Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 111 Today's Topics: remove from list--Treah Caldwell (tcaldwell@agnes.agnesscott.edu hello all Thank you! New arrival Re: hello all Re: New arrival Re: New arrival Re: New arrival Re: New arrival Re: New arrival Please delete me Re: Other conversation forums Re: Other conversation forums Blake's versification other lists Re: Blake's versification Re: Blake's versification Re: Blake's versification Re: Blake's versification Re: Blake's versification Re: Blake's versification Re: Blake's versification Blake list change: replies go to sender only ----- Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 03:58:09 EST From: To: blake@albion.com Subject: remove from list--Treah Caldwell (tcaldwell@agnes.agnesscott.edu Message-Id: <3429920E13@Agnes.ScottLAN.Edu> ----- Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 19:26:55 -0500 (EST) From: WC449298@HOPE.CIT.HOPE.EDU To: blake@albion.com Subject: hello all Message-Id: <01I9SGW6KWE08X26Y7@HOPE.CIT.HOPE.EDU> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Hello all, my name is Chris Wells and I've been a big Blake fan for about 2 or 3 years now. I am a junior at Hope College, and became interested in Blake through doing a project which eventually turned into a lecture in my senior high school English class. There are some issues surrounding Blake that I'm not clear on, and lots of stuff I either haven't read or understood, so I'm hoping this list will help. Right now I'm trying to understand to what extent and how Jakob Boehme influenced Blake. Also, how many people on the list would classify Blake as a sort of gnostic, as Harold Bloom does? I'm torn, since Blake did not think nature was anything but a "carcass", to use gnostic terminology, but he also thought that the body was that portion of our soul which can be discerned by our five senses, and not separate from our soul. His view of sex and sensual pleasure also does not seem very anti-material to me, nor dualistic, and gnosticism is both. Any opinions? ----- Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 21:02:12 -0400 From: FERgriffin@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Thank you! Message-Id: <960922210212_108169005@emout06.mail.aol.com> Hello. I'm just using this site to thank everyone who sent me information about other web sites b/c it's a whole lot easier than writing individual messages. So, thank you everyone. Your help was much appreciated! Rebecca Griffin ----- Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 21:49:08 EDT From: "PETERSON MATTHEW JOHN" To: blake@albion.com Subject: New arrival Message-Id: <1B8D5B372DC@rocknroll.umcs.maine.edu> Listmembers-- I'm brand new to the list. I'm a first-year undergraduate student at the University of Maine. I began reading Blake as a junior in high school. My experience has been somewhat limited to_ The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_however, I'm looking to broaden my horizons through the list. Has anyone read Blake's new biography? I was curious, is there any evidence linking Blake to any drug/alcohol use, similiar to that of the other rebel par excellence, Rimbaud? What would be the best approach for a relatively new comer to Blake? Most anxious to get involved, Matthew Peterson University of Maine PETERS28@ROCKNROLL.UMCS.MAINE.EDU ----- Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 09:11:59 -0500 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: WC449298@HOPE.CIT.HOPE.EDU Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: hello all Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Welcome, Chris! You've jumped into a perennial controversy here over the extent of Blake's "gnosticism." Personally, I find him too materialist to be gnostic, but late in his career he certainly seems to divide the "spiritual" from the "mortal" body more emphatically (see some of the prefaces to _Jerusalem_, for instance). Maybe the difficulty is that his idea of the "spiritual body" is as physical in its own way as the "mortal body," it just doesn't die. In any case, I'm sure you'll get a flurry of (contradictory and bewildering) responses on this one. Jennifer Michael ----- Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 12:29:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "C. S. Beauvais" To: PETERSON MATTHEW JOHN Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: New arrival Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To all new (and old) members, If any of you have only experienced some of Blake's work, you are invited to expand your knowledge of Blake by visiting my site (URL below) which contains many (hopefully all someday) of his works (text and art). Thank you, .chip ---|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|----------|---------|--- -4-|---------|---------|---------|---p-p---|---------|----------|---------|--- ---|-p-------|-p-p-p---|---------|-p-------|-p-------|-p-p-p-p--|-----p---|--- -4-|---p---p-|---------|-p-p-p---|---------|---p---p-|----------|-p-p---p-|--- ---|-----p---|---------|---------|---------|-----p---|----------|---------|-o- .chip URL's HOMEPAGE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/ BLAKE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/blake/timeline.html ARTS & TECH>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/north/at201/test.html ----- Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 21:08:14 -0400 From: DrZZ113@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: New arrival Message-Id: <960923210814_109164234@emout09.mail.aol.com> Hello people. I respect Blake and find him interesting. But what can he really teach us?? I find that he is just too pesimistic on life. If everyone were scholars of Blake, would the world really be a better place?? I dont think so. Though you may be surprised, I find him similar to Nietzche, put aside his avowed athiesm. Please teach me to appreciate him, someone. ----- Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:15:54 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michelle L. Gompf" To: DrZZ113@aol.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: New arrival Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 23 Sep 1996 DrZZ113@aol.com wrote: > Hello people. I respect Blake and find him interesting. But what can he > really teach us?? I find that he is just too pesimistic on life. If > everyone were scholars of Blake, would the world really be a better place?? Blake pessimistic on life? I never thought about him that way. I do believe he is pessimistic about the kind constrained "chartered" life one leads if locked within their senses, but once freed from others constraints, free to live your life according to your own rules, own system, you can see the connection between all life...after all "Everything that lives is holy" Michelle ----- Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 13:58:02 -0500 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: New arrival Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Hello people. I respect Blake and find him interesting. But what can he >really teach us?? I find that he is just too pesimistic on life. If >everyone were scholars of Blake, would the world really be a better place?? > I dont think so. Heaven forbid everyone should be scholars, period. There are already too few academic jobs. Blake does say in his preface to _Milton_, "Would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets." By that, I think he means not that they should all read Blake, but that they should all be open to the divine inspiration within them, through which they can apprehend and create unity from this fragmented world. I do find "The Mental Traveller" pessimistic, but even that has "something to teach us" in the way that the cyclical relationship between youth and age, male and female, humanity and nature, constantly repeats itself. Jennifer Michael ----- Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 16:53:21 -0500 (EST) From: WC449298@HOPE.CIT.HOPE.EDU To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: New arrival Message-Id: <01I9V3YUS44I8X367J@HOPE.CIT.HOPE.EDU> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I also find Blake similar to Nietzsche, but I also find striking differences. Nietzsche's philosophy has no place for love, but only power. My understanding of Blake is that he believes in love, just thinks it is constantly perverted by the Christian church and converted into joylessness. Both affirmed our human drives, and both affirmed life. But in Nietzsche, there is no place for any god at all, nor holiness, nor anything but sheer power, albeit power that can be "good". Nietzsche's values, whether he wanted to admit it or not, are derived from Darwin as much as they are derived from the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Germans of the pre-Christian world. But Blake had severe problems with the way the finite world operates, with the death that meets all life in this finite world created by Urizen, the limiter. Blake's values are not derived from the finite world of merciless evolution; they are derived from the power of his own imagination, and his belief that the "Poetic Genius" is the "True Man", and also immortal. A world where "the cut worm forgives the plow" is a world where forgiveness is absolutely necessary, a fallen world where life has to feed on life to go on. This idea of necessary forgiveness would be repulsive to Nietzsche. ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 00:02:51 -0700 From: atapias@readysoft.es To: blake@albion.com Subject: Please delete me Message-Id: <3248D91B.2390@readysoft.es> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Please, delete me from this email list atapias@readysoft.es Thank you ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 00:33:23 -0400 From: DrZZ113@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Other conversation forums Message-Id: <960925003322_110258594@emout03.mail.aol.com> Hello. I was wondering if anyone was aware of other conversation forums just like this one, but which discuss Russian authors such as Tolstoy, Gorky, Goncharov?? Also, ones that discuss horror, such as Poe?? Perhaps Poe liked Blake. Who knows?? Some similar moribund imagery exists. Poe was influenced more by karmic Eastern beliefs in his view of the supernatural and the afterlife. Perhaps Blake limited himself by his views in this area since he was indelibly linked to the Church around him even though he tried to escape from it. It is those people who are most uncertain or ill-informed about an issue that spend most of their time declaiming against it---perhaps so that others dont recognize their insecurities. But others can nevertheless. Blake is not immune from criticism. Opinions?? ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 08:04:36 -0500 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Other conversation forums Message-Id: <96092508043620@wc.stephens.edu> I think before one offers opinions on opinions, one might want to request some evidence of the authority for those opinions. What exactly supports the view that Blake "was indelibly linked to the Church around him" (would we say by comparison thta Solzhenitsyn was indelibly linked to Stalinism, and if so, what would that mean?), and whose authority (other than the poster's) supports the view that when people "declaim against" an evil, they are reflecting primarily their own need to hide their "insecurities." Etc. I could ask questions about Poe, as well, but this is the Blake list. Are we to think that Blake's rage against the injustices and tyranny of his society (including the influence of the church) was merely a cover for his own--what? I suppose that would make us all comfortble--we could just dismiss his arguments as knee-jerk self-reflexive and self-indulgent ploys. Tom Dillingham ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 96 10:25:52 CDT From: Lance Massey To: blake@albion.com Subject: Blake's versification Message-Id: <9609251551.AA20605@uu6.psi.com> This is my first time to submit anything to this discussion group, so I'll try to keep my opinions to myself (though I am certainly convinced of Blake's preem inent place among all poets--no worries there). I would, however, like to ask if anybody knows whether a good formal analysis of Blake's versification exists . I am particularly interested in the significance of his choice to write "Boo k of Thel" in fourteeners, which, from what I have been able to gather, were so mewhat archaic even by the late Eighteenth Century (I believe they reached thei r height around the Sixteenth Century). Fourteeners appear from time to time in other poems as well--most notably in the "experience" "Holy Thursday" and occasionally in the prophetic works, although apparently randomly mixed in with longer lines. Is that it? Is it simply the length of the line which lends itself to the visionary qualities (even sermonic, I think) of many of Blake's p oems? Maybe, but Blake would undoubtedly have been aware of his prosodic choic es, if only because he was a poet writing (albeit a bit later) in the same century as Pope, Swift, and Johnson. Normally I wouldn't ask such things; I'd find out for myself. But my universit y's library contains fairly limited resources on the matter, and all computer searches have come up empty. I appreciate any thoughts on the matter. Lance Massey, M.A. student. ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:24:12 +0000 From: "bambi@usa1.com" To: blake@albion.com Subject: other lists Message-Id: <9609251725.AA05018@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Hi everyone. Does anyone know of any other Lit discussion groups that discuss 20 th century Lit? Or does anyone know of any discussion groups that focus on philosophy? Please let me know. Also, Someone asked about Blake's "A Poison Tree" . I am also interested in any thoughts people may have regarding that poem. Lisa (bambi) ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:26:36 -0500 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's versification Message-Id: <96092512263602@wc.stephens.edu> You might check the relevant volume of Saintsbury's _History of English Prosody_. As I recall, he is rather ill-tempered with Blake, but certainly informative. If you don't have the 3 volume history available, look for his _Historical Manual of English Prosody_, which condenses the material--you can use the index. Also, John Hollander published "Blake and the Metrical Contract" in _From Sensibility to Romanticism (eds. Hilles and Bloom, Oxford, 1965), and it remains a useful essay on the subject, though I believe there have been more recent studies--I just don't hve the materials handy. The Hollander essay may have been reprinted in one of his later books, as well. Tom Dillingham ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:41:28 -0500 (CDT) From: Suzanne Araas Vesely To: Lance Massey Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's versification Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Lance: Try Alicia Ostriker's book on Blake's versification. ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:39:46 -0500 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's versification Message-Id: <96092512394628@wc.stephens.edu> Addendum--I just pulled out the Saintsbury _Historical Manual_ and am reminded that he offered high praise for Blake's command of prosody-- Blake's poems, he says, "display a knowledge of this equivalence and a command over ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 12:45:42 -0500 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's versification Message-Id: <96092512454248@wc.stephens.edu> Addendum--I just pulled out the Saintsbury _Historical Manual_ and am reminded that he offered high praise for Blake's command of prosody--Blake's poems, he says, "display a knowledge of the secrets of this equivalence and a command over the, which had not been shown since Shakespeare." (In this case, he is talking about the sketches and songs, not the prophetic books.) Later, he includes a brief summary: "Although Blake's immediate and direct influence must have been small, there is hardly any poet who exhibits the tendency of his time in metre more variously and vehemently. In his unhesitating and brilliantly successful use of substitution in octosyllabic couplet, ballad measure, and lyrical adjustments of various kinds, as well as in *media* varying from actual verse to the rhymed prose of his "Prophetic" books, Blake struck definitely away from the monotonous and select metres of the eighteenth century, and anticipated the liberty, multiplicity, and variety of the nineteenth. And he differed, almost equally, from all but one or two of his older contemporaries, and from most of his all but one or two of his older contemporaries, and from most of his" all but one or two of his older contemporaries, and from most of his" younger for many years, in the colour and 'fingering' of his verse" (298-299). (I apologize for the repeated lines--slipped fingers at work.) This passage shows both the virtues and the old-fashioned problems of Saintsbury's prosodic writing, but he certainly had a good ear. Hollander characteristically connects metric choices with issues of genre, and discusses the uses of the fourteener in greater detail than does Saintsbury. I hope this isnot more answer than was wished for. Tom Dillingham ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 13:15:13 -0500 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: Lance Massey Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's versification Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The first place I would look would be Alicia Ostriker's _Vision and Verse in William Blake_ (1965). I don't have it here, so I'm not sure whether she directly addresses your question, but as far as I know, her work is still the definitive study of his versification. You should be able to get it on interlibrary loan. Jennifer Michael ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 14:26:27 -0400 From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's versification Message-Id: <960925142626_292987420@emout14.mail.aol.com> Here (cribbed from a paper I wrote 15 years ago) are some notes on studies of Blake's versification. I don't know what has been written since -- perhaps others can help. --Tom Devine Josephine Miles has analyzed Blake's diction in her _Eras and Modes in English Poetry_ (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), and Alicia Ostriker has dealt with his metrics and versification in _Vision and Verse in William Blake_ (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1965). The best syntactical analyses of individual poems that I know of are Donald Davie's explication of "A Poison Tree" in his _Articulate Energy_ (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955), and Barbara Hernnstein Smith's of "Auguries of Innocence" in her _Poetic Closure_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), both of which reveal a firm shaping hand behind the simplicity of the rhymed lyrics. But the style of the late epics has had few defenders and fewer analysts. Even Ostriker has characterized it as a falling off, at least from the standpoint of metrical intelligibility, from Blake's earlier work. ----- Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 15:50:17 -0400 (EDT) From: "Avery F. Gaskins" To: Subject: Re: Blake's versification Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Almost the entire page 177 of _The English Romantic Poets_ ed. Frank Jordan. MLA, 4th Ed. is devoted to citations of books and articles on Blake's metrics. Avery Gaskins ----- Date: Thu, 26 Sep 96 11:30:08 -0700 From: Seth T. Ross To: blake@albion.com Subject: Blake list change: replies go to sender only Message-Id: <9609261830.AA01001@albion.com> Content-Type: text/plain Greetings Blakeans. Just a quick note to let you all know that I've made a small but significant configuration change to the Blake mailing list. By default, replies to a Blake message now go only to the original sender of the message and not to the list as a whole. If you reply to this message, for example, the reply will be addressed only to seth@albion.com and not to the entire Blake list. This means that if you want to address the entire list membership with a reply, you should be sure to deliberately address it to blake@albion.com. This change should reduce the chance of anyone accidentally sending a personal reply to the entire list. Virtually yours, Seth Ross Albion sysadmin To leave Blake Online, send an email message to blake-request@albion.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the SUBJECT field, like so: TO: blake-request@albion.com SUBJECT: unsubscribe