Using the idea of a "flexible design," John Pierce examines the ways in which Blake's mythology and his poem possess a flexibility that allows for significant change to characters, symbols, and poetic techniques within a previously constructed framework. Pierce traces how, in the process of revision, Blake experimented with characterization, increased the importance of Christian symbolism, and developed a mode of narrative presentation controlled less by chronological sequence than by the use of thematic juxtaposition and typology.

Flexible Design: Revisionary Poetics in Blake's Vala or The Four Zoas

Literature & Fiction

Pierce, John B.

History & Criticism

Queen's School of Policy Studies

Like most people in the main line Christian tradition, I am a matter of fact disciple of Jesus. We are accustomed to God dealing with us in ordinary predictable ways. We are used to God going about the business of the world in an orderly fashion. But sometimes our rationality is not prepared for mystery, even miracle in our modern times. Yet, we find these throughout the scriptures in God's dealing with people of old. So, when God speaks to people like me in the language of mystery, dream and sign even though operating with a rational mind, we are forced to take a deeper look at a Reality that is bigger than our rationality. God still calls to us, for there is a hunger in all for the "numinous", the spiritual, the extraordinary in the ordinary which transcends the space, time, material box. This writing is the story of a discovery that I never "dreamed" of making. In trying to escape this "call" I unintentionally became like the prophet Jonah of old — trying to runaway from the voice that called me.

Giving Jonah a Sign: Journeying into Faith, Dreams and Spirituality in a Scientific Age

Biographies & Memoirs

Leaders & Notable People

Trafford on Demand Pub

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Books by Pierce, John B.