FRUSTRATED RENOVATION: AGENT-CONTEXTS


most recently at the beginning of Night VIII [99:1-2], but in its multiple
form which has provided a providential plot thread since Night I); the
"Saviour"; the "Daughters of Beulah"; the "Sons of Eden"; "God"; the
"Divine Vision"; "Luvahs Robes of Blood"; the "ever pitying one"; the
"Universal hand"; and the "Divine hand."
 Those agent-contexts that make cameo appearances in speeches include
"the Will" (from Night VI [74:32]) or "his will" (from the end of Night
VIII [111:21]), which obliquely returns in the Immortal's speech (126:16),
and the "Lamb of God," who appears twice by name in the Eternal Man's
speech to Urizen (122:1, 16): neither the "will" nor the "Lamb" enters the
narrative proper. "God"-as an apparently providential figure existing
beyond the parameters of the narrative, rather than as a term that charac-
ters appropriate to themselves as a sign of power and authority (first
appearing as such in Urizen's descent in Night I [12:8]) -rarely enters the
poem. The Daughters of Beulah have turned to "God" at moments of
great distress (5:42; 56:2); Los saw the Finger and hand of "God" over his
furnaces just before he shrunk in Night IV (56:25-26); and at the end of
Night VIII the Synagogue of Satan's resolution to "burn Mystery" and
"form another from her ashes" is said to occur because "God put it into
their heart to fulfill all his will" (111:20-21). In addition to Vala's reference
to (apparently) Luvah's "voice" in her garden as "the voice of God"
(129:33), "God" appears in the narrative proper in the phrase,"the Vision
of God" (124:1), an alternate label for the complex vision of the "Cloud of
the Son of Man" (123:27) as it is perceived by "the Falln Man" (123:40).
 While Blake excludes most of these from the narrative proper, he com-
presses references to crucial agents of possible redemption-Los, Enithar-
mon, Jerusalem, and Jesus-into the first few heavily revised lines of
Night IX, after which point Jesus, Los, and Enitharmon virtually disap-
pear from the poem.Jesus vanishes by name after the opening lines except
for a momentary (unanswered) entreaty to a "Brother of Jesus" for for-
giveness (123:25). Los is referred to four times in Night IX after he tears
down the Sun and Moon, but each reference to him emphasizes his
absence from the present action. The one occasion that seems to contradict
this, "Then Los who is Urthona rose..." (137:34), actually involves the
dialectical absorption of Los by Urthona in a way that causes him to
vanish ("depart") from the poem forever, suggesting the sinister possibil-
ity that the end of the poem fulfills Urizen's desire "That Los may
Evaporate like smoke & be no more" (80:6). In a similar manner, Enithar-
mon vanishes to be replaced by the "Spectre of Enitharmon," a name
involving a sexual confusion parallel to the "confusion" of the ruins of the
Universe (118:5-6), beneath which the Spectre of Enitharmon and Ur-
thona's Spectre are buried. Enitharmon seems less irrevocably "departed"
at the end of the poem than does Los, even though her apparent integration
with Urthona is syntactically problematic. Jerusalem re-enters in only
two scenes, though they are important ones -in the Eternal Man's instruc-
tions to Urizen concerning the cyclic sexual life of Eternity (122:1-20) and


Blake keeps completely
hidden who "God" is in
the phrase "the Lamb of
God"


In interpolated speeches:
Luvah referred to the
"Sons of God" whom
he claims to have deliv-
ered from "bondage of
the Human form"
(27:17-18) (see above, p.
124); Enitharmon
referred to the "Son of
God" as the destroyer
(87:60) (see above, p.
307); the Prester Serpent
was called "the Priest of
God" (98:22-24) (see
above, p. 264); and the
Shadowy Female
referred to the
"sons of God"
(103:7-8) in a statement
syntactically paralleling
(prior to revision virtu-
ally duplicating) Luvah's
reference in 27:17-18.

The disappearance of
potentially redemptive
characters following the
opening of Night IX