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.

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"Pierce has created a landmark contribution that will be essential reading for anyone who wishes to make sense of one of English literature's notoriously difficult works. He has grasped far more profoundly than any other reader the material history of the manuscript and the inescapable, determining consequences of that history for our reading of the text as a whole. Others have realized bits and pieces of this picture but no one comes anywhere close to Pierce in being able to stand back and make sense of the narrative shifts and inconsistencies created by constant addition to the manuscript. He has a remarkable command of the various complications and an enviable ability to present them lucidly. The scholarship is exemplary and the style engaging and clear." Nelson Hilton, Department of English, University of Georgia