------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 22 Today's Topics: Blake's Obscurity: A Hypothesis Re: SWEDENBORG, COLERIDGE Re: Changing subscriptions What's math got to do with it? Re: What's math got to do with it? Re: What's math got to do with it? Milton Opera Update Unidentified subject! Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Blake's Obscurity: A Hypothesis Re: Milton Opera Update Re: Blake's Obscurity: A Hypothesis Response to Messrs. Devine, Smith, & Dumain Rowena's questions on Urizen Re: God's Hiddenness & Blake's Obscurity -Reply ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:18:55 -0500 From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Blake's Obscurity: A Hypothesis Message-Id: <960327141853_257404875@emout08.mail.aol.com> Re Jennifer Michaels' question about Blake's obscurity: Thank you for bringing up this topic, Jennifer. I puzzled over it for many years myself, finally abandoning my dissertation because I couldn't come up with a satisfying answer. I think my tools (syntactic analysis) were simply inadequate to the problem. But I'm still interested in the leads I discovered. The most promising ones, I think, had to do with considering Blake's verbal style as that of a visual artist: that is, it seemed to me that Blake's poems are like fields rather than rivers, exhibits of pictures rather than stories. They seem to be laid out in visual tableaux, large flat areas that treat a certain topic. When the topic changes, it's like walking to another painting in a gallery: There is no narrative link -- you have to supply that yourself. (The tableaux sometimes stretch across several plates, though, and -- though I don't remember any particular instance clearly at the moment -- I think the boundaries of the tableaux and the boundaries of the plates do not always coincide. I remember finding this type of style in The French Revolution as well as the later prophecies.) I theorized that this kind of "visual" organization explained something about his syntax as well. It's the peculiar flatness of Blake's syntactical style that led me to this hypothesis -- a flatness that seems to mirror the predominant two-dimensionality of his visual style. His verbal style avoids periodic sentences for agglutinative ones, strings of clauses stuck together end-to-end, with very little subordination. If it doesn't represent a mental disease (just a joke, friends), I think it does represent a different way of thinking from the normal, Latin-trained, narrative mode of the "better educated" poets of his day, the Wordsworths and Shelleys, whose styles were more formed by traditional academic education. Blake the autodidact, lacking traditional tutelage, evidently developed unusual habits of thought and style, which were more influenced by visual modes of organizing thought than most poets'. Of course, the real test of a hypothesis like this is its explanatory power, and (like Fermat) I may just have to say that I wrote my demonstration on a napkin that you'll find on [here the author dies]. The proof, if any, is left to the reader. (But a few months ago, I think I found and shared a small instance of this: Reading "The Sunflower" in the context of "My Pretty Rose Tree" and "The Lilly." Each poem remains fairly obscure until viewed on the plate with the other two. But that hardly proves the main point, and could be explained in other, more traditional, ways.) As for Blake's insistence that his every letter and mark is in its proper place, I found that a stumbling block. Obvious typos (grav-o's?) abound in Jerusalem and other books, his punctuation is as erratic in his letters as in the poems, his spelling as idiosyncratic... Eventually, I decided that those who take a top-down approach, like Wicksteed, have more success than those who try to work up from an analysis of syntactic patterns, as I did. But perhaps others will have more success than I did in the analytic endeavor. Overall, it's Blake's integrity as an artist and a human being, apparent everywhere in his works, that leads me to keep puzzling over his meaning where I can't understand it. I've found it fruitful for my life, if not for my career. I would welcome any comments on these ideas, either on the list or by direct e-mail. --Tom Devine ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 96 17:05:46 EST From: Kevin Lewis To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: SWEDENBORG, COLERIDGE Message-Id: <9603272211.AA01928@uu6.psi.com> On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 09:28:33 -0800 (PST) Ralph Dumain said: >The book I bought last night is the same as the one Matt Fabian >obtained a few weeks ago: BLAKE AND SWEDENBORG: OPPOSITION IS TRUE >FRIENDSHIP. Normally I would avoid such literature like the >plague, especially anything involving the loathsome Kathleen >Raine, but my excuse is, it only