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In summary, it seems clear to me that The Four Zoas is regarded by the majority of critics as an unfinished work constructed largely by Blake's intuition. Such unity as can be found operates in terms of the psychological principles of the dream rather than in terms of Blake's conscious craftsmanship. Constructed by an intuitive creative process, the work is thought to lie outside of normal literary con­ventions and, while containing thematic or symbolic patterns, is generally regarded to be a visionary rather than a mythic expression.

By contrast, a minority of critics hold the view that Blake did construct a mythic frame which gives the poem a teleological movement, but find the poem's structure to be arbitrary* It seems to me that this is because no critic has satisfactorily outlined the linear sequence of the work from the beginning to its end, and thereby related the parts of the poem to the whole. -

In the interests of Blake scholarship, this dissertation aims to present a comprehensive textual criticism and critical commentary which will show, I hope, the degree of Blake's conscious craftsmanship and the consistency and meaning of the work as a whole. To demonstrate this I have chosen to provide virtually a line by line analysis of the poem, a feature of my methodology which accounts for the length of the dissertation and which, I feel, makes an original contribution to a rich critical tradition.