SAMUEL PALMER AND THE PASTORAL VISION

摘要

In one of his minor works, the preface to Milton: a Poem (1804-10), the English pool and artist William Blake (1757-1827) created a vivid contrast between the England of the Industrial Revolution, exemplified by the 'dark Satanic Mills', and the England of the Second Coming of Christ, a land of'mountains green', 'pleasant pastures', and 'clouded hills': I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand: Till we have built Jerusalem, In England's green & pleasant Land. Despite these visions of a 'green and pleasant land', landscape played only a minor role in Blake's own pictures. It was left to his most eminent disciple, Samuel Palmer (1805-81), to illustrate Blake's ideal.