Deformed Bodies and Norse Origins in William Blake

This article offers a renewed examination of the darkness and the body in William Blake’s The Book of Urizen (1794) in light of Old Norse creation myths found in Völuspá (ca. 1270) and Snorri Sturluson’s Edda (ca. 1220). These texts provide sources for the figure Urizen. The Book of Urizen presents readers with a version of creation filled with desolation and destruction and tracks the appearance of an unknown entity named “Urizen.” His darkness exposes a deformed body at the center of this new universe, one which is arguably heavily influenced by the Old Norse primordial void known as the ginnungagap.