Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 12 Today's Topics: Thelwall Re: Thelwall Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Jim Morrison Re: Jim Morrison Re[2]: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Re: Jim Morrison Re: Jim Morrison Re: Jim Morrison Thelwall the radical Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Re: Jim Morrison Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply Re: Jim Morrison unsubscribing Re: unsubscribing Help on Hod and Netsah ----- Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1996 08:52:59 -0600 From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: Thelwall Message-Id: <96022408525918@womenscol.stephens.edu> I'm not sure why Erdman's references to John Thelwall would seem "cryptic" but they are brief. There are certainly histories of the radical press and publishers during the late 18th century, but I don't have titles handy; probably there is a biography of Thelwall, but I don't have that either. There is only one passing reference to Thelwall in Gilchrist (mentioning his part in the treason trial of Horne Tooke and others). For information about Thelwall's association with the literary men of the time, take a look at biographies/published correspondence of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Mary Moorman's biography of Wordsworth has a number of references to Thelwall, as does Richard Holmes's biography of Coleridge. J. Livingston Lowes, in _Road to Xanadu_, quotes a famous letter from Coleridge to Thelwall which, however, describes STC in detail and give little information about Thelwall (as is ot not uncommon with STC). Shawcross quotes a letter from STC to Thelwall (also available in the correspondence) that providesa a fascinating picture of the political repression experienced by many during the latter decades of the 18th century: (1797) "Coleridge writes: 'Very great odium T. Poole incurred by b bringing *me* here. My peaceable manners and known attachment to Christianity had almost worn it away, when Wordsworth came, and he, likewise by Poole's agancy, settled here. [Here being Nether Stowey.] You cannot conceive the tumults, calumnies, and apparatus of threatened persecutions which this even has occasioned round about us." This is during the period of the "Spy Nozy" incident. I would suppose that the experiences of Coleridge and Wordsworth and others at that period--accused of "treason" for disagreeing with government policy--could be replicated in many parts of the world today--not least in our primary states. Clearly Coleridge saw Thelwall as one who would stimulate nativist fears among the people of Nether Stowey. A biography would probably be pretty interesting. IN the aftermath of some of his legal problems, Thelwall wished to "retire' to the country and become a farmer--or so one source indicates-- but his political associations dogged him. The connection with Blake may have been purely social--through the JOhnson circle. I don't see any references to Thelwall in Blake's letters--might he show up in "Island in the Moon"? Tom Dillingham (tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu) ----- Date: Sat, 24 Feb 96 15:10:52 -0800 From: Seth T. Ross To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Thelwall Message-Id: <9602242310.AA04662@albion.com> Content-Type: text/plain Begin forwarded message: Date: Sat, 24 Feb 96 14:16:39 -0800 From: "Avery F. Gaskins" To: Subject: Re: Thelwall The new Romantics anthology by Wu (Blackwell, 1995) has some selections from Thelwell's speeches as well as a short bio. Avery Gaskins ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 11:23:59 -0800 From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Cc: rdumain@igc.apc.org Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Message-Id: <199602261923.LAA24299@igc4.igc.apc.org> I have been mighty busy the past two months, so only in the past few days have I had the chance to follow up on the leads provided by Jennifer Michael regarding scholarship on the Bard-Earth dialectic in the "Songs of Experience". First, I have found THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETS: A REVIEW OF RESEARCH AND CRITICISM ed. by Frank Jordan (4th ed., MLA, 1985) to be a magnificent resource. I am not at all professionally connected with the academic literary world, so I don't know what's going on. Is this publication still in print? Can it be purchased at a reasonable price? Mary Lynn Johnson, author of the Blake chapter of Jordan's book, seems distressed that Earth is getting more credibility from the critics than the Bard these days (pp. 204, 213-214). While Earth's take on reality may not be the last word, it has a legitimacy which should not be underestimated. I consider "Earth's Answer" to be one of the most revolutionary poems in any language. It places Blake far and above all patriarchal spiritualists. I have some of the books on the Songs referenced by Johnson, and I will look through them, but I don't have the time to plough through all the literature on the Songs of Experience. I will, however, summarize two views on the Bard-Earth exchange and then get back to my research needs. Although Gleckner's overall theme of progress to a higher innocence is intriguing, I get annoyed with his exposition in THE PIPER AND THE BARD. Interestingly, he spares the Bard by differentiating