William Blake's work has been of academic interest for decades -- in part due to his tendency towards a fusion that had previously been the providence of an earlier world with his blending of word and image. Kelly Kelleway decidedly complexifies one of Blake's epic poems, The Book of Urizen, by showing the pertinence of information theory to the reading of the text. In this marriage of scientific theory and literary analysis, Kelleway helps imagine a new model of criticism, concerned with both the text and its meaning, as well as the retroactive application of "new" scientific models to historical works of art.

The Strange Attraction of Blake's Urizen [printable version]

Kelly Kelleway

<1> "Without Contraries is no Progression." With this simple statement in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake posited, in 1790, a process -- a Hegelian dialectic of sorts, if you will -- that has underscored much of his poetry and has revealed itself in his etchings and engravings. But what, exactly, this Blakean hypothesis means is open to debate. One way to explicate this notion is to look at it in terms of a process of reunification or "recursion" wherein one falls from the Blakean space of "Innocence" (or is dragged kicking and screaming) to the rather terrestrial sphere of "Experience," only to progress further on to some other position. This last is indeed vague, for within the Blakean text the recuperation is always merely an attempt, an implication, at least, that the Romantic condition may not be a forever unattainable goal [1].

<2> This implied recursion or progression might be read not only in such texts as Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, but also within several other Blake texts. Perhaps the most striking example can be found in The Book of Urizen. Blake's The Book of Urizen (1794) tells the story of an "Eternal" named Urizen, a Faustian figure who roils with unarticulated passions and "unquenchable burnings" in the beatific plenitude of Eternity until he is cast out by his fellow Eternals into the Void. Another Eternal, Los, goes after Urizen and attempts to subdue him in "fetters of iron." From Urizen's body a new world is formed, and, from Los's pity of Urizen, the first female is born, Enitharmon. Los and Enitharmon beget a man child, Orc, whose crying awakens the slumbering Urizen. Once awakened, Urizen begins frantic measurements, quantifying the earth into material existence. Urizen grows sickened by his creation and attempts to rein in its suffering with his "Net of Religion," which only leads to a stultifying and miserable existence for the earth and his children. Tired of the constriction of their senses and the attenuation of their passions, the "remaining sons of Urizen," led by Fuzon, leave the earth for a better place. Urizen leaves "Eternity" for the "Void," and there is, at least, a suggestion towards the end of the poem of a return to plenitude, a progression from what was initially the "Void" -- and eventually becomes a differentiated and debased materiality -- towards another level or space. However, this mere chain of events is not the primary point at which we may read the apparent Blakean recursive move. It is, rather, within the "Void" itself that a certain self-referential generative unfolding -- or recursion -- arises.

<3> Indeed, through an examination of the "Void" within The Book of Urizen, as seen through the lens of the field of contemporary complexity theory -- and information theory more specifically -- we may begin to apprehend the issues of recursion implicit within the poem. In The Book of Urizen, chaos -- or the "Void" -- undergoes a transformation from what may be defined as "classical" chaos (the chaos of John Milton and other pre-twentieth century writers and philosophers) to something akin to modern notions of complexity, dynamicism and "chaotics." The immediate connection between the "Void" and our conceptions of chaos may not be explicit to many readers. It is important to note that Blake's Void fulfills the requirements for both modern and classical notions of chaos, and it will be the object of this analysis to elucidate this relation. In terms of the Void's initial appearance in the poem, the chaos relation is quite clear. Philip Kuberski explains that, "Chaos signifies an 'infinite space,' and then, by association, a chasm or gulf -- personified by Hesiod, it is the original condition of everything" (37). He goes on to describe this notion of chaos as "that yawning abyss of formlessness from which all escaped" (37). The realm of Urizen -- the Void -- is quite literally a "gulf" at first. It is not until later on in the poem that Urizen and the space he has created become materialized and take on the more modern valences associated with chaos as a productive process; this shift in meaning will be examined in depth later on in this analysis. At any rate, it is in this (re)valuation of chaos that we may perceive the Blakean subject, the subject who, by virtue of passing from the position of Eternity (or innocence) to the Void (or experience) may progress on to a third phase -- Frye's "higher innocence." As we shall see, this transvaluation of chaos in the poem serves as an index to the possibility of hope and the progression potentially inherent in the constitution of subjectivity [2].

<4> In order to fully explicate The Book of Urizen in terms of its relation to concepts of chaos -- both modern and classical -- it may be beneficial first to understand a few basics of complexity or chaos theory and to define some the foundational terms. Chaos theory began as a scientific inquiry into the behavior of nonlinear or "complex" systems. It has been applied most intensively in fluid dynamics and other areas that seek to describe the behaviors of systems that, due to their extreme complexity and fluxional nature, are difficult to model accurately or predict. Most readers will be familiar with the axiomatic story of the butterfly that flaps its wings and thus affects weather patterns on the other side of the earth. This "butterfly effect" is a part of chaotics and has to do with the "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions characteristic" of the complex or chaotic systems investigated by N. Katherine Hayles in Chaos Bound (1990).

