Блейк-Словарь (Деймон)/Видение Страшного Суда

A VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT (1810) was intended to be added to Blake’s Descriptive Catalogue when he planned to hold another exhibition in spite of the failure of 1809. But the second exhibition was never held, the Catalogue was never reissued, and the Vision exists only in unorganized passages scattered here and there in Blake’s Note-Book, pages 68–95 (K 604–17). W. M. Rossetti on November 27, 1864, wrote to Horace Scudder, the first American Blake enthusiast, mentioning “a M.S. volume belonging to my brother & myself. . . . If I can find a convenient little bit to snip out, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to you, just as a specimen of writing.” (This letter, now in the Houghton Library, was called to my attention by Mrs. Norman V. Ballou.) Evidently this snip was a corner of page 71; unfortunately, W. M. Rossetti did not copy it before transcribing the Vision for the Gilchrist Life, and it has never been recovered.

As now arranged, the text begins with a definition of the Last Judgment, and continues with what is apparently the earliest distinction between symbolic writings (“vision”) and allegory. The picture which Blake describes is lost; it was estimated to have contained over a thousand figures. Blake’s explanation of these figures, however, can often be applied to his other pictures and sketches of the Last Judgment which still exist (see Illustrations). The article concludes with many more valuable explanations of Blake’s ideas.