How does William Blake connect Los with imagination in his prophetic works?

In the prophetic works of William Blake, Los is explicitly identified as the embodiment of the human imagination. Within Blake’s complex mythology, Los serves as the primary antagonist to Urizen, the godlike figure who represents restrictive reason, law, and the "tyrant" of a finite, material world.12

Blake portrays the struggle between these two forces as central to the human experience. While Urizen attempts to confine existence within rigid, mathematical structures—symbolized by his use of compasses to define the universe—Los acts to counter this tyranny. In works such as Europe, a Prophecy, Los opposes the God of reason, and in his later, expansive prophecies like Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion, Los represents the creative power necessary to prevent enslavement to the systems of others.21

Ultimately, Blake connects Los to the "Human Imagination" as a divine, eternal faculty. He views the exercise of this imagination as a "great task" intended to open the "immortal Eyes" of humanity, allowing individuals to perceive the infinite worlds of thought rather than being trapped by the "mind-forg'd manacles" of a purely rationalistic society.1