------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 25 Today's Topics: Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1): SENSE VS PSYCHE Introduction RE: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1): SENSE VS PSYCHE RE: Introductions Re: Question: God's Hiddeness and Songs of Experience -Reply Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) "pre-existence" Re: Changing subscriptions Re: "pre-existence" Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Blake's tombstone Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Re: Pam van Schaik Re: List problem Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 20:39:49 -0800 (PST) From: Ralph Dumain To: blake@albion.com Cc: marxism2@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Subject: Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1): SENSE VS PSYCHE Message-Id: <199604010439.UAA21653@igc4.igc.apc.org> Kevin Lewis quips: >And thank you, Ralph Dumain, for your measured, patient >treatment of the issue in Minna Diskow. Me, measured and patient? Surely you have tongue in cheek. >My question is how could Blake and Marx *not* display points of >similarity, seeing as how Marxist thought (put aside the >political program) can and perhaps ought to be read historically >as a later, secularized extension of Christian eschatological >thought. Here is a problem in intellectual and historical method that bothers me deeply. One can make all kinds of analogies and frame the development of a person's thought in all kinds of ways that illuminate nothing. To draw a formal comparison between Marx and Christian myth and say one is an extension of the other because Marx was a product of Christian civilization: is this serious reasoning? Marx has been characterized this way as well as a Hebrew prophet gone secular. This is all very silly. In fact, I even have problems with the characterization of Marx as a product of Hegelianism, a claim which is empirically closer to the facts. This form of classification and genealogy is the shallowest possible approach to the evolution of ideas. I have a similar problem with Blake. Is Blake just his sources? Sure, we will learn something about Blake's use of the Bible, the Kabbalah, various mystical lore, etc. -- but does subsuming Blake or anyone else under the category of the raw material he used really define the final result? I think this is academic laziness of a particular sort. It is one thing to create; it is another to compare and to classify, to map the terrain of Literature, Culture, or Philosophy. I don't find the latter process very profound. >This is the tradition of the Eternal Evangel, the Everlasting >Gospel, yes? Morton (and Altizer) saw it in Blake. Thompson's >Muggletonians are not in this tradition, and perhaps this is >why, as Vic wishes he would have, Thompson did not push the >comparison with Marx further. What would have been gained in Thompson's book to push this comparison? Perhaps Thompson should have written another work comparing Blake and Marx, but why in this book? I think Thompson did something much more subtle than to portray Blake as a Muggletonian. Thompson seems to be sensitive about making assumptions about the construction of traditions ex post facto. First of all he questions the assumption that Blake's intellectual resources were of the order of the educated gentlemen of the day. Thompson later tries to show how some of Blake's moves could be explained by the sources he did use, but he also reminds us of the discontinuities between Blake and the raw material he used. This I think shows a great deal of subtlety as to how original thinkers actually do evolve their thinking. There is real linkage of Blake with radical Christianity and various esoteric lore, but that in itself does not explain him. There is real historical linkage between Marx and Hegelianism, but that does not fully explain him either. What explains nothing and nhstifies everything is a link between Marx and Christian eschatology, which is merely a formal analogy without content. I hope I have shown that my interest in comparing Blake and Marx or Blake and anyone else is not a shallow one, based on hollow analogies or lifeless, isolated, abstracted commonalities. Avery Gaskins is not being honest, nor RPYoder. LOS completely inverts my purposes. I shall get back to the questions raised by my posts on BLAKE AND THE MODERNS. For me the point is not to be as faithful to the author's intent and exclude other appropriations, nor to arbitrarily bend Blake towards whatever directions I approve and not others, such as "leftist ideology". As I see it, the ability to interpret Blake's "real meaning", if this can be done at all, itself implies comparison, a translation from Blake's private language into the understanding of the reader's brain, same as the fruitful comparison between Blake and any subsequent poet of renown with whom he is compared. Being an atheist myself, and a person who thinks in terms of concepts rather than symbols, I don't think Blake's own thinking process can be duplicated in my brain, let alone in Allen Ginsberg's or people I respect less. In both cases, appropriating Blake for oneself and comparing Blake to other famous authors, what are the commonalities, affinities, and principles which form a valid basis of understanding? This very problem itself suggests some kind of method towards it solution. For if Blake makes sense to me in spite of my non-immersion in the Bible, religion, mysticism, etc., and if others succeeded in deciphering his private mythology, there must be some objective reason for it, something that makes that possible. Whether my "understanding" is arbitrary or not is another