<5> Throughout her book, Hayles underscores the extreme unpredictability of the complex system. Because it can (and does) change from moment to moment, the complex system is termed "dynamic" and is hence "chaotic," rather than fixed or ordered (or static). Hayles explains that this dynamic disorder can -- in seeming paradox -- lead to order: "In chaos theory chaos may either lead to order, as it does with self-organizing systems, or in yin/yang fashion it may have deep structures of order encoded within it" (3). In other words, out of this changing, constantly deforming and reforming system, a new element is born; a new organizational pattern is brought forth. Importantly, Hayles also indicates here the other face of chaos, that of the "hidden" order within disorder. It is difficult to accept, but accurate to indicate, that this same dynamic system follows a pattern to a certain extent. It is not all over the map, so to speak, but rather its ceaseless (re)forming, while never exactly repeating itself, remains within certain bounds. Thus it can be said to contain a measure of "order." This does not, however, imply that the system can be totally described or predicted. The only thing that may be predicted with any certainty is that the functioning of the system will not take it off the conceptual map being used.

<6> Because the complex and chaotic system leads to something else, because it is productive in a semiological sense, we may understand chaos, then, as extreme information. Within the field of chaos theory, information theory has emerged as a foundational point of inquiry. As Hayles explains, "in both contemporary literature and science, chaos has been conceptualized as extremely complex information rather than an absence of order" (1). As she suggests, this shift in perception has been facilitated by a basic reevaluation of the relation between information and meaning. This shift is also exemplified in Urizen as the movement from the initial Void of Urizen to the chaos engendered by Urizen's attempts to create and organize. The transvaluation of chaos is forecast in the poem when Urizen is initially described as "the formless unmeasurable death," indicating an amorphous, undifferentiated and meaningless absence of order, who then progresses on to form "a line & a plummet / To divide the Abyss beneath" (20:33-34, E 80) [3]. Because a complex and chaotic message implies more, and more difference, we see that there can be more possible meanings within such a system. In Chaos: Making a New Science (1988), James Gleick explains, "as the system becomes chaotic...strictly by virtue of its unpredictability, it generates a steady stream of information" (260). Thus the dynamic system gives us more to look at, and therefore more to apprehend.

<7> We see that, especially in terms of information theory, many scholars in the Humanities have embraced these concepts. William Paulson, in "Literature, Complexity, Interdisciplinarity," asserts a homology between deconstruction and information theory: "deconstructive criticism has repeatedly shown that rhetoric is not in general reducible to grammar. Texts are thus communicatively imperfect, and this is what information theorists mean when they say that a channel is noisy" (43). It is the "noise" or chaos which supplies the new information -- provokes the reforming -- and thus allows texts to become, as Hayles calls them, "reservoirs of chaos" (180). There is thus a very tangible relation between chaos theory, especially in terms of its emphasis on information, and literary studies. Indeed, as Hayles argues, "because all texts are necessarily constructed through iteration (that is, through the incremental repetition of words in slightly displaced contexts), indeterminacy inheres in writing's very essence" (181). This "indeterminacy" is the hallmark of the chaotic system and, as we shall see, is applicable to The Book of Urizen not only as a text, but also to the systems of meaning and representation within that text.

<8> Chaos is depicted within The Book of Urizen as originating from the space created by Urizen as first the "Void." This is classical chaos; in a certain sense, this void exemplifies the concept of chaos from Blake's era. Before the advent of modern chaotics, chaos was deemed mere unorganized matter or, worse yet, an ultimate lack, a nothingness. Etymologically speaking, both the term and the idea of chaos indeed do signify a "void": "The primary meaning of the Greek word chaos is not disorder or confusion, but rather an opening or gap. Related to the verb chasko [open, yawn, gape], chaos signifies a void, an abyss, infinite space and darkness, unformed matter" [4]. Certainly, on the face of it, the "Void" in The Book of Urizen fills the requirements for such notions of classical chaos; it is both a "vacuum" and "dark," and the space wherein the materialized Urizen is "unorganiz'd" (6:8 E 74). In her Jungian-centered analysis, Christine Gallant acknowledges, "Blake's early conception of chaos seems close to the classical Greek one of the primeval Void from whose undifferentiated elements the cosmos was formed" (9). However, Blake's choice of the word "void" to describe Urizen's domain, instead of "chaos," serves to attenuate the space's classical allusion. The void is "unfathomable" -- the ultimate empty space -- and yet it is not, for it is described from its inception in terms of material reality. It is the space "Where nothing was, Nature's wide womb" (4:17 E 72). This nothingness, this void, is immediately characterized by its ability (or potential) to bring forth new matter, new life. Unlike classical chaos, this is not a space filled to the brim with "undifferentiated elements;" it is the zone of "nothing" from which will arise "something."

<9> This "something from nothing" function of chaos is a foundational characteristic of the dynamic -- or information producing -- system. The "something" which arises from nothing, the new life that springs from "Nature's wide womb," is information, and an observer must ascribe any meaning. As Hayles explains, this distinction is integral to the reevaluation of chaos: "The more chaotic a system is, the more information it produces. This perception is at the heart of the transvaluation of chaos, for it enables chaos to be conceived as an inexhaustible ocean of information rather than as a void signifying absence" (8). As we shall see, the "Void" in Urizen is more than just lack or negation; it is an enabling and necessary space that generates material reality. And although it seems this new material reality -- this new level of existence -- is cast in a negative valence, we can begin to apprehend the essentiality of this new level through the very fecundity of its ceaseless systemic differentiation.

