------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 19 Today's Topics: Re: "divinely inspired" what? Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Re: Recent posting to Blake List Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Re: Blake and madness Re: Blake and madness Re: "divinely inspired" what? -Reply "Unbar the ..." (was: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply (fwd) -Reply) -Reply Re: Carlyle Quote - Help Please. Re: "divinely inspired" what? Re: "divinely inspired" what? Re: Carlyle Quote - Help Please. Re: "yet to see any insights..." Re: Later ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 23:37:59 -0600 (CST) From: William Neal Franklin To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: "divinely inspired" what? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To Jennifer Michaels, who is mad but not divinely inspired... My condolences. The longer I hang with academics, the more I realize they don't believe themselves to be divinely inspired. It makes me sad. I've always thought it necessary in a poet--but perhaps that's the problem. There's a distance between divine making and non-divine analytics. I just returned from Dripping Springs, where I sought but did not see William Blake. Nor did I see angels in the trees. I wrote not a word of analytics, nor came any closer to any goal of critical importance. But I played a Welsh harp, and in the texture of its chords floated a song I'm sure I heard in a divine experience. I thank Wm Blake for the gift. Without him, the song could not have come. I asked it of him, and as I played under the oaks in the light warm breeze, I conjoured in my mind the words he gave me. We laughed to hear. William Neal Franklin who returns to the mill tomorrow where he will drag freshmen to the abyss to hear the Bard by Moonlight ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 23:21:08 -0800 (PST) From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Message-Id: <199603170721.XAA28809@igc4.igc.apc.org> Joseph Wicksteed's commentary on the Songs tends to over-biographicize them, but reading Wicksteed stimulated some new thoughts on the Bard/Earth relationship, especially since Wicksteed reminded me to review Blake's original notebook, of which I have the 1977 Readex Books edition edited by David Erdman. I am fortunate enough to own the original 1928 edition of Wicksteed's BLAKE'S INNOCENCE AND EXPERIENCE. At first he has little to say about Earth's Answer: "To understand her plaint we must realise that she is bound by some _thought_ which we shall find to be theological. Like the Bard, she appeals to antiquity, but whereas his appeal was to the Word, hers is to the Father; his filling with hope, hers with despair." (p. 147) The real substance of Wicksteed's thesis is revealed in a later section on the ms. of Experience. First, he biographicizes Earth to refer to Catherine, and for him Blake sees Catherine as bound by the fear of God the repressive patriarch (pp. 237-241). Wicksteed sees Blake (Bard) and Catherine (Earth) as victims caught up in conflicting models of cosmic law and human relations. So I checked out the Notebooks which Wicksteed analyzes, and indeed, the draft of Earth's Answer follows a distinctive pattern in relation to the neighboring poems. Earth's Answer immediately follows the poem "Thou hast a lap full of seed" (N111). The male speaker gives his point of view, that he can find no one to receive what he has to give, however literally or spiritually one wants to interpret that seed. Earth turns around and gives her viewpoint. Both are complaining from their perspectives about why they can't relate to the complementary force out there. Mr. Lap is more of the active agent who knows what he wants and has to offer but can't find anywhere to make it go. Ms. Earth is more of a passive figure whose main concern is her own imprisonment. They are two points of view, not necessarily complaining about each other, but stating their reasons for not being able to find a complement. In a broad sense, Wicksteed could be right that each one's viewpoint is predicated upon a certain model of their own role in the world, trapped historically in a system of relationships neither invented. Interestingly, there is a possibility that if Mr. Lap and Ms. Earth actually hooked up, and could avoid looking at one another through the lenses of their past model experiences, they might actually share a common vantage point, since both are clearly dissatisfied with the corruption of the order of things. I can't tell you how familiar this scenario is, especially when you bring it down to the level of human relationships, though I think the poems can be interpreted more cosmically than that. Clearly, putting Earth together with the Bard to introduce the Songs of Experience changes something: the context becomes more generalized and spiritualized. I could not find an early draft of the Introduction in Erdman or Keynes, so presumably none survives. Wicksteed