It is easy to assert, as Los does in Jerusalem, that ‘Sexes must vanish & cease / To be when Albion arises from his dread repose’ (92:13–14, E252): quite another thing to live it, or sometimes even to desire it, especially in matters of sexual behaviour. The voice of the author/artist/narrator sounds equally authoritative in the preface and the commentary on the dramatic action, yet in the poem he introduces himself as someone overwhelmed by the Sexes: ‘The Male is a Furnace of beryll; the Female is a golden Loom; / I behold them and their rushing fires overwhelm my Soul / In Londons darkness’ (5:34–6, E148). Nevertheless, this voice says (‘Trembling’ as he labours), his goal is to waken the ‘Sleeping Humanity of Albion’, ‘To open the immortal Eyes / Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity / Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination’ (5:16, 30, 18–20, E147). Blake's method in Jerusalem is to construct and reconstruct the identities of his characters, their relationships (personal, social, political or religious) and their practices. His aim is to demonstrate in hundreds of ways how regeneration of the sexes into ‘Human Forms’ (J 99:1, E258) is possible and where and how it fails, but also to invite his audience to engage in this effort of regenerating our selves.