<10> It is interesting to note that Urizen's production of difference has been noted before. In William Blake and the Language of Adam (1989), Robert Essick states, "The primal act in Urizen is the autotelic self-separation of the demiurge from his fellow 'Eternals.' This event immediately constitutes and is constituted by, difference as the fundamental ontological category." Essick adds that the "nature thereby generated bears the mark of its paternity, the continual replication of difference" (149). However, it is important to point out that, in these interpretations, it is a "replication" of difference, a divisory procedure that perpetually creates static distinctions or discrete categories whose difference from one another remains the same through each iteration. Essick calls this the "foolish mind reifying itself into a world" (229). In terms of difference in information theory and its use in this analysis, we will follow along the lines of Steven Shaviro who, in " 'Striving with Systems': Blake and the Politics of Difference" (1982), argues, "for Blake the infinite regress is an affirmative movement of difference, that which is always other than (rather than merely that which contradicts or undoes) the will to closure" (281). Shaviro explains that this "play of different perspectives is open and affirmative: they are juxtaposed so as to disrupt any project of stable hierarchization, and the movement between them is...one of accumulation, of positive expansion" (281). There is thus "no permanent or fixated structure of alienation, and no reification" (282). It is in this fashion that the differentiation practiced by Urizen and evidenced in his realm may be termed productive and dynamic.

<11> This dynamic generation of information is most apparent in Urizen when we examine Urizen's quest (or fall) in terms of information theory. Indeed, we may read Urizen as a message subject to a "noisy channel." In information theory, the object of scrutiny is in fact a process, a generation of information in one system that is then transmitted as a message to another system, which in turn receives that message "packet." The chaos inherent in this process arises through what happens to that message as it is generated and transmitted. If any additional information is added (remembering that information and meaning are distinct entities), what is received by the second system is thus more than what was generated in the first system. In information theory, this additional information is often termed "noise," hence the phenomenon of the noisy channel. It is important, in terms of the analysis of Urizen's journey/fall as message, that we also understand that the noise may occur upon the transmission of the message, while in transit, or upon reception. In the case of Urizen, we shall see that noise occurs at several distinct points along his journey. The effect of the noisy channel upon the message allows for the receiving system and/or the message itself to evolve or change, and it is one of the complex functioning of a system that keeps it dynamic. Eric Charles White, in "Negentropy, Noise, and Emancipatory Thought" (1991), calls this product of, or reaction to, the effect of the noisy channel "stochastic self-organization from chaos" which is another way of describing the "production of meaning from noise" (267). As we shall see, the systemic dynamicism resulting from Urizen's fall allows for new meaning. The consequence of Urizen's journey, when we examine it as message transmission, is not just more information, but a systemic reorganization resulting in the emergence and (re)transmission of another message -- Fuzon -- at the end of the poem.

<12> Messages are transmitted from system to system. In The Book of Urizen, there are two such discrete elements, "Eternity" and the "Void." For analytical purposes, these entities will be termed system A and system B, respectively. Urizen falls from Eternity, which is only really described, in an elliptical manner, in one passage in the poem. We are told that, before the fall, "The will of the Immortal expanded / Or contracted his all flexible senses. / Death was not, but eternal life sprung" (3:37-39 E 71). Although this passage may just as easily be ascribed to Urizen himself, it can also be taken as descriptive of the space of Eternity. It is fluxional and nondifferentiated; the sense may expand and contract without imposing division, and nothing is subject to the ultimate incongruity, death. In other words, Eternity, or system A, is characterized by plenitude and contiguity. There is the definite sense here that nothing changes in system A, that it cycles without perturbation or differentiation. That is, it did until the issuance of Urizen.

<13> The separation of Urizen in Eternity is the harbinger of chaos. Within system A, this partitioning of Urizen is the generation of information to be sent on as a message packet. At the beginning of the poem, we are informed by the future anterior narrative voice that Urizen arose in Eternity and became an entity unto himself: "Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon / Hath form'd this abominable void / This soul-shudd'ring vacuum?" (3:3-5 E 70). It is Urizen's differentiation, his marking-off, that sets him apart within the hitherto undifferentiated totality of Eternity. In the next verse paragraph, we learn that Urizen's mere presence is causing problems in Eternity: "Unseen, unknown! changes appeard / In his desolate mountains rifted furious / By the black winds of perturbation" (3:10-12 E 70). Apparently the qualities of chaos, "change" and "perturbation," have manifested or developed within Eternity through the presence of Urizen. In this way, Urizen may be seen as a locus of effect, an originary point of systemic perturbation known in chaotics as a strange attractor [5]. Indeed, in the following two sections, we learn of Urizen's further productivity. There are "shapes / Bred from his forsaken wilderness" (3:14-15 E 70) which materialize while Urizen himself is characterized by his inward-turning activities, his nourishment through self-contemplation. This generative spinning finally results in a space, still within Eternity, described as "the petrific abominable chaos" (3:26 E 71). It is very clear, at this point, that a distinct entity has arisen within Eternity, that a discrete element has been generated within system A and is ready for transmission. As Paulson explains, "What appears to be a perturbation in a given system turns out to be the intersection of a new system with the first" (44). In fact, Urizen will become his own system, as we shall see. His reception by an enabling space (system B or "that which is not Eternity") allows the "voidness" or chaos that defines him to establish itself as the second materialized realm.

