On Cosmos Exploration In Blake’s Milton

Milton, the penultimate work of William Blake, is a bold artisticexploration of the cosmos, concerning issues about the cosmos structure, the genesisof the human world, and interaction between the eternal state and the ephemeral statewhere mortal beings live, against the backdrop of scientific enthusiasms overcosmogenesis. As is delineated in the epic, on his descent from Eternity to the Sea ofTime and Space, the protagonist Milton on the one hand severs the relations withSatan by annihilating his self; and on the other he seeks to redeem his errors inreconciliation and commingling with Ololon. On the redemptive downfall, within aMoment, the protagonist undergoes a process of personal divisions and integrationswith other beings, in which reveals the evolvement of the human world creation, thediverse spatial and temporal forms, as well as levels of spacetime in the Blakeancosmos. Eventually, the narrator Blake, by participating in and recording Milton’sjourney, discloses the cosmos structure, and the divine origins of mortal beings. Basedon a close textual interpretation, this thesis takes a cosmological exploration approach,focusing on the construct of time, space/existents, the vortex which bridges thespatiotemporal gap, in order to depict the cosmos picture and human destiny in theepic, and the possible path for the mortal back to the embrace of eternity and divinity.Chapter one is a brief introduction to the fundamental changes in cosmoscognition. It also conducts a literature review mainly related to time and/or space.Then goes the outline of this thesis.Chapter two analyses two temporal forms in the epic, that is, eternity and themoment; and it also concerns about the validity of the temporal forms in respect totime in narrative.Chapter three comes to the spatial trajectories of the protagonist Milton, fromwhich three levels of space can be distinguished, namely, Heavens of Albion, the Seaof Time and Space and thirdly, Albion’s land. The intermediate space is given priorityin order to show Milton’s state of existence there. Chapter four sheds light to three sets of spacetime that construct the Blakeancosmos from the macro-and microcosmic perspectives. The vortex plays a pivotalrole at cementing a divided cosmos. The second spacetime is much emphasized due toits proportion and functioning at displaying the departed corporeal spacetime.Chapter five focuses on the overall designs of the cosmos, which can be summedup as an intention to prove a divine cosmos, instead of a mechanical universe, adisclosure of the divine origins of the ephemeral beings, and an ideal of theintegration of the individual into the cosmos.Chapter six sublimes main points of the thesis and reasserts the imperative forthe ephemeral beings to regain integration on the verge of the Apocalypse.