The Complete Poems Read Online

In the presentation of textual variations, emendations, revisions, etc., a distinction is made between Blake’s manuscript poems and his finished work. For poems which Blake published (or had published or printed for him) in any form, and which we may thus suppose to be finished, the relatively few variations which exist are presented in the Notes. For poems which exist only in manuscript form, this material is incorporated in the text through italics and brackets, reproducing as far as possible the condition of the texts in their ‘workshop’ state, with successive stages of revision evident as one reads along. The assumption here is that unfinished poems should not be presented to the eye as if they were finished, and vice versa; and that the reader will benefit from an opportunity to sense Blake’s verse both as working process and as completed product. In this respect, the innovative and successful procedure of Geoffrey Keynes’s Nonesuch and Oxford editions of the Complete Writings is followed with gratitude.

Texts. The texts on which the present edition is based are those of David V. Erdman, The Poetry and Prose of William Blake, Doubleday, 1970. This volume should be consulted for complete detail in regard to Blake’s revisions, and for full discussion of textual complexities. There are some changes, particularly in punctuation. The marks ‘!’, ‘?’, ‘:’ and ‘;’ are often difficult to distinguish in Blake’s calligraphy. Erdman commonly transcribes ‘!’ where I find a colon or semi-colon. Blake’s full stops and commas are also difficult to tell apart, and he is rather skimpy about the latter. Thus in works where both ‘.’ and ‘,’ appear, they are retained (but the readings sometimes disagree with Erdman’s). In works where ‘.’ alone appears, and is evidently doing service for both conventional ‘.’ and conventional ‘,’ in the original, the present text follows what normal grammar and syntax would require. Another change is that Night VII [b] of The Four Zoas, which Erdman believes was ‘supplanted by VII [a]’, is here placed within the text rather than as an appendix, following the argument made by several scholars that Blake never definitively rejected this portion of the manuscript. A final alteration is that the Songs of Experience, which Blake printed in 1794, are here placed just after the Songs of Innocence (1789), for the reader’s convenience.

Notes and Dictionary of Proper Names. The Notes attempt to clarify what is difficult in Blake’s poetry, and to indicate where passages from the Bible, Milton and other sources seem necessary to explain a text or enrich our understanding of its implications. The Dictionary of Proper Names defines recurrent terms in Blake’s symbolic systems.

To express my gratitude to the multitude of Blake scholars who have shaped my comprehension of his poetry would be impossible. I have at each step walked particularly in the tracks of Geoffrey Keynes, David Erdman, G. E. Bentley, Jr, S. Foster Damon, Northrop Frye, Harold Bloom and W. H. Stevenson, and have gained knowledge and insight from many other commentators. I owe special thanks to Professor Erdman for assistance with texts and guidance through the labyrinths of the Notebook; to Morton Paley for advice on Jerusalem; and to James McGowan for the use of unpublished research on Poetical Sketches.

EDITORIAL MARKS

Material marked [thus] indicates editorial interpolation.

Material marked [thus] indicates a word, phrase or passage deleted, erased or emended in the manuscript.

Material marked [thus/ and so] indicates successive deletions within a passage, followed by a final accepted version.

Material marked [thus (this) and so] indicates a deletion within a passage that was afterwards itself deleted.

? preceding a word indicates an uncertain reading.

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