I was wondering if anyone was familiar with this work by William Blake? I find it very intriguing.
The Book of Urizen is a creation story, an alternative Genesis - the connections to the Bible are many and it is not difficult to recognize the source for the protagonist, Urizen, a bearded patriarch, the most stable Western representation of Yahweh. But if Yahweh is at times a god of wrath, Urizen is a demiurge - a misguided creator whose purpose is flawed and whose world is broken - The Book of Urizen is a meditation on Evil as a seed in the very foundations of the universe. What makes Blake relevant is that his evil is neither grounded in Christian puritanism nor romantic rebellion - Blake's evil is the evil of reason and logic ("Urizen" is taken by some critics as a word play on "your reason"). The equation of Reason and Evil is precisely what makes Blake a significant poet for the post-Enlightenment West where reason was supposed to, is supposed to save humanity from its destructive passions and desires....
The rest of this short and thorough review can be read here. http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/ ... p?Post=411
Thoughts?