<14> In order for the second realm -- the Void or system B -- to materialize, Urizen must separate from Eternity. The message must be transmitted, and, in other words, Urizen must successfully establish himself in an elsewhere. It is important that we note what makes up the initial message packet. Urizen is himself a part of Eternity. He relates that, before separating from Eternity, he "takes in" some of its elements: "First I fought with the fire; consum'd / Inwards, into a deep world within" (4:14-15 E 72). In this way, we see that it is a part of Eternity itself that is expelled; information from system A transmits to a second space. Within the poem, the "Departing; departing; departing" (5:8 E 73) from Eternity's borders signifies the message transmission. The message transmission/Urizenic expulsion is an implied process here; the present participle suggests an ongoing activity, or at least a lengthy procedure, which underscores the massiveness of the Urizenic "packet." System A is transmitting enough of itself to define another system, and such a "download," one would imagine, takes time.

<15> Once Urizen has been separated, the definition of system B can begin. The message of Urizen is "received," in this sense, when the world or area of Urizen begins to materialize. In the poem, this newly defined system is first described in bodily terms: "Like a human heart strugling & beating / The vast world of Urizen appear'd" (5:36-37 E 73). Clearly, at this point there is more occurring than just an "intersection of a new system" in this process; there is also the establishment of two distinct and coherent elements. Indeed, from this point forward in the poem, Eternity and the Void -- the Urizenic world -- are increasingly depicted as separate realms. In the next section, we learn that "Eternity stood wide apart" (5:41 E 73) from Urizen's new domain. Another denizen of Eternity, Los, feels the "anguish" of Urizen's separation: "Urizen was rent from his side; / And a fathomless void for his feet" (6:4-5 E 74). In this passage, we see that the new structural paradigm of Eternity and Urizen is characterized by distance; it is the fact that Urizen is now a discrete entity, his own system, which causes Los such distress.

<16> However, as noted previously, the process of message transmission is a drawn-out affair. The present-participial quality of this procedure is further underscored by the fact that the corruption of the Urizenic message -- the effect of the noisy channel -- occurs as Urizen is in the midst of establishing this now distinct second system or world. The effect of the noisy channel upon the Urizenic message is first signified in the poem when Urizen is described as "Unorganiz'd, rent from Eternity" (6:8 E 74). Apparently, at the first moment of message transmission, the organizational pattern of the message changes. This disordering -- characteristic of chaos -- is also the effect of or index to noise in the message channel. As Paulson explains, "Environmental noise in fact intercepts and confounds internal communication....Under the right circumstances, noise -- from whatever source -- can create complexity, can augment the total information of a system" (The Noise of Culture 73). Once Urizen is delimited and the second system has begun to take its materialized shape, he is again described in terms of chaos: "Los rouz'd his fires, affrighted / At the formless unmeasureable death" (7:8-9 E 74). Two significant features of the noisy channel are exemplified in this passage. Most apparently, Urizen is increasingly described in terms of his lack of organization or his chaotic materialized form. Additionally, since Urizen's new form is "unmeasureable," at least to Los, we may begin to apprehend the now explicit separation of meaning and information in the Urizenic message [6]. Since he has been subject to the effect of the noisy channel -- more pure information has been added to his message packet -- Urizen is more than he was, but he has also become unintelligible, most especially to an observer still subject to the boundaries of the originary system (Eternity).

<17> Indeed, describing the process of message transmission, Paulson explains that, within the combined system of A and B, the information received at B may be unintelligible or ambiguous due to the effect of the noisy channel. It is only when we consider "the point of view of an observer of the combined subsystems A and B" that we may perceive that the "system (A -- >B) contains potentially more information if B is an imperfect copy of A than if it is a perfect copy. The partial destruction of a transmitted message within one level of a hierarchy leads to increased variety in the message that this level in turn transmits to another part of the system" ("Literature" 40). Thus, for purposes of this analysis, it might be more correct to term Eternity and the Void as "subsystems" A and B, both elements of a yet larger structure. It is indeed apparent that, within this larger uber-system, the "chaoticization" of the Urizenic message has made it nearly unintelligible. Certainly, while still within the conceptual bounds of subsystem A or Eternity, Los cannot understand Urizen. His attempt to bind or constrict Urizen, now that Urizen is his own entity, only serves to further materialize Urizen and his world. In this way, Los may be seen unwittingly to help establish the Urizenic world, and thus he too may be categorized in terms of chaotics, in the sense of a phenomenon of the noisy channel. In other words, through his binding actions -- "Los beat on his fetters of iron" (10:28 E 75) -- Los adds information -- in the form of materialized existence -- to the Urizenic message, thus supporting and increasing the sheer size of the packet transmitted. Potentially, we may see Los then as chaos, or at least noise. However, it may be actually more precise to consider him as an additional information transmission, one which interacts with the first, thus causing a chaos effect.

<18> Los leaves subsystem A and enters fully into subsystem B in Chapter V. We see that the limits of Eternity "roll like a sea around him" (13:30 E 77), and that the "cold solitude & dark void / The Eternal Prophet and Urizen clos'd" (13:39-40 E 77). Since subsystem B is defined by Urizen, the fact that Los merges or enters into Urizen indicates that he also enters the Void. It is the ensuing interaction of Urizen and Los -- the merging and chaoticization of information -- that serves to develop and differentiate subsystem B. Indeed, if we are to consider Los (and his interaction with Urizen) as another transmission, one that confounds the Urizenic message to some extent, then Los is in fact "noise" in the channel. Paulson explains: "At a given level of the system there is transmission of information and generation of noise. The next level acts as an observer of the preceding one, and for this observer, the ambiguity resulting from noise in the first transmission of information becomes a source of new information, of added organizational complexity" (Noise 48). In the poem, subsystem B takes its materialized and differentiated structure through the interaction of Urizen and Los, and is thus the direct product of the noisy channel.

