, outside of Existence, which if enterd into Englobes itself & becomes a Womb

The poetic narrative takes the form of a "drama of the psyche", couched in the dense symbolism of Blake's self-constructed mythology.

Jerusalem mourns, animating shadowy Vala as Los builds Golgonooza, a city that can open into Edenic Eternity.

Then Los sensually constricts Reuben (Albion's son) in an attempt to control his lusts as Jesus imaginatively creates states through which humanity can find forgiveness.

Vala tramples Jerusalem but wise Erin (Ireland) separates the poem's heroine from Albion in whose body she is infected with bellicose Moral Law.

Urizen builds what he thinks is a redemptive Druid temple and Jerusalem works in Satanic mills where, infected by industrial chaos and Albion's morality, she can barely perceive Jesus and divine forgiveness.

The peace of "heavenly Canaan" still hovers above Ulro's chaos, but Los fallibly builds Golgonooza which becomes the structure of "Religion Hid in War".

Sexual contentions obstruct Los' work and Vala thrusts her wrath cup upon Jerusalem who is devoured by the dragon to rise again.

The book was an important inspiration behind composer Georges Lentz's sound installation, the Cobar Sound Chapel, in Australia, and the first lines from the poem can be found inscribed in the Chapel's north-eastern concrete wall (see picture above of Plate 1 in the Fitzwilliam Museum separate proof.