him from the Holy Word who bears the negative traits of hypocrisy and oppression to be found in the Introduction. However, I am unhappy about the characterization of Earth as "spiritually blind" (p. 237). That earth is earth-bound, I understand, but the notion that Earth blocks out the message of the Bard and reduces his message to the level of the Holy Word, which constitutes Earth's blindness, does not satisfy me. The Bard cannot break the heavy chain, and Earth has to go it alone through the trials of experience until she regains her lost purity. All this makes some sense, but I feel the dynamic is being mischaracterized somehow. Zachary Leader's READING BLAKE'S SONGS is on such a higher level, but then it was published over two decades later. The relevant chapter is the fifth one, "Entering Experience." There is a detailed exposition of the designs, which give clues to what has happened to the piper of Innocence and how the Bard's relation to his context is so much different, and less concretely human. Though the Bard's message is a benign one, he undermines it with the authoritarian attitude he takes up in proclaiming it. Leader sees the Bard as being corrupted in the passage through experience, but not fundamentally evil. There is some interesting discussion of the meaning of bards in Blake's time and the possible association with the Druids, for example on the part of Wordsworth. Given the dark associations of the Bard in Blake's poetry, his take on the Bard interests me as a potential oblique criticism of the mentality of people such as Wordsworth and Coleridge. Leader then expounds on the problem of authoritarianism: "And as a knower, he is constantly in danger of violating the very principles and ideals which animate his outrage. The Bard is a prophet of the imagination. His object, like that of the Piper who once he was, is the liberation of man's divinely creative powers, of the 'Poetic Genius' within us all. The Bard's songs, like those of an Old Testament prophet, are works of social criticism; they speak of his age's brutal and tragically misguided suppression of divinely human potentiality. But they do so in bardic or prophetic terms -- terms which slide all too easily into what they oppose. The Bard decries authority, yet speaks from it; has, like a prophet, 'heard the Word.' His songs lament the violation not of individuals, the 'minute particulars' of _Innocence_, but of 'the Individual.'" (pp. 139-140) Not only is this a most excellent passage, but it is an implicit condemnation of all pompous reactionary asses like Coleridge, who has been mislabelled by respected critics as a "kindred spirit" to Blake. Leader goes on to portray this problem as a struggle within Blake himself, characterized as a contradiction between Blake as poet-artist and Blake as bard-prophet. The criticisms of experience tends toward abstraction, and this is a danger. So there is an ongoing conflict between the poetic and the prophetic impulse. This latter direction that Leader takes is somewhat disturbing to me. We'll get back to that. As for the struggle within Blake himself, I think that the critic is perspicacious to highlight it, though I find his characterization of the problem suspect. Blake's own self-awareness of the dangers of becoming a de facto apologist of a new tyranny forever places him far and above such inflated personalities as Coleridge, Nietzsche, Lawrence, Pound, Eliot, and other false prophets. Though 'abstraction' (in the Hegelian sense) is a problem, it is a result or philosophical corollary of a social process rather than a cause or some detached abstract problem in its own right. But Leader's next move is exciting: "_Songs of Experience_ is the Bard's attempt to come to terms with -- to understand and account for -- Earth's bitter and painful rejection of his call. It is also his answer to Earth's own call." (pp. 144-145) Hmmmmm! In one respect I like this interpretation: if the Bard corresponds to Blake's conception of his own role, then I agree. What a brilliant insight! But if the Bard is not Blake or someone like him, but rather that more traditional patriarchal figure that Blake rejects, then Earth's antagonism to the Bard's preachings is closer to Blake's perspective than to the Bard's. And if the degree of identification with the Bard is to remain radically ambiguous, then we are left with having to negotiate both interpretations. "By seeing through Earth's eyes, the Bard hopes not only to discover the forces that hold her down (or make her hold herself down) but to free her from them. Through prophetic wrath and insight the activist Bard hopes to dissolve mind-forged manacles. What he does not immediately realize, though, is that he himself is implicated in Earth's repression; that her initial, fearful rejection was neither wholly groundless nor misguided. Only gradually does he learn that he too has been infected; that the intensity of his outrage and the fervour of his prophetic certainty have begun to make him sound much like the figures he most abhors." (p. 145) Brilliant! However, I don't see the problem as "generalizing" experience at all. Rather, as Leader himself so eloquently delineates, it is the prophet's social role. If the Bard's more positive interpretation is to be accepted, then even the most well-intentioned bard can fall into this trap. But if