Illustrations to Milton's "Paradise Regained"

The poetry of John Milton was important to Blake as both poet and artist from his earliest years. As he told John Flaxman in a letter of 12 September 1800, "Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face" (Erdman page 707). Several early drawings, such as the Satan, Sin, and Death of c. 1780 (Butlin 101), were probably inspired by Milton. In 1790-92, Blake loosely sketched several illustrations to Paradise Lost in his Notebook (Butlin 201). He composed his first series of water colors illustrating one of Milton's poems in 1801 when the Rev. Joseph Thomas commissioned eight designs for Comus (Butlin 527). Thomas later acquired (very probably on commission) a set of twelve water color illustrations to Paradise Lost in 1807 (Butlin 529) and, in 1809, six water colors illustrating "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (Butlin 544). Between 1808 and 1815, Blake produced similar (but not in every respect identical) sets of the Paradise Lost and "Nativity" designs for Thomas Butts (Butlin 529, 542). Twelve illustrations to "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" for Butts followed c. 1816-20. The six designs for Paradise Regained presented here are on the same paper, watermarked 1816, Blake used for the "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" designs. Dated by Butlin to c. 1816-20, the Paradise Regained designs may have also been commissioned by Butts, but they were apparently either never delivered to him, or returned by him to Blake, since John Linnell's account books indicate that he purchased the designs directly from Blake in 1825. Thus it is possible that the Paradise Regained designs were produced at a later date, c. 1820-25, on commission for Linnell.

The Paradise Regained designs exemplify Blake's mature style as a water colorist and his close attention to the text he is illustrating. Many of the designs significantly juxtapose the dignified symmetry and calm repose of Blake's portrayals of Christ with the anxious and twisting energies of Satan. Through the deployment of such postures and gestures, Blake dramatizes the poem's conflict between divine imagination and satanic materialism. This struggle offers a pictorial analogue to the contests between the Zoas and their Spectres or Selfhoods in Blake's epic poems.

Blake's literary response to the life and works of John Milton finds its fullest expression in the illuminated book Milton a Poem (c. 1804-10; see Related Works, below).