issue. But let's say for the sake of argument that I'm on to something -- how could that happen? What common structural patterns could there be in my thinking and Blake's to be able to translate some meaning from the brain of one person into another in spite of different ways of formulating one's thoughts? I don't think understanding this process is simply a matter of relating one mythology to another, but rather of unearthing the fundamental mechanisms and problems motivating one person's mythology or thought system and another persons's thought. This is how commonality is reached even with the recognition of differences. I don't have to "believe" in anything in order to understand what Blake was trying to show us. In fact, I think Blake was indeed trying to _show_ us something rather than trying to "prove" something, and that is why I think Blake's project is quite different from any theology or doctrine, even liberation theology. I find nothing spiritual in the meaningless random motions of subatomic particles and neither would Blake, I would bet. Given time, I could prove his project was very different than to create more ideology out of the mystification of science. The issue is not to be faithful to Blake in every way nor is it to falsify his project by obscuring the differences between Blake and others who misuse his name. To do justice to somebody is to understand what (s)he was trying to do and be honest about the similarities and the differences between said person and what you are trying to do. I have barely begun to justify or even to explain my own position, but I don't think it is too much to ask PhD's to go to the trouble of reading what people write rather than injecting extraneous concerns into their project. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 96 06:38:21 UT From: "John Hubanks" To: "Blake List" Subject: Introduction Message-Id: Fellow Wanderers in the Vales of Har, I suppose I have been lurking in the shadows long enough. My name is John Hubanks and I am an undergraduate at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. My apologies for being tardy on this introduction, but I must say it has been quite an experience to observe the discussions as they have taken place. I am currently participating in an independent study here and have become interested in the possibility of pursuing a further study of Blake in my upcoming graduate work. Thank you all for a lively list and for all your contributions to my continuing education. JH ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 04:42:33 -0600 (CST) From: RPYODER@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1): SENSE VS PSYCHE Message-Id: <960401044233.202a009c@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Excuse me, Ralph, but given that you don't know me from Adam (assuming you know who Adam is), I do not see how you can question my honesty. Now, obviously any intelligent person in doing comparative work looks at differences as well as similarities, but if one refuses to read the sources then how does one know the differences. Your unfamilarity with the Bible suggests that you pronouncements on it and related issues are suspect at best, shallow at least. rpy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 11:10:33 -0600 (CST) From: HXNEWSAM@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Introductions Message-Id: <960401111033.202a42ac@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Thank you for the interest and without the paper in front of me I'm a little foggy on the subject, but this example might give you an idea. In Urizen seven ages roll over him as Los pounds a body for him. Most of the responses I heard in my undergraduate class was that the number seven represented the seven days of creation from genesis (I am fascinated with Blake's system of numbers, and am always curious as to how he chose the numbers that designate groups and time spans in his work). Anyway one of the most interesting discoveries I made while researching the paper was an explanation from a book on Middle Eastern religion (I'll review this when I get home and can look at my bibliography for the paper). There is a sect that believes that the exact time spent between the point of death and entry, or conciousness (so to speak) in the womb is seven months. These seven I assume is the time that the body is being formed from the basics. The soul then enters the body in it's final stages of development after seven months. Mainly my interest in Blake concerns pre-existance, and not necessarily, or strictly Middle Eastern beliefs. I also addressed Neo-platonism in my paper. As there was no criticism addressing what I wanted, I had to start from scratch. These two belief systems both addressed the existance of pre-existance. One of the books I read on Middle Eastern Religion was a book on reincarnation, and children who remember their past lives. This book also included some specific ideas about the space between birth and rebirth and what it is like, and how long it can last, etc. It was all very fascinating. I'm still interested in applying pre-existance to Blake and am planning another paper at the end of this current Blake class, but probably on one of his other works. Thanks Again for your Response, Heather. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 13:50:49 -0500 (EST) From: Anna Disorbo To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com, kerze@oxy.edu, Eileen Brownell Subject: Re: Question: God's Hiddeness and Songs of Experience -Reply Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 26 Mar 1996, P Van Schaik wrote: > You may, if you enjoy exploring the hiddenness of God, find T.S. Eliot's > evocation of the children, playing hide-and-seek in the garden in The > Four Quartets relevant. For Blake, a god who veils himself in mystery > and insists on subduing energies to severe moral laws is anathema, as > suggested in Nobodaddy - he is the creator of the `maze of folly' from > which Blake hopes to lead us with his `golden string'. Having said > which, there is nevertheless some pleasure, doubtless, for all of us > mortals in trying to find our own individual way out of the `maze' and > behind the `veils'! > > Pam van Schaik, Unisa > > Pam, I'm not sure what you were getting at when you said that Blake wants to lead us with his "golden string" through the "maze of folly". In my understanding of Blake, we all create our own reality. God, in fact, is our own creation. We are all God if we are willing to reach inside ourselves and see beyond traditional teachings! A. Disorbo ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 96 12:29:48 -0500 From: James Stanger To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Message-Id: <9604011729.AA28190@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:40 PM 3/30/96 -0800, you wrote: >BLAKE AND THE MODERNS -- EXERCISES IN COMPARISON (1) > >In re: WILLIAM BLAKE AND THE MODERNS, edited by Robert J. >Bertholf and Annette S. Levitt; Albany: State University of New >York Press, 1987. > >The introduction to this volume ("The Tradition of Enacted Forms") >has many virtues, not the least of which is the repudiation of >Eliot's reactionary vision of culture. And there is this >delightful passage: > >"Blake is the most extreme and the most modern of the Romantics; >none of his contemporaries or immediate followers went as far as >he in pursuit of political, philosophical, or artistic >revolutions." (p. xi) > >However, the interposition of Nietzsche and Heidegger on the >following page -- two reactionary misfits who have nothing >whatever in common with Blake -- once again reminds us of the >intellectual bankruptcy of the English professor, surely the >lowest form of intellectual life. > Poorly written, poorly thought out. --James Stanger University of California, Riverside ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 14:06:53 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: "pre-existence" Message-Id: <9604012011.AA19283@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Heather, Your work on middle Eastern religions sounds interesting, but of course we don't have to go that far afield to find the idea of the soul's pre-existence. See, for example, the 17th-century work of Henry Vaughan and Thomas Traherne, or especially, Wordsworth's Intimations Ode: "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting . . . ." Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 15:41:34 -0500 From: "Jamison Ashley Oughton" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Changing subscriptions Message-Id: <9604011541.ZM13467@eos.ncsu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Does anyone know what William Blake thought of Percy Shelley or Lord Byron? I know he knew of Byron, but did he know about Shelley? ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 16:05:33 -0600 (CST) From: HXNEWSAM@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: "pre-existence" Message-Id: <960401160533.202a264d@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Exactly, I did work with Intimations Ode in connection to Urizen and you qouted my favorite line. I also addressed Neo-platonism in my paper. These two systems of belief were what came up primarily when I searched for pre-existance. If you have any other suggestions on other sources, please, please send them on, as I said I'm still working on this topic in Blake. Thank You so Much for the Comment, Heather ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:43:00 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: blake@albion.com Cc: marxism2@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Subject: Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 30 Mar 1996, Ralph Dumain wrote: > BLAKE AND THE MODERNS -- EXERCISES IN COMPARISON (1) > > So many have misappropriated Blake for pernicious ends -- Yeats, Ellis, > the Surrealists, Raine, Harper, or some of the dumbbells in > cyberspace who would link Blake to the Zen Buddhist interpretation > of quantum mechanics -- all based on dubious comparative methods, > which in the final analysis rest on abstracting certain properties > of Blake that correspond to their own interests -- e.g. the > imagination -- and reducing Blake to the level of their own > paltry, reactionary ideologies. I feel to spit.... > shallowness too is typical of the American artsy-fartsy crowd.... > > (Ralph Dumain, 31 March 1996, 2:30 am EST) > > Ralphie- I'm sure that you were not referring to my comments abou7t quantume mechanics and Blake, because I ofcoursse was referring to Heisenberg's view of quantum mechanics. He won a Nobel Prize for that (His Uncertainty Principle). Incidentallyk, I perused the list of recent Nobel Prize winners and if failed to find your name on it. Oh well, who really NEEDS a Nobel anyway? However, I am mentioning this because maye you had also won a Nobel and somehow they had failed to publiciise it proerly. As for being a reactionary, I am sastonished with how well you know my voting patterns. What cheap heuristics did you use to arrive at that conclusion? Perhaps you resort to ad hominem arguments out of frustration at not being persuasive. Didn't you learn in your rhetoric class that such techniques undermine your credibility? If you "feel to spit" , please don't do it in cyberspace. A man of perfect manners such as yourself shouldn't lower himself that way. Take it from a squire. No wonder you feel excluded from normal social relations. Get some sunshine. Enjoy the beauty of nature as Blake did. Other than that, the majority of what you said was coherent, although sometimes you confuse Logical Types. Matthew Dubuque, JD virtual@leland.