From: blake-d-request@albion.com Sent: Monday, December 02, 1996 12:16 PM To: blake-d@albion.com Subject: blake-d Digest V1996 #139 ------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 139 Today's Topics: Re: J25: Spectre and Los -Reply....primary and secondary meanings of text Re: J25: Spectre and Los -Reply....primary and secondary meanings of text -Reply Thanksgiving Happy Thanksgiving RE: blake quarterly THANKSGIVING BLAKE Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_ Howard Roark? Re:Re: Howard Roark? Re: Howard Roark? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 17:47:26 -0500 (EST) From: Scott A Leonard To: P Van Schaik Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: J25: Spectre and Los -Reply....primary and secondary meanings of text Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Pam & interested others: I know the conundrum well. We cannot know what Blake meant, so we cannot rule out most readings as "not what he meant at all, not what he meant at all." Having trained in "theory," I'm well acquainted with the point of view that suggests that what Blake had in mind (or the several things he had in mind) is entirely irrelevant because even if such information were fully available to us, we'd still have only OUR highly conditioned, historically situated reading to deal with. I guess, after about 10 years of reflection, I've pretty much abandoned much of the theoretical bias against metaphysics (as it relates to "meaning" and as it relates to individual spiritual experience). Rather, I'm interested in what meanings texts seem reasonably to facilitate. If one such reading were a dramatization of modern sexual politics, then that would be o.k. And if one can be satisfied with a monocular view of literature--pretty weak tea in my view--then even a semi-ahistorical monocular view of Blake or any other writer is at least some pleasurable access to the text. Personally, I love Blake because he enables a variety of simultaneous visions. I get to think about his demonic gospel of trusting our senses to lead us back to Eternity; and to think about the way his difficult syntax and idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation perform the po-mo ministry of disrupting linguistic and narratological expectations (a proto-deconstructionist is Will); and to think about the implications of his "use" of the politicsal world of his time as part of his symbolics; and to think about how beautiful and magical so many of his world combinations are; and of course one could go on. One certainly doesn't get (to employ jargon shamelessly) the same polyvalent pleasures from, say, Tennyson. Indeed, even T.S. Eliot's deeply allusive technique--while it makes for very challenging reading--is, by comparison, a pony of only one trick. Blake is allusive and tied to tradition, but far more interesting because he seeks to create a tradition, etc. Well, enough vaporing. All I had intended to add to this conversation was the point that I'm not concerned that Blake will be misread by those with only one set of reading glasses at their disposal--I'm quite certain that he will be. Yet, the text that we have will remain available to others whose interests lie closer to your own--sorting among Blake's likely primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. intended meanings. Probably doesn't mean much to you folks not living in the US, but happy Thanksgiving! I plan to test out the proverb "Enough or too much!" Scott A. Leonard ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 10:27:39 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: saleonar@cc.ysu.edu Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: J25: Spectre and Los -Reply....primary and secondary meanings of text -Reply Message-Id: Scott, Thanks so much for the eloquent reply which , apart from opening up magical vistas of Blakean enjoyment , also empowers all those who love Blake to have a good time responding both to his sublime and parodically funny visions. I, too, see him as a proto-deconstructionist and would probably have adopted deconstructionist methodology if it had been around when doing doctoral work on Blake... mostly , though, his words make me visualise almost cinematically (sometimes almost in the vein of the Beatles film revolving around Love and Glove, called I think "The Yellow Submarine", especially re the anti-heroic, dehumanised images recently quoted in which Urizen views his ruined children). I imagine the whole progress of the Fall and Recovery almost holographically, too, and since no such technology of presentation yet exists, fell back on writing a masque for stage, in Blake's own words, which could be done in very modern style, or like a real old-fashioned masque and anti-masque. Imagine those floating bits of hands and feet in an anti-masque! Then, too, a few years ago, Blake was thrown off a third year course on Poetry here in favour of Tennyson's "In Memoriam". Marking those papers on the latter was absolute torture! Pam ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 10:45:10 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: saleonar@cc.ysu.edu Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Thanksgiving Message-Id: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone out there celebrating. May it be a `time of love' when all the `veils' around shine brightly, as when Albion made Jerusalem his `Bride and Wife' (J20) Pam ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 14:54:17 -0500 From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Happy Thanksgiving Message-Id: <961128145416_1285869660@emout12.mail.aol.com> Reading the messages on the list today reminds me how thankful I am for this list and all its members. Having this online community, with all its fine and sometimes prickly individualities, has renewed and reinvigorated my desire to read, to think about, and to write about Blake, who has been probably my most important teacher and a defining influence in my life. I look forward to further mental wars and hunting with all of you. --Tom Devine ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 96 20:58:52 UT From: "Roger Harrison" To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: blake quarterly Message-Id: I would be very happy to receive a complimentary copy of Blake/ An Illustrated Quarterly. Thank you 920 Gretna Green Way Los Angeles CA 90049 ---------- From: Albion Rose Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 1996 5:48 PM To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: blake quarterly Patricia Neill wrote: > > Hi Paul, > > I am managing editor of Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, and I'd be happy to send you (and anyone else here) a complimentary copy of the journal, along with subscription information. Just let me know your mailing address. > >Thanks > > > >paul scanlon > > > > My mailing address is: R. Joshua Murry PSC 80, Box 15929 APO AP 96367 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 19:40:35 -0800 (PST) From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Cc: rdumain@igc.org Subject: THANKSGIVING BLAKE Message-Id: <199611290340.TAA23849@igc4.igc.org> VALA, OR THE FOUR ZOAS The torments of Love & Jealousy in The Death and Judgement of the Ancient Man (1795-1804) by William Blake (born 28 November 1757) Excerpts from Night the Ninth, Being The Last Judgment: And One of the Eternals spoke. All was silent at the feast. "Man is a worm; wearied with joy, he seeks the caves of sleep "Among the Flowers of Beulah, in his selfish cold repose "Forsaking Brotherhood & Universal Love, in selfish clay "Folding the pure wings of his mind, seeking the places dark "Abstracted from the roots of Science; then inclos'd around "In walls of Gold we cast him like a Seed into the Earth "Till times & spaces have pass'd over him; duly every morn "We visit him, covering with a veil the immortal seed; "With windows from the inclement sky we cover him, & with walls "And hearths protect the selfish terror, till divided all "In families we see our shadows born, & thence we know "That Man subsists by Bortherhood & Universal Love. "We fall on one another's necks, more closely we embrace. "Not for ourselves, but for the Eternal family we live. "Man liveth not by Self alone, but in his brother's face "Each shall behold the eternal Father & love & joy abound." (lines 626-642) "Let the slave, grinding at the mill, run out into the field; "Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air. "Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness & in sighing, "Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years, "Rise & look out: his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open; "And let his wife & children return from the opressor's scourge. "They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream. "Are these the slaves that groan'd along the streets of Mystery? "Where are your bonds & task masters? are these the prisoners? "Where are your chains? where are your tears? why do you look around? "If you are thirsty; there is the river; go, bathe your parched limbs, "The good of all the Land is before you, for Mystery is no more." Then All the Slaves from every Earth in the wide Universe Sing a New Song, drowning confusion in its happy notes, While the flail of Urizen sounded loud, & the winnowing wind of Tharmas So loud, so clear in the wide heavens; & the song that they sung was this, Composed by an African Black from the little Earth of Sotha: "Aha! Aha! how came I here so soon in my sweet native land? "How came I here? Methinks I am as I was in my youth "When in my father's house I sat & heard his chearing voice. "Methinks I see his flocks & herds & feel my limbs renew'd, "And Lo, my Brethren in their tents, & their little ones around them!" (lines 670-691) The Sun arises from his dewy bed, & the fresh airs Play in his smiling beams giving the seeds of life to grow, And the fresh Earth beams forth ten thousand springs of life. Urthona is arisen in his strength, no longer now Divided from Enitharmon, no longer the Spectre Los. Where is the Spectre of Prophecy? where the delusive Phantom? Departed: & Urthona rises from the ruinous Walls In all his ancient strength to form the golden armour of science For intellectual War. The war of swords departed now, The dark religions are departed & sweet Science reigns. (lines 846-855) End of the Dream * * * * * * Thank _you_, William Blake! My excess of sorrow laughs, my excess of joy weeps! In immeasurable exaltation, my tears chase down my cheeks. You fed my soul, you fed my mind, in a world of the mentally blind. --- Ralph Dumain Thanksgiving Day 28 November 1996 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Nov 1996 18:25:00, -0500 From: LVDP51A@prodigy.com ( PAUL SCANLON) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Ayn Rand's _The Fountainhead_ Message-Id: <199611302325.SAA27464@mime4.prodigy.com> Sorry that I usually only contribute questions rather than responses, but while I was researching Milton's _Samson Agonistes_ and imagery Blake used to convey the fallen man's duality with his physical work and psychological outlook, I was reminded of Ayn Rand's novels and wondered whether anyone familiar with her works would consider her perception of Howard Roark (_Fountainhead_) similar to Los as he works in the mill. In Rand's novel, Howard Roark is an architect who refuses to compromise his principals. When contracted to build a religious building, Roark celebrates the human form by having it filled with human statues and the earth rather than the sky. Despite his continual run-ins with peers and so-called intellectuals who hate his Promethean concepts, Roark decides to destroy his building rather than allow it to be controlled by those whose value system defies the spirit with which he built. If anyone is familiar with the novel and/or its possible parallelisms, please respond. Thanks, paul scanlon ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 1 Dec 1996 23:09:03 -0600 From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Howard Roark? Message-Id: <96120123090342@wc.stephens.edu> I once knew a man who argued vehemently (and could quote passages to support his views) that Blake was temperamentally a proto-fascist thinker, anticipating especially the appeals to irrationality and blood-enthusiasm so cleverly manipulated by fascist thinkers in this