William Blake’s illuminated mythology in Europe: A Prophecy

Urizen’s Brazen Book in Europe

On the numbered thirteenth leaf of Europe, Albion’s Angel rises upon the Stone of Night and sees Urizen on the Atlantic. The short passage names Urizen’s brazen book and says that kings and priests have copied it on Earth, expanded from north to south. The surrounding design places a red-robed, crowned figure above a dark field and two winged figures. The immediately preceding leaf describes a world of constrained perception, a serpent-like temple and an enclosing horizon. Together these pages connect a material-looking book with the poem’s wider images of law, enclosure and rule, while leaving the relationship between text and pictured figures open to interpretation.

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In the sources

A book copied by earthly rulers

Documented

The short thirteenth-leaf text explicitly names the brazen book and states that kings and priests copied it on Earth.

[2]

An adjoining world of enclosure

Documented

The preceding leaf connects a serpent-like temple, altered sight and the horizon with confinement.

[1]

Text as an instrument of authority

Interpretation

The book’s replication by kings and priests allows it to be read as an image of authority made repeatable and extended across the human world. That interpretation is distinct from identifying it with a single historical scripture.

[1][2]

Context & interpretation

The brazen book is a symbolic object in this particular poem. No surviving historical volume is identified, and the title does not establish that an actual book was made from brass. The general Urizen entry covers another work; this record is limited to Europe’s book image and its immediate context.

Original passages

Source 1

Europe: A Prophecy

William Blake

Shut up in finite revolutions

Open this page in the book

Passage & edition details

Location recorded at citation review: William Blake, Europe: A Prophecy, numbered leaf 12, temple, senses and horizon; source scan leaf 18

Actual full scan inspected; the cited words and visible leaf number checked directly. Faint passages outside these citations are not treated as fully transcribed. The title bears1794; original-copy provenance not inferred.

Edition: IMJ-0273-E001
Reader page: IMJ-0273-E001-P0012
Original scan leaf: 18
Recorded leaf number: 18
Current Reader position: 13
Reader verification: Matches the reviewed Reader

Source 2