Visions
of the Daughters of Albion Frontispiece Copy
D (c.1795) Gift of Roger Amory, © Houghton Library,
Harvard University, Dept of Printing and Graphic
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Personification of Free Love Frustrated
This picture is the frontispiece of Visions of the
Daughters of Albion. It shows (from right
to left) Bromion, Oothoon and Theotormon.
Bromion (whose name means 'roar' or 'inarticulate sound'
in Greek) has raped Oothoon, but they are now
bound back to back. Oothoon, the 'soft soul of
America', represents both the innocent sexuality
of the 'savage', and the political freedom of
North America. She is in love with Theotormon
who returns her love, but is unable to act, considering
her polluted. In the picture he is literally wreathing
himself into knots of indecision. His name derives
from 'theo' (god) and 'torment' or 'torah' (Hebrew
law), and he represents man tortured by the restrictions
of conventional Judeo-Christian morality.
In this poem the Daughters of Albion are a species
of chorus who do little more than 'weep' and 'sigh
towards America'. They represent monarchy-oppressed
Britain's yearning for liberty.
The doomed love scenario of Oothoon and Theotormon
may derive from a book that Blake was illustrating
at this time, about the adventures of an English
captain who had experienced an ill-fated passion
for a slave
in the South American colony of Dutch Guiana.
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