<19> Once within subsystem B -- the Void -- Los pities Urizen and binds him into a materialized bodily form. Division and differentiation characterize these actions in the poem. When Los views Urizen, he is subject to an emotional partitioning: "In anguish dividing and dividing / For pity divides the soul / In pangs eternity on eternity" (13:52-54 E 77). In the next section, we are told that, in the face of Urizen, Los "was divided" (15:1 E 78). In this sense, we see that the interaction of these two elements -- the garbled Urizenic message and the additional message packet of Los -- produces further "division" or separation or differentiation within subsystem B. This process, or effect, is entirely oppositional to the undifferentiated plenitude exemplified by subsystem A or Eternity, and this in itself may lead us to simply cast the division in the Void in a negative valence.

<20> If, however, we are to consider this apportionment in terms of chaos theory, then we must acknowledge its very immediate progressive effect. If, say, Los and Urizen did not interact, and there was no division within the Void, chaotics tells us that the system would be destined for eventual failure. In cases like this, Eric Charles White explains, "the system endlessly reiterates, endlessly ratifies itself. But such a system, however self-coherent or optimally efficient, is nevertheless doomed to entropic degradation" (267). Indeed, it is only through the inclusion of chaos -- or additional information -- that a system may differentiate and progress. In such cases, White explains, "matter may spontaneously organize itself into a more complex structure" (264). Apparently, then, when considered from a perspective provided by chaos theory, the interaction between Los and Urizen would necessarily by characterized in a positive manner, as essential for systemic differentiation and evolution. The question remains, however: is this particular valuation indicated in Blake's poem?

<21> If we examine the process of material division in the Void carefully, the answer is yes. First we must see that the plot events in the poem progress, from the entry of Los into the Void to the departure of Fuzon, in a motivated manner. In other words, the events leading up to Fuzon's creation and departure are like dominoes, one element generating or leading to the next. As we saw previously, upon entering the Void, Los sees Urizen and is moved to pity. His pity causes the creation of Enitharmon (18:1-15 E 78), with whom Los begets Orc (19:10-46 E 79). The cries of Orc awaken Urizen from his former stasis: "All things heard the voice of the child / And began to awake to life" (20:28-29 E 80). Thus awakened, Urizen is able to continue his work of material division: "He form'd a line and plummet / To divide the Abyss beneath" (20:33-34 E 80). Progressing in like manner, Urizen's world continues its materialized differentiation, each iteration becoming more and more chaotic: "And his world teemd vast enormities: / Frightening; faithless; fawning / Portions of life; similitudes / Of a foot, or a hand, or a head / Or a heart, or an eye; they swam, mischievous / Dread terrors! delighting in blood" (23:2-7 E 81). Although this passage explicitly indicates that such disordered materialized body parts are "terrors," we also know that from this process springs Fuzon. In the next section, we learn that "then Fuzon / Flam'd out! first begotten, last born" (23:17-18 E 81). In terms of chaotics, the Urizenic world is very much a complex and dynamic system at this point. The increasing systemic perturbation spawns an outpouring of materialized elements or new information. Gleick explains, "as the system becomes chaotic, strictly by virtue of its unpredictability, it generates a steady stream of information" (260). Although we see the necessity of each plot event in the poem following the next, this in no way implies its predictability. We do see, however, that it is only through the dividing action of Urizen (and Los upon seeing Urizen) that the Urizenic world -- subsystem B -- continues to differentiate and finally produce Fuzon. It is this final issuance of Fuzon that may allow us to recuperate Urizen's "descent" into material division. Once again, in terms of information theory, it is only through this progressive division that the system finally differentiates enough to (re)transmit the Urizenic message, this time as Fuzon.

<22> At the end of the poem, Fuzon assembles all the "children" of Urizen who have escaped the paralyzing effect of the "Net of Religion," and they leave Urizen's world, now termed "earth:" "So Fuzon call'd all together / The remaining children of Urizen: / And they left the pendulous earth" (28:19-21 E 83). Thus the action of the poem, considered in its entirety, leads to the formation and departure of Fuzon. In this sense, the "fall" of Urizen does not terminate in static and base materiality, but rather leads to a new space, a new level of existence. In terms of chaotics, we may then trace the path of the Urizenic message as it is transmitted by subsystem A, subjected to chaoticization, and received by subsystem B, which in turn goes through a process of differentiation wherein the message packet is further perturbed, to (re)produce the message -- as Fuzon -- and transmit it on to (presumably) yet another subsystem. This process of differentiation experienced by subsystem B is distinct from Urizen's initial act of self-differentiation within subsystem A (Eternity) only to the extent that the former can be seen as generative of a result similar to the latter. In other words, the dynamic differentiation experienced by subsystem B allows Fuzon's self-differentiation at the end of the poem. White describes this informational process as inherent in all interactions between dynamic systems: " 'Order' comes out of 'chaos,' then, through 'active matter's' capacity for 'self-organization.' Contradicting the general drift toward entropic degradation, a pocket of negentropy spontaneously appears" (264). In terms of White's model, it is quite clear that Fuzon is the "pocket of negentropy" that finally appears in the poem. His genesis and departure signal both a systemic productivity and an opposition to the "entropic degradation" the Urizenic world is experiencing due to the Net of Religion's stultifying effect.

