Continental prophecies
series of three works (Europe, a Prophecy; America, a Prophecy; The Song of Los) by William Blake
The continental prophecies is a group of illuminated books by William Blake that have been subject of numerous studies due to their recurrent and unorthodox use of political, literary and sexual metaphors. They consist of America, Europe and The Song of Los (Africa and Asia).
Background
Blake's works describing the four continents prophecies are part of his "Lambeth Books", based on their creation at his home in Lambeth, Surrey. Of these works there are America a Prophecy created in 1793, Europe a Prophecy created in 1794, and The Song of Los created in 1795. Like other "Lambeth Books", all aspects of the works, including the composition of the designs, their printing, coloring, and sale, happened at his home. The pages of the works and images were 23 x 17 cm in size. All three of the works were occasionally bound together as a set.
Plot
The plots of America a Prophecy, Europe a Prophecy and The Song of Los, divided into "Africa" and "Asia", are all part of the same group of poems. They, like The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, describe the story of Orc as the works all portray these events with a focus on satire, society, liberty found in revolution, and the apocalypse.
America
The first book, America a Prophecy, describes Orc's encouragement of the rebellion in the Americas.
The public source identifies “Continental prophecies” as series of three works (Europe, a Prophecy; America, a Prophecy; The Song of Los) by William Blake. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Continental, prophecies and series.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 3, 2022. The linked authority identifier is Q5165336. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1793, 1794 and 1795.
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This entry incorporates text from “Continental prophecies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.