------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 10 Today's Topics: Re: Ackroyd Re: Telecommunications Bill (fwd) Re: Ackroyd Re: New Blake bio? Re: Ackroyd Re: Ackroyd Re: Titania and Bottom Re: Ackroyd New on the list Job Illustrations ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 15:08:57 -0800 From: sarahclayton@earthlink.net (Sarah Clayton) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Ackroyd Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >February 15th, 1996 > >Yesterday, Sarah Clayton wrote that Ackroyd's *Blake* (1995) >> ... is amusing. Especially for one who has only read critical works >> about Blake and has always sterred clear of biographies. Look, I steer clear of Biographies. I also steer clear of boasting about my affinites for the litereary canon, and I am not terribly interested in who has made the better career off of exhuming whom. I am simple minded, I admit it. I prefer Blake's criticisms of Reynolds to some half-baked scholars criticism of Blake anyday. Which is all to say that, no, I have not read G.E. BENTLEY. And I don't plan on ordering it from the publisher. I would not have purcvhased Ackroyd's book myself, I merely accepted it as a gift, from my simpleton parents who did not know any better than to buy it, thinking that it would please me. I have spent all of thirty minutes skimming the text, which seemed laden with psychologisms. The point about Blake attending the Academy was of interest, I had not known that, or heard that, because I do not read much that would offer that kind of information to me. No Gilchrist or Bentley or Smith. >As someone who occasionally not only reads critical works *and* >biographies, but also makes regular use of G.E. Bentley, Jr.'s *Blake >Records* (1969) and its *Supplement*, I do not find Ackroyd's mixture >of truisms, half-truths, and anecdotes with a J.T. Smith or a >Gilchrist tradition (not to speak of what I consider factual errors) >particularly amusing at all. Probably that's because I lack the right >kind of humour. > Well, I have no doubt that you are lacking in humor on this issue...I am sorry for that. Perhaps you are feeling a bit left out because your own disection of Blake's life was not Published in Merry Old...How do I know! Why should I care? I merely meant to offer as much as I could about the book at a glance...And apologize for not doing so in quite so tidy a manner as you have utilized in order to completely dissect my slapdash paragraph. >> ... When he [Ackroyd] goes into his 'litereary analysis" of Blake's >texts, he is at best a second rate John Berger. > >Now, I do kinda like John Berger's books and essays, especially *The >Success and Failure of Picasso*; but where did Berger (I mean John, >not Pierre) comment on Blake? Or is it merely a general stylistic >and/or intellectual resemblance between Peter A and John B that Sarah >Clayton had in mind? (And what about Ackroyd and John Beer?) Admittedly, I read Berger's Bio of Picasso and Berger is a likeable enough fellow for some. But the guy ultimately reduces Picasso's Prolific career by means of a swift post-freudian reduction to the failure of his penis to retain an erection. Well, Heidie-Heidie-Ho. What about the poor painters who never had an erection in the first place? what caused their fall from modernist rigor? Ah, the point is mute. I guess there aren't many modern female artists that Berger or maybe Doerrbecker want to biograph. I am really really tired of people who aren't artists...who don't breath turpentine on a regular basis or grind metal plates with rubbing compund untill their nails fall off...I am really tired of academician arguments that characterize these artists as 'others' whose neurosis was their only point of departure. Berger saves his arguemnet slightly by insisting that Picasso was a communist and that may be one reason he worked so prolifically... OH, Hell! Berger contradicts himself and seems really confused when he tries to find the reasons for picasso's success/failure. Ultimately the form is catering to an audience who find such things as creativity slightly disturbing from the outset...so why bother with biography? really. >> ... research is impressive, and the biographical information is >amazing. > >Amazing, that's right, but impressive? Is there anything in Ackroyd's >research that's both new and buttressed by the presentation of the >evidence which the author has been able to track down? Now, I was really being too nice here. Amazing. It is amazing to me that someone actually wrote a biography on Blake. No one I come in contact with in the halls of the Art Academy ever mentions Blake unless I force them to. People don't buy Blake at Crown or B Dalton's, do they? It amazes me that he wrote the thing...and one reason why Ackroyd's book could be fond in London and not in New York is due to the fact that the English probably care a lot more about their Dead Celebs than we do about their Dead Celebs. "Impressive" ...well, I guess not...but they guy fevered over this book. I am impressed by fevers. Even if they are chronic and morbid. >Any reader of Blake's annotations to the founding President's >*Discourses* (in a copy of the 2nd rev. edn. of SJR's *Works*, 3 >vols., ed. Malone, 1798) will be well aware that indeed WB had been a >student at >> ... the Royal Academy, even while Joshua Reynolds was its President. >> >> "..On 8 October of that year he was enrolled as 'Blake William - 21 >yrs > 28th last Novr. Engr.' and given an ivory ticket of admission >for a period > of six years. Although he paid no fees, he was asked >to provide his own > materials." >> >> Was this commonly known by all? I thought he had refused to be >schooled and > had only been an engraver's apprentice! > >For one thing, Sidney C. Hutchison, the RA's librarian, edited the >Academy's lists of its 18th- and 19-century students for the *Walpole >Society*'s 1960-1962 annual volume; this, I assume was Bentley's >source, and Bentley's compilation of the *Records* (here as >elsewhere) may well have been Ackroyd's in turn. To borrow Sarah >Clayton's own words, much of Ackroyd's `new' biography is >> ... rehash. Thanks for the info. This I can appreciate . So, what do you think? Did Hutchinson just merrily add Blake's name to the list for the Glory of Jolly England? > >For another, Sarah Clayton's phrasing, "o n l y ... an engraver's >apprentice", suggests that the hierarchy of artistic genres and >techniques which was established at the RA during the 18th century is >still very much alive in our minds. Wrong, my dear. I myself have trained as a printer. I respect the art highly. I only say 'only' with respect to the notion I had previoulsy held that Blake contemned all Academic schooling and would have been quite content to gain his education in the form of apprenticeship. Such training is in my mind more rigorous and certainly more humanizing considering that most Academies could care less in the end about how good an artist you were and were more concerned with churning out model citizens and socially assimilatable leaders of the arts... Same as it is today, more or less. Besides, As far as I know in the last three years I have spent at the academy, I am the only student to have borrowed my teacher's long-unused graver. Students make photo engravings, and my teacher complains frequently "nobody draws or knows how to draw anymore: But you can draw, Sarah" ... Which is to say, he likes my drawing and is particularly glad that I am engraving. I have always felt terribly like a sell-out for going back to school. I admit that I was primarily motivated by the loans. Blake was part of my bad conscience of trafficking with the Institute. But if what I have read in Ackroyd's rag is true, and Blake really did attend the Academy...there may be hope for my conscience yet. I just may survive the brainwashing intact: Ridiculous as it seems, claiming Blake as a role model instead of an object of study to be dissected just may be beneficial as imaginative excercise. >Instead of paying too much attention to Ackroyd's `New Blake bio' >then, I'd like to advise subscribers to the list to spend a few hours >at the local cinema--having seen Jim Jarmusch's *Dead Man*, where the >guns of `Willliam Blake' utter his `poetry', where the flower-girl >(named `Thel') Hmmm. Having heroes is pathetic enough, but having to borrow their entire language in order to tell a story is just plain depressing: Something Jarmusch is adept at doing to his audience. Sarah Clayton ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 19:09:00 -0600 (MDT) From: "Bruce Richardson" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Telecommunications Bill (fwd) Message-Id: <1F17F0796B@ACAD.CC.WHECN.EDU> Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 17:53:41 -0500 (EST) From: Gregory Warner To: Amy Lynne Fishkin Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Telecommunications Bill (fwd) Reply-to: blake@albion.com this defies words. even Blake's. sign it if it's important to you. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 00:14:34 +0000 From: Tropical*Fish To: yhhap-list@minerva.cis.yale.edu, ywc-list@minerva.cis.yale.edu, jkoslow@eagle.wesleyan.edu, golgia@aol.com, LKANNER@wellesley.edu, sarah.reed@yale.edu, isabel.omeara@yale.edu, Jeanne@minerva.cis.yale.edu, "Alison . Doernberg" , 99ewl@williams.edu, Rachael Knight , Melissa Lee Schwab , hallomh5@wfu.edu Subject: Telecommunications Bill >Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 20:19:52 -0400 >From: Poor Troubled-Boy >Subject: Telecommunications Bill >To: Sdvorin@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, Dlazier@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, > Cweir@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, Lkesner@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, > Lrosenblum@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, morpen@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, > eforester@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, elisabeth.jacobs@yale.edu, > Jfishman1@hampshire.edu, sze@husc.harvard.edu, > willard.norman@epamail.epa.gov, mwillar1@swarthmore.edu, > nkontos@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, jsanders@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU, > SJHIRAD@mecn.mass.edu, cattanucci@wellesley.edu, WHE_JATTAN@FLO.ORG >Reply-To: CWILLARD@MAIL.WESLEYAN.EDU >Organization: WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY >Mime-Version: 1.0 > >**I'm not one for forwards, but here's one you should check out. To >send it along, "quote" it or select and "copy" (cmd-c) and paste (cmd-v) >add your name etc.... Your email program may work differently. Hope you >all are well! >Love, >Chris > > As many of you may know, on February 1, 1996, both houses of congress >>>> >>>> passed a telecommunications bill that has made it illegal to discuss >>>> >>>> abortion anywhere on the internet. This includes newsgroups, web pages, >>>> >>>> ftp sites, gopher sites and *e-mails** of any kind. On Thursday, February >>>>8, >>>> >>>> President Clinton signed the bill into law. The law has gone into effect >>>> >>>> as of midnight, February 9. This makes this e-mail illegal and punishable >>>> >>>> by jail time or heavy fines. The federal government is abusing its power >>>> >>>> and its citizenry in gross violation of the Constitution. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> This e-mail can be used as a form of civil disobedience. Please sign your >>>> >>>> name on the list below, and forward it to as many people as possible. Once >>>> >>>> again, this e-mail is illegal, and a copy of every e-mail sent anywhere is >>>> >>>> also sent to the FCC. You can also change the signature on your e-mail (if >>>> >>>> you use Eudora or a similar program) to have some mention of the law and >>>> >>>> your opposition to it. Once you send this e-mail, you will have resisted >>>> >>>> the government's attempt to curtail your freedom of speech. If every >>>> >>>> fifteenth person sends a copy of this e-mail to President Clinton at >>>> >>>> president@whitehouse.gov, maybe we can get something done about this. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> __________________________________________ >>>> >>>> I object to the U.S. government's prohibition of any discussion of abortion > on the internet. > 1. Elizabeth Katz, student, Vassar College. > 2. Julienne Silverman, Vassar College > 3. Joanna Kalb, Cornell University > 4. Lucinda Schutzman, Shoreham-Wading River High School > 5. Kate Murnane, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University > 6. John Evans, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University > 7. Alexandra Hartman, University of Virginia > 8. Sherry Edwards, Christopher Newport University > 9. Moin Hussaini, Johns Hopkins University > 10. Thomas Jones, Johns Hopkins University >>>> 11. Steven Donnally, Johns Hopkins University > 12. Susanna Henighan, Oberlin College >>>> 13. Rachel Henighan, Swarthmore College >> 14. Jodi Sherman, Swarthmore College >> 15. Megin Charner, Swarthmore College > 16. Sonja Shield, Swarthmore College >> 17. Christopher Willard, Wesleyan University 18. Elisabeth Jacobs, Yale University >19. Gregory Warner, Yale University 20. Bruce A. Richardson, The University of Wyoming ****************************************************************** ... I wonder what you sound like when you're not wearing words... ****************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 23:05:26 -0600 From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Ackroyd Message-Id: <96021523052609@womenscol.stephens.edu> I wonder if Ms. Clayton could pause and figure out the real occasion of her anger and the real target of her astonishing vilification. Nothing Doerrbecker said, and I suspect nothing in Ackroyd's probably inoffensive book, could possibly account for the full force of her fury. Professor Doerrbecker has no need of my defense, of course, but his remarks, while sharp, were perfectly reasonable responses to Ms. Clayton's *first* posting. Perhaps she did not notice or intend it, but her remarks about the Ackroyd book were essentially positive and friendly, edging toward enthusiastic. Perhaps she has less control of writing than of drawing, but nothing in the original post would have suggested anything other than a slightly naive and upbeat reading, to which a distinguishe d Blake scholar might well take some exception, as he did. I would originally have responded merely to second Professor Johnson's suggestions about Gilchrist, but the followup has changed the terms of discourse. [And what was all that about Berger? I think I have read all his fiction and his critical works, including the book on Picasso, and nowhere have I seen anything fitting Ms. Clayton's description of his views.] What is the subtext here? Tom Dillingham (tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 10:30:38 -0400 (AST) From: Chantell L MacPhee To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: New Blake bio? Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I just thought I would say that Ackroyd's Blake Biography is located in Canadian bookstores because I saw a copy of it the other day. I suppose there must be a problem importing the book into the U.S. Chantelle MacPhee University of Prince Edward Island ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 13:58:10 -0500 From: CaroleM250@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Ackroyd Message-Id: <960216135810_324099269@mail06.mail.aol.com> In a message dated 96-02-15 21:05:06 EST, you write: >Ridiculous as it seems, claiming Blake as a role model instead of an object >of study to be dissected just may be beneficial as imaginative excercise. > > Yes, yes, yes! Sarah. I like your way of thinking. I too am more of an artist than anything else and appreciate Blake (and others ) from that perspective. Also the emotional perspective, i.e., he males me feel things. I can emotionally respond to his poetry and art. As far as I am concerned, that's what it's all about. Thanks for your fresh perspective. Carole Moran ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 14:21 EST From: "Elisa E. Beshero 814 862-8914" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Ackroyd Message-Id: <9602161923.AA10157@uu6.psi.com> I agree with Tom Dillingham that Sarah Clayton has gone much beyond an angry response to Professor Doerrbecker. One point she emphatically makes seriously disturbs me: " I am really really tired of people who aren't artists...who don't breath turpentine on a regular basis or grind metal plates with rubbing compund untill their nails fall off...I am really tired of academician arguments that characterize these artists as 'others' whose neurosis was their only point of departure." As a graduate student whose career goals and significant life decisions have been inspired by the works of William Blake and other writers and artists, I am troubled not only by Sarah Clayton's words here but also by the recent moves to discredit the work of English professors as invalid because they are not creative writers, but dare to pass judgment on works of creative writers. This attitude has, as we all know, substantially affected more English depts. than Bennington College: People don't understand the value of the work we do--and perhaps we don't fully understand its value ourselves. . . I am studying and working to become an English professor not only because I received high marks in English courses in college, but also because several of my English professors at Washington and Jefferson College became role models for me: I really admired and respected my professors' ability to encourage us to think critically about the world--to apply the works we were reading to our own perspectives, to value literature as a piece of living history that still has power move us and change us. . .(I know this is sounding like a kind of English Dept. National Anthem, but I'm trying to say that I'm _here_ because I feel that the work we do is valuable, something akin to Blake's "Mental Fight") Like Sarah, I have an ambivalent relationship with my parents who had a difficult time, at first, understanding how I could change my mind, after successfully completing all of my pre-med requirements, to apply to graduate in school in English. I have been confronted for several years now with very solid, convincing arguments that English is not as useful to people as the sciences, because the claims it makes can't be _proven_ or even justified because most of us don't have Sarah's artistic background. I have to agree with people like Sarah who have so convincingly pointed out the pretentiousness of some of our work. My verdict at this point is that evaluative claims about literature and biographies and criticism really need to be based on clearly defined standards, and that the most valuable work we do is not based on our _judgments_ of people's work, but the work that we feel so driven to do ourselves--Our hard, grueling work in archives, in front of microfiche scanners, to learn more about a writer, to attempt to contextualize his or her work with historical movements. --All our long nights spent thinking hard about an image or theme, about representations of women, about subjectivity and intentionality, pedagogy, the list could go on and on. . .with this common theme: We are nearly all of us on fire about some aspect of our work--we Blakeans maybe even more so than others. We need to think harder about convincing the rest of the world why what we do is so important. . . On fire, --Elisa ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 20:52:07 MET From: "DOERRBECKER D.W." To: sarahclayton@earthlink.net (Sarah Clayton), blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Titania and Bottom Message-Id: <67A63836C3@netwareserver.uni-trier.de> February 16th, 1996 Dear Sarah Clayton: I am terribly sorry that I have been such an "Ass" and have misinterpreted your comments on Peter Ackroyd's *Blake* completely. Of course, no harm was intended, and I hope you'll accept my apologies for having hurt your feelings about Blake, Ackroyd, Berger, your parents' generosity, Jarmusch's necromancy, and the art of engraving. Moreover, I was pleased to learn that you know how to handle the graver (certainly a rare achievement in these hypertext days), and that your professor likes your drawing, too. No doubt, I lack the right kind of humour for lots of things, but I do like arguments. Therefore, however, I do not object to your use of the "arrows of desire" in response to my "intellectual