cost $4, and I might need to know >something about Swedenborg. > >The editors of this volume are apparently devoid of a sense of >irony, for the very quotations from Blake and Swedenborg that are >juxtaposed to demonstrate their similarity actually demonstrate >something very different. I love people who give me the rope to >hang them with. One can use this very book to undermine the big >lie that underwrites it. > >The two articles of interest to me in this volume are Morton >Paley's "'A New Heaven is Begun': Blake and Swedenborgianism", and >"New Light on C.A. Tulk, Blake's 19th Century Patron" by Raymond >H. Deck, Jr. > >>From Paley I learned about Swedenborg's opposition to slavery and >the influence of Swedenborg on "The Little Black Boy." > >The presence of Samuel Taylor Coleridge haunts this book, and he >is used to justify the affinity between Blake and Swedenborg, >starting with the back cover and preface. Perhaps if I had >consulted BLAKE RECORDS, I would be less confused about the direct >relationship between Blake and Coleridge. Deck cites Robinson >show that Blake and Coleridge actually met. Deck attributes to >Tulk the following statement, which I have quoted before: > >"Blake and Coleridge, when in company, seemed like congenial >beings of another sphere, breathing for awhile on our earth; which >may easily be perceived from the similarity of thought pervading >their works." (p. 113) > >I don't believe this assertion for one second, though Deck finds >Tulk credible. If this is all the evidence we have to go on >regarding the congeniality of the two, we can safely dismiss it. > >I see the Swedenborg Foundation has made a film, "Blake: The >Marriage of Heaven and Hell." I wonder whether this is any good. > I've seen this film on a preview basis some years ago. It may serve Swedenborgian purposes, if I recall, but hardly Blakean. In my memory, growing dimmer, the film starts with some promise but ends with a laughable stagey scene in which a gang of good angels rumble with a gang of bad angels. I wish I could report further, but I remember thinking at the time that this film would never help me teach Blake and, further, might damage the cause. And so I put it out of mind. Kevin Lewis ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 96 16:37:32 -0800 From: Seth T. Ross To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Changing subscriptions Message-Id: <9603280037.AA06213@albion.com> Content-Type: text/plain Dana: You need to unsubscribe from your old address, and then resubscribe from your new one. This can be done by sending mails to blake-request@albion.com with "unsubscribe" and "subscribe" as the respective subjects. Yours, Seth Begin forwarded message: Resent-Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 21:53:20 -0500 Old-Return-Path: Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 21:53:20 -0500 From: WomansWay@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re:Changing subscriptions Resent-From: blake@albion.com Reply-To: blake@albion.com X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1611 X-Loop: blake@albion.com Resent-Sender: blake-request@albion.com Dear Seth, I have tried twice to change my subscription address to Golgonooz@aol.com unsuccessfully. Please help me. I tried to send this to you directly at http://www.albion.com/welcome/albion with an invalid addressee response. Dana Harden ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:53:46 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: blake@albion.com Subject: What's math got to do with it? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Elisa- I will try to address your concerns about my comments on Blake, math, Varela, and the Garden of Eden as succinctly as I can. If you would care for any more elaboration, please let me know. What is provided is probably too much. According to Lyotard, the postmodern tradition informs us that there is no "Grand Narrative" that universally describes all human experience. This is consistent with Blake's emphasis on indivisual redemption and personal imagination. It has taken science two hundred years to arrive at the various proofs which supports Blake's knowledge of the individuality of perception and the subjective nature of reality. A topical history of certain key scientific landmarks follows. Werner Heisenberg won a Nobel Prize in Physics for his "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle" which mathematically demonstrated that it is impossible to measure BOTH the speed and position of an electron at the same time with great accuracy. The biologist Gregory Bateson, writing in A Sacred Unity, points out that over one-third of the neural pathways connecting the eye to the visual cortex go FROM the brain TO the eye. In other words, the brain manufactures a good portion of what we see. Vision is a creative process. This is consistent