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:48:23 -0800 (PST) From: James Zahradka To: blake@albion.com Subject: Blake's tombstone Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi there folks! I must admit I'm a complete Blake ignoramus. But could one of you guys help me out? A colleague of my girlfriend's wants to know what's written on Blake's tombstone. Can someone email me with it? I'm at jfzahradka@ucdavis.edu. Thanks a heap!! James ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:49:22 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, Gordon Barentsen wrote: > On Mar 30, 11:40pm, Ralph Dumain wrote: > > Subject: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) > > BLAKE AND THE MODERNS -- EXERCISES IN COMPARISON (1) > > > [...] > > worthwhile essay in this volume. I am inherently suspicious of > > comparative studies, especially when it comes to Blake. So many > > have misappropriated Blake for pernicious ends -- Yeats, Ellis, > > the Surrealists, Raine, Harper, or some of the dumbbells in > > cyberspace who would link Blake to the Zen Buddhist interpretation > > of quantum mechanics -- all based on dubious comparative methods, > > which in the final analysis rest on abstracting certain properties > > of Blake that correspond to their own interests -- e.g. the > > imagination -- and reducing Blake to the level of their own > > paltry, reactionary ideologies. I feel to spit. > > > This touches on a question to which I have yet to find a satisfactory > answer. > Can one really, in the end, "misappropriate" something? After all, > isn't there always a gap between the subsequent generation and "what the poet > really said/meant" (assuming such a thing is reachable)? Romantics like > Byron and Shelley didn't have a problem with it when they appropriated Satan > as the Romantic Hero, even though Satan's positioning after Book IV of > Paradise Lost makes it all too clear that Milton was (of course) less than > sympathetic with the Fallen One. > Following this line of reasoning, it seems to me like this is saying > that punk culture, when appropriating cultural symbols like the swastika, > safety pin, etc. didn't know what they really meant, and that they had it all > wrong. What if people who appropriate(d) Blake KNEW what they were doing, > and CHOSE to leave certain things out? It wouldn't be the FIRST time > something like that has happened...and perhaps that is the REAL virtue in > such comparative studies....studying the ways in which the subsequent > generation is divergent from and antithetical to the "first generation." > > - Gord > > > > Gord- Good points. Ideas evolve in a similar fashion to the evolution of living things, using different memes for different purposes. It must be really lonely for Dumain when he feels that only he has the right answers. I am not persuaded that anger per se demonstrates intellectual skill. Besides, his ad hominem arguments undermine the credibility he craves. Is this discourse or an Animal House foodfight? Matthew Dubuque virtual@leland.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:50:32 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Pam van Schaik Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, Marcus Smith wrote: > > > When you speak of the difference between the two types of wine, > > I'm reminded that quite a bit of blood was shed over this issue. > > The consubstantiationists believed that that the wine really was the blood > > of Christ and the sacramental wafer was the actual body of Christ, whereas > > the transubstantiationists felt that the wine and wafer were merely > > symbolic. In some sense this parallels Blake's emphasis on the symbolic > > in opposition to Newton's "single vision". > > > Matthew: isn't it vice-versa? > > Marcus Smith > > Marcus: It surely is! Thanks.... Matthew virtual@leland.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:53:56 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: "Leslie O. Segar" Cc: blake@albion.com, postmaster@canrem.com Subject: Re: List problem Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, Leslie O. Segar wrote: > Whenever I send something to this list, I get a bounceback from > postmaster@canrem.com, with the following message: > > Unknown user 'paul.hoy' at canrem.com > > Can paul.hoy be removed from the list, or can the list be configured > so that the error message does not come back to the sender? > > Have others had this problem? > > LOS > > Los- has anyone in this group told you that is a familiar name? Yes, I have had that problem too. It's a bit annoying. I think maybe it is the national security agency monitoring our group. Just kidding fellas. Honest. Matthew Dubuque virtual@leland.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 17:00:19 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, Avery F. Gaskins wrote: > It isn't only the reactionary ideologues who reduce Milton to their level. I > have yet to see Dumain do anything but reduce Milton to his leftist ideology. > Avery Gaskins > > Avery- I agree. The dichotomy I currently use in political discourse is DO you support people at the top of the economic spectrum or the bottom. I find it more useful than liberal/reactionary... just a thought.. matthew Dubuque virtual@leland.stanford.