the Bard really is the reactionary Coleridgean type of prophet, then the Bard is much more severely implicated, and Earth's resistance is based on a real, revolutionary complaint, not just on a deluded slave mentality. Later on in the chapter, Leader ponders the possibility of who "might controll the starry pole" and under what conditions (p. 157). Leader thinks the Bard can't do it alone; all depends on the Earth rising up herself. How about that? At the end of the chapter, leader identifies the Bard with the compromised Piper than with the crude Jehovah. And here is the conclusion: "_Experience_ ... requires of its readers a tenacious and resourceful commitment to innocent virtues. It asks us to beware of simplifications that sacrifice individuals for 'the Individual'; to resolve seemingly insoluble dilemmas by rejecting the mental habits which frame them; and to temper Earth-like indignation with a deeper and more far-reaching perception of underlying innocence. Its largest and most unexpected demand, though, is that we redeem or rescue its 'author', our nominal guide; that we learn to extend tolerant understanding to those who, like the Bard in 'The Voice of the Ancient Bard,' 'wish to lead others when they should be led.' (p. 158) What namby-pamby crap. I find this take to be as one-dimensional as Gleckner's. Experience is not just experience as contrasted to innocence; it is a world of contradiction, oppression, venality, and weakness. To navigate through that world and yet see beyond its parameters requires both the perspectives of Innocence and Experience. The benign version of the Bard should be heeded even if his own idealism cannot be fully put into practice, because his perspective is required for the liberation of Earth. Even the more maleficent version of the Bard may have a point, too, however perverted, that Earth could learn from and adapt to her own purposes. But Experience is not an undifferentiated process hanging in a vacuum; it necessarily involves social antagonisms; it is not just an allegory for conflicts within the soul. We shall leave such reductions to the Nazi collaborator Carl Jung or the fascist Blueshirt William Butler Yeats. In any event, Leader returns to the redemption of the Bard in a later chapter. I say that even if the Bard is really of the more negative sort, and if he can indeed can learn to smell himself and learn that he is a pompous egotistical ass who "presumes to lead others, when he should be led", then there is a real advance, and the Libertarian Party will voluntarily dissolve. As I mentioned above, I will pursue some more of this literature, but my time is limited. I am interested specifically in analyses of the Bard-Earth dynamic and would appreciate references to significant literature published in the past decade. Most especially, I am interested in analyses that identify the Bard with the problematic position that poets, prophets, intellectuals occupy, in general or within the social environment that created Romanticism. ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 14:52:22 +0000 From: "JARNAGIN, NIKKI D." To: Blake@albion.com Subject: Jim Morrison Message-Id: <01I1O8KI5PGI9AMLJU@ACCESS.EAST-TENN-ST.EDU> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I am looking for information that can verifiably link Jim Morrison with Blake. I found one quote, but I know there has to be more. I plan to teach a lesson about Blake, using The Doors as the hook. Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Nikki Jarnagin ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 16:31:00 -0600 (CST) From: "DR. JOSIE MCQUAIL" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Jim Morrison Message-Id: <01I1OBX3VQKI99E9SP@tntech.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Jim Morrison's songs "You're a Lost Little Girl" alludes to Blake's "Little Girl Lost," and "End of the Night" alludes to his "Auguries of Innocence," at least according to previous discussions on this Blake group. My impression is that Morrison got the name "Doors" indirectly from Blake through Aldous Huxley's book on hallucinogens, "The Doors of Perception," but, of course, this is a line in Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Now, VAN Morrison has been very much influenced by Blake, if you want to introduce him to your class, too, check out the entire album A Sense of Wonder. ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 96 17:39 CST From: MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu To: blake@albion.com, Ralph Dumain Cc: rdumain@igc.apc.org Subject: Re[2]: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Message-Id: <199602262345.RAA09623@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> For now, I'll just respond to the question about whether Jordan's 1985 ENGLISH ROM. POETS, containing my Blake chapter, is still in print: it is, and the paperback sells for $25 to non-MLA members and $20 to members. MLA's address is 10 Astor Pl., NY, NY 1003-6981; phone orders 212-614=6382; fax 212-477-98633. I agree with Dumain that Earth has a tremendously strong case, presented powerfully. My critique of the general anti-Bard tendency among Blake critics came across, unintentionally, as anti-Earth. But I believe that in reading "Earth's Answer," everything in us should take Earth's side. Hers is the voice behind all of the voices of