asserts that Blake composed a new poem for Earth to answer (p. 237), while Hirsch (p. 209) claims that the Introduction was "undoubtedly composed in late 1789 or early 1790 ..." and puts it into a satirical context. What do we really know about this? So far my worries about the interpretation of their dialogue has revolved around the validity of each perspective and the extent to which each might invalidate the perspective of the other, with a strong prejudice on my part in favor of the Earth. Now I am much more inclined to believe in the innocence of the Bard, in all senses of that term. Remember, the Bard does not see himself in a position of power: he looks on and feels helpless to change what he sees, so he begs Earth to arise on her own initiative. But Earth doesn't hear him; she hears the usual party line. Both parties are talking at each other, expressing their perspectives, but they are not connecting with one another, both helpless to change the overall situation. This scenario is consistent with the Lap/Earth relationship. Both parties are reacting to the divided world created by the cruel Urizenic order: that is the real though unstated problem. The Bard in theory sees a way out; Earth is literally too snowed under. However, the totality of the situation can only be understood and addressed by putting their two different subject positions together, which means dealing with the world as it really is and cutting a path through the tangle of its contradictions to get beyond it. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 09:00:31 -0500 From: richard@wmblake.com (Richard Blumberg) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Recent posting to Blake List Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mr. Lim... Apology accepted. We've all done that sort of thing. The technology we're working with makes it very easy to act, but no easier than it's ever been to think, so we frequently act without thinking something through. Richard ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 09:42:02 -0500 From: richard@wmblake.com (Richard Blumberg) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > I can't tell you how familiar this scenario >is, especially when you bring it down to the level of human >relationships, though I think the poems can be interpreted more >cosmically than that. > What, in a Blakean sense, is more cosmic than human relationships? And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place: Standing on his own roof, or in his garden on a mount Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe. Richard ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 21:32:18 PST From: "Rowena S. Aquino" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake and madness Message-Id: <6C0A303F78@ScrippsCol.Edu> Hello all, I am new to the list.... The recent (?) discussions regarding Blake and madness intrigue me...even more so because I have a literature class titled Madness & Creativity and it was only two weeks ago that my professor's husband came to lecture on Blake, being an expert on him. It has only been this year that I was introduced to Blake's work, and I find his work so powerful and touching. The Book Of Urizen has had the most impact on me, but when Herr B. uttered the quote "How do you know that ev'ry bird is not an immense delight clos'd to your senses five?" (sorry if I've misquoted....) I had to stifle my tears because of its beauty. I find it very hard to discuss what meanings Blake's works holds for me. Herr B., in his lecture on Blake, focused on the method of engravings he did, the new technique that Blake employed, gotten from a vision he had of his brother Robert....; he discussed the ergot blight that was occurring among the low classes; and the development of the compass/circle as a theme: what is inside and what is outside...and throughout the lecture, the topic of madness didn't even enter my mind. Just creativity, creativity, creativity...they may as well be synonymous then, madness = creativity (but don't pin it against me....) Rowena ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 02:47:11 -0500 From: AllegraZek@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake and madness Message-Id: <960318024708_171120938@emout09.mail.aol.com> I am moved by your response to Blake. But I feel uncomfortable when I see again the linking of madness and creativity. I think this is some over-the-top Romantic notion that made the Romantics such a hard sell among the modernists. And the posts. Keasy did no one a favor with his cuckoo's nest; he merely fed the gulls. