Delusions

[Erthona]

I'm not sure you can call a lot of those allusions as they are so cryptic. I think I am familiar with all of the references except for "whim" being attributable to Emerson's dead son, and "the godless slate" (if you are spelling that correctly and it is a little "g" I'm not sure how that relates to big "G" God). I think it's an incredible stretch to say a single word "whim" relates to anything, despite your explanation. I say this only to point out that I think it is a bit much to ask your readers to be able to make such connections. I'm all for allusions, but I just don't see the point of being so obscure that the reader will not recognize them. At the least, I would footnote the connections. I have in the past made a number of references to Blake's poems, especially "Milton" and "The Four Zoas", but I always footnote them as I generally wouldn't expect most to make the connection, except maybe Erdman, or Bloom, who were the Editor, and Commentator of one of my favorite Blake text. If I were to allude to the "container of Tharmas", I doubt most would make a connection with it. Yep, I just did a search on that and I found as many beneficial answers as I did when I searched "the godless slate", which is to say, none. I think you can get away with an obscure reference here and there, but the entire poem can't be based on them, not if a writer expects his readers to understand what he is writing.

That's my two-cents,

Dale