William Blake's "The Night of Enitharmon's Joy" (1795)

The Night of Enitharmon's Joy (1795), often refered as The Triple Hecate or simply Hecate, is a 1795 colour print by English artist and poet William Blake depicting Enitharmon, a female character in his mythology, as a androgynous Hecate, Greco-Roman goddess of magic and the underworld, in a nightmarish scene with fantastic creatures. The picture also alludes the Three Fates. Despite this allusion, critics point out that the primary source for Blake's inspiration is Shakespeare, from Macbeth, where there are similarities with the animals illustrated in this painting.

"Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
(Macbeth, IV.i)

Enitharmon is a major female character in William Blake's mythology, playing a main part in some of his prophetic books. She represents the Feminine Will upon the patriarchal Christianity. It's a quite obscure figure representing spiritual beauty and poetic inspiration. She is symbolised by the moon and she is characterised by Pity. As poetic instinct, Enitharmon is represented as being born of the sexual problems that happen during puberty. She is a goddess that represents what cannot be found within nature. In her connection to space, she represents the psychological aspects of unbound space upon the mind.

After her birth, Enitharmon declares that women will rule the world, with Man being given Love and Women being given Pride. This would create within men a fear of female dominance that would in turn bring them under control of the females. In her sexual system, there are four parts: desire, sperm, frustration, and finally war. These are represented by sexual desire being contained to body, which leads to guilt, followed by frustration and ends with erotic dreams. In the last stage, war is the ultimate result of sexual repression. This war is connected to general war and to energy as a whole. Sex is supposed to lead to imagination and love. Love is supposed to leave one to a higher state, and the perversion of sexuality, in Blake's view, leads to destruction.

The Female Will is born from an object of affection refusing to give up its independence, and the concept represents what prohibits an individual from being able to have true vision. (wikipedia)

I think that it worths to mention my observation that this obscured myth has striking similarities with Wilhelm Reich's theory and work of "sexual economy" in libido and patrism vs matrism.

John Gabriel Stedman's slavery narration in Surinam

John Gabriel Stedman (1744-1797) was a distinguished British–Dutch soldier and noted author. His years in Surinam, on the northern coast of South America, were characterized by encounters with African slaves and colonial planters, as well as the exotic local flora and fauna. He recorded his experiences in "The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam" (1796) which, with its firsthand depictions of slavery and other aspects of colonization, became an important tool in the early abolitionist cause. (wikipedia)

Though Stedman himself was not an abolitionist, the tortured slave imagery in the Narrative provoked a large public response and became an important source material for the abolitionists. (ackland.org)

Eighty-one illustrations, by various engravers, accompanied the Expedition and received contemporary acclaim. Of those, twelve images of slaves and slave life including illustrations that represent the punishment and execution of slaves, were engraved by William Blake. The images depict some of the horrific atrocities against slaves that Stedman witnessed, including hanging, lashing and other forms of torture. The Blake plates are more forceful than other illustrations in the bookThese images were unusual within the traditions of book illustrations in travel narratives and abolitionist literature because of their graphic display of pain. (circle.ubc.ca)

"Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave."
Illustration in Stedman's book by William Blake.
Stedman witnessed this punishment in 1774. The woman being whipped was an eighteen-year old girl who was given 200 lashes for having refused to have intercourse with an overseer. She was "lacerated in such a shocking manner by the whips of two negro-drivers, that she was from her neck to her ancles literally dyed with blood." (hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu)

"A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows,"
Illustration in Stedman's book by William Blake.
Stedman witnesses a number of executions and brutalities against both rebelling and complacent slaves. Stedman describes the horrors and his disgust with the punishments. A fellow soldier tells Stedman of one case in which a rebel was hung by his ribs for two days as punishment for his crimes. It was common practice for the Europeans of the colony to cut off the noses of their slaves, burn them alive, and whip them to death with impunity. Some slaves were known to swallow their tongues or eat dirt in an effort to commit suicide to escape (wikipedia)

William Blake's "Nebuchadnezzar"

Ο "Nebuchadnezzar" του William Blake είναι η αναπαράσταση της τρέλας από την οποία καταλήφθηκε ο βασιλιάς της Βαβυλώνας Nebuchadnezzar II (Ναβουχοδονόσορας) , όπως περιγράφεται στο Βιβλίο του Δανιήλ στη Βίβλο, ως τιμωρία από το Θεό για την ματαιοδοξία του και τους διωγμούς και τα δεινά των Εβραίων που προκάλεσε. Κατά την περίοδο της παραφροσύνης του, που κράτησε 7 χρόνια, τριγυρνούσε στα τέσσερα, γυμνός, σε πλήρη εξαθλίωση, σαν ζώο και έτρωγε χόρτο σαν τα βόδια. Αυτή η απεικόνιση βγήκε σε κάμποσες εκδοχές, η πρώτη εμφανίστηκε έντυπη στο ποίημά του “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”:

"Nebuchadnezzar" is a colour print portraying the Old Testament Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II by William Blake. Taken from the Book of Daniel, the legend of Nebuchadnezzar tells of a ruler who through hubris lost his mind and was reduced to animalistic madness and eating "grass as oxen". Many versions have been made since its first appearance in “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”

