DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NARRATIVE AND TEXT


assumption that the Circle must have existed prior to the action of the
poem, or it could not have been referred to. Now, in the Circle's second
appearance, its origin requires elucidation in terms of the most specific
details of the emerging plot (Tharmas'sinking down, his fibres, the weav-
ing of the Circle). The second appearance interferes with the first, nearly
but not quite canceling it out. This retroactive transformation is anything
but unique; the process occurs relentlessly throughout the poem, often in
even more radical cases.

 Aspectual Interconnection. As noted above, the appearances of the Cir-
cle are situated in the poem following an elliptical conversation between
Tharmas and Enion in which he accuses her of a kind of questioning or
examining that extracts fibres from his soul. When these fibres are trans-
ferred from Tharmas' speech into the narrative proper (events uttered by
the narrator), they become bodily fibres, the material out of which Enion
weaves the Circle of Destiny. This aspectual interconnection, by which
details can migrate from inside a speech into the narrative proper (and vice
versa), reveals how the narrator, the characters, and the landscape inter-
constitute one another. While information seems to be divided between
two discrete sources (the narrator proper and the speeches, questions,
visions, and so on, of characters), with ostensibly minimal overlapping of
the two sets of events, these two streams of information are in reality
aspects of one another and transformations of each other. The possibility
ofsuch a process ofinterconnection presupposes that continually originat-
ing and transforming relationships constitute the primary identity of
characters, of the narrator, and of events. When relationships between
narrative details crystallize in such a way that they can acquire names, they
begin to act as if they were independent beings with lives of their own
(much as, in Night I, the alternate version of the form that emerges from
Tharmas' woven fibres is actually a separate character, the Spectre of
Tharmas). At any time, however, independent characters can dissolve
back into the landscape or into the narrator's voice. Events, characters, and
perspectives are completely interconnected, but only by implication.
Since the characters suppress (or are unaware of) their mutual inter-
connectedness and treat themselves as isolated entities or egos, even the
narrator cannot make connections for the reader, because the narrator
takes on the aspects of the characters and events he is narrating.


 Textual Implications of the Circle ofDestiny Episode

 The Circle of Destiny episode involves two actions, Tharmas' with-
drawal beneath the surface of the sea and Enion's weaving. These actions
constitute two opposing aspects of Blake's Four Zoas text. The word text
has etymological roots in the process of weaving7 and the aspect ofBlake's
text that interweaves minute details into complex and interfering ("per-
verse") patterns is dialectically opposed to the aspect of Blake's text which


The fiction ofnarra-
tional "utterance"should
not be confused with
actual utterances occur-
ring in dialogical con-
texts outside of The Four
Zoas.




The mutual inter-
changeability of"nar-
rator proper" and
"characters" challenges
the assumption that
these aspects of the nar-
rative are constituted as
subjective conscious-
ness: rather, they are
tools oflanguage (invok-
ing reader assumptions
with regard to fictional-
ity) that render perspec-
tive transformation pos-
sible.


As The Four Zoas prog-
resses, and especially in
Nights VIII and IX, the
"narrator" functions
more and more like a
"character."


Events in the narrative
serve as allegories for
exposing dimensions of
the text.