The Devil's Party: Milton en la poética de William Blake

Abstract

William Blake’s imagery is strongly rooted in a religious symbolism that springs from Biblical lore. Yet this imagery is determined by Blake’s own ideology, according to which the poet is a most legitimate incarnation of the biblical prophets. For Blake, John Milton stands out as one of the main models of the poet-prophet within the English literary tradition. This paper explores the ways in which Blake incorporated the work and figure of Milton in his own poetic project, both through the echoes of the Miltonic work and Blake’s interpretation of Milton’s ideology. The paper especially focuses on Milton, a Poem in Two Books and analyses both the mental and aesthetic tensions of Blake within the poem.