GENDERING EDEN AND BEULAH


from) this indeterminate "Great Eternity." The benign appearance ofBeu-
lah is subverted, however, if entering Beulah means sleeping "Eternally."
At first glance this information about Beulah seems to confirm and expand
Tharmas' description of"Eden," but Blake specifically deleted the word
"Beulah" in Tharmas' statement and replaced it with "Eden" in order to
emphasize the conflict between these female and male visions of sleep and
death. In "Eden" Females sleep in the winter and revive for the sake of
males; in the Lamb of God's "feminine" world sleepers "sleep / Eternally."
 Although Blake places a period between "Eternally" and "Created," it is
possible to read past the intrusive period and assume that Beulah is "Eter-
nally Created" by the Lamb. The period holds open the option, however,
that Beulah is created by the Lamb specifically for "those who sleep /
Eternally." The possibility that "sleep / Eternally" signifies "sleep in an
Eternal manner" rather than "sleep endlessly" or "sleep forever" only
increases the tensions in this seemingly innocuous transition, for if this is
the case, how can this place be a rest "from Great Eternity"? These
conflicts introduce a problematic, even sinister aspect to this creation of
Beulah by the Lamb.
 The contention between Tharmas and Enion centered on sexual divi-
sion, which the Lamb creates by separating a "Universe feminine" "On all
sides within & without the Universal Man" (5:33): in this sense Eden and
the possibility of female sleep seem to presuppose and to contradict Beulah
and its sexual structure. In addition, just as the Lamb creates Beulah, the
Daughters of Beulah create "Spaces," lest "they" (most likely the "sleep-
ers" though possibly the Daughters or even "Dreams") "fall into Eternal
Death." It is significant that Blake first introduces "Eternal Death" into the
poem in the context of the Lamb's creation of Beulah. As a rest "from
Great Eternity" Beulah is the realm wherein sleepers become possible; if
there were no sleepers Eternal Death would have no meaning as a state or
place into which sleepers could fall.
 The Daughters act upon the completed Circle of Destiny exactly as if it
were simply another "sleeper" in need of protection and give to it a space
named "Ulro." In giving a space to the Circle of Destiny they make
Eternal Death possible: Blake reveals this irony when the Daughters
speak, avoiding all reference to sleep or the Circle, emphasizing instead
previously unarticulated aspects of the "Spectre." The emergence of the
Spectre into the context of Beulah is a direct consequence of the
Daughters' presence and voice; the narrator, in describing Beulah and the
Daughters' actions, makes no mention whatsoever of the Spectre. Like the
narrator, the Daughters also adopt a pseudo-propositional (and therefore
transitional) voice: "The Spectre is in every man insane & most /
Deformd" (5:38-39). Unlike Tharmas, who saw females in Eden renew-
ing males by female deaths, from the point of view of the Daughters of
Beulah, the Spectre necessarily inhabits "every man" (presumably,
though not necessarily, male). They are constrained to meet this generic
Spectre and "give / To it a form of vegetation" (5:40-41). They make


The multivalence of
"sleep / Eternally"

















The Lamb and the origin
of Eternal Death








Conflicts between the
narrator's and the
Daughters' voices gen-
erate incommensurable
accounts of the
Daughters' functions.








The Spectre also is pre-
sumably, but not neces-
sarily, male.