Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 109 Today's Topics: Re: spam and advertising -Reply Re: innocence and Eternity Re: innocence and Eternity -Reply Re: innocence and Eternity -Reply Blake and Eternity ----- Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 08:56:34 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu Subject: Re: spam and advertising -Reply Message-Id: I should like to know more about Maxwell -Parish readings of the `spiritual' Blake, but in my own `spiritual' reading I gather from "The Book of Los" that Eternity is not all cherubs, sweetness and light. On the contrary, Blake infers that there is Envy (of the beauty of the visions of others, perhaps) , covet, fury and mutual incompatability, inter alia. To insist on placing all that refers to the political and social realms of the fallen world in a wider context in which Eternity is given its rightful place should only extend, not limit, the extent of Blake's implications. Thus, the sorrows evoked of the `Soldier' are, indeed, given wider dimension by Blake's implicit comparison of the Corporeal Wars of this World with the `Intellectual Wars' of Eternity, and the sorrows of the Chimney Sweeper certainly are not diminished by remembering that , in Eternity, there is incessant joy ... as intimated even in BLake's lovely design of an infant in a flower in "Infant Joy". I sense an underlying tone of antagonism and impatience with being `treated' to the `spiritual' view of Blake in Tom's posting. Please delete my posts without reading them if this displeases you, (in BLake's heavens, Eternals simply roll apart from those they find incompatible instead of mingling essences in Love) but I feel sad on Blake's behalf that one entire half - that referring to Innocence - is so elided as to be non-existent in criticism and should like to restore the balance. Pam ----- Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 11:28:44 -0500 (CDT) From: Suzanne Araas Vesely To: blakelist Subject: Re: innocence and Eternity Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Pam: I love what you said about innocence but I wish you and the others would change the "spam" label to read "innocence and Eternity." I've been automatically deleting all of that stuff labelled "spam" and here I find that it has gone off onto something commensurate with my interests. In my dissertation, which I have just successfully completed, the opening chapter had a section on innocence, observing that a simple numbers check of articles on the songs of innocence vs. the songs of experience shows that there is a great imbalance. I offered a theory that most critics are afraid of the songs of innocence, in which joy may be had for the asking--afraid of the demands these songs put on them, afraid of being crucified once again on the tree of experience, as I put it. And when there is fear, it is often hidden by truculence. Witness the list. Am trying to think of how innocence and Eternity fit together, not just in Blake but in the minds of other 18th c writers. Any suggestions for readings on Eternity are welcome. Right now I'm reading Paul Davies' 1996 *About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution,* which seems to be good but, I fear, may be reductive on the subject of pre-Newtonian Eternity. Davies seems very taken with Eliade. Thanks for any help with this fishing expedition, Suz ----- Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 10:35:21 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: innocence and Eternity -Reply Message-Id: Dear Suz, You put in words what I thought I was imagining re reluctance of many to engage with the evident joy in Blake's evocation of Innocence. so am delighted to find that you took this whole issue up. After our last communication, I was walking around my pool, cleaning it when I thought of how Eliot's time-kept city would fit in with your planned course, perhaps? I also remembered some lines in Henry IV where , I think Hal teases Falstaff in words something like `What the devil hast thou to do with time, unless she were a whore dressed in taffeta...' - probably this has no relevance at all to your aims, however. Donne on time in his love sonnets is another thought that crossed my mind - this would impinge on Eternity in that one little room becomes an everywhere, and the time-kept world becomes meaningless to the lovers. I suppose Wordsworth's `On Westminster Bridge' also impinges on the timeless moment and then what of Prospero's speech in which time devours all things, and his sonnets in which he claims eternity for his love? But most of these aren't 18th Century - stil they could help to make a point or two perhaps. Paml ----- Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 10:01:46 -0400 (EDT) From: "Avery F. Gaskins" To: Subject: Re: innocence and Eternity -Reply Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII See M.H. Abrams on "The Timeless Moment" in _Natural Supernaturalism_. In the paperback edition it's on pages 385-90. Also, Paul Ricour edited a book on _Time in Literature_, but I've lost the reference. I'll try to find it. Avery Gaskins ----- Date: Sat, 14 Sep 1996 08:38:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "Avery F. Gaskins" To: Subject: Blake and Eternity Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII I was a bit off in the title of the Ricour book. The full citation is: Paul Ricour. _Time and Narrative_. U of Chicago P, 1984. You should find it helpful in contextualizing Blake's views on eternity. Avery Gaskins