<23> The traditional view of the Net of Religion -- as an attempt at complete organization and categorization -- is in keeping with current views on both entropy and negentropy. Philip Kuberski explains that entropy "means the increasing 'disorder' in a system, this disorder comes about by an incremental diffusion and balancing of energy which finally results in 'heat death,' a perfect distribution of energy so that no further interactions can occur" (39). Paulson further explains that in this entropic process in a material system "the molecules drift toward a maximally probable distribution....As the molecules are fully mixed, entropy tends toward its maximum; no more work can be obtained from the system because no more differences remain" (Noise 41). It is in this sense that another traditional view of the Net is, however, contradicted. Mollyanne Marks, in "Structure and Irony in Blake's Book of Urizen" (1975), states, "the effects of the Net on the inhabitants of this world imitate the previous descriptions of the creation (fall) of the world and of Los's 'organization' of Urizen into human form" (558). However, it is only through Urizen's self-differentiation and the ensuing interaction -- the chaoticization -- between Los and Urizen, resulting in further materialized differentiation, that the "message" of Fuzon may be passed on. Unlike these other two phenomena, the Net has no ultimately productive effect. It is also in keeping with chaos that the originary system -- the transmitting system or, in this case, subsystem B or "earth" -- succumbs to "entropic degradation" as a by-product of the production and passing on of the message. White explains that although "noise may destroy one system, this destruction permits the emergence of another, potentially more complex system in its place" (268). In The Book of Urizen, Fuzon arises from the apparent ashes of the "wither'd & deafen'd & cold" (28: 16 E 83) Urizenic Void/earth, and there is the suggestion, at least, that he progresses on to another space.

<24> It is in this sense -- Urizen as seen in terms of information theory -- that we may read both the transvaluation of chaos and that reappraisal's ensuing effect on the poem's meaning. Once we acknowledge chaos's eventual productive effect, both the chaos that is Urizen and the chaos that results from his actions, we may then read his "fall" as a sort of necessity, a Blakean bildungsroman. If Urizen did not fall, he would not have differentiated, and Fuzon would not have been born, and there would be no progression. The obvious argument against the positive valence implied here is that, before the fall, all was just fine, therefore there needed to be no progression in the first place. The only possible counter to this charge lies once again in an application of chaotics to the poem, in this case an examination of "recursive informational looping" in the interactions between Eternity and the Void. If we acknowledge the beneficial, productive, and integral effect of this looping process upon both subsystems, we may then finally see that neither subsystem would be able to approach its potential without the other.

<25> Informational feedback looping or "recursion" is a process that occurs within and among complex systems. In terms of information theory, this "looping" occurs when a series of subsystems transmit a message or information. To truly loop or recur, the message or information needs eventually to circulate back through the system toward its originary point. Hayles explains that, within a complex system, "the connective tissue holding the system together is the flow of information circulating through it" ("Complex" 6). In terms of The Book of Urizen as a complex system, we see this integral exchange of information between Eternity and the Void. If we go back and look at the systemic effects after Urizen's awakening, in terms of system dynamicism and recursive looping, we see that the now apparently entirely separate two subsystems in fact participate in an exchange of information which parallels the behavior of that particular formation known in chaotics modeling as the "Lorenz attractor."

<26> The Lorenz attractor (named after the scientist who first described it) exists in a place known as "phase space," which is itself scientific jargon for a complex graph of a dynamic system. This graph may have two or three or innumerable dimensions, according to the complexity of the system described. In addition, each point within a phase space diagram depicts a single moment of that complex system's functioning -- it is everything that system is doing at that moment only. As Gleick explains, "in phase space the complete state of knowledge about a dynamical system at a single instant in time collapses to a point. That point is the dynamic system -- at that instant. At the next instant, though, the system will have changed" (134). This is what Hayles terms a "snapshot" of the system. She goes on to explain that the phase space diagram "then shows how these snapshots change over time" ("Complex" 9). Thus the lines and curves apparent within a detailed phase space diagram, like the one depicting the Lorenz attractor, indicate a process that is occurring rather than a single end product.

<27> This diagrammed process may only exist due to the presence of a strange attractor. The double looping in the phase space diagram of the Lorenz attractor seems to indicate two such "points" which bend the lines into curves about them. Specifically describing the Lorenz attractor, Gleick explains that, "because the system never exactly repeats itself, the trajectory never intersects itself. Instead it loops around and around forever" (29). The two points in the system thus function as gravity wells of a sort, influencing the respective paths of information to constellate around them and switch, back and forth, weaving a pattern of ever-changing complexity that Hayles explains "always stay[s] within a certain volume" (Chaos Bound 149). Each strange attractor in the Lorenz formation, or "gravity" point, can be any sort of phenomenon. In information theory, the sending and receiving channels themselves can be considered strange attractors. Gleick notes "the channel transmitting the information upward is the strange attractor, magnifying the initial randomness" (261).

<28> It seems that, in The Book of Urizen, the subsystems of Eternity and the Void function as strange attractors. As we have seen, Eternity "transmits" the Urizenic message to the Void. In other words, the initial strange attractor casts out information that is picked up by another strange attractor. This information -- Urizen -- produces a systemic divisory effect, causing the second attractor to cast out its own information. Yet before the second subsystem's message transmission, before the formation of Fuzon and his departure, there is a rapid exchange of information and effect between the two attractors -- the two subsystems -- which indicates their formation as a mutually sustaining structure.