with Blake as well. In The Embodied Mind, Francisco Varela cites published experiments he has performed that demonstrate that the perception of color in humans is different depending on whether they are standing or lying down. So what does all this science and its associated math have to do with morality? Well, in physiology, The Weber-Fechner relation tells us that perception, experience, and sensation are literally derivative functions. In other words, the perceived intensity of a stiumulus is related to the logarithm of the intensity of that stimulus. For example, if the smallest difference in weight that your hand cand can perceive is between an object that weighs two ounces and one that weighs five ounces, the Weber-Fechner law states that you will be unable to differentiate between two objects, one of which weighs two pounds and the other four pounds. The smallest difference you will be able to perceive would be between an object weighing two pounds and one weighing five pounds. It is the mathematical ratio (two/fifths) that remains constant. We do not interact dirctly with the world, but only upon models, maps, and transforms of it. "If the doors of perception could be cleansed..." Because "reason" and "science" have at last caught up with Blake, our ethical visions must necesarily also change. With Descartes' invention of Cartesian grids (x-y axes) and Newton's invention of differential calculus, the Age of Reason accelerated previous Manichean tendencies to cleave everything (including morality) along the lines of "either/or", right/wrong, and black/white dichotomies. This was upsetting to Blake who knew these to be false dichotomies, as he shows in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Francisco Varela explains in The Embodied Mind that because we create much of the world we live in, rather than merely interpreting it objectively, we are, in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism responsible for our own creations. Our task becomes one of reducing the suffering of others trapped in their false dichotomies. The formal math that describes "both/and" as opposed to "either/or" models is set forth fully in his book Principles of Biological Autonomy, a standard graduate college text in evolutionary biology. It deals with, among other things, how the genetic information in mitochondria and organelles differs from the RNA in cell nuclei, yet coexists with it. It is both part of the cell and distinct from it.... Matthew Dubuque Virtual@leland.edu.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 18:44:15 -0800 (PST) From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: What's math got to do with it? Message-Id: <199603280244.SAA12891@igc4.igc.apc.org> Remind me to debunk this drivel when I have the time. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 96 08:24:44 CST From: Mark Trevor Smith To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: What's math got to do with it? Message-Id: <9603281428.AA07278@uu6.psi.com> On Wed, 27 Mar 1996 18:44:15 -0800 (PST) Ralph Dumain said: >Remind me to debunk this drivel when I have the time. > Please debunk this drivel when you have the time. Meanwhile, the rest of us will drivel on. Fellow Blakeans, drivel on! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 10:28:19 -0500 From: Golgonooz@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Milton Opera Update Message-Id: <960328102818_457016260@emout10.mail.aol.com> Due to some recent inquirerys on this list, following is a description of networking we need for the opera I am creating based on William Blake's, Milton, a Poem in Two Books. I am seeking your help in networking with potential investors and opera or theater companies to produce Milton Goes to Hell. This will be a full length world premier performance of this new composition based on a major literary work never previously staged. The music and libretto intend to enhances Blake's artistry, creating a very personalized and accessible experience of the Milton myth for the listener. As many of you know, the protagonist of Blake's poem is John Milton, the seventeenth century author of Paradise Lost. Milton represented to Blake England's finest visionary and poet, but with puritanical distortions in his beliefs. Milton's journey is each of our journeys. We join his descent to the underworld to reclaim his feminine self he has exiled into a hell of unfulfilled desires.. We will stage two performances of the opera in Boulder in November 1996. The libretto corresponds to the portion of Blake's story called, "The Bards Song". It will be performed by acoustic and synthesized orchestral instruments to accompany a cast of vocalists. They will be visually surrounded by a virtual universe based on Blake's artwork. Blake's language of gestures will be incorporated into the choreography. The work has been in