------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 15 Today's Topics: Re: Where is the Blake List? Re: Where is the Blake List? a question on color Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply Re: Where is the Blake List? Re: Where is the Blake List? WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: GLONEO TRANSLATION Re: Where is the Blake List! Re: WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: GLONEO TRANSLATION BLAKE SIGHTINGS: E.P. THOMPSON VIA SURREALISM Re: WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: GLONEO TRANSLATION Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply (fwd) Re: Ackroyd hi! re:blake and german idealism? re:blake and german idealism? Heppner's CUP book Introduction ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Mar 96 12:53:04 -0800 From: Seth T. Ross To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Where is the Blake List? Message-Id: <9603072053.AA00755@albion.com> Content-Type: text/plain > It has been a long time since I have seen anything enter my > mailbox from blake@albin.com, and I was just curious to know > whether I have been unsubscribed by mistake or if everyone > else on the list has suddenly headed off to Bermuda. I've answered Sarah's query privately. The Albion mail server is set up to automatically remove addresses that repeatedly bounce. I've set it to be pretty tolerant, but if there's a problem with mail connectivity or with a subscriber's account, there's a good chance that the subscriber will get bounced off the list. If this happens mistakenly, simply resubscribe to the list. While I'm here, I might as well mention that the automatic "unsubscription" mechanism sometimes fails. If this happens to you, please be patient -- I should catch it and remove you manually. As always, to leave the Blake Online list, send a note to blake-request@albion.com with the word "unsubscribe" as the SUBJECT of the message (anything in the body is ignored). Finally, as a reminder, when you reply to a note sent to the Blake list, the reply is addressed to the ENTIRE LIST by default. If your reply is private, please be sure to remove "blake@albion.com" from the TO: field and replace it with the address of the individual you wish to address. Thank you one and all for your great contributions to the discussions here. Cheers, Seth Ross List-owner, Blake Online Publisher of AlbionBooks http://www.albion.com/welcome/albion ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 16:04:52 -0500 From: wildcelt To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Where is the Blake List? Message-Id: <199603072104.QAA13114@p3.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:18 AM 3/7/96 -0800, you wrote: >It has been a long time since I have seen anything enter my mailbox from >blake@albin.com, and I was just curious to know whether I have been >unsubscribed by mistake or if everyone else on the list has suddenly headed >off to Bermuda. > >Anyone? >Sarah > Hi Sarah, Let me know if you get this message via the list, there has been little traffic Leo Personal attacks are the last resort of an exhausted mind Pat Buchanan 2-25-96 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Mar 96 18:03:00 EST From: "Fabian, Matthew" To: "'SMTP:blake@albion.com'" Subject: a question on color Message-Id: <313F6BC5@smtpgate1.moodys.com> I have a question about the color of a Blake original currently on display at the New York Public Library. They are exhibiting a copy of EUROPE (I don't remember any specific information about the edition of the copy) in which the color seems fairly artificial, similar to a colorized black and white film. This is the first original I've seen, but it differs significantly from my experience with reproductions, in that the color of the reproductions seems much more lifelike. I know that Blake was renowned, at least by his contemporaries, for his excellent use of color. So my question is, do some editions suffer from worse coloring than others? does the ink that Blake used (he made it himself, didn't he?) change over time so that all the originals take on an artificial quality? Or is this just how originals look? -Matt Fabian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 07 Mar 1996 12:16:24 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: rdumain@igc.apc.org Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply Message-Id: I wrote my doctoral thesis on "Blake's Vision of the Fall and Redemption of Man: A reading based on Contrary Images of Innocence and Experience" (through the University of South Africa, 1983) and in this explored numerous contraries - a topic first broached in an MA done for Univ of North Carolina, Chapel Hill , in which I only focused on the imagery of light and darkness in the prophetic works (under the name of Dembo). I don't exactly equate Bard and Blake but feel that the poet expresses his own views via the Bard, or the Traveller-figure in London or speaker in The Garden of Love - who seems to remember the `sweet golden clime' of Innocence where love was not debased by selfish lust, (as