<29> Once Los enters the Void and is moved to pity Urizen, we learn that the other system -- Eternity -- has become aware of the goings-on in the Void. As a matter of fact, Los's production of Enitharmon causes a reaction in Eternity: "All Eternity shudderd at sight / Of the first female now separate" (18:9-10 E 78). Further, Eternity is swept by "wonder, awe, fear, astonishment" (18:13 E 78). With this exchange, we see evidence of the first "loop" of informational recursion within the poem. Eternity sends out Urizen, who constellates around his new attractor, and this new attractor -- or the Void -- "sends back" information to Eternity in the form of the sight of Enitharmon. The information of her existence provokes further systemic dynamicism in Eternity-that is, causes them to experience emotion -- and leads Eternity to take action: "They began to weave curtains of darkness / They erected large pillars round the Void / With golden hooks fastend in the pillars / With infinite labour the Eternals / A woof wove, and called it Science" (19:5-9 E 78). This weaving action indicates the second "loop" of information. The emotional reaction provoked by the Void in Eternity causes Eternity to send out the "curtains of darkness" to enshroud the Void. In this way, we see that the two systems engage in an exchange, a feedback loop of information and effect, which serves to further change or perturb each system. The exchange continues through an additional iteration: "Eternity shudder'd when they saw / Man begetting his likeness / On his own divided image" (19:14-16 E 79). This reception of discomforting information causes Eternity to respond in kind by closing the "tent" around the Void and provoking the (implied) discomfiture of Los who no longer "beheld Eternity" (20:2 E 80). There is thus, within this passage, yet a third implied loop of information exchange. All this transpires, we should remember, before the final iteration or loop, before the genesis and transmission of Fuzon. In this way, we see that, at least for a certain portion of the poem's action, the two subsystems of Eternity and the Void function as the twin strange attractors in a Lorenz attractor type formation, exchanging information and provoking further systemic effect in each other. In this light, the explicitly negative or harmful pall cast on Urizen's fall and material divisive actions is, to a certain extent, alleviated. The exchange loop between Eternity and the Void -- the material division and Eternity's horrified reaction -- is necessary because without the final closing of the tent between the two realms the continuance of the message would not be motivated. It is beneficial in the sense that, if the Void were somehow still connected to Eternity, if the schism was not completely distinguished, then there would be no aspiration to "higher" ideals, no Romantic condition at all. It is only through recognition of this lack (our fallen state) that the Blakean subject is spurred to act, that the visionary seeks what he is missing, that the poet unleashes the power of his imagination. The final tenuous link between the Void and Eternity is severed, setting in motion the drive to attain Frye's "higher innocence."

<30> The phenomenon of recursion in both chaotics and in The Book of Urizen is necessarily a continual process; it is what makes the system dynamic as opposed to static. As White explains, "The emergence of order out of chaos and meaning from noise is irresolvably ambiguous. As soon as order does come into being, there ensues a process of progressive elaboration as the new system strives toward maximum scope and power. Emancipatory innovations inaugurate disciplinary norms" (275). Urizen himself evidences the urge toward "disciplinary norms" in the poem. He continually strives to enforce a unique rigidity upon his surroundings and his subjects. Within his own realm, the increasing material differentiation and ensuing chaos cause him to lament the evident systemic inability to remain shackled to a unified and coherent identity: "he curs'd / Both sons & daughters; for he saw / That no flesh nor spirit could keep / His iron laws one moment" (23:23-26 E 81). Urizen's desire to control and ratify his realm, to underscore his constellated orbit of information, results in a tragic "rut" of sorts; identity is so deeply entrenched as to become a prison. Urizen casts his "Net of Religion" over his runaway realm and retards its protean differentiation: "No more could they rise at will / In the infinite void, but bound down / To earth by their narrowing perception / They lived a period of years" (25:45-47, 28:1 E 83). The implication of these passages is clear; if Urizen had not clamped down and thwarted any further systemic perturbation, then perhaps his realm would not have developed into the entropically degraded space of "earth." As White reminds us, "only as an 'open system,' open to perturbations from without that may provide a miraculous transformation, can life flourish" (266). Nevertheless there is the hope, at least at the end of the poem, that the (re)transmission of the Urizenic message -- Fuzon -- will result in yet another subsystem generation, yet another information loop, and the persistence of systemic dynamicism.

<31> Apparently then, regardless of the explicit content of The Book of Urizen, we may read the necessity, if not the beneficence, of chaotic phenomena -- material differentiation and complex dynamicism -- in the Blakean process. As we have seen, this process must remain a process for it to continue to manifest any positive characteristics. In this sense, the ubiquitous looping serpent in Blake's pictorial art may be the most apt trope for the concept of perpetual recursion and development. There are several preeminent examples, such as the serpent ridden by children at the end of The Book of Thel, the title page of Europe, and plate forty-six from Jerusalem. In each of these depictions, it is most important in terms of this analysis to focus on the fact that the serpent roils in such fashion that its coils never loop back upon themselves. In other words, the serpent "loops" in a manner evocative of the recursive interchange between strange attractors in the Lorenz model and the garnering, assimilating, retransmitting pattern of subsystems in information theory. Unlike the Jungian uroborous, this serpent is open to perturbation from without.

