POSTSCRIPT


and their contrapuntal content-hope and despair. In addition, however, these speeches of
Ahania and Enion betray a passivity in their roles as female reflectors rather than aggressive
actors, while the figure in the design more closely resembles a female appropriation of flaming
male revolutionary energy akin to that of the early Orc.
 Although virtually nothing seems to be "hidden" by the word-space of the illustration at the
opening of the General Preludium, Blake invokes the conventions ofnon-perspectival flatness to
preclude the possibility of the figures escaping from the surface of the page. Page 107, unlike 109,
thus celebrates containment on the page and invites us to read the miniaturized figures in some
kind of a sequence-not necessarily clockwise, though that makes one kind of narrative sense
(Young's text, which is supposedly "illustrated" here, does not present these dream fantasies in
this order in his poem). The verbal text on this page, however, focuses on Urizen's fall into a
raging dragon form following his sexual confrontation with the Shadowy Female, which issues
in a threat that the entire narrative will recycle itself. The relatively pleasant images in the design
of a dream on this page parody Urizen's grotesque descent into his worst nightmare, and the
orderly (albeit potentially disturbing) circular placement of the figures parodies the threat of The
Four Zoas narrative dismally recycling itself.
 One further note is necessary here. I hope that the liberty I have taken in substituting Region
titles and epigraphs for Young's text inside Blake's designs to help orient the reader toward the
sections of this book will not be seen as an attempt to revise or compete with Blake's (or Young's)
text, but rather as an extension of Blake's own verbal/visual experimentation in using illustra-
tions created for one verbal text to serve an entirely unforeseen purpose in another.