From: blake-d-request@albion.com Sent: Friday, November 22, 1996 3:20 PM To: blake-d@albion.com Subject: blake-d Digest V1996 #135 ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 135 Today's Topics: Re: Unspecified Plate Re: Urizen--a dismal stupor? Re: Blake's Characters: Ahania et al -Reply Re: mutual forgiveness Re: Unspecified Plate (Jerusalem 25) Re: Urizen Question Re: Unspecified Plate J25, art training, female figures Jerusalem 25 Blake Rips Re: Take me off this list Unspecified plate Re: Jerusalem 25 Unidentified subject! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 06:21:39 -0800 From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Unspecified Plate Message-Id: <199611211421.GAA24955@dfw-ix1.ix.netcom.com> You wrote: > Lance, I believe the plate to wch you refer is plate 25 (numbering is after Keynes, as adopted in Johnson and Grant, *Blake's Poetry & DEsign*) of *Jerusalem* which depicts the torture of Albion. I would describe these figures as androgenous rather then masculine or feminine, especially when I compare them with the exaggerated musculature and maleness of Albion himself in that plate. The woman who has flowing locks has breasts which are hidden by her upflexed arms, the woman who seems to have more definite breasts has closely-cropped hair, and the woman who hovers over all is perhaps the softest and most traditoinally "feminine," of the three but has something of the quality of a young boy??? Perhaps it is the omission of the nipple in all 3 figures which contributes to this androgenous effect---not all of Blake's women are portrayed thus-- (see, e.g. plate 32 to *Jerusalem*) although most Blakean women do seem Fuselain and well-muscled. I was worried that this discussion would turn ridiculous, what with ellided nipples, etc., (and it well may have!) but I do think you could make a case that these figures are least "less feminized" than other of Blake's female figures based on the comparison of plates 25 and 32. S. Reilly >I had a discussion with a professor today in which we disagreed about whether t >he female characters of a certain plate in Jerusalem were masculine-looking. I >can't remember the plate number, but it is the one in which Los (I think it was >Los--I don't have an Illuminated Blake or a computer fast enough to make hyper- >Blake worthwhile) appears to be getting disemboweled by three female characters >. They are arraged above Los, from left to right, with the one on the right pu >lling a tube from Los' stomach and weeping. > >The women on the left and right appear to me to be very masculine, with broad s >houlders, extremely well-developed musculature (one woman's breast even connect >s, at the bottom, to her deltoid, giving the appearance not of a breast but of >an extremely well-developed pectoral muscle), and generally large features. I >asked if Blake had perhaps meant something by his representation and was stoppe >d short (not in the Seinfeldian way) by my professor's statement that he saw no >thing particularly masculine in the images. > >If you can figure out which plate I'm talking about, I'd be curious to hear wha >t you think. > -- Lance Massey. LMM777S@VMA.SMSU.EDU > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 08:25:50 -0600 (CST) From: Arlene Jay Petty To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Urizen--a dismal stupor? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, Bill Ruegg wrote: > > (I'm just a boy whose intentions are good--Oh lord, please don't let > me be misunderstood). > --I'm sorry, so sorry, please accept my apologies. Bill, Thank you for your explanation, as it is I did misunderstand you and I beg your pardon. I am feisty and impetuous and should have given your response more credit than I did. > > Having said that, let me ask you to put yourself in my shoes for a moment. > You see one of your students more or less directly asking for an answer to > an assignment on the list. Wouldn't you want to know the kind of help he > or she received? Wouldn't it be your duty as a teacher to make sure the > student wasn't directly "quoting" from an answer provided to him or her? Yes, of course. Nuf said. It was a misunderstanding on my part. Heard you had a cool web site and will hit on that instead of you! ;-) --Arlene (Oody) Petty ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 08:15:29 -0600 (CST) From: Suzanne Araas Vesely To: Mark Trevor Smith Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's Characters: Ahania et al -Reply Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII good point, Mark, especially with regard to Milton, whom Blake thought worth returning to and reconciling with the females. Milton's attitude towards women was a subject of hot debate among the Bluestockings. Interesting to me that both BLake and the antidemocratic Hannah More were pro-Milton, but I think Blake recognized more limits in Miltonic representations of woman than did Hannah. But yes, I think the heroic act of being the goat on Eve's part--that is very useful. And how