------------------------------
Content-Type: text/plain
blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 5
Today's Topics:
Re: Blake texts
The Continental Prophecies, 1995: corrigenda
Re: Blake texts
Re: Blake texts
Re: Blake texts
Re: Blake texts
Re: Blake texts
Re: Blake texts
Milton: Ein Gedicht!
Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Laocoon print
Re: Laocoon print
Blake's Music
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 13:01:24 -0500
From: Scott A Leonard <f0177119@cc.ysu.edu>
To: MTS231F@vma.smsu.edu
Subject: Re: Blake texts
Message-Id: <199601121801.NAA64651@unix1.cc.ysu.edu>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Allow me to second or third what Mark said about the Erdman edition
and Blake's idiosyncratic spelling and punctuation. What's to be
gained from normalizing Blake's "mechanics"?
I'm using Duncan Wu's anthology this quarter and, despite its very
good "coverage" of the period, I'm not sure I can forgive Blackwell Publishing
for "Tiger, Tiger burning bright/In the forests of the night,/What immortal
hand or eye/Coud frame they fearful symmetry?" Did it really seem to
improve readability or increase the accessibility of this poem to so
spell and punctuate it? (oops! I typoed on "could")
One of the pleasures of Blake's poetry is the way his spelling and
ideosyncratic punctuation choices keep prodding readers--especially
student readers into consciousness.
He ceast
Scott A. Leonard,
Youngstown State U
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 20:14:23 MET
From: "DOERRBECKER D.W." <DOERRBEC@uni-trier.de>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: The Continental Prophecies, 1995: corrigenda
Message-Id: <98557E84647@netwareserver.uni-trier.de>
January 23rd, 1996
Volume 4 in the WB Trust's series of "Blake's Illuminated Books" is,
I hope, well worth the money. This, however, is not to say that the
book is a flawless production, and to me as the author of the
commentary on *The Continental Prophecies* it would seem absurd to
claim such perfection. Appended here is a preliminary list of
corrigenda which some subscribers may find useful when forced to work
with this new edition of *America*, *Europe*, and *The Song of Los*.
In addition, I'd like to point out that with very few exceptions
the colour reproduction of *Europe*, copy B (Glasgow UL), and *The
Song of Los*, copy A (BMPD) offer as good a likeness of the originals
as is possible with current eight-colour offset printing technology.
(Unfortunately, one of the exceptions is *E*1, also reproduced on the
book's dust-jacket; the ektachrome was on long-term loan when I and,
subsequently, the Tate Gallery's specialist examined the
transparencies side-by-side with the original plates.) However, and
much to my surprise, the large-scale ektachromes for *America*, copy
H (BMPD) which were shot with this new edition in mind and were
supplied by the British Museum's photographic department, are off much
too often. Here, later on in the production process