From: blake-d-request@albion.com Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 1996 2:22 AM To: blake-d@albion.com Subject: blake-d Digest V1996 #116 ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 116 Today's Topics: Blake's habits Re: Poison Tree -Reply Re: Poison Tree -Reply RE: Poison Tree -Reply Re: Blake's habits unsubscribe Re: Lost Music Re: Lost Music Re: Blake's habits Re: Lost Music-Fugs Blake's habits -Reply RE: Poison Tree -Reply -Reply Re: Poison Tree -Reply -Reply Re: Blake's habits -Reply New to list (intro) Re: Lost Music Re: New to list (intro) Re: Lost Music roads to heaven and hell, sign-posted Re: Lost Music Re: Lost Music Samson Agonistes New Member purported Blakean hostility toward women New to list (intro) -Reply Samson Agonistes -Reply ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Oct 1996 11:12:20 -0500 (CDT) From: William Neal Franklin To: blake online Subject: Blake's habits Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I read somewhere in Bentley's _Records that Blake probably bought his porter at such-and-such tavern. Is it just assumed that Blake must have drunk porter, or do we actually know about his drinking habits? I always insist to my students that Blake was not high when he wrote his visionary poems, but I don't know for sure. Does anyone? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 09:21:27 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, evarose@atlantech.net Subject: Re: Poison Tree -Reply Message-Id: Dear Eva, I'm not sure whether you would like to hear more about the Accuser-Forgiver in BLake , or would like deeper insight into "A Poison Tree"... so I'll begin with the latter. There is much psychological truth in the first stanza since Blake reflects the greater ease of being open with a friend than a foe in revealing one's true feelings. In revealing anger to the friend, the speaker acts in good faith, revealing a type of Innocence, and preserving integrity. Naturally, enough, as the speaker intimates, it is harder to keep an open heart and `transparency' (a current fashionable word here) towards a `foe' who could construe such openness as weakness and exploit it. In having to bottle up anger, the speaker loses some of his own cherished Innocence since such suppression fouls the inner fountain of joy which can only be sustained by a continual outpouring of creative energy and love. As Blake knew, though he lived before Freud and Jung, to suppress any emotion, is to give it greater strength, so the speaker's untold wrath grows and is nurtured by `fears'. These could be fear of revealing `wrath' - which wouod explain the need to conceal it with `soft deceitful wiles', by adopting a facade of affability. Blake himself, in relation to one of his patrons who did not allow his creativity full expression, but curbed it by expecting artistic platitudes from Blake, was forced into such deceitful stratagems. But suppressed wrath, because it can deflect energy into artistic expression, for example, or into satirical wit can produce something glamorously enticing ( here represented by the `apple', which also recalls the forbidden `apple' in the Garden of Eden). This carefully secreted, polished and nurtured fruit of wrath is here presented as arousing the envy of the `foe' so that , enticed by its beauty, he/she steals and eats it and is killed. However, the fact that the speaker is gratified by this reveals that his own soul has lost its innocence in gaining such a victory. The poem can thus apply to all of us, and is witty in its evocation of a type of paranoiia that takes over the psyche allowing `wrath' to grow like a cancer in the speaker's own heart. The poem also could reflect what happens when any natural energy is suppressed. Blake exposes the horrors of sexual suppression in Oothoon's laments in "Visions of the Daughters of Albion". Oothoon cries out against the moral codes imposed by the Church on natural desires and vividly recalls the `free loves' of Eternity where all beings commingled essences with Jesus and Jerusalem, so uniting them to God. The poem relates well too to "The Human Abstract" and "The Sick Rose" and to the Proverb from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", Plate 10, :Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires. Hope this engages you even further... Blake is the ideal poet for new-agers. Pam ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 11:10:51 -0400 (EDT) From: "Avery F. Gaskins" To: Subject: Re: Poison Tree -Reply Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Pam, It is interesting that you discuss innocence as a transparency, sinc I re- call that somewhere in the prophetic books, he speaks of Satan as an opaqueness. Alas, I can't remember where. Avery