Written within and without

«Milton» was the means whereby Blake clarified for himself both the nature of his own prophetic vocation and the formal qualities of the purely inspirational poetry it demanded. The book examines the distinction between God and Satan in Blake's critique of John Milton, the style and structure of the new kind of poetry that Blake achieves, including the structure of its symbolism, the apocalyptic function of the poem in Blake's life, and the function it implies for itself in the imaginative experience of its true readers.