Blake attacks those pointing the fingers! The figure in the embrace: some people are not so sure that it is a woman. I believe that it is. I think the main feminist point is that the voice of woman is silent in all of this ending. My answer is to look at what Brittannia actually does, as I have said before. Thanks for the posting, giving me a chance to reply. On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, Mark Trevor Smith wrote: > >>> Suzanne Araas Vesely 11/19/96 > 07:34am >>> > > [ concerning some feminists who read ] > Jerusalem. what they see is that the final scene has no females in it, > unless one counts the depiction of Enitharmon at her spindle. > > -- On plate 100, there is a very prominent female on the right of the plate. > Is this Enitharmon at her spindle? Why does she not count? On plate 99 > there is an enormous embrace between a male figure and a female > figure, who is probably Jerusalem, who also received the last word of > the poem, not to mention the title. Doesn't seem like absence of females > to me. -- mts > > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 08:18:05 -0600 (CST) From: Suzanne Araas Vesely To: Mark Trevor Smith Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: mutual forgiveness Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I see that this was a separate posting to me, privately--I think that it is worth repeating: Blake did original things with the mythic traditions of the West. He did not use them prescriptively--that would be priestcraft. Suzanne AV On Wed, 20 Nov 1996, Mark Trevor Smith wrote: > >>> Suzanne Araas Vesely 11/18/96 > 12:54pm >>> > I believe that Blake's view of the real Christian forgiveness as being > _mutual_ forgiveness suggests this "feeling" of which Scott writes. It > occurs between male and female. I think, though, that Blake's females > tend to be more repentant than his males, perhaps ironically, or perhaps > it is Blake making use of the long judaeochristian tradition of the female > transgressor. > > --Also, perhaps, because in Paradise Lost, it is Eve who heroically first > takes blame, just as it was she who heroically first suggested individual > labor, confronted Satan, and decided to undertake the dangerous task of > eating the apple. When the two bicker and mutally accuse each other > after the fall, Eve first finds a way to break through and begin the mutual > forgiveness. --mts > > > > > ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 09:59:49 -0500 (EST) From: Alexander Gourlay To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Unspecified Plate (Jerusalem 25) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 21 Nov 1996, Lance Massey wrote: > I had a discussion with a professor today in which we disagreed about > whether the female characters of a certain plate in Jerusalem were > masculine-looking. I can't remember the plate number, but it is the one > in which Los (I think it was Los--I don't have an Illuminated Blake or a > computer fast enough to make hyper- Blake worthwhile) appears to be > getting disemboweled by three female characters. They are arranged above > Los, from left to right, with the one on the right pulling a tube from > Los' stomach and weeping. > If you can figure out which plate I'm talking about, I'd be curious to > hear what you think. > -- Lance Massey. LMM777S@VMA.SMSU.EDU The Druidical markings identify the man being disembowelled as Albion -- as Erdman suggests, the women are (l-r) Rahab, Vala, and weeping Tirzah. I don't think they are particularly masculine as Blake's women go, or even as sexually ambiguous as "Jesus" in "The Little Boy found," but I do agree that secondary sex characteristics, androgyny, and hermaphroditism are all important issues that bear thinking about in both texts and illustrations. I don't think they are major issues here, but I'm willing to be persuaded. Sandy Gourlay ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 10:08:48 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Urizen Question Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Not wishing to beat a dead horse of instruction, I'd nonetheless like to clarify my own attitude toward students who seek help on the list for specific assignments. In the broad sense, we are all students of Blake here, whether we're academics or not, and we all seek "help" or input from others in making sense of him. But to me there is a vast difference between saying "I've read this and this is what I think, but I'm not sure, or I don't understand this part . . ." and saying "Can someone tell me what "The Tyger" means" (and yes, we have had a number of such queries over the past two years that I've been on the list). As an undergraduate, I was taught by old-fashioned New Critics who often forbade us to read any outside sources in working on our papers: the task was to be a close reading produced by our own encounter with the text. Naturally, one can't go on like that forever--at some point you need to know what arguments have been made so that you can