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 13:26:32 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: "divinely inspired" what? -Reply Message-Id: I have Blake's portrait in front of me, enlarged for a commemorative exhibtion of The Book of Urizen and when I asked him what he thought of your wonderful singing beneath a tree, he said "I heard, and am grateful. Just dust me off any time and I'll be with you. Have that feast that you always had in mind, too, at which you will sing to the harp and lift the spirits of the sombre. Fare thee well and believe in the light - though it can chastise as well as illumine." My own particular favourite Blake illustrations are of of Jesus, and another of Job, beneath the Tree of Life, with musical instruments. I think Blake would have classed you among the "Children of Los" - among those who continually exert themselves imaginatively and play like a fountain - as opposed to that stagnant and poisonous `cistern'. Love from Pam van Schaik, University of SA ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 13:21:51 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, nhilton@parallel.park.uga.edu Subject: "Unbar the ..." (was: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER -Reply -Reply -Reply (fwd) -Reply) -Reply Message-Id: It would seem that where you see a `stern' Bard, I see a Prophetic one whose mission is to counter despair by prophesying release from the `Night' in which the soul is overwhelmed by `Sleep' and fettered in `mental chains' as well as physical ones. If the strings of the Harp are, indeed, enlarged, then it could signify that the Bard's Songs are meant to rouse the hearers to action and inspire them with truth - the equivalent, perhaps, of Blake's engraving `the sentence deep' to stress his theme - which is consistently to arouse the soul from the torpor in which it delights in the cruelties of the Selfhood and lust. Yet, oddly, judging from the enormous velvet pouffe, hung with phalluses which I found in the Blake Centre in South Molton Street in London, many simply take Blake to be a spokesman for free sexual love. I think that he believes in free exertion of one's energies, whether imaginative or sexual, but that he sees everything of this world as only a distorted shadow of the loves and energies which we all once enjoyed in Eternity. I think the Bard hopes to accomplish what the poet himself does - to provide a joyful song of `merry' and `happy chear' which can gladden those oppressed by the heavy sanctimoniousness of those who consider themselves religious. Essentially, Blake does as the child on the cloud in Songs of Innocence suggests - sings of the "Lamb' - the Forgiver. I find, Nelson, what you say too cryptic - please state your views in a less encoded way! Pam van Schaik ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 96 11:35 EST From: "Elisa E. Beshero 814 862-8914" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Carlyle Quote - Help Please. Message-Id: <9603191636.AA19160@uu6.psi.com> Actually, I _have_ heard somewhere that Carlyle was influenced by Blake. I'm not sure if this reference will help, but try Albert J. LaValley's _Carlyle and the Idea of the Modern, Studies in Carlyle's Prophetic Literature and its Relation to Blake, Nietzsche, Marx, and Others_ (1968) Good luck--and let me know if you find any Blake in Carlyle! --Elisa (EEB4@PSUVM.PSU.EDU) - - The original note follows - - Date: Fri, 15 Mar 96 13:33:07 EST From: Kevin Lewis Subject: Re: Carlyle Quote - Help Please. To: blake@albion.com Resent-From: blake@albion.com Reply-To: blake@albion.com On Fri, 15 Mar 1996 13:11:52 GMT0BST J KENNEDY said: >Sorry if this is off the remit of the group, but I'm getting pretty >desperate, and as Carlyle was influenced by Coleridge, who's kind of >the same genre as Blake - I thought I'd have a go: - > Justin, Coleridge is no more "the same genre as Blake" than rugby is the same genre as rounders. We are having a hard enough time on this Blake list focussing on Blake as it is without being diverted once again by a questionable comparison at best. >In Andrew Seth's "Man's place in the Cosmos" Carlyle is quoted: > >"What, then, is man! What, then, is man! He endures but for an hour, >and is crushed before the moth. Yet in the being and in the working >of a faithful man is there already (as all faith, from the beginning, >gives assurance) a something that pertains not to this will's death - >element of time; but triuphs over Time, and is, and will be, when >Time shall be no more". > >Unfortunately he does not give a reference. Could anybody help identify >the source? > >Thanks in advance. >Justin Kennedy. > > PL6B2JKK@Swansea.ac.uk > > Dept Political Theory & Govt. > University of Wales Swansea > Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP. > Tel: 01792 205678 ext. 4962. > > But I hope you find your answer. :-) Kevin Lewis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 14:22:36 -0500 (EST) From: Ruegg Bill To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: "divinely inspired" what? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Search for Blake on the Web and you'll turn up a thesis on Blake's "Madness" as displayed in Milton. I'd give you a more direct citation, but that would mean I would have to look at it again, which I am loath to do. Best, Bill _____________________________________________________________________________ "My God, It's full of Stars" * bruegg@ucet.ufl.edu* Bill Ruegg*English*4008Turlington*University of Florida*Gainesville*FL*32611 _____________________________________________________________________________ On Wed, 13 Mar 1996 tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu wrote: > Would someone be kind enough to supply real citations that would > lead us to the sources of "the commonplace notion that Blake was > a divinely inspired madman"? Who shares this commonplace notion? > Is it all the academic puppy dogs on the list? Show us! What > reputable biographer, critic, serious reader whether professional > or amateur, degreed or autodidacted, in the 20th century shares > this "commonplace notion" and disseminates it? I am mystified > by this, since I read widely in Blake studies and I have not > seen anyone who has written on Blake in the last 60 yers, > at least, who has done anything but dismiss the notion that > he was a madman. I suppose I can understand as well as anyone > the occasional need to create a straw man or two to join the > other bugaboos in one's closet of resentments, but could we > please have some substantiation for these repeated allegations? > Tom Dillingham (tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu) > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 14:47:50 -0500 (EST) From: Ruegg Bill To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: "divinely inspired" what? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Let the big dawg eat! _____________________________________________________________________________ "My God, It's full of ?" * bruegg@ucet.ufl.edu* Bill Ruegg*English*4008Turlington*University of Florida*Gainesville*FL*32611 _____________________________________________________________________________ On Fri, 15 Mar 1996, Nelson Hilton wrote: > On Thu, 14 Mar 1996, someone wrote: > > ... > > They don't laugh at my jokes. This is a sign of deep superficiality. > > ROTFL > > ... > > -- the barred signifier indeed! > > Alas that if a barred signified broke forth it could take no > refuge in the bosom of such a joker. [ _MIL/TON: a Poem_ 2.24 and > 14[15].9] > > ... > > He's the sort of puppy dog I had in mind. > > Pleeeze! it's "dawg"--as in "Go You Hairy Dawgs!", "How 'Bout Them > Dawgs!" woofwoofwoof > > > Nelson Hilton -=- English -=- University of Georgia -=- Athens > Was ist Los? "Net of Urizen" or "Jerusalem the Web"? > http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~wblake > > > > > > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 00:49:08 -0500 From: AllegraZek@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Carlyle Quote - Help Please. Message-Id: <960320004907_250651508@emout05.mail.aol.com> I am new to this list-but if the past week is any sample of it, I'll soon be ex-. I've yet to see any insights into Blake, though I sure see a lot of thoughts generated by a soph. Brit Lit course. That's fine-but if that's the list's main thrust let those of us who want something else know. As Twain said, too often feeling passes for thought. Ron D ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 10:15:21 -0600 (CST) From: William Neal Franklin To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: "yet to see any insights..." Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 20 Mar 1996 AllegraZek@aol.com wrote: > I am new to this list-but if the past week is any sample of it, I'll soon be > ex-. I've yet to see any insights into Blake, though I sure see a lot of > thoughts generated by a soph. Brit Lit course. That's fine-but if that's the > list's main thrust let those of us who want something else know. As Twain > said, too often feeling passes for thought. > Ron D > Dear Ron: Too often Blake is relegated to mere thought when we who love him ought to be more atuned to the feelings of his songs. Listen--it's Spring Break; we (at least those of us who teach) are overloaded with sophomoric papers we have to grade; and those of us with thoughtful questions and insights have been engaged in the discourse for a lot longer than a week! If you don't think the discussion is intellectual enough, ask a good question. What do you want to talk about? You got any ideas, or do you just want to be a critic? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 01:56:58 -0500 (EST) From: Ruegg Bill To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Later Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII As Blake once said, "Piss off" Best, Bill On Wed, 20 Mar 1996 AllegraZek@aol.com wrote: > I am new to this list-but if the past week is any sample of it, I'll soon be > ex-. I've yet to see any insights into Blake, though I sure see a lot of > thoughts generated by a soph. Brit Lit course. That's fine-but if that's the > list's main thrust let those of us who want something else know. As Twain > said, too often feeling passes for thought. > Ron D > -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #19 *************************************