century; he argued that Blake's thought could be used (as was recently suggested with reference to the Proverbs, by Mr. Murray) to overthrow all forms of rational order and democratic freedom in favor of enslavement to a "higher power," which he argued might masquerade as an "artist" in order to sneak past the resistance of intellectuals who could be softened up to accept the absolute order of the dictator by appeals to their aesthetic senses (the substitution of aesthetics for morality having been a standard move of fascists in this century). I hope I need not say that I found this argument even more grossly reductive and ignorant of Blake's real complexity than I do some of the more spiritualistic simplifications we find here in abundance. (And of course the fascists found it easy to enlist various brands of "psychology"--especially Jung's--and spiritualism, on their behalf, using them as effectively as they did the aesthetic trojan horse, but with different groups.) As for Ayn Rand, not only did she not have a clue about art (in any of its forms, but most obviously the art of narration, which she never in her life could master, along with the art of readable prose--something permanently denied her efforts), but her concept of Howard Roark (or the inimitable and hysterically funny Dagney Taggart, busily diddling herself with dollar signs) is so far from Blake's Los as to belong in another realm entirely. The only way we could link Blake and Rand would be to acquiesce to my old friend's view that Blake was a proto-fascist, since Rand was a fascist-manque (inadequate only in that her legions of fans have not yet found the right mountaintop to place their mammoth dollar sign, though they certainly have infiltrated other metaphorically "high places") a poor and pathetic self-aggrandizer who pretended to have a philosophy (tattered borrowings from the Social Darwinists, eugenicists, and Andrew Carnegie) and had nary a clue about her own absurdity. Of course some will continue to insist on her "power," but I cannot shake the memory of seeing her standing between her armed bodyguards sneering at every question and giving only one response--"if you understood my work, you would not be so stupid as to ask that question." Since that was her standard answer, one had to wonder if she understood her work herself, since the questions were all perfectly reasonable and cogent, relevant to her fictions. If anyone can find a hint of Howard Roark's "principles" (for which he stood up and showed his courage by bombing a building, rather like some of our contemporary brave militiamen in Oklahoma) in any passage dealing with Los and Golgonooza, I will have to contact my old friend and retract my counterarguments. But I really doubt the analogy will hold. Tom Dillingham ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 07:49:20 -0500 From: WaHu@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re:Re: Howard Roark? Message-Id: <961202074919_1085086188@emout12.mail.aol.com> Everything Mr. Dillingham says is true. Except that the fascists do have a toe-hold in reality. I refer of course to the sublimely wacky Palace of Spooks, the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Which of course is neither central nor intelligent but is an Agency. Ayn Rand Rules! is pretty standard graffitti in the restroom stalls at HQ in McLean, Va. Oddly enough, for a cogent discussion of the spiritual make-up of the Spies, see Harold Bloom's book the American Religion. Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 02 Dec 1996 14:32:48 +0000 From: sternh@WABASH.EDU To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Howard Roark? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Gershom Scholem, defining the Messianic impulse in Jewish thought, sees that impulse as rejecting any simple appeal to historical progress. This Messianism believes instead in "transcendence breaking in upon history, an intrusion in which history itself perishes, transformed into ruins because it is struck by a beam of light shining into it from an outside source." This same idea Scholem's friend Walter Benjamin put forward in his "Theses on the Philosophy of History," where he argued that historical materialism must enlist "the services of theology," though theology today "is wizened and has to keep out of sight." It must do this in an effort to give up its blind belief in a progressive historical continuum, against the fact of history as nothing but series of catastrophes piling wreckage upon wreckage. In this framework, healing derives from the notion of "every second of time [as] the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter." (I draw this brief synthesis from Mark Lilla's brilliant essay on Scholem and Benjamin in the NYRB of May 25, 1995). I bring this up in the light of Tom Dillingham's fine and passionate last posting, with which I am in almost total sympathy. But I'm troubled by Tom's remark that he found the argument that Blake was a proto-fascist "even more grossly reductive and ignorant of Blake's real complexity than I do some of the more spiritualistic simplifications we find here in abundance." Obviously none of us welcomes grossly reductive spiritualistic simplifications, any more than we welcome grossly reductive simplifications of any other kind. But I wonder whether this argument between historical materialism and spiritualism on the Blake list couldn't be mediated--perhaps by Tom's spelling out the kind of "spiritualist" criticism that offends him and by his laying out the terms of the alternative. Ralph Dumain would be helpful here also, if the problem appeals to him. One of the difficulties about our conversation on this list is that much have already been said that many of us haven't heard. But since this one is the issue that seems most thematic, and that carries the strongest charge, it might be worth while to step back for a moment and try to engage it directly. Perhaps, in the process, someone could also lay out the terms of a non-reductive spiritualist reading of Blake. I'm sure that Pam could get us started in that direction. Bert Stern -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #139 **************************************