Divisions and Comminglings: Emanations and Spectres

Abstract

The concept of emanations and spectres, like the concept of children as aspects of their father’s personality, becomes fully manifest in Blake’s late works, but is also discernible earlier. The term ‘emanation’ arises first in The Four Zoas, and though ‘spectre’ is used in The French Revolution, America and Europe, it can be taken in those early appearances to mean simply a threatening ghost. However, Enitharmon before she is called an emanation shows characteristics which will later belong to emanations, and the early uses of the word ‘spectre’ in the illuminated books contain hints of the word’s future uniquely Blakean meaning. In The First Book of Urizen, Enitharmon is ‘born’ from Los; she emerges from him as a globe of blood and as she grows into ‘the first female form now separate’, she is named for Los’s ‘Pity’ which she personifies, and which precipitated her creation (BU 12–17). She is an aspect of Los which divides from him in pain and gore. In America, the spectre is also associated with blood, spherical shapes and multiplication by splitting or rending: ‘The terror’ is described as:

like a comet, or more like the planet red That once inclos’d the terrible wandering comets in its sphere. Then Mars thou wast our center, & the planets three flew round Thy crimson disk; so e’er the Sun was rent from thy red sphere; The Spectre glowd his horrid length staining the temple long With beams of blood. (7:2–7)