Milton: A Poem in Two Books "Jerusalem". The poem appears after a prose attack on the influence of Greek and Roman culture, which is unfavourably contrasted with "the Sublime of the Bible". The poem is divided into two "books". Book I opens with an epic invocation to the muses, drawing on the classical models of Homer and Virgil, which were also used by John Milton in "Paradise Lost". However, Blake describes inspiration in bodily terms, vitalising the nerves of his arm. Blake goes on to describe the activities of Los, one of his mythological characters, who creates a complex universe from within which other Blakean characters
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs (1876) is an epic poem of over 10,000 lines by William Morris that tells the tragic story, drawn from the Volsunga Saga and the Elder Edda, of the Norse hero Sigmund, his son Sigurd (the equivalent of Siegfried in the "Nibelungenlied" and Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelung") and Sigurd's wife Gudrun. It sprang from a fascination with the Volsung legend that extended back twenty years to the author's youth, and had already resulted in several other