Scholars working in the vein of both Frye’s formalism and Erdman’s historicism have generally, though not always, read Blake primarily as a poet. As noted above, Harold Bloom avoids the illustrations, finding their value “uncertain:” “Some of them seem to me very powerful, some do not; but I am in any case not qualified to criticize them@Bloom 9.

Bloom, Harold. Blake's Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1963..” Because Blake’s art contains so much to grapple with, many of the best readings have ignored entire dimensions of his books, and Bloom’s methodology in itself is no fatal flaw. However, I reject the notion that the illustrations require some particular art-historical expertise to be cogently evaluated (and I particularly doubt that Bloom, in his formidable cultural fluency, lacks whatever expertise that might be). The illustrations demand only a sensitivity and openness towards sensual experience, and anyone willing to accept and articulate this experience can contribute to our understanding of the visuality of Blake’s work.

In this section, then, I work to demonstrate how multiple strata of the book interact in the process of reading, continuing with the analysis of the third plate of Milton that began in our discussion of the imagination. The logic of active imagination, outlined earlier, imposes order on the narrative of the plate, but must expand further in order to organize the interaction of this text with its visual form. Interdimensional tension lies at the heart of the experience here.

We recall that the third plate of Milton, which appears only in the two most complete copies of the book (C and D), features Los forging or giving birth to his male spectre and female emanation. Because Los fails to recognize that these offspring are aspects of his own creative imagination, the process fills him with dread. The Bard's Song, which occupies most of the first book of Milton, provides the narrative context of this creation story. Initially, the “Abstract Horror” refuses “all Definite Form@Milton 3:10, E97.

Blake, William. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David V. Erdman. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1982.,” but eventually becomes a “red round Globe hot burning@Milton 3:12, E97

Blake, William. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David V. Erdman. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1982.,” over the course of the plate developing eyes, ears, nostrils, a tongue, and finally limbs. From this form emerges a “Female pale / As the cloud that brings the snow,” while “A blue fluid exuded in Sinews hardening in the Abyss / Till it separated into a Male Form howling in Jealousy@Milton 3:34-37, E97.

Blake, William. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David V. Erdman. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1982..” The Bard punctuates each step in this process with a refrain declaring “a State of dismal woe.” This act of creation is horrific because Los fails to realize that he incarnates himself. While this logic imposes order on the narrative of the plate, it does not organize the interaction of this text with its visual form, and this interdimensional tension lies at the heart of the experience of the plate.

Perhaps we should direct our attention to the alternate version of this plate, found in copy C. The relationship between versions remains an unsettled issue; in Bentley’s terms, this version would represent a separate performance of the idea. In the context of my reading, the variations seem significant, but all we can say with certainty is that this image provides a completely different experience. The background shading seems more purposeful, from the deeper blue surrounding the first figure to the lighter shades underlying the third, contrasted with the red background of the second half of the plate. The black ink of this text reads nothing like the red ink of the D version. Here, the second figure leans against a discernible rock-like object. Most strikingly, in this image each figure has light blonde hair, a more prominent pink-beige skin pigment, and in the third figure, more perceptible facial detail.

These developments raise the possibility that the C version depicts a later stage in the creation narrative, rather than an alternate representation of the same series or moment. This performance also moves into a more definitively oppositional relationship to the text. The image of copy D retains a ghastly quality that corresponds in some sense to the tone of the text. Its figures seem less human, lacking hair, nearly absent of facial definition and skin coloring – the human form as pure outline in a clay-colored red ink. By contrast, copy C presents recognizable, even beautiful forms against a ground of deep blue tranquility. Here, the “dismal woe” resides in the speaker or in the creator, but not in the creation.

In sum, we have two illustrations to the same lexical series that differ in form, color, detail, intensity, and emphasis. These differences likely arise through a number of processes with varying proximity to Blake's intentions – for example, it remains possible that the C version of this plate has simply held up better and so its figures are more well-defined, as its ink on the whole is slightly clearer and less faded than that of the D version. Perhaps, then, the shape and detail of the illustrations were nearly identical, if not their coloring, when they came into being around 200 years ago.

However, this possibility does not overcome or undermine the distinctive experience and unique potential for interpretation that each version presents - and further, the experience of this plate is only available in two of the four copies of Milton. Within these two copies, the plates are sensually distinguishable in ways that impact their relationship to the text, and within the logic of Blake’s art, that change in sense is significant. The meaning of that significance will reside in the particular ideated interpretation brought to bear upon the object. In other words, these differences are significant to the extent that we do something with them, and this imperative follows from Blake’s control over the material process and presentation of the plate. I have not developed an interpretation so much as outlined a few possibilities, and already I have engaged repeatedly in dubious speculation. The fault may be my own, but I would suggest that interpretation cannot fully ground itself in the book, and this remainder of uncertainty functions as the purpose of Milton. Interpretation requires speculation; it will not find solid ground in the object unless it lacks the ambition to synthesize form and content, to seek holistic meaning.