Gaskins ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 11:40:23 -0500 From: rpyoder@ualr.edu (paul yoder) To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Poison Tree -Reply Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Satan as opaqueness is mentioned, among other places, on plate 42 of *Jerusalem*: There is a limit of Opakeness and a limit of Contraction In every Individual Man, and the limit of Opakeness Is named Satan, and the limit of Contraction is named Adam. But when Man sleeps in Beulah, the Savior in Mercy takes Contraction's Limit, and of the Limit he forms Woman, That Himself may in process of time be born Man to redeem. But there is no Limit of Expansion; there is no Limit of Translucence In the Bosom of Man for ever from eternity to eternity (29-36) As to whether, as Pam says, Blake is the ideal poet for new-agers: let's just say, "No comment." Paul Yoder ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 12:40:10 -0500 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's habits Message-Id: <96102112401008@wc.stephens.edu> "High"? On Porter? Do we equate "drunk" (assuming he imbibed too much) with "high"? People who suppose a Blake or a Lewis Carroll *must* have used drugs/alcohol/stimulants (or unconsciously to have been affected by ergotic substances) apparently have such limited imaginations that they are unable even to conceive of *someone else* having brilliant ideas. The interesting question, then, is not whether Blake (or others) used drugs, but why our students are so convinced the must have. (Oddly, very few of them seem interested in the certified drug users--Coleridge and DeQuincey, to name just two-- whose "inspirations" did apparently come from drugs.) Tom Dillingham ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 19:07:58 +-100 From: "Parentesis Engenharia de Software Lda." To: "'blake@albion.com'" Subject: unsubscribe Message-Id: <01BBBF83.2CB067C0@coi3_p10.telepac.pt> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BBBF83.2CB067C0" ------ =_NextPart_000_01BBBF83.2CB067C0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- From: Seth T. Ross[SMTP:seth@albion.com] Sent: sexta-feira, 18 de outubro de 1996 22:40 To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Signing Off > Would someone be kind enough to post the instruction required > to leave this list? BLAKE ONLINE ADMINISTRIVIA 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 Your address will be automatically unsubscribed. Please use the address blake-request@albion.com for all administrative queries. Note that an archive of Blake postings can be found on the World Wide Web at the URL: http://www.albion.com/indexBlake.html Virtually yours, Seth Ross Albion sysadmin ------ =_NextPart_000_01BBBF83.2CB067C0 Content-Type: application/ms-tnef Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 eJ8+IjsSAQaQCAAEAAAAAAABAAEAAQeQBgAIAAAA5AQAAAAAAADoAAENgAQAAgAAAAIAAgABBJAG AAwBAAABAAAADAAAAAMAADADAAAACwAPDgAAAAACAf8PAQAAAD8AAAAAAAAAgSsfpL6jEBmdbgDd AQ9UAgAAAABibGFrZUBhbGJpb24uY29tAFNNVFAAYmxha2VAYWxiaW9uLmNvbQAAHgACMAEAAAAF AAAAU01UUAAAAAAeAAMwAQAAABEAAABibGFrZUBhbGJpb24uY29tAAAAAAMAFQwBAAAAAwD+DwYA AAAeAAEwAQAAABMAAAAnYmxha2VAYWxiaW9uLmNvbScAAAIBCzABAAAAFgAAAFNNVFA6QkxBS0VA QUxCSU9OLkNPTQAAAAMAADkAAAAACwBAOgEAAAACAfYPAQAAAAQAAAAAAAADuiwBCIAHABgAAABJ UE0uTWljcm9zb2Z0IE1haWwuTm90ZQAxCAEEgAEADAAAAHVuc3Vic2NyaWJlAKUEAQWAAwAOAAAA zAcKABUAEwAHADoAAQBHAQEggAMADgAAAMwHCgAVABMABwAbAAEAKAEBCYABACEAAAA2RTg2MUY2 NDc1MkJEMDExODlBRjAwNEY1NjAxM0IyQgAHBwEDkAYAaAQAABAAAAALACMAAAAAAAMAJgAAAAAA CwApAAAAAAADADYAAAAAAEAAOQAgXjPKer+7AR4AcAABAAAADAAAAHVuc3Vic2NyaWJlAAIBcQAB AAAAFgAAAAG7v3rKK2Qfhm8rdRHQia8AT1YBOysAAAMABhBQC1owAwAHEHoCAAAeAAgQAQAAAGUA AAAtLS0tLS0tLS0tRlJPTTpTRVRIVFJPU1NTTVRQOlNFVEhAQUxCSU9OQ09NU0VOVDpTRVhUQS1G RUlSQSwxOERFT1VUVUJST0RFMTk5NjIyOjQwVE86QkxBS0VAQUxCSU9OQ09NAAAAAAIBCRABAAAA NAMAADADAAACBgAATFpGdXRohLL/AAoBDwIVAqgF6wKDAFAC8gkCAGNoCsBzZXQyNwYABsMCgzID xQIAcHJCcRHic3RlbQKDM3cC5AcTAoB9CoAIzwnZO/EWDzI1NQKACoENsQtg9G5nAdA3DfALChRR C/IaYwBAIAqFCotsaTEEODAC0WktMTQ0zw3wDNAc0wtZMTYKoANg9RPQYwVALR73Cocdqwww9R52 RgNhOh/+HnYMggZRYHRoIFQuB/EEEFsgU01UUDoRsWhAKQdAYmkCIC4FoG1dfx+fIK0GYAIwId8i 6xGweAEBkC1mZWlyYSwqIBxQIA2wIAhgdHUGYgNgKuIxOTk2IDgyMjoc8CXfIK1Ub8coHyLrAmBh a2UlGSx/OybuK1BqHrEunyLrUmUxM+BTaWcDABkQIE/nDdAa/xwDMzYddxpFHnbIPiBXCGBsZCng A3DWZQIgKwBiKwBrC4A6EKsJ8AhgZyPgdCuAcCRAnwVAI9ArAAuAE8BydR7A5SVRIBYQcXUqcAmA CoXDObA7oWxlYXYrACPQJwQAPlAEAHQ/NrxCTAhBS0U2cE5MSU4RQIBBRE1A0ElTVOBSSVZJQTa8 LnA+VfZCMII2cG4cMDqAKqARsD87AQORE+ALcAMgB4FzYdpnPqFvCoUwcy09IgeQunQlGSAD8CPR PCJ3BbB5OhAidQCAK1AE8jqwIgc8UTwSCoVTVUJKRehDVCAcoGU6ACqgHDCbQ4E6MDoKhUwTVE8z 4H9GLzEMTBNKRTPgSKk2vFlzCGFEcGRkFhAEEQPwbLsDIDqxYSswA3E80GMHQKRseU96ZC42vFA+ Yf8RsE9wVTE8IlFmTL9HNgIQ71FBUgAKhVFgbQuAPyEqgK880D6RVuEIgXNUDU4ekT88EVKwRHIK