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 16:57:44 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew J Dubuque To: "Leslie O. Segar" Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, Leslie O. Segar wrote: > In his article BLAKE & THE MODERNS (1) (3/20/96) Ralph Dumain wrote: > > > So many > > have misappropriated Blake for pernicious ends -- Yeats, Ellis, > > the Surrealists, Raine, Harper, or some of the dumbbells in > > cyberspace who would link Blake to the Zen Buddhist interpretation > > of quantum mechanics -- all based on dubious comparative methods, > > which in the final analysis rest on abstracting certain properties > > of Blake that correspond to their own interests -- e.g. the > > imagination -- and reducing Blake to the level of their own > > paltry, reactionary ideologies. I feel to spit. > > It's an excess of bile. It'll pass. > > Alas, though, it probably won't. Poor Ralph, in his stony den, > scrutinizing sinning schoolmen through his narrow orb, will remain > locked in constant agony. > > I can't address Ralph's specific criticism of the essays he > reviewed, because I haven't read them, but I can comment on some of > his innuendo. It seems to me that Ralph would have us read Blake > only as a subject of Academic study, to be dissected and analyzed by > those who have mastered and declared absolute fealty to a set of > fixed and arid intellectual tools. > > Anyone who reads Blake as a source of current inspiration is accused > of "misappropriating" him "for pernicious ends". (In what way, > Ralph, were Yeats' ends pernicious?) And those of us who find in > Blake some quite remarkable articulations of a world view and a > cosmology that has only in this century found more general > articulation by physicists and mathematicians, are dismissed as > "dumbbells in cyberspace". > > Ralph seems able to deal rationally only with those commentators who > place Blake in a Western philosophic tradition that ended a century > ago: the only essay he reviews favorably is one that relates Blake > to Marx; in his review of Horn's essay on "Blake and the Problematic > of the Self", the only topics which Ralph engages for any other > purpose than to spew vitriol are those involving the relationship > between Blake's thought and the thought of Hegel & Kant. > > I suspect that I'd agree with Ralph's opinions on many things -- > Harold Bloom is full of shit, there's a lot of inflated hooey in > postmodern criticism, Jacques Derrida is hopelessly French. But I > sure don't find his style of criticism persuasive. > > I a following article, BLAKE AND THE MODERNS (2) -- HEGEL, Dumain > again wrote: > > > I am a great > > admirer of Ginsberg, but he is an airhead. His analysis of Blake > > is one-dimensional. His speech published as BLAKE AND YOUR REASON > > is most instructive about Ginsberg's strengths and weaknesses. > > The strength is the very literalness with which Ginsberg analyzes > > Blake's imagery (the literal imagination) -- interesting to see > > how one poet absorbs another. But the weakness lies in Ginsberg's > > inability to grasp Blake's thinking. Indeed, Ginsberg's own > > shallow pop culture Buddhism, his narcissism and > > characteristically American anti-intellectual superficiality and > > mechanistic conception of mysticism, his self-abasing discipleship > > to petty thugs like Pound, Casady, or his dishonest gurus -- this > > entire complex of Ginsberg's mentality make it impossible for him > > to deal with Blake's intellectual vision on its own level. That > > Ostriker cannot recognize this is damning, but then, that > > shallowness too is typical of the American artsy-fartsy crowd. > > > > May old Nobodaddy protect me from Ralph's admiration (not that I'm > in any imminent danger of attracting it :-) > > Come now, Ralph: "deal with Blake's intellectual vision on its own > level"; what the devil is that supposed to mean? It comes at the > very climax of your denunciation of Ginsberg; it is, in fact, the > very substance of that denunciation; yet it is a totally meaningless > phrase. > > I'm not defending Ginsberg; I've never liked his poetry, although I > am enormously fond of the public man. But what has he done, aside > from reading Blake very subjectively, to deserve such vilification? > > Throughout the discouse on this list, it seems that there are two > purposes at work -- some of us wish to learn more from Blake; others > wish to learn more about Blake. A single-vision focus on either > purpose destroys imagination and hampers creativity. > > Accepting Blake as a prophetic guru, unrooted in time and place, > outside of any philosophical or literary tradition, ignorant or > dismissive of passing events, could lead one to read Blake the way > believers read Revelations; that is likely, I would agree with > Ralph, to lead in some pretty unproductive (and possibly even > threatening) directions. > > On the other hand, insisting that the only proper approach to Blake > is to treat the man and his work as simply one more 18th Century > poet/painter -- a puzzle in intellectual history to be resolved by > the patient application of academic discipline -- is to diminish the > marvelous and unique resonance of Blake, to close our ears & eyes to > the distinctive (and disturbing) message that his words and images > carry for moderns. > > It seems to me that Ralph falls pretty consistently into the second > error. > > LOS > > " > > LOS Gosh that's a familiar name... Hey are we on the same page or what. I think if Dumain's love life improved he would understand Blake better. His bile is insufficient to describe the beauty of Blake. As some would say, it's more "noise" than "signal".... Matthew virtual@leland.stanford.edu -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #25 *************************************