suggested in The Sick Rose) but selfless, and where all embraced Jerusalem in order to assimilate her spiritual qualities of `joy, thanksgiving, mercy' etc, associated with the "Lamb of GOd", her spiritual partner in Eternity. I can't imagine the Bard as even unconsciously complicit in any vision other than the one which he holds up as redemptive - an awakening from the Sleep of the soul which makes it so hard for Earth to rouse herself from despair. I see Earth as consistent with so many other female figures (Oothoon, Ahania, Enitharmon etc), all of whom lament the loss of their former joys in Eternity where love was `free' as `mountain wind' - because it was not limited by the contracted senses, but was a commingling of spiritual essences. and so constant an intermingling with others that all were sustained in unity with God. This is what , in brief, I was hoping to convey by the term `divine vision of love'. So, I don't see the Bard as `scorned by Earth' who would love to be freed of her bondage and have all the perceptual errors and `Doubt' produced by Urizen's `clouds of reasoning' (as suggested in The Voice of the Ancient Bard) dissipated by the light of `truth'. I see Earth as scorning the cruel tyrant Urizn, whom she knows only as the so-called "Father of the ancient men", but whom she holds responsible for casting Jerusalem out as a "Harlot" from the souls of all of Albion's children. Urizen 's stern moral laws, imposed on all the immortal spirits within Albion's expansive spiritual realms, ( in the mistaken belief that the free loves of eternity were `unnatural consanguinities' ) have created the `mental bondage' from which Earth wishes to escape. Blake, the Bard and the Traveller - speaker who can still recall the joys of Innocence are freed by their perception of the `truth' - and Earth wishes, too, to embrace this truth but is seen as too sluggish of soul to awaken from her `Sleep' - at least until more on Earth heed the `Voice of the Bard'. I think Blake perceives absolutely everything that exists as participating in the bondage while caught in the prisin of the flesh - every `herb, tree, mountain' - all of which are vocal in his longer poems and which can regain their original divinely human lineaments by awakening to a true perception of a loving God. Will try to send this answer to all at blake@albion - if I don't manage, perhaps, Ralph, you could. Thanks for an interesting challenge mentally, but now I have a heap of scripts to mark. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 08:32:39 -0600 (CST) From: William Neal Franklin To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Where is the Blake List? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm off to Enchanted Rock (out by Dripping Springs, Texas). We're going to camp out in the hills somewhere and play Blake on flute and guitar. I haven't figured out yet how to share that with the list, but I'll let you know. William Neal Franklin On Thu, 7 Mar 1996, Sarah Clayton wrote: > It has been a long time since I have seen anything enter my mailbox from > blake@albin.com, and I was just curious to know whether I have been > unsubscribed by mistake or if everyone else on the list has suddenly headed > off to Bermuda. > > Anyone? > Sarah > > ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 10:51:31 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Where is the Blake List? Message-Id: <9603081655.AA11290@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm off to Enchanted Rock (out by Dripping Springs, Texas). We're going >to camp out in the hills somewhere and play Blake on flute and guitar. I >haven't figured out yet how to share that with the list, but I'll let you >know. > >William Neal Franklin It sounds lovely; I envy you! May "the green woods laugh with the voice of joy." Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 09:46:56 -0800 From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: GLONEO TRANSLATION Message-Id: <199603081746.JAA01887@igc4.igc.apc.org> WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: BLAKE EN "GLONEO" TRANSLATION According to an article by Hal Rammel called "The Wizard of Gloneo", rusel jaque, founder of a contemporary reincarnation of 1840s mystical utopian socialism, has invented a new language for freefolq dubbed "gloneo." Three translations of poems into Gloneo are offered. From what I can see, Gloneo looks like a mixture of reformed spelling, English, and Esperanto. Perhaps you will be able to decipher this translation: la modeso rozo putu ele a dorno la humbla shepo a drohada qorno wel la tia blanqa devu en amo delu ne a dorno ne a droho strehu sia belo hela william blaqe from: ARSENAL / SURREALIST SUBVERSION 4, edited by Franklin Rosemont, Chicago: Black Swan Press, 1989, p.63. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 13:49:02 -0600 (CST) From: William Neal Franklin To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Where is the Blake List! Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 8 Mar 1996, William Neal Franklin wrote: > >I'm off to Enchanted Rock (out by Dripping Springs, Texas). We're going > >to camp out in the hills somewhere and play Blake on flute and guitar. ...to which Jennifer Michael responded > It sounds lovely; I envy you! May "the green woods laugh with the voice of > joy." These woods do not laugh, but they listen well. Come join us. We'll be there Sunday afternoon, probably in the grove in the cleft of the north face. Come quietly and you may hear the voice of the Bard. And bring a harp! WNF ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 14:12:04 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: GLONEO TRANSLATION Message-Id: <9603082016.AA06608@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: BLAKE EN "GLONEO" TRANSLATION > >According to an article by Hal Rammel called "The Wizard of >Gloneo", rusel jaque, founder of a contemporary reincarnation of >1840s mystical utopian socialism, has invented a new language for >freefolq dubbed "gloneo." Three translations of poems into >Gloneo are offered. From what I can see, Gloneo looks like a >mixture of reformed spelling, English, and Esperanto. Perhaps you will be >able to decipher this translation: > >la modeso rozo putu ele a dorno >la humbla shepo a drohada qorno >wel la tia blanqa devu en amo delu >ne a dorno ne a droho strehu sia belo hela > > william blaqe > >from: ARSENAL / SURREALIST SUBVERSION 4, edited by Franklin Rosemont, Chicago: >Black Swan Press, 1989, p.63. "The Modest Rose puts forth a thorn"? But I really don't see how Blake (or anyone else) is improved through translation, especially into a language that has been deliberately invented. From your description, I'd gather that anyone who can read Gloneo can probably read English. And if we're reforming spelling, why does blake become "blaqe"? Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 13:37:09 -0800 From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: BLAKE SIGHTINGS: E.P. THOMPSON VIA SURREALISM Message-Id: <199603082137.NAA26332@igc4.igc.apc.org> WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: E.P. THOMPSON MEETS SURREALISM Before E.P. Thompson's last book -- on Blake at long last -- came out, his views on Blake were known through his monumental history THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS. This serves as the inspiration for the following article: Buhle, Paul. "E.P. Thompson and William Blake: The Education of Desire", in FREE SPIRITS: ANNALS OF THE INSURGENT IMAGINATION, I, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1982, pp. 27-28. What's more, there is a poem by E.P. Thompson, "King of my freedom here", appearing on p. 29 next to an engraving by Blake captioned "The Body Reunited with the Soul." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 1996 13:41:42 -0800 From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: WEIRD BLAKE SIGHTINGS: GLONEO TRANSLATION Message-Id: <199603082141.NAA26873@igc4.igc.apc.org> I just report 'em, I don't justify 'em. I do have some background in this area, and this "gloneo" is not a real artificial language, if I may use such an ironical expression. Esperanto is a real language, and there are a few Blake translations in it, though none that compare to the original, not even my rendition of "I feared the fury of my wind". Stay tuned for more weird Blake sightings. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 07:57:10 +0800 (SST) From: LIM WEE CHING To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply -Reply Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Greetings to all, I've been away for a while and I was wondering if anyone archived the 'Bard's Voice/Earth's Answer' thread by any chance. I'd be grateful if anyone who has kept the thread of discussions would be kind enough to e-mail it to me. Yours CHING Singapore On Thu, 7 Mar 1996, P Van Schaik wrote: > I wrote my doctoral thesis on "Blake's Vision of the Fall and Redemption > of Man: A reading based on Contrary Images of Innocence and > Experience" (through the University of South Africa, 1983) and in this > explored numerous contraries - a topic first broached in an MA done for > Univ of North Carolina, Chapel Hill , in which I only focused on the > imagery of light and darkness in the prophetic works (under the name of > Dembo). > > I don't exactly equate Bard and Blake but feel that the poet expresses > his own views via the Bard, or the Traveller-figure in London or > speaker in The Garden of Love - who seems to remember the `sweet > golden clime' of Innocence where love was not debased by selfish lust, > (as suggested in The Sick Rose) but selfless, and where all embraced > Jerusalem in order to assimilate her spiritual qualities of `joy, > thanksgiving, mercy' etc, associated with the "Lamb of GOd", her > spiritual partner in Eternity. > > I can't imagine the Bard as even unconsciously complicit in any vision > other than the one which he holds up as redemptive - an awakening > from the Sleep of the soul which makes it so hard for Earth to rouse > herself from despair. I see Earth as consistent with so many other > female figures (Oothoon, Ahania, Enitharmon etc), all of whom lament > the loss of their former joys in Eternity where love was `free' as > `mountain wind' - because it was not limited by the contracted senses, > but was a commingling of spiritual essences. and so constant an > intermingling with others that all were sustained in unity with God. This > is what , in brief, I was hoping to convey by the term `divine vision of > love'. > > So, I don't see the Bard as `scorned by Earth' who would love to be > freed of her bondage and have all the perceptual errors and `Doubt' > produced by Urizen's `clouds of reasoning' (as suggested in The Voice > of the Ancient Bard) dissipated by the light of `truth'. > > > I see Earth as scorning the cruel tyrant Urizn, whom she knows only as > the so-called "Father of the ancient men", but whom she holds > responsible for casting Jerusalem out as a "Harlot" from the souls of all > of Albion's children. Urizen 's stern moral laws, imposed on all the > immortal spirits within Albion's expansive spiritual realms, ( in the > mistaken belief that the free loves of eternity were `unnatural > consanguinities' ) have created the `mental bondage' from which Earth > wishes to escape. > > Blake, the Bard and the Traveller - speaker who can still recall the joys > of Innocence are freed by their perception of the `truth' - and Earth > wishes, too, to embrace this truth but is seen as too sluggish of soul to > awaken from her `Sleep' - at least until more on Earth heed the `Voice of > the Bard'. I think Blake perceives absolutely everything that exists as > participating in the bondage while caught in the prisin of the flesh - > every `herb, tree, mountain' - all of which are vocal in his longer poems > and which can regain their original divinely human lineaments by > awakening to a true perception of a loving God. > > Will try to send this answer to all at blake@albion - if I don't manage, > perhaps, Ralph, you could. Thanks for an interesting challenge mentally, > but now I have a heap of scripts to mark. > > ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 12:09:16 -0500 (EST) From: Nelson Hilton To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply (fwd) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII P. Van Schaik writes, in part: >I can't imagine the Bard as even unconsciously complicit in any vision >other than the one which he holds up as redemptive Well, the name, at any rate, makes for one of those subvocally complicit with a vision "barr'd out," "barr'd and petrify'd against the infinite" (MHH 25; Am 10.6; Eur 10.15)--with all that Nom-du-pere Holy Word stuff we aren't being asked to hear the other-voice of the barred, the oppressed: chimney sweep, hapless soldier, harlot. And the poem's syntactic confusions suggest further unconscious obfuscation. And in the illustration, surely one of the most significant features is that cloud ("clouds of reason"?) whose text leaves our view barred ("barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day," Keats, "Ode to Autumn"; "the offing was barred by a black bank of clouds," Conrad, _Heart of Darkness_, end). Let us, with th' Ear of Earth, hear anew "the Father of the ancient men," among His "ancient trees," as "the voice of the Ancient Bard," and resurrect the anciently barred signified. ..."the slightest alteration in the relation between man and the signifier ... changes the whole course of history by modifying the moorings that anchor ... being" (Lacan, _Ecrits_, 174) Nelson Hilton -=- English -=- University of Georgia -=- Athens Was ist Los? "Net of Urizen" or "Jerusalem the Web"? http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~wblake ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Mar 96 00:06:27 -0500 From: Penn Hackney To: "blake@albion.com" Subject: Re: Ackroyd Message-Id: <199603100504.AAA19507@yoda.fyi.net> -- [ From: Penn Hackney * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- For a very thin and glowing review, see http://www.salon1999. com/09/sneakpeeks/sneakpeeks8.html -- -- Penn Hackney Pittsburgh, PA tcdpenn@fyi.net penn@worldnet.att.net Without Unceasing Practice nothing can be done. Practice is Art. If you leave off, you are Lost. -- William Blake, Laocovn, c. 1820 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 14:58:58 -0500 From: SaddClown@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: hi! Message-Id: <960310145858_165102648@emout09.mail.aol.com> Hi!, Im Florence. Blake is my favorite poet and i figured that i would join this mailing list. I am a fourteen year old girl and i I live in NY. My favorite poem is Ah! Sunflower. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 14:26:57 -0800 (PST) From: ESTHER FEINMAN To: blake@albion.com Subject: re:blake and german idealism? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello. Esther Feinman here. Have been an admirer of Blake for some time, however my exposure is limited. Am hoping to expand it, in part, through the discussions here. As of late there has been discussion about the relationship, or lack thereof, between Blake and Feuerbach, and by extension, Hegel. I am curios about the connection between an aspect of Hegel's aesthetics and an aspect of Blake's thought. I understand that Hegel's overall idealism excludes any thorough connection between the two. Hegel asserts that the perfect artistic production is the harmonious fusion of the spirit and the sensuous in plastic representation, the piece of art itself. It is my understanding,(ascertained mostly from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", this isn't the only place to find it I don't think-?) that Blake's thought includes the notion that the body and the soul are one, and are located together in the human body. So, am wondering about the connection here. My curiosity is connected to the greater task of exploring thought that integrates materialist and idealist notions. And perhaps this thought is then another type altogether...? -Esther Feinman, in San Francisco. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 01:00:47 -0800 From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: re:blake and german idealism? Message-Id: <199603110900.BAA20621@igc4.igc.apc.org> I brought up the question of Feuerbach recently. However, I raised the question of Blake and Hegel a year ago more or less. My goal was to collect as much literature on the subject as possible. There is not a lot, but there is some. Strange as it may seem, my major research interests seem to support one another. My various projects involve Blake, Feuerbach, Marx, and C.L.R. James. Feuerbach is a new thing for me, actually, but I'm hoping he will help me solve some puzzles. I have never seen a common reference to Blake and Feuerbach. I don't postulate much of a connection (I mean similarity, since there was no direct connection), but I think that if you begin to triangulate Blake, Hegel, and Feuerbach, you might come up with some important insights, especially how does German idealism stack up as compared to Blake in certain areas. Also, I have an overarching project of relating the development of intellectuals and society, and I find all these figures of paramount importance. Chantelle MacPhee is the one working on a comparative study of Blake and Hegel in relation to aesthetics. Perhaps she would discuss this subject with you. I am curious about this too, but it is not my area of contribution. I don't quite understand the questions you are posing. Why does Hegel's idealism exclude a connection with Blake? How does Hegel's fusion of spirit and the sensuous relate to Blake's unity of soul and body? What has all this to do with integration of materialism and idealism? Idealism and materialism are curious things. One way of looking at them is to accept the ostensible content of various doctrines, to report what various thinkers say about their own beliefs. Another method, which perhaps you have seen among Marxists, is to look deeper and discern what in a person's thought is idealist or materialist, regardless of the doctrine ostensibly held. By this mode of thinking, Stalin has been analyzed as an idealist and Hegel a materialist in certain respects. You may aim at something different in your integration of materialism and idealism, I can't tell. But there is a sense that interests me in which Blake may be more materialist, i.e. concrete in the Hegelian sense, than others. For example, could there be a sense in which Blake's vision is more concrete, and hence "materialist", than Feuerbach's abstract materialism and humanism? I've never seen anyone ask this question before, but this is _my_ question. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 96 13:29:41 EST From: Kevin Lewis To: BLAKE@albion.com Subject: Heppner's CUP book Message-Id: <9603111845.AA20608@uu6.psi.com> This is not about Blake, Feuerbach, Hegel, and German idealism, nor about my hobby horse, the antinomian, radical Protestant elements in Blake, nor the Earth's Answer, sorry. I'm just curious to know if any of you have seen Christopher Heppner's _Reading Blake's Designs_ (Cambridge Univ Press, 1995)? I need to write the briefest sort of review of it *quickly*, and I wonder how it has struck any of you who my have seen it. Prof Heppner teaches at McGill, and doubtless some of you know him. His focus is intriguing, at first glance: Blake as illustrator of texts other than his own. It is a handsome book. My copy come with no price on it. Kevin Lewis kelewis@univscvm.csd.sc.edu http://www.cla.sc.edu/relg/lewis.htm ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 16:50:53 -0500 (EST) From: "Ronald M Jou" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Introduction Message-Id: <199603112150.QAA21129@pilot07.cl.msu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Length: 274 Ronald Jou I am High School Junior in a suburban school outside of Lansing, Michigan. In taking many British and Romantic literature courses, Blake's poetry and engravings have caught my attention. My knowledge on this subject is limited, but my curiousity is genuine. -- -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #15 *************************************