progress for two years and has a core staff of thirteen members. Funding is needed to further stage this production and the rest of Milton, a Poem in Two Books in the following years. This will include developing "Virtual Sets" based on Blake's artwork and to finish scoring and staging the libretto. If you have any suggestions, and/or want more information, please contact me at the above address. Warmly, Dana Harden Golgonooza Productions P.O. Box 19614 Boulder CO, 80308-2614 PH & FAX: (303) 530-7617 E-Mail: Golgonooz@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 96 10:35:26 EST From: Michael Williams To: Subject: Unidentified subject! Message-Id: <9603281535.AA14505@uu6.psi.com> PHONE: Subject: Please unsubscribe. I enjoy the list, but will have little to no access to e-mail from now until fall. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 11:31:02 -0800 (PST) From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BARD'S VOICE / EARTH'S ANSWER Message-Id: <199603281931.LAA18789@igc4.igc.apc.org> Today I received my own copy of THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETS: A REVIEW OF RESEARCH AND CRITICISM edited by Frank Jordan. How I love reference books! I am, however, having problems with two references. I need an accurate reference for: Gleckner, Robert. "The strange odyssey of Blake's 'The Voice of the Ancient Bard'", RP&P, 1982. This was not in vol. 6, no. 2 (1982) of ROMANTICISM PAST AND PRESENT as cited. I have also been looking through: Simpson, David V, IRONY AND AUTHORITY IN ROMANTIC POETRY (1979) for the critique of "The Voice of the Ancient Bard". So far I have found only one brief reference on page 85 to the effect that the Bard is to be taken dubiously, as indicated by the faltering voice and syntax. What am I missing? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 11:29:19 -0800 From: rmcdonell@ucsd.edu (Robert McDonell) To: blake@albion.com, rmcdonell@ucsd.edu (Robert McDonell), National Association of Scholars Science News List , foucault@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Blake's Obscurity: A Hypothesis Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Resent-Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:18:55 -0500 >Old-Return-Path: >Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 14:18:55 -0500 >From: TomD3456@aol.com >To: blake@albion.com >Subject: Blake's Obscurity: A Hypothesis >Resent-From: blake@albion.com >Reply-To: blake@albion.com >X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1650 >X-Loop: blake@albion.com >Precedence: list >Resent-Sender: blake-request@albion.com >Status: U > >Re Jennifer Michaels' question about Blake's obscurity: > >Thank you for bringing up this topic, Jennifer. I puzzled over it for many >years myself, finally abandoning my dissertation because I couldn't come up >with a satisfying answer. I think my tools (syntactic analysis) were simply >inadequate to the problem. But I'm still interested in the leads I >discovered. > >The most promising ones, I think, had to do with considering Blake's verbal >style as that of a visual artist: that is, it seemed to me that Blake's >poems are like fields rather than rivers, exhibits of pictures rather than >stories. They seem to be laid out in visual tableaux, large flat areas that >treat a certain topic. When the topic changes, it's like walking to another >painting in a gallery: There is no narrative link -- you have to supply that >yourself. (The tableaux sometimes stretch across several plates, though, and >-- though I don't remember any particular instance clearly at the moment -- I >think the boundaries of the tableaux and the boundaries of the plates do not >always coincide. I remember finding this type of style in The French >Revolution as well as the later prophecies.) I theorized that this kind of >"visual" organization explained something about his syntax as well. > >It's the peculiar flatness of Blake's syntactical style that led me to this >hypothesis -- a flatness that seems to mirror the predominant >two-dimensionality of his visual style. His verbal style avoids periodic >sentences for agglutinative ones, strings of clauses stuck together >end-to-end, with very little subordination. If it doesn't represent a mental >disease (just a joke, friends), I think it does represent a different way of >thinking from the normal, Latin-trained, narrative mode of the "better >educated" poets of his day, the Wordsworths and Shelleys, whose styles were >more formed by traditional academic education. Blake the autodidact, lacking >traditional tutelage, evidently developed unusual habits of thought and >style, which were more influenced by visual modes of organizing thought than >most poets'. > >Of course, the real test of a hypothesis like this is its explanatory power, >and (like Fermat) I may just have to say that I wrote my demonstration on