wBFwWYJvZv9DRTvSNkEEIFLgA6A6sQIQX0igOhA88UmoOdByOgFXcmkq8VdlI5BbkTwiVRRSTEum aAJAcDov1C93YbAuJSgvOvEqALVDUy5hQG1YVgqFVipwyytAUvN5CGFzLEnWI8KpJDIgPCTdPgqF QSUz/yngE7BY0za8Ny84Px6FCoUFFTEAbRADABAQAAAAAAMAERAAAAAAQAAHMOAxvLd6v7sBQAAI MOAxvLd6v7sBHgA9AAEAAAABAAAAAAAAAKtD ------ =_NextPart_000_01BBBF83.2CB067C0-- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 14:03:27 -0800 From: lbloxham@whitworth.edu (Laura J. Bloxham) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Lost Music Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In graduate school (21+ years ago) I remember at least one setting of a Blake song by a group named The Fugs. Does anyone know of a recording? Laura J. Bloxham PHONE: (509) 466-1000 x4514 Professor of English and Acting Associate Dean for Faculty Development M.S. 2901 EMAIL: lbloxham@whitworth.edu Whitworth College FAX: (509) 466-3753 West 300 Hawthorne Rd. Spokane, WA 99218 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 19:06:26 -0500 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Lost Music Message-Id: <96102119062681@wc.stephens.edu> The Fugs set a version of "Ah, Sunflower" and of "How Sweet I Roamed from field to Field" (and scattered allusions to Blake in other works) both of which are available on the cd re-release of _The Village Fugs_, now called _The Fugs First Album_. It seems to me, while we're at it, that Frank Zappa also used some Blake materials in his work, but there are so many albums from him that I could not guess where to find them. Tom Dillingham ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 18:14:59 -0600 From: Stone Worship Design To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's habits Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19961022001459.006a319c@mail.ism.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:12 AM 20.10.1996 -0500, you wrote: >I read somewhere in Bentley's _Records that Blake probably bought his >porter at such-and-such tavern. Is it just assumed that Blake must have >drunk porter, or do we actually know about his drinking habits? I always >insist to my students that Blake was not high when he wrote his visionary >poems, but I don't know for sure. Does anyone? It seems rather unscientific to insist upon something which you are unsure of. Perhaps you should encourage your students to research it. Joseph J. Thiebes Stone Worship Design http://www.ism.net/~swd/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 23:16:06 -0400 From: WaHu@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Cc: lbloxham@whitworth.edu Subject: Re: Lost Music-Fugs Message-Id: <961021231551_1712141060@emout18.mail.aol.com> Fugs were on ESP-Disk which was a label originally designed to distribute esperanto junk. Happily, it issued primarily avant-garde jazz. Sun Ra & Albert Ayler. Great Strange American Artists. Haven't got the foggiest notion who owns that catalog now. Pearls before Swine was the other rock group on that label, methinks. Forget the damn fugs, listen to Sun Ra & Albert Ayler. They are each sublime. In Eternity, Sun Ra and his Solar Arkestra are the house band at the Pub where Blake quaffs his Porter. I kid you not. Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 08:24:50 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Subject: Blake's habits -Reply Message-Id: Do you know which tavern precisely this was? I'm interested because I visited one near Hampstead Heath which was haunted and also have written on the lines supposedly engraved by Blake on a rummer mentioned in a past issue of BIQ. Pam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 09:14:59 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, rpyoder@ualr.edu Subject: RE: Poison Tree -Reply -Reply Message-Id: Paul, why the zipped up lps on this issue of Blake being suited to new age thinking? Do you think new-agers too shallow to do justice to Blake? Or, perhaps you are right not to raise an issue on such a throw-away comment such as I made... I'm busy reading some back issues of the journal "Magical Blaend" and just happened to visualise an article on Blake seeming entirely appropriate to it. pam ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 09:08:09 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, GASKINS@wvnvm.wvnet.edu Subject: Re: Poison Tree -Reply -Reply Message-Id: Thanks for the feedback on transparency versus opakeness, Avery. I don't normally use this word - it just popped out - but then it does fit rather well with the whole idea of Innocence comprising the opposite of the Mystery, Secrecy and opakeness of Experience. There are too many instance of imagery relating to opaqueness to mention, many of them closely related to the sustained imagery of expansion and contraction and light vs darkness. Paml ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 08:50:03 -0500 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's habits -Reply Message-Id: <96102208500316@wc.stephens.edu> The reference occurs on page 559 of _Blake Records_: "One of the pleasant amenities of the new house, however, may have been the nearby pub called, today at least, the King's Arms, which was only a few doors away at no. 22 Poland Street. . . . Probably Blake ate there on occasion, or at least bough his porter at the King's Arms. One wonders whether he happened to be there on his 24th birthday when, according to the present inscription on the wall, 'In this Old King's Arms Tavern the ANCIENT ORDER OF DRUIDS was revived 28th November 1781'," Find the ghosts if you wish, but there seems not to be much indication of excessive indulgence in porter--but who knows? Tom Dillingham ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 10:26:52 -0400 (EDT) From: young27@MARSHALL.EDU To: Blake Discussion List Subject: New to list (intro) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Hello, My Name is Todd Young, and I'm an English graduate student working toward my M.A. at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. I joined this discussion list a few days ago, and I've decided to stop eavesdropping and properly introduce myself. My interest in Blake has recently been reignited by reading and research for a current Romantic Poetry class of mine. Right now, I am working on The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and loving it. I find it interesting that my professor and everyone else in the class seem to think that Blake is insane and makes no sense, because as I read Blake his ideas seem quite sane to me. Imagine my delight then, when I found this list of people quite interested in discussing Blake without prefacing every comment with references to his alleged madness. Any comments about The Marriage of Heaven and Hell or insightful sources on this poem or Blake himself would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Todd Young young27@marshall.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 11:22:02 -0400 (EDT) From: "Avery F. Gaskins" To: Subject: Re: Lost Music Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII The Blake song you are thinking of is "A Sunflower Weary of Time" which was on _The Fugs First Album_ (ESP-Disk, 1965). Some of the other titles are un- printable on a list such as this. Don't know where you would find the album now and I'm sure ESP-Disk does not exist now. Avery Gaskins ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 11:10:08 -0500 (CDT) From: Suzanne Araas Vesely To: young27@MARSHALL.EDU Cc: Blake Discussion List Subject: Re: New to list (intro) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Todd: Glad to meet you. How sad, that Blake is being dismissed in your class as mad. There seems to be a class of people who need to stick a label on another human being, especially one who is creative. You are right to be suspicious of it. The charge that Blake is mad or out of touch with reality was put to rest long ago by Nothrop Frye, who discusses many aspects of Blake's writing in _Fearful Symmetry_. For a good introduction to Blake with a few good articles at the end, see the Norton paperback, _Blake's Poetry and Designs_. For a balanced view of Blake's state of mind, see Ackroyd's _Blake_. And do you have access to David V. Erdman's _The Illuminated Blake_? It has black and white reproductions of the illustrated work, and each plate has a commentary. This is all very basic to Blake. One more useful tool that a beginner should not be without: Foster Damon's _The Blake Dictionary_. Enjoy! _Suzanne Araas Vesely. On Tue, 22 Oct 1996 young27@MARSHALL.EDU wrote: > Hello, > My Name is Todd Young, and I'm an English graduate student > working toward my M.A. at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. I > joined this discussion list a few days ago, and I've decided to stop > eavesdropping and properly introduce myself. My interest in Blake has > recently been reignited by reading and research for a current Romantic > Poetry class of mine. Right now, I am working on The Marriage of Heaven > and Hell and loving it. I find it interesting that my professor and > everyone else in the class seem to think that Blake is insane and makes > no sense, because as I read Blake his ideas seem quite sane to me. > Imagine my delight then, when I found this list of people quite > interested in discussing Blake without prefacing every comment with > references to his alleged madness. Any comments about The Marriage of > Heaven and Hell or insightful sources on this poem or Blake himself would > be greatly appreciated. > Thanks, > Todd Young > young27@marshall.edu > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 13:11:26 -0400 (EDT) From: Mauritz R Kallerud To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Lost Music Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I am almost certain that the Fugs (and most of the other recordings that have beend iscussed here) are still in print. The closest place to get them is on the net. I have two good addresses: telnet cdconnection.com telnet cdnow.com I have had good luck with both, and recently bought Albert Ayler's "Spirits Rejoice," an ESP release. I know I've seen the Fugs in both "stores," but don't know about the Ginsberg. The prices are pretty good too, though if you want the best deal compare across lists. Royce Kallerud ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 19:12:24 MET From: "D.W. DOERRBECKER" To: young27@MARSHALL.EDU, blake@albion.com Subject: roads to heaven and hell, sign-posted Message-Id: <4123E8D47E1@netwareserver.uni-trier.de> October 22nd, 1996 Dear Todd Young: Welcome to the list. In *William Blake: The Early Illuminated Books* (["Blake's Illuminated Books"; vol. 3], Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, in association with the William Blake Trust, 1993), co-edited by Morris Eaves, Robert N. Essick, and Joseph Viscomi, you will find a select bibliography of earlier discussions of Blake's *Marriage* as well as Morris Eaves's expert -- and witty -- interpretation of the book, which is especially important for untangling the artist-poet's reaction to Swedenborg. The same volume contains an outline of the production history of this series of Blake's relief-etched plates. The full story of the book's material genesis and of the latter's implications for an understanding of Blake's text by Joseph Viscomi is (or ought to be) available (soon) in a (forthcoming?) special issue of *The Huntington Library Quarterly* devoted to Blake's illuminated printing. As always, Mary Lynn Johnson's extremely well-informed and well-indexed bibliocritical report on Blake and his works in the fourth edition of *The Romantic Poets*, edited by Frank Jordan for the MLA, should also prove helpful. And if that still ain't *more than enough*, you may want to search G. E. Bentley, Jr.'s *Blake Books* and its *Supplement* (Oxford, Oxon.: Clarendon Press, 1977 and 1995), plus the annual updates published in *Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly* (ed. Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley, and published by the English department at the University of Rochester, N.Y.). -- DW Doerrbecker Earlier today, Todd Young stated that > Any comments about The Marriage of Heaven and Hell or > insightful sources on this poem or Blake himself would be > greatly appreciated. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 13:14:35 -0800 From: David Rollison To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Lost Music Message-Id: <326D393B.6485@marin.cc.ca.us> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone know why the group was named The Fugs? (I do) :) Laura J. Bloxham wrote: > > In graduate school (21+ years ago) I remember at least one setting of a > Blake song by a group named The Fugs. Does anyone know of a recording? > > Laura J. Bloxham PHONE: (509) 466-1000 x4514 > Professor of English and > Acting Associate Dean for Faculty Development > M.S. 2901 EMAIL: lbloxham@whitworth.edu > Whitworth College FAX: (509) 466-3753 > West 300 Hawthorne Rd. > Spokane, WA 99218 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 01:33:32 -0300 (ADT) From: Karen Ward To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Lost Music Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 22 Oct 1996, David Rollison wrote: > Does anyone know why the group was named The Fugs? (I do) :) > Sure, 'fug' is the look-at-me-I'm-not-a-swear-word used by the really early Norman Mailer. Blake would've just swore...in the text & at Mailer. Karen Ward ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 16:54:56, -0500 From: LVDP51A@prodigy.com ( PAUL SCANLON) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Samson Agonistes Message-Id: <199610222054.QAA20730@mime4.prodigy.com> Hey, Just a quick letter of introduction. My name is Paul Scanlon and I am a recent graduate student working on my thesis on Blake and John Milton. I recently joined blake@albion.com and have been reading responses sent in regards to music using Blake's lyrics. Seem many of you seem interested in analylziing Blake's works in relation to different media, I am interseted in which etchings Blake made for Milton's poems or his own works which reflect the spirit of the individual expressed in Milton's "Samson Agonistes." Please let me know of any possible applications and/or possible criteria in determining such applications. Thanks. Paul Scanlon gunderso@interserv.