SOURCE: Latané, David, Jr. “The Door into Jerusalem.” Romanticism Past and Present 7, no. 2 (summer 1983): 17-26.

In the following essay, Latané argues that the first plate in Blake's Jerusalem is a critical one for the reader as it helps formulate the context within which to read and interpret the text.

The Man who does not know The Beginning, never can know the End of Art.

(Blake's annotations to Reynolds.)

According to formula, epic poems begin with invocations, and Blake's Jerusalem is no exception—except in the fact that the reader first confronts not the address to the Saviour on plate 3, but the problematic plate known as the “Frontispiece.” Edward W. Said has told us that the “beginning … is the first step in the intentional production of meaning,”¹ and Blake's beginning for Jerusalem is peculiarly troublesome with regard to intentionality, since it is both a picture and a text quite...