Leutha

Leutha is a female character appearing in the mythology of William Blake. According to S. Foster Damon, A Blake Dictionary, she stands for 'sex under law'.

Incidence

Leutha is mentioned in

• Visions of the Daughters of Albion
• Europe a Prophecy
• America a Prophecy
• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
• Milton
• Vala, or The Four Zoas
• Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion

Relationships

She is the Emanation of Bromion. She occurs in a pair with the male Antamon.

In Milton

But when Leutha (a Daughter of Beulah) beheld Satans condemnation

She down descended into the midst of the Great Solemn Assembly

"Offering herself a Ransom for Satan, taking on her, his Sin."

Whence the interpretation commonly given as guilt, and in particularly sexual guilt.

Locality

In Jerusalem, Leutha is associated with the Isle of Dogs:

He came down from Highgate thro' Hackney & Holloway towards London

Till he came to old Stratford, & thence to Stepney & the Isle

Of Leutha's Dogs, thence thro' the narrows of the River's side,

And saw every minute particular, the jewels of Albion, running down

The kennels of the streets and lanes as if they were abhorr'd

Every Universal Form was become barren mountains of moral

Virtue, and every Minute Particular harden'd into grains of sand

And all the tendernesses of the soul cast forth as filth and mire.

Name

The homophone relationship to Martin Luther has often been pointed out. Angela Esterhammer (Blake and Language p. 73, in William Blake Studies (2006), edited by Nicholas M. Williams) writes

'Blake's Leutha represents 'Protestant speech' — an association achieved partly through the pun on 'Luther', but mainly through her own verbal behaviours in Blake's prophetic poems, where she manifests 'Protestant' modes of speech such as public self-scrutiny, self-exaggeration, confession, and plain-spokenness.