Experience. She expresses exactly what it is to live, as most of us do most of the time, in the state of Experience; her despair is also ours. As one who lives and breathes the "human condition," her theology of a prohibiting "Starry Jealousy" is entirely correct. How dare the very force that has placed us in our predicament (so far as we can see on earth) also have the gall to demand of us that we "arise" and no longer "turn away"? If some divine force outside ourselves wants us liberated, why doesn't that force "Break this heavy chain." To ask us to liberate ourselves is just too much -- a cruel tyranny to be resisted with every ounce of our being. Earth's tragic limitation, as I see it, is strictly one of perspective. Instead of a "starry floor," Earth (and all of us on earth) sees only a starry ceiling -- only we can't do or be instead of what we might do and be. Thus imprisoned, her mind manacled, Earth is earthbound; the liberating message doesn't get through to her; it is broadcast one way and received another, garbled and mistranslated. Instead of hearing the voice of the Bard (a voice of inspiration and imagination in Blake's later poems, paintings, and writings) as a conduit for the loving call of the Holy Word (i.e., the Logos: the Son, not the Father), Earth hears the accusative "Father of the ancient men" (a patriarchal Nobodaddy) and musters her last remaining energies (rightly) to resist him and everything he stands for and is allied with. The Bard's perspective (literally) is outer space; he sees a diurnal round with morning always breaking instead of only the (literally) benighted land mass that Earth's consciousness now inhabits. Figuratively, the Bard's perspective is Eternity's sun rise. So long as Earth just shuts her eyes and ears to even the possibility of there being another perspective on her situation, she will stay as she is; mere resistance, however admirable, doesn't bring about liberation. -- Mary Lynn Johnson ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 19:10:37 -0500 (EST) From: Jack Lynch To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Jim Morrison Message-Id: <199602270010.TAA42305@dept.english.upenn.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 490 JARNAGIN, NIKKI D. writes: > > I am looking for information that can verifiably link Jim Morrison > with Blake. I found one quote, but I know there has to be more. I > plan to teach a lesson about Blake, using The Doors as the hook. Any > help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. > > Thanks in advance, > Nikki Jarnagin > Your best bet is _No One Here Gets Out Alive_, the biography of Morrison. As I recall, it addresses Morrison's fascination with Blake explicitly. ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 17:47:00 -0600 (MDT) From: "Bruce Richardson" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Jim Morrison Message-Id: <66D2E66834@ACAD.CC.WHECN.EDU> Regarding Jim Morrison and William Blake. I am not up on the Jim Morrison bios and such and how accurate they are. I do know that Morrison was a student at UCLA at a time I was also there. It was widely known that he took a class on the early Romantic Poets--which included Blake--before the band became successful. I do not have any official records, but am comfortable that this report comes from reliable sources. Bruce Richardson University of Wyoming University of Wyoming/Casper College Center ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 17:47:36 -0800 From: BryanEAC/Apple@eworld.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Jim Morrison Message-Id: <960226173049_26042908@hp1.online.apple.com> The Doors did come from Blake's Doors of Perception, but End of the Night, I always supposed was from Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night". Celine is another very prolific writer...anyone read him? ----------------------------- Begin Original Text ----------------------------- Jim Morrison's songs "You're a Lost Little Girl" alludes to Blake's "Little Girl Lost," and "End of the Night" alludes to his "Auguries of Innocence," at least according to previous discussions on this Blake group. My impression is that Morrison got the name "Doors" indirectly from Blake through Aldous Huxley's book on hallucinogens, "The Doors of Perception," but, of course, this is a line in Marriage of Heaven and Hell. ----------------------------- End Original Text ----------------------------- ----- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 13:42:04 +1100 From: jon.mee@anu.edu.au To: blake@albion.com Subject: Thelwall the radical Message-Id: <199602270242.NAA21659@anugpo.anu.edu.au> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Greg Claeys is the person to consult about thelwall. See also Nick Roe's Wordsworth and Coleridge: the Radical Years. As for whether he's a minor figure, most people would have said that about Blake a hundred years ago. in terms of the history of radicalism, he's a very important figurre, isn't he? Jon Mee ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 23:43:28 -0500 From: WaHu@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Message-Id: <960226234326_432513170@emout07.mail.aol.com> careful, careful. don't be too hard on poor old hypocrisy. you hurt it's feelings when you call it a negative trait. hypocrisy is how things get done! great hypocrisy, of which there is such a dearth today, is positively breathtaking! hypocrisy is after all, literally, a dramtic performance. You are right that Jung was a Nazi. Poor baby, when they fell on hard times, he had to take to the american lecture circuit. hypocrisy is a positive trait that is very badly used. Hugh Walthall wahu @aol.com ----- Date: Mon, 26 Feb 1996 22:53:48 -0800 From: FLASH.G@eworld.