In my thesis I carry out a close-reading of William Blake’s The Book of Urizen. My analysis observes the accordance between Blake’s work and the hermetic traditions, especially on the philosophical side. In my analyses I draw immediate parallels between Blake’s visionary work and the teachings of various mystic and hermetic traditions and outline the obvious correspondences of the two. My aim is not to find immediate historical or referential links between the poem and the mystic teachings, but to reveal the possible meaning of the visionary epic. I wish to show the connections between Blake's visionary poetry as art and formulated philosophies both depicting the same universal truths. My point is to show the universality of the ideas expressed.

Therefore I draw immediate analogies from the traditions and teachings of Gnosticism, Neoplatonism and Greek mythology, the Sumerian and Persian mythology, Hermetic philosophy, Alchemy and Occultism, the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, and some Eastern examples from Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese philosophy. I also draw parallels with the Bible and John Milton's Paradise Lost.

Furthermore, I don't only give a complex analyses of Blake's The Book of Urizen, but also William Blake the visionary mystic. That is why chapters I & II are included. Altogether my work is a tribute to the great master of poetry, William Blake himself – the seer of universal truths.

The Book of Urizen is Blake's Genesis, and the core of his Bible of Hell, re-shaping the Fall and the Creation of the physical universe. It is also the locus for his mythology in 'A Song of Liberty', America, Europe, The Song of Los, The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los, all of which rest on the ideas presented in this poem. Urizen, like Milton's Satan, was an angel enjoying the immoral life, though among democracy of immortals. He is not cast out for rebellion against law, but separates himself by demanding that Law be established. Los, the immortal artist, emerges to define, clarify and make sense of the disaster, by the power of imagination. Blake works in many more allusions. Los becomes Adam, and Enitharmon his Eve. Orc is born to her, like Cain, but also the Serpent.

The storyline of the poem is as follows: Urizen – a god of Reason who separates himself from other Eternals, demands obedience to his self-proclaimed principles, and falls into Chaos – is an abstract, vain and punitive deity. A body is created for him by Los, 'the eternal prophet' or Divine Imagination. But Los, exhausted, divides into male (Los) and female (Enitharmon). Their child Orc – who represents Rebellious Energy – is born but immediately chained to a rock. Urizen then explores his deadly world, and mankind shrinks up from Eternity. Finally, some of Urizen's children begin an exodus.

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A level (5)