a >napkin that you'll find on [here the author dies]. The proof, if any, is >left to the reader. (But a few months ago, I think I found and shared a >small instance of this: Reading "The Sunflower" in the context of "My Pretty >Rose Tree" and "The Lilly." Each poem remains fairly obscure until viewed on >the plate with the other two. But that hardly proves the main point, and >could be explained in other, more traditional, ways.) > >As for Blake's insistence that his every letter and mark is in its proper >place, I found that a stumbling block. Obvious typos (grav-o's?) abound in >Jerusalem and other books, his punctuation is as erratic in his letters as in >the poems, his spelling as idiosyncratic... Eventually, I decided that those >who take a top-down approach, like Wicksteed, have more success than those >who try to work up from an analysis of syntactic patterns, as I did. But >perhaps others will have more success than I did in the analytic endeavor. > >Overall, it's Blake's integrity as an artist and a human being, apparent >everywhere in his works, that leads me to keep puzzling over his meaning >where I can't understand it. I've found it fruitful for my life, if not for >my career. > >I would welcome any comments on these ideas, either on the list or by direct >e-mail. > >--Tom Devine ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 13:46:30 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Milton Opera Update Message-Id: <9603281951.AA15315@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The idea of producing _Milton_ as an opera is exciting and intriguing, and I wish you all the best with it. I do, however, have a slight problem with the phrasing in your summary of the poem: >beliefs. Milton's journey is each of our journeys. We join his descent to the >underworld to reclaim his feminine self he has exiled into a hell of >unfulfilled desires.. As I read it, Milton is renouncing his "selfhood," which he also identifies as Satan. Part of that renunciation involves reclaiming the feminine emanation, Ololon, as you say. I use the word "involve" because it's not clear to me whether Milton must first renounce the Selfhood in order to reunite with Ololon, or vice versa, or whether (probably) the two events are simultaneous. In any case, I just wish you wouldn't use the phrase "feminine self." Although it sounds simpler, it also doesn't adequately represent the complex relation between "self" and "other", in my opinion. All best, Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 14:28:25 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's Obscurity: A Hypothesis Message-Id: <9603282033.AA20031@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tom Devine, I appreciate your thoughts in response to my question. Your description of Blake's works as "fields rather than rivers" agrees with an article I recently read by Paul Youngquist [yes, he of _Madness and Blake's Myth_, but this is a different topic] called "Reading the Apocalypse: The Narrativity of Blake's _Jerusalem_" (Studies in Romanticism 32, Winter 1993, 601-25). Youngquist says, "So slight is the poem's narrativity that the best way to read it is no a large flat surface, all at once," and he goes on to discuss the poem as a "field of reading" while also questioning the often-quoted "golden string" teaser. But Youngquist does not apply the sense of "flatness" to Blake's syntax as you do, and I think you may be onto something there. As for the "top-down approach," the question with Blake is always how to find the top? In the recent post-Frye years, the trend has been away from totalizing "systems" in Blake studies and more toward tension and disjunction (e.g., WJT Mitchell's work on the "composite art" in which the designs don't merely illustrate, or even agree, with the texts, but each contributes something different to the plate). The Blakean approach would seem to be to start with the Minute Particulars and work up from there, but as you and I have discovered, that can be extremely frustrating. Nonetheless, as someone trying to complete a dissertation at the moment, I'm sorry to hear of anyone abandoning one. All best, Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 21:09:17 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: blake@albion.com Subject: Response to Messrs. Devine, Smith, & Dumain Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Tom- I'm glad you found my commentary interesting. I was delighted to learn that you have made your way through G. Spencer-Brown's Laws of Form... Congratulations! Of all people, you would enjoy Francisco Varela's work Principles of Biological Autonomy. Believe it or not, it makes extensive use of the Laws of Form in its analysis of various biological systems. Additionally, it uses the first-order predicate calculus I previously alluded to which encompasses "both/and" descriptions. If