Nature as a Flexible Device in "Visions of the Daughters of Albion"

Descriptive analogies involving animals, landscapes and the elements are staple devices in romantic literature, but rarely to the extent of Blake’s “Visions of the Daughters of Albion.” In the long monologues found here, there are lengthy repetitive tracts of various combinations of these nature comparisons, used both as poetic ornaments, and as tools to adduce the points the characters are making. Their relentlessness in this piece is very noticeable, as many will be stacked up in tandem and in parallel structure to support a single point.

These metaphors are very mutable in their intent. They are used menacingly, beseechingly, to describe emotional breakdowns and dramatic situations, and to persuade. The range of topics treated by these nature references is especially broad, which is jarring for the reader, because often in romantic poetry these descriptors will be used for more or less the same purpose throughout the poem, if not repeatedly for a specific point within it. In some poems, nature is a torrential, personified enemy, in some poems it is a wiser embodiment of consciousness alluded for sage counsel, in some poems, it is a means of painting a more dramatic picture of love or oppression. In this poem, the natural world becomes the instrument of whichever character chooses to wield it, and is applied to all of these uses in one part or another.

The first major example is simultaneously an amplification of scale and a euphemism, as it is applied to the rape of Oothoon by Bromion- “Bromion rent her with his thunders on his stormy bed.” Early on it is established that the natural world is going to play a striking and at times upsetting role in the poem. Immediately following this, these disturbing euphemisms are used as possessive threats, as Bromion says to Oothoon “thy soft American plains are mine, and mine they north and south”.

Oothoon then exercises these natural world comparisons in a completely different way; to lament at her lack of control over the situation and her nature, using multiple examples to emphasize the ubiquity of her point; “With what sense is it that the chicken shuns the ravenous hawk/ With what sense does the tame pigeon measure out the expanse?/ With what sense does the bee form cells?”

Oothoon recites another one of these long strings of citations of nature when referring to the variety of viewpoints that can be tied to the same event; “Does not the eagle scorn the earth and despise the treasures beneath?/ But the mole knoweth what is there, and the worm shall tell it thee.”

There are many other examples- they pervade the work. It is possible that Blake added these as a means of enhancing the mythic quality of the narrative, because it expands the story to something of epic and universal proportions. To this reader, it creates a sense of confusion, despite Blake’s strong feelings regarding sex and relationships. Oothoon makes very powerful sentiments with nature as her ally in expressing them. But if the grand and natural world can be called upon by rapists, it lessens the security that can be gained from a reliance on those forces, and induces unrest in the audience of this story.