spears" at all. To supply a forum for Blake-related "intellectual warfare" (actually not one of my favourite Blakean similes) is one possible function, if not the *raison d'etre*, of the online list, isn't it? But to return to your original message for a minute or two: (1) Didn't you say that Ackroyd's "research is impressive", that the "biographical information" his book provides is "amazing"? And isn't it permissable if another reader (me, for one) does take objection to such a statement as long as she or he are prepared to indicate the reason(s) for such an opposed opinion? (2) Didn't you ask a question ("Was this commonly known by all?"), and didn't I offer an answer (i.e., that it may have been known to anyone acquainted with Blake's complete poetry and prose, whether in the Keynes or Erdman edition)? (3) In my comment on your "only ... an engraver's apprentice" I had hoped to draw attention to the hierarchical thinking about artistic genres and techniques which continues to inform much of the discourse in the social sub-system described as the "fine arts"; therefore, I wrote "very much alive in *our* minds" (emphasis added), not "... in Sarah Clayton's mind". (4) From your harsh reply to "DOERRBECKER's" unimaginative critique of your report on Ackroyd's new book, it seems clear that John Berger is *not* among your most cherished authors (and even DOERRBECKER only "kinda like[s]" Berger's publications). But in his literary analyses Ackroyd seemed "*at best* a second rate John Berger" to you (emphasis added). Does this imply that, after all, you think at least part of Ackroyd's book is worse than Berger's writings on art and literature, and that, in consequence, your and my own evaluation of the new biography's merits are not that far from each other in the end? Again, I did not reply to either your initial or this second message in order to hurt your feelings--and to make an "Ass" of myself. Furthermore, I thoroughly hope that Neil Young's wirey guitar playing did compensate some of the frustration you experienced when viewing the *Dead Man*. Sincerly, DW Doerrbecker P.S. It was easy enough to recognize your quotation from Ackroyd; why do you think I didn't? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 12:36:20 +1100 From: s_harkin@eduserv.its.unimelb.edu.au To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Ackroyd Message-Id: <199602170136.MAA01757@eduserv.its.unimelb.EDU.AU> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" One could even say the 'violence' of the post was unjustified. Experimentation with possible rhetorics is always good, but sheer assault is a widespread worry. Always worthy of wondering 'why'. >I wonder if Ms. Clayton could pause and figure out the real >occasion of her anger and the real target of her astonishing >vilification. Nothing Doerrbecker said, and I suspect nothing >in Ackroyd's probably inoffensive book, could possibly account >for the full force of her fury. Professor Doerrbecker has no >need of my defense, of course, but his remarks, while sharp, >were perfectly reasonable responses to Ms. Clayton's *first* >posting. Perhaps she did not notice or intend it, but her >remarks about the Ackroyd book were essentially positive and >friendly, edging toward enthusiastic. Perhaps she has less >control of writing than of drawing, but nothing in the >original post would have suggested anything other than a >slightly naive and upbeat reading, to which a distinguishe >d Blake scholar might well take some exception, as he did. >I would originally have responded merely to second Professor >Johnson's suggestions about Gilchrist, but the followup has >changed the terms of discourse. [And what was all that about >Berger? I think I have read all his fiction and his critical >works, including the book on Picasso, and nowhere have I >seen anything fitting Ms. Clayton's description of his views.] >What is the subtext here? >Tom Dillingham (tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu) > > > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 02:56:45 +0100 (MET) From: Joachim Flicker To: blake@albion.com Subject: New on the list Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello everybody, my name is Joachim Flicker. I'm living in Berlin and study for serveral years history of arts, philosophy and sanskrit. This year I'm going to make the MA in history of arts with a study on Blakes "Jerusalem". I was very interested when a friend told me that he has found this list dedicated to the work of Master Blake. I joined it now for a few weeks and think it's time now to say hello. Jo. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 19 Feb 1996 10:39:06 +0000 From: 9552274@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK To: blake@albion.com Subject: Job Illustrations Message-Id: <5F4ED25DB2@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Does anyone know where I can find a really good set of colour reproductions of Blake's Job - ie: one where the colours have not been distorted and do actually resemble the originals? Many thanks, Cathy. -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #10 *************************************