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 17:44:47, -0500 From: LNAQ30A@prodigy.com (MR BRANDON M KAIN) To: Blake@albion.com Subject: New Member Message-Id: <199610222144.RAA03790@mime4.prodigy.com> Hello, my name is Brandon Kain and I am a new member on this thing. I don't really know that much about Blake, aside from what I've covered in first and second year English classes, but from what I can gather, he's a very interesting intellectual figure. I was thinking of getting a chess set carved for Christmas this year, and I would really like to have the pieces represent figures from Blake's works. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what Blake characters would be appropriate for certain pieces, and information on where I could find visual representations of them? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 23:00:55 -0700 (MST) From: mpuszta@hayden.edu (Marsha Pusztai) To: blake@albion.com Subject: purported Blakean hostility toward women Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I recently read a book, Sons and Adversaries by Margaret Storch, which upset the world I believed Blake had established. The book compares Blake to Lawrence, noting that although both are sensitive to the female experience, they also harbor deep-seated antagonism toward women. Storch does this through the lens of Melanie Klein's psychoanalytic theories (similar to Freud's). It seems to be a solid work, yet I don't see Blake as one who used his work for the purpose of asserting his masculine supremacy in order to control the powerful female figures he creates. Being female myself, this may not be a popular position for me to hold. Nevertheless, would someone please give me their take on Blake's attitude toward women as reflected in any of his works? Is Storch's view viable or not? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 09:27:50 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, young27@MARSHALL.EDU Subject: New to list (intro) -Reply Message-Id: Do ask your tutor what he/she makes of the following lines from "The Book of Los": O Times remote! When Love & Joy were adoration, And none impure were deem'd... To impute insanity to a man so far beyond being blinded by the mental blinkers of his own - and our - age, is to reveal one's own imaginative and mental retardation. One of Blake's central themes is about casting off the rotten garments of accusation and false judgement in defence of what is deemed to be truth, but is, in fact, a lie. So the ironies abound in your situation. In the lines above, and in most of his work, Blake recalls a time of Innocence in Eternity where all beings lived in unity with God, expanding their fluxile senses into the divine being in which male and female essences continually blended, so bringing about balance and beauty. If you perceive this reality behind all you read, you won't go wrong. Blake's perception , in plates 15-17 of the MHH is that humans (and other things too) tend to fall into two categories: the Prolific and the Devourer. Artists are Prolific and generously seed the world with ideas that will continue to grow mental and spiritual harvests. The Devourers, who are like Blake's Urizenic idiot questioner who pry with locked up reason, feeling and senses, can only feed off the Prolific, and though they deem themselves in power in this world, are only necessary to receive the `excesses' which the Prolific generously cast abroad. Blake, generously, dismisses the Devourer as a bit of a fool --- `he only takes portions of existence for the whole'. To understand Blake, it is necessary to cast off the self-assured orthodoxies of one's age , perhaps what Blake means by the `covering cherub' which parades its own cleverness and virtue, so drawing attention away from that which is truly wise and good. Hope this helps, Pam, Univ of South Africa, Pretoria. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 09:33:55 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, LVDP51A@prodigy.com Subject: Samson Agonistes -Reply Message-Id: Paul, Perhaps the figure of Los working at his Furnaces to restore Albion to wakefulness in Eternity is relevant to Samson 's integrity - but his figure of Orc who rends down the fabric of the universe created by Urizen's false visions of good and evil , is even more appropriate, perhaps? The problem here is that Orc has, I think, been badly misinterpreted by critics of Blake, and if you take this view, you will encounter opposition and perhaps even shocked disbelief. Hard work for a comparative essay , but you may like to savour the idea in private. Pam -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #116 **************************************