According to William Blake’s biographer Alexander Gilchrist, in this print the viewer is faced with the "a mad king crawling like a hunted beast into a den among the rocks; his tangled golden beard sweeping the ground, his nails like vultures' talons, and his wild eyes full of sullen terror. The powerful frame is losing semblance of humanity, and is bestial in its rough growth of hair, reptile in the toad-like markings and spottings of the skin, which takes on unnatural hues of green, blue, and russet." (Wikipedia)

Nebuchadnezzar II was a ruler of Babylon in the Chaldean Dynasty, who reigned between 605 BC and 562 BC. According to the Bible, he conquered Jerusalem, and sent the Jews into exile. He is credited with the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. He is featured in the Book of Daniel that discusses several events of his reign, in addition to his conquest of Jerusalem.

While boasting over his achievements, Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by God. The king loses his sanity and lives in the wild like an animal for seven years (by some considered as an attack of the madness called clinical lycanthropy or alternately porphyria). After this, his sanity and position are restored and he praises and honors God.

A clay tablet in the British Museum describes Nebuchadnezzar's behavior during his insanity: "His life appeared of no value to him... then he gives an entirely different order... he does not show love to ... family and clan does not exist." There is no record of acts or decrees by the king during 582 to 575 BC. (Wikipedia)

William Blake's "The Ghost of a Flea" (1819-1820)

Ο πίνακας αυτός είναι μια μινιατούρα διαστάσεων 21,4x16,2 cm και απεικονίζει το φάντασμα ενός ψύλλου όπως το φαντάστηκε ο Blake ή όπως το είδε, μια και ισχυριζόταν ότι έβλεπε πνεύματα και οπτασίες. Αυτό έγινε σε μια συνάντηση με έναν αστρολόγο ο οποίος πίστευε ότι καλούσε πνεύματα, αλλά δεν μπορούσε ο ίδιος να τα δει, οπότε κάλεσε το Blake που είχε αυτή την «ικανότητα». Σε μια τέτοια συνάντηση του είπε πως είδε το φάντασμα ενός ψύλλου και του το ζωγράφισε σε σκίτσο εκείνη την ώρα. Αργότερα επεξεργάστηκε περισσότερο το σκίτσο και προέκυψε αυτός ο πίνακας που δείχνει πώς φαντάστηκε τον ψύλλο, ως ένα ανθρωπόμορφο κακόβουλο αιμοδιψές τέρας, αρκετά ανήσυχο και υπερκινητικό. Όπως είπε ο ίδιος ο Blake, είναι μια αλληγορία για τους ακόρεστους και αιμοδιψείς ανθρώπους, οι ψυχές των οποίων ξεπέφτουν στο επίπεδο ενός ψύλλου.

William Blake first met astrologist John Varley in the autumn of 1818. Varley held a strong belief in the existence of spirits, but was frustrated by his inability to see them. Thus he was drawn to Blake, who claimed to have seen visions daily since when as a small child. The two would often gather late at night in Varley's house, and played a game in which Varley would attempt to summon the spirit of a historical or mythological person. On the appearance of the spirit, Blake would then attempt to sketch their likeness. In 1819, according to Varley, the imagery of a Flea came to Blake during one such meeting.

Ghost of a Flea, completed between 1819 and 1820, at 214 mm x 162 mm (painting) and 382 mm x 324 mm x 50 mm (frame), is a greatly reduced miniature portrait. Blake generally worked on a small scale, most of his illuminated pages, engravings and many of his paintings are only inches high. Although is one of Blake's smallest works, it is monumental in its imagination. In addition, its tidy scale creates a drama by contrasting the apparent muscular bulk and power of the creature against its incarnation as an insect in the panel.

The muscular and nude Flea is depicted using its jutting tongue to gorge on a bowl of blood. Part human, part vampire and part reptile, the beast strides from right to left between heavy and richly patterned curtains. In his left hand he holds an acorn and in his right a thorn, both items drawn from the tradition of fairy iconography. His massive neck is similar to that of a bull, and holds a disproportionally small head, marked by glaring eyes and open jaws, and a venomous slithering tongue. According to the art critic Jonathan Jones, the flea is depicted as an "evil, gothic, grotesque stalking through a starry realm between stage curtains." (wikipedia)

Blake's flea is evil, gothic, grotesque, stalking through a starry realm between stage curtains - walking the boards, in fact, as if the artist had ensnared this creature to appear in a spectacle. The ghost's spine is a throbbing, gristly column shooting into his scaly head with its bulging eyes and voracious tongue; his massive muscles are red-toned, as if infused with dried blood, and his loping, crushing walk is that of a colossus come to life. This vastness and mad-eyed bestiality contrasts with the visible form of the spirit's physical embodiment, which can be seen on the floor between his veined legs: a little flea.

Blake's explanation of the spirit he saw accords with the painting's extreme drama of scale, the contrast of the huge invisible monster with its tiny incarnation as insect. The blood-drinking household flea, said Blake, is in fact the physical shape taken by the souls of men who are so bloodthirsty that they are providentially confined to the size and form of insects. (guardian)