<32> Message transmission, noisy channels, the Lorenz attractor, information looping and looping serpents -- the final question we may pose is, characteristically, the most obvious: how do these concepts and parallels help in the understanding of the work of William Blake? We have seen that, once framed in the conceptual model of chaos theory, the fall and ensuing differentiation of Urizen and the Void may not be the one-dimensional tragedy so readily apparent in the text on an explicit level and in traditional, or even deconstructive, readings. If this is so, if the Blakean text concerns itself with questions of the development and progress of the individual, then we may come to see that what this poem ultimately depicts is the constitution of a subject, the formulation of an identity through a process. This Blakean constitutive process would thus involve an initial fall, recognition of position, and ensuing action. All of these points would necessarily remain process rather than product, for as we have seen, any flirtation with stasis leads to an apparently unrecoverable degradation. "O fortunate fall"? Perhaps. What is evident, however, is that if the fall or separation from this Eternity, this "Innocence," is not fortunate, is not ultimately even necessary, it is a founding event, an initiating incident that must be acknowledged. Once the Blakean subject moves from bemoaning his loss to using and experiencing his new position, only then may he begin the process of recursion and return to plenitude.

Notes

[1] Northrop Frye in Fearful Symmetry (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1947) most notably describes this process in Blake's work. Within the "fallen" world depicted in Blake's text, there is inherently a motivation toward progression and the attainment of something other than the limited and material space of earth. Frye notes that, within the Blakean text "the course of life in this world indicates that there is a higher world to attain to" (236). Frye locates the trace of this progressive impulse in "revolution" and ascribes it to the poetic imagination: "Revolution is the sign of apocalyptic yearnings, of an impulse to burst loose from this world altogether and get into a better one, a convulsive lunge forward of the imagination" (201). The goal of such yearnings in the space of "higher innocence," which within Blakean criticism is typically associated with characters other than Urizen. [^]

[2] Unlike Robert Essick, who in William Blake and the Language of Adam (Oxford: Clarendon P, 1989) terms Urizen Blake's "arch-villain" (215), it will be the aim of this analysis to cast Urizen in a proper Prometheus/Adonis mold using the technologies afforded by information theory and chaotics. [^]

[3] All Blake citations are from the revised edition of The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake edited by David V. Erdman (New York: Doubleday, 1988), and each will be referenced by plate and line number, followed by Erdman's page number (E). [^]

[4] I am indebted to Richard Caldwell's notation and translation of Hesiod's Theogony (Newburyport: Focus Information Group, 1987) for this telling definition. [^]

[5] In general, an attractor is a point in a mathematically representational diagram, which indicates information behavior in a system. As Gleick explains, the strange attractor is so named because it describes or indicates a changing system. Thus, "the complete state of knowledge about a dynamical system at a single instant in time collapses to a point" (134). These points then form a line that is subject to a "central fixed point [that] 'attracts' the orbits" (134). [^]

[6] The noise that induces chaos and enables the perception of this apparent separation between meaning and information may, in fact, have any number of sources. Paulson explains that noise is "anything that arrives as part of a message, but that was not part of the message when sent out....Noise may thus be the interruption of a signal, the pure and simple suppression of elements of a message...or it may be the introduction of elements that are purely random" (Culture 67). There is the suggestion, at least, within the poem, that Urizen and the noise may have the same source. In "Time, Eternity, and the Fall in The Book of Urizen" (Philological Quarterly 69,3 [Summer 1990]: 359-376), Otto points out that "Eternity is quite clearly able to incorporate error and, even more surprisingly, some kind of sequential and therefore temporal progression. If this were not so we would be at a loss to explain how any change, let alone 'horror,' could arise in Eternity" (360). Potentially, then, we may implicate Eternity itself as the source of multiple transmissions that interact and confound one another in the transmission channel. [^]

Works Cited

Blake, William. The Book of Urizen. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David V. Erdman. Newly Revised Edition. Doubleday: New York, 1988.

---. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David V. Erdman. Newly Revised Edition. Doubleday: New York, 1988.

Essick, Robert. William Blake and The Language of Adam. Oxford: Clarendon, 1989.

Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1947.

Gallant, Christine. Blake and the Assimilation of Chaos. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1978.

Gleick, James. Chaos: The Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1988.

Hayles, N. Katherine. Chaos Bound. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990.

---. "Introduction: Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science." Chaos and Order. Ed. N. Katherine Hayles. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1991. 1-33.

Kuberski, Philip. Chaosmos: Literature, Science, and Theory. Albany: SUNY, 1994.

Mann, Paul. "The Book of Urizen and the Horizon of the Book." Unnam'd Forms: Blake and Textuality. Ed. Nelson Hilton and Thomas A. Volger. Berkeley: U of California P, 1986. 49-68.

Marks, Mollyanne. "Structure and Irony in Blake's The Book of Urizen." Studies in English Literature 4 (1975): 519-590.

Otto, Peter. "Time, Eternity, and the Fall in The Book of Urizen." Philological Quarterly 3 (1990): 359-376.

Paulson, William. "Literature, Complexity, Interdisciplinarity." Chaos and Order. Ed. N. Katherine Hayles. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1991. 37-53.

---. The Noise of Culture: Literary Texts in a World of Information. Ithaca: Cornell, 1988.

Shaviro, Steven. "'Striving with Systems': Blake and the Politics of Difference." Boundary 2 (1982): 229-250.

White, Eric Charles. "Negentropy, Noise, and Emancipatory Thought." Chaos and Order. Ed. N. Katherine Hayles. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1991. 263-277.