you completed the Laws of Form successfully, you should be able to master that language readily. The book is rather expensive, but is readily available at university libraries. Embodiments of Mind by Varela may also be of interest due to its rigorous debunking of cognitivist and connectionist models of perception, but it doesn't deal with the Laws of Form or fun topics like the recognition of "self" in immune systems. Varela has a solid shot at a Nobel Prize in the next five to ten years, considering what has happened to the work of Hubel and Wiesel. Additionally, Hall's textbook on Mathematical Linguistics may prove interesting. I think you will be amazed at how these volumes will enrich your understanding of Blake. I enjoyed reading your discussion of the relationship between Blake's engravings and his prose. It's quite intriguing. Would you be willing to describe the difference between Blake's syntax and the syntax of Wordsworth and Shelley as roughly similar to the respective difference between parallel and serial processing? This would correspond closely to the very useful (though clearly incomplete) split-brain research of Michael Gazzaniga and others. And the Fermat joke was hilarious! Now as for those fine fellows Smith and Dumain: I'm still waiting for you to debunk my "drivel"! Surely a trip to the library for such a modest task should not be necessary! (But be careful... I'm NOT a solipsist!) Matthew Dubuque virtual@leland.stanford.edu.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 21:29:09 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: blake@albion.com Subject: Rowena's questions on Urizen Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Rowena- I wish I knew more about Urizen. However, in response to your question about Los being portrayed as a smith, I recall Plates 8 through 11 of Jerusalem which may be collaterally relevant. I'll quote a few portions from them on the slim chance that you have not already considered them. "O Spectre...the Furnaces are ready to recieve (sic) thee! I will break thee into shivers & melt thee in the furnaces of death.. I will compel thee to assist me in my terrible labours: To beat these hypocritic Selfhoods on the Anvils of bitter Death.... I am one of the living: dare not to mock my inspired fury.... Take thou this Hammer & in patience heave the thundering Bellows; Take thou these Tongs, strike thou alternate with me, labor obedient." (Plate 8) And so the Spectre joins Los the blacksmith in the construction of Golgonooza... "I must create a system or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create." (Plate 10) And warning the Spectre again: "Obey my voice & never deviate from my will... If thou refuse, thy present torments will seem southern breezes to what thou shalt endure if thou obey not my great will." (Plate 10) In short, one of the advantages of Los (which parenthetically spelled backwards is "sol" which is consonant with the heat of the forge used by a blacksmith...) being a blacksmith is that he can use technology to build a better Albion than the one that suffers so greatly under the Industrial Revolution.... Now how shall we respond to Bill Gates? Hope this is modestly helpful, Matthew Dubuque virtual@leland.stanford.edu.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 09:45:03 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com, TomD3456@aol.com Subject: Re: God's Hiddenness & Blake's Obscurity -Reply Message-Id: I think Tom Devine's discussion of Bark's "The Essential Rumi" absolutely pertinent to Blake's perception of the `Wine' of Eternal Life ( which the poet saw as pressed in the Winepress of Jesus) as opposed to that of the mortal world (which he saw as the dregs of the Winepress of Mutual Hatred and War). The cup of `sparkling fancies' which Blake's Fairy offers is comparable perhaps, to the intellectual wine of Sufi thought. Edward Young, whose Night Thoughts Blake illustrated, similarly, distinguished between `the sustenance Divine' and the wine served at mortal banquets which he sees as `a mere Froth of Joy' mounting from the heated vinous `Juices' of the body which is subject to `beggarly vile appetities'. Blake represents Jesus as the Great Vine of Eternity and prophesies a return to the Winepress of Jesus' Love, just as Young represents those `ardent to return' to their true `Home' as touching `Earth's inchanted Cup/ With cool reserve'. These ideas spring readily to my mind as, several years ago, I wrote a paper, entitled `Some Thoughts on the Vine, Wine and Wine Cups in William Blake and his illustrations to Edward Young's "Night Thoughts" ' which I have not yet got round to publishing. Incidentally, I referred to Eliot - not Eckhart - but I'm glad it sparked this side-debate. Pam van Schaik -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #22 *************************************