William Blake’s Milton/A Poem and the Miltonic Matrix of 1791–1810

From the time when ‘Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face,’ William Blake felt a special relationship with John Milton. He would therefore have felt a great interest in the extraordinary spate of publishing and pictorial activity (sometimes both together) that occurred in the last decade of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth. He was, indeed, mentioned as a participant in two major Milton projects planned during this period, but neither materialized. His own Milton/A Poem, completed c. 1811, addresses two major subjects of previous discussion: Milton’s political commitment and his relations with the women in his life. Characteristically, Blake does not adopt any prior positions, but renders his own views, which are different from any of them.