The Explication of Plates 39 through 41 of Blake's Jerusalem.
             Of the three plates I was assigned, plate 39, I feel, has the most content. The beginning of plate 39 shows how Albion wishes to gain acceptance. However, Albion was "surround(ed) with kindest violence to bear him back". (ln. 2) This was done, as we see in line three, "Against his will". So these two lines show that one cannot get to Eden through will, but through imagination. This is later backed by line 17, where "Will must not be bended but in the day of Divine".
             Lines 21 through 37 show the cruelty of man in this form. For that man becomes a "Sexual Machine: an Aged Virgin". (ln. 25) What this says is that man and women use sex as a weapon, a means, of controlling. In Eden, sex is love. Yet in Ulro, is lust. This lust is breed through "uncircumcised vegetation" (ln 24) The mentioning of "Erin's land toward the north" in line 26 is meant to signify Ireland. On the very next line (27), we learn they follow a false religion. Thus Los is given power, like the prophet Elijah.
             Plates 40 and 41 have given me more of a problem to explicate, and thus I turn to book support. According to Damon's Blake Dictionary, Plates 40 and 41 are tied in with the death of Shelly. Line 1-2 of plate 40 shows "Bath, the healing City, whose wisdom in midst of poetic fervor: mild spoke thro' the Western Porch, in soft gentle tears". This show Shelly being sick, and Blake sympathizing about it. In line 16, Blake asks "O Lord descend and save", for that he does not want to lose his friend. His last hope is by healing Albion with Oxford's (Shelly) help by using the "leaves of the Tree of Life". (ln. 30) However, as we find out in Plate 41, it does not work.
             Plate 41 only yielded two pieces of significant information to me. The first piece, was the death of ...