The Veils of VALA: A critical survey of full editions of William Blake's 'Four Zoas' manuscript

This dissertation undertakes the first critical survey of all full editions of William Blake's Four Zoas manuscript. In the editorial history of Blake's heavily revised, seriously complicated, and never finished work, editors have adopted multiple approaches for engaging with and then re-presenting the original artifact. Most visibly, we can trace two particular threads in every individual editorial "veil" for Blake's work: on one hand, a commitment to fidelity and precision that aims at producing the most reliable edition possible; and on the other hand, a reliance upon interpretation of the work as a sensible literary text---a readable "poem" rather than strictly an unfinished manuscript. While these two threads weave together intimately and continuously, the editors themselves frequently create a dramatic discordia concors by trying to separate the two; or, editors will act as if the two are one. In either approach, the editorial methodology underlying a particular edition serves as the most crucial thread that we must examine for a truly informed, critical, and self-aware use of the edition.; This necessity becomes even more important because the complexities of the Four Zoas manuscript grant editors a key role in scholarship, for most scholars and general readers must rely upon their work when studying Blake's work. Thus, editorial personae and editions can have profound influences upon our understanding of the original artifact, in all of its complex threads---so profound as possibly to determine our understanding in specific ways. My dissertation examines all full editions of Blake's manuscript in order to discover the methodologies behind them, assess the ways that editors put their principles into practice, and consider how the "tools" that they actually produce reflect the editors' stated purposes. By picking apart the threads of each editorial veil in this way, I show more clearly the potential effects an editor and the editor's edition can have upon readers. Further, I argue that such a comprehensive and critical method of using editions---determining and tracing each thread in an editorial methodology---represents the only way that one can carry out a reliable study of Blake's Four Zoas manuscript.