situate your own and add to existing knowledge--but in my opinion, there is still no substitute for that direct, fresh encounter. I feel I owe my own reading skills to that experience, and particularly my first experiences with Blake, in which I struggled with, and learned to enjoy, the "resistance to reading" that Bill Ruegg describes. There was also no Internet when I was an undergraduate (and I protest that I'm not that old!). Finding a ready-made "panel of experts" on Blake, as one can do simply by doing a search on Blake's name, is much easier than searching library catalogs, the MLA bibliography, or Frank Jordan's bibliography on the Romantic poets, let alone actually *reading* the criticism found there. Sure, we all consult the list for things that we could look up ourselves, and I'm not condemning that. But I worry that the current generation of high school and college students may be growing *too* dependent on electronic media for the quick fix. Sorry to sound like a curmudgeon. It's just that when I decline to respond to such a request, or tell the student to "read the poem yourself," I'm not trying to shut the door in their face, but rather trying to open the door that's right in front of them--the poem itself. Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 19:29:34 MET From: "D.W. DOERRBECKER" To: Lance Massey , blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Unspecified Plate Message-Id: November 21st, 1996 Lance Massey tells us about > [...] a discussion with a professor today in which we > disagreed about whether t he female characters of a certain > plate in Jerusalem were masculine-looking. [...] The women on > the left and right appear to me to be very masculine, with > broad s houlders, extremely well-developed musculature (one > woman's breast even connect s, at the bottom, to her deltoid, > giving the appearance not of a breast but of an extremely > well-developed pectoral muscle), and generally large > features. I asked if Blake had perhaps meant something by his > representation and was stoppe d short (not in the Seinfeldian > way) by my professor's statement that he saw no thing > particularly masculine in the images. I'd be interested to know whether you were looking at a reproduction of a hand-tinted copy of J25 (copies B and E) or of a monochrome pull from Blake's relief-etched plate. The latter was discussed at some length and by a variety of authors in the *Blake Quarterly* some ten or more years ago, and that discussion, I believe, has been reviewed in Morton Paley's commentary on the plate in the Princeton UP/Blake Trust edition of *Jerusalem* (1991). Whoever the professor, apparently he relied *exclusively* on subjective evidence, stating "that he saw nothing particularly masculine" in the representation of those figures. He may (or maybe ought to) have referred to (1) the technical limitations (which Blake, of course, knew how to turn into strengths) of relief-etching, (2) the limitations of modern reproductive techniques, (3) to Blake's artistic training (and the relative scarcity of drawing from the *female* nude model), and (4) to the role of Michelangelo for the development of Blake's figural types. (Filling in those blanks: "Blake was to Palmer and Co. what Michelangelo was to Blake -- and they all misunderstood each other which was quite essential for their artistic achievements.") Looking at the figure of Eve in Michelangelo's ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel, or at some of his sibylls in the lunettes, many late twentieth-century viewers are likely to state that these representations of women look very "masculine" to them ... . Jennifer Michael recently commented on the methodological merits and limitations of "close reading" as propagated by the old New critics she studied with -- Blake's art, just as his poetry, yields new and additional meanings if seen in context. When thinking about his illustrations one profits from an awareness of the visual traditions he was working with (and against): Blake's art without Michelangelo, Raphael, Duerer, etc. is like Blake's poetry without Milton ...; and an attempt to understand the figural language and compositions of Blake's designs is just as complicated (and rewarding) as is the attempt to come to grips with the verbal component of his "composite art". There sure is a limit to all rational discourse, and we won't be able to communicate without some reliance on subjective evidence, yet it ought to be a measure of last resort rather than the first "argument" we throw into the debate. Though I'd probably agree with what he and Sandy Gourlay say concerning J25, Lance Massey's professor cannot hope to convince anybody as long as he refuses to counter the observations concerning the seeming "masculinity" of (many of) Blake's female figures. More than enough, I guess. --DW Doerrbecker ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 15:35 CST From: MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu To: Lance Massey , blake@albion.com, "D.W. DOERRBECKER" Subject: J25, art training, female figures Message-Id: <199611212140.PAA29035@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> Dear Detlef et al: Glad to see Detlef's thought-provoking corrective point, from an art historian's perspective, about the need to take into account Blake's art training and the unavailability of female nude models (Detlef: do you mean both in Blake's time and in Michelangelo's?). But how far does this explanation take us? Who else in Blake's time, besides Fuseli, was doing muscular female nudes, or nonmuscular ones -- did other artists' nude females have androgynous characteristics? Blake didn't have ONLY Michelangelo prints to draw on: certainly Raphael, who is supposed to have used used his mistress(es) as model(s), did not create muscular Madonnas (nor did Botticelli). And Detlef, what do you say to the theory that Michelangelo's females look that way not only because he just drew breasts on young male figures but because he was not attracted to women? Also, what about Blake's choices AFTER art school -- perhaps using Catherine as a model? While I'm asking you art-history questions: I realize that scholars say Botticelli was unknown/unappreciated in England in B's time (but was rediscovered about 1820??) -- but to my untrained eye his Venus ooks like a precursor of Jersualem, as she is depicted in J28. I'm talking more about the pose and the voluptuousness than anything else. (Not that Blake hadn't already done female nudes of this general physical type earlier, as in VDA.) I suppose what I want you to discuss is the relationship between Blake's taste/temperament/training to his literary/artistic themes. It seems too easy to say he drew muscular women because he was trained that way (I don't think you meant to suggest that). Although Blake admired both Michelangelo and Raphael (or Giulio Romano's prints), as examples of Roman or Florentine style as opposed to Venetian, he preferred the "sublime" of Michelangelo (and Mannerism) to the "beautiful" of Raphael, nicht wahr? But is that just a visual thing? Or, in adopting a Michelangelesque style of representing the female body, did he WISH to have some (not all) of his female figures perceived as having masculine characteristics, in keeping with his interest, on the poetic side, in gender conflict, unresolved gender identity, etc.? About Lance Massey's professor: if he's a literary scholar, I don't see anything wrong with his giving his candid subjective impression as a lay person untrained in art history; why can't he just react to the pictures as he sees them, so long as he doesn't suppress Lance's further questions and speculations? -- Mary Lynn ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 19:27:06 -0500 (EST) From: bouwer To: blake@albion.com Subject: Jerusalem 25 Message-Id: <199611220027.TAA26453@host.ott.igs.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In my neck of the woods the first thing we do when we want to =93interpret=94 anything in Blake, is to ask: =93In which quarter does it lie on the circle described by =93The Mental Traveler=94? (The female Natural principle dominant, either in waxing or waning mode/ male Spiritual principle dominant, either in waxing or waning mode.) Using this as a guideline, J25 is situated where the Natural principle is dominant, and the Spiritual principle is weak and under attack - in MT they catch =93his shrieks in cups of gold.=94 It is therefore tempting to assume that the females in J25 are=20 depicted as big and brawny in order to express the dominance of the Natural principle at this point, (keeping in mind that most Blake figures are quite often well-proportioned, for instance in J57.) How- ever, I do notice a tendency in Blake to slim down his females whenever he is depicting scenes where the Spirit is in the ascendant (and where the female as the Natural principle is growing increasingly =93younger=94 and less strong ) : J32, J81, J92, J96, J99. I cannot lay my hand on a paper that Morris=20 Eaves wrote some time ago about pathos formulae in Blake. Did he discuss this kind of thing there? Gloudina Bouwer ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 18:37:59 -0800 From: mthorn@ix.netcom.com (MT) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Blake Rips Message-Id: <199611220237.SAA27215@dfw-ix12.ix.netcom.com> Blake Rips and the Microbe's Apocalyptic Temptation Singular Microorganism Strange longevity Casting around shoulders on "The Flea" Numinous purview Back Acting Qualia Spotted the frenzied gentleman Oil lamps and Candles Bottles foul The fumes would rock a well shoed beast Eye contact The Flea The Man The Microbe as storage device Observes a neural glow Time slips Reason, a scathing task master The Man Spaces with relief Voltaire and Rousseau are to revolt What The Man is to Graphics Michelangelo is to the Painting What Milton is to the Poetry Dead Samuel says so The dead eye paradigm sees less Pythagoras? Bosch? The Microbe skips Geoffery Hill? Palmer? Could sentience elucidate? And what of