Millenarianism and the Study of Romanticism

Abstract

Blake’s lines from the second decade of the nineteenth century remind us that millenarianism did not die in 1795 with the confinement of Richard Brothers in a madhouse. Deep into the nineteenth century, large numbers of Britons continued to expect the imminent arrival of the New Jerusalem, the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth predicted in the Bible: “the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call” (Joel 2:28-32).

I give you the end of a golden string Only wind it into a ball: It will lead you in at Heavens gate, Built in Jerusalems wall.

(Jerusalem, Plate 77; Erdman, p. 231)