RELATIONSHIP AS THE GROUND OF MEANING


birth and chaining just as the fiery sons chained in dark Urthona's breast
release the Enormous Spirit only to seal up serpents of fire in his breast.
The cycle of chaining and release in the Demons' song is transformed,
condensed, and projected onto the narrative surface in the chaining of
Orc, which instantaneously releases "thrilling" sensual joy and expanded
perception for Orc, who himself immediately becomes the "Demon."
 As this Demons' song amply demonstrates, it is relationship, not uni-
vocal definition, that constitutes the primary "meaning" of Blake's narra-
tive transformations. Because characters assume each others' features as
they confront one another, Ore has quite a different meaning (function) in
the context of Los than in the context of Urizen. Within this relational
system, Los and Urizen can confront all the other male characters in the
poem; and even the Lamb of God and Satan in VIIa and VIII, who operate
as the most radically relational beings in The Four Zoas (in that they seem
to have no interiors whatsoever), are able to confront one another at the
climax of Night VIII (105:1). Luvah (or Orc) and Tharmas, however,
never confront one another explicitly in any context in the poem, indicat-
ing how their functions as narrative lacunae-Tharmas' fleeing and Lu-
vah's invisibility-make possible the connecting, differentiating, and
analyzing of other characters and events but mutually interfere with one
another's ontological status.
 This kind of relational contextualization lies at the heart of one of the
problematic narrative intrusions in Night V, the brief reference to "Gol-
gonooza" soon after the Demon's song:
 For now he feard Eternal Death & uttermost Extinction
 He builded Golgonooza on the Lake ofUdan Adan
 Upon the Limit of Translucence then he builded Luban
 Tharmas laid the Foundations & Los finished it in howling woe
 (60:2-5)
All of these place names, none of which has appeared in the poem before,
must be experienced defensively by the reader at this point as ambiguous
and problematic terms in Blake's argument. In having the narrator pro-
ceed as though any reader would be familiar with these places, Blake
self-consciously calls attention to the fact that all the terms he uses are
fundamentally words: our urge to make them referentially substantive and
entitative beings is one of the lessons Blake wants us to unlearn by his
perspective techniques.
 Though there is no definite referential context for it, "Golgonooza"
functions here as a therapeutic response to Los's fear of Eternal Death and
extinction. Yet, as we saw in Night IV, Los has already "felt" the Limit the
"Saviour" placed on Eternal Death: "the Starry Wheels felt the divine
hand. Limit / Was put to Eternal Death Los felt the Limit & saw / The
Finger of God touch the Seventh furnace in terror" (56:23-25). Again in
Night V, Los's fear of Eternal Death is associated with a "Limit," not, as in
IV, a Limit of Opacity or Contraction, but a Limit of Translucence. If this
moment in Night V is causally later than the moment in Night IV, how is


(61:2)









That Luvah and Thar-
mas cannot confront
each other in The Four
Zoas


The self-reflexive and
psychotherapeutic func-
tions of Golgonooza