A.O. Spare? A minor light? That annoying Crowley Mescaline lights Huxley Poor Morrison followed Dylan Thomas that is The neural glow was just too much He wanna be sedated The Black Sheep What of plagiarism? Forget it Life's blood plagiarizes Judge and jury is in the heart All offenses are stored Time reminds Talent Borrows Genius Steals (A plagiarized conundrum) Risk everything Like a child at Play In the rain No one cares You are ALONE Blake Doesn't Understand Blake Explores Blake In closing... How to bug academicians Can't believe you let the question go Saucy Wit and Incisive Fingertips Please It is Expected. MT is to Poetry what Stephen Hawking is to Glass Blowing mt ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 21:07:31 -0600 From: "Carrie Ricaud" To: Subject: Re: Take me off this list Message-Id: <19961122031347.AAA13752@octigon> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I previously requested to be removed from this list, and would appreciate someone complying with my wishes. I cannot keep up with the reading. Thanks. Carrie ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Nov 96 22:28:49 CST From: Lance Massey To: Doerrbecker & Grant Subject: Unspecified plate Message-Id: <9611220440.AA12074@uu6.psi.com> Thank you both for your responses, as well as those earlier which I unfortunate ly have deleted. I remember now, thanks to a post I read this morning, being s truck by the heavenly configuration on the legs of the male figure--Albion, of course! I worry, however, that I have overly dramatized the "discussion" I had with my professor. It couldn't have lasted more than 30 seconds, and in that time he a sked me if the figures didn't, in fact, remind me of some of the Sistine Chapel 's representations. Moreover, I can't imagine any professor outside of an art department giving more (and deserved) attention to Blake's physical methods of printmaking: he even invited an art major/friend of a pupil in his Blake semin ar to give a presentation on the very subject. Thanks again to all who respond ed (and may still respond); please forgive my hasty "delete" finger and my poor , late-in-the-semester-panic memory. Lance Massey. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 12:49:57 -0500 (EST) From: Scott A Leonard To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Jerusalem 25 Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To add my .02 to Gloudina's observation about the relative sveltness of Blake's drawn women--Page 86 of Four Zoas shows a nymphishly trim Enitharmon poised on her knees and (perhaps) expressing milk from her breasts. (Quite erotically charged from my p.o.v.) The text above this sketch is the last part of the conversation between Los and the Spectre of Urthona in Night 7. The Spectre has just entered Los' breast and suggested that Los should continue to embrace him as a way of restoring the "threefold" vision. Los, of course, accepts. This concurs with your observation Gloudina that B's women slim down when the spiritual is in the ascendant. Scott A. Leonard ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 14:28:40 -0500 (EST) From: dpvintin@acpub.duke.edu (Giles David) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Unidentified subject! Message-Id: <199611221928.OAA15414@argus.acpub.duke.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 'Fraid I have to leave the country every three months. The US doesn't allow migrant hymnwriters to stay in. So to save my friend's e-mail from cloggin' up, while I'm away, have to leave the Blake list as well (sighs of relief all round) But as a parting shot, thought I'd unveil some afforisums I wrote this week. Never written these kind of things before. Well worth exploring if any of you are strapped for something to do between books. Nice and short and sweet! I can see why Mr Blake liked 'em. I prefer hymns on the whole, they give me something to sink my writer's teeth into. And I can dream of the day when some of them will become a fresh artform on the landscape. Standing Songs may sound mad, but destruction of the environment is madder, and anything we Blake folks can do is going to be crucial. Anway, here's some puny offerings of a pipskweek... I lack the clear analytical grasp I offer ledgerdemain instead Learn to sing with the Housework - polish the stars with eyelash. Invent a new word at least once. Really grinjambullus things what they are. Don't give in to plastic bread or freshly baked antique furniture. Personal and Political are one word, not two sides of the same coin. Hold a bible exactly as you wouldn't a cudgel. Go with it precisely off the beaten track. Take up martial art kiss and swerve the dark. The gospel of Christ isn't hidebound. But skinbound in the gospel of ----- (reader's name) Verbs make startling nouns 'Verb' itself is stuck in one. Christ does not validate us, but verb us beyond ourselves. copywrite 1996 Giles David Go well and be crucial. -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #135 **************************************