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2 - The Last Strumpet: Harlotry and Hermaphroditism in Blake's Rahab

G. A. Rosso
Affiliation:
Southern Connecticut State University
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Summary

Rahab, the complete body of Mystery which is also the sign of apocalypse: what the author of Finnegans Wake might have called the Last Strumpet or the Great Whorn.

– Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry (1947)

It is this larger issue of authority and subversion that the hermaphrodite comes to exemplify. Not merely an image of sexual confusion … the hermaphrodite becomes an image of social disorder and civil strife.

– Kathleen Long, Hermaphrodites in Renaissance Europe (2006)

Rahab is a powerful and largely malignant figure in Blake's epic prophecies. She makes her debut in the major revisions that transform Vala into The Four Zoas (1797–c. 1807), turning the nature goddess Vala into the female aspect of a hermaphroditic creature that Blake identifies with the Babylon harlot in John's Apocalypse. Although Rahab occupies a distinct role and develops a unique character in The Four Zoas, she retains a number of symbolic features in Milton and Jerusalem: she is named Mystery Babylon, she plays the harlot with the kings of the earth, she wields the cup of religion, and she crucifies the Lamb of God. Also, in each epic she represents the alliance of religion and empire which Blake symbolizes as a harlot and dragon and encodes in the phrase ‘Religion hid in War’ (M 37:43, E138; J 75:20, 89:53, E231, 249). Emerging alongside the more conventional figures of Satan, the Lamb of God and Jerusalem, Rahab is not just crucial to Blake's later symbolism but arguably his most original creation.

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Publisher: Pickering & Chatto
First published in: 2014

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