The Influence of the Moravian Collection of Hymns on William Blake's Later Mythology

Building on Keri Davies's and Marsha Keith Schuchard's tracing of the phrase "four zoas" back to John Gambold's Moravian hymnal, A Collection of Hymns of the Children of God (London, 1754), Wayne C. Ripley argues that the hymnal was a major source for William Blake's later mythology. The influence of the hymnal can help to date Blake's heavy layers of revisions to the manuscript of Vala or The Four Zoas, both internally and relative to Milton and Jerusalem, clarifying in new ways the development of his complex mythological system. Blake's demonstrable engagement with the hymnal also opens a new chapter in his relationship to Moravianism and, by extension of at least his mother's known membership in the church, to his family.