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Jim Morrison Message-Id: <960226225321_26070898@hp1.online.apple.com> Sorry to have come on the scene a little late, but my interest also lies with VAN Morrison. I know that there are links there, but has anyone investigated it in any depth? (for example, there is a direct reference to Blake in the song 'Avalon Sunset') Was Van Morrison a serious student of Blake? Are there other serious VM/Blake fans out there? Regards, Ian Gordon, Canberra, Australia. ----- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 12:05:18 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, rdumain@igc.apc.org Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply Message-Id: Like Ralph Dumain, I have problems with all interpretations which perceive the Bard as similar to the figures he perceives as being in error. For me, it is central , in interpreting the poem, to be aware that the Bard perceives Urizen as capable of controlling `the starry pole' and renewing `the fallen light' - by realizing that his visions of good and evil are mistaken. Urizen separates wrath from mercy , so creating disharmony in the eternal realms, just as in Kabbalah, a contraction in the divine realms occurs when there is imbalance between Din (God's Judgement) and Hesed (God's Mercy. The Bard's function is surely then to perceive the spiritual causes of the Fall and to remind Earth and all others who accept their `mental chains' that release from these simple requires a return to the divine vision of love as it was in Eternity. That is, when all in Eden and Beulah cherished Jerusalem as the "Bride" of the "Lamb of God" and aspired to become one in spirit with this divine couple. In casting Jerusalem out as a "harlot" - precisely becuase she was loved by all and all mingled their spiritual essences with hers - Urizen created a cosmic disaster. He caused a disastrous rift between all of Albion's children and Jerusalem, their essential link to God and the compassion of Jesus. Thus, in my opinion, the Bard is always aware of what essentially ails mankind. In London, he is like a traveller from the worlds of Innocence where Jerusalem is still held in esteem- by Immortals other than sleeping Albion - This, I think, is why he is so amazed by the universal sorrow he sees around him and why he focuses particularly on the `harlot' in the poem. ----- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 10:48:09 +0000 From: "JARNAGIN, NIKKI D." To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Jim Morrison Message-Id: <01I1PEBTNNQQ9BVE7F@ACCESS.EAST-TENN-ST.EDU> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Thank you very much for your response. All the information I can gather will be useful to my lesson. Nikki Jarnagin ----- Date: 27 Feb 96 19:40:33 GMT From: STUART INMAN To: blake@albion.com Subject: unsubscribing Message-Id: <227EDF5656@gre-pcet.greenwich.ac.uk> Sorry to post this here, but I lost my instructions on how to unsubscribe ages ago and want to stop getting mail on the Blake list. Please help! s.inman@greenwich.ac.uk ----- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 96 16:10:56 -0800 From: Seth T. Ross To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: unsubscribing Message-Id: <9602280010.AA10479@albion.com> Content-Type: text/plain > Sorry to post this here, but I lost my instructions on how to > unsubscribe ages ago and want to stop getting mail on the > Blake list. No problem. To leave the Blake list, send an email to blake-request@albion.com with the word "unsubscribe" as the SUBJECT of the message. Don't put anything else in the subject or in the body. You should be removed automatically. Cheers, Seth Ross ----- Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 09:42:10 +0000 From: sternh@WABASH.EDU To: blake@albion.com Subject: Help on Hod and Netsah Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Pam, If you have "a few minutes," could you help me with Hod and Netsah. I am trying to meditate the Sefiroth, and am doing so clumsily. Imean simply trying to make a palce for them in my own phenomenol;ogy, my own consciousness. But instead of finding them easier as I descend, I find them more elusive. My problem is in part ignorance of the Biblical literature behidn the names--so that for me words like "Splendor" and "Eternity" don't quite mean anything yet. Does splendor suggest that Hod hints already at shekinah, and that the radiance of thigns itself is the left leg? And why is Hod also onnected with prophecy. I would liek to think that Netsah as Eternityh (and al;so connected with Prophecy) has to do with the very ongoingness of things, the kind of guarantee that in *The Fate of the Earth* Jonathan Schell some fifteen years back said was revoked by imminent environmental disaster. But I feel very sloppy about all this, without adequate ground. I liked very much your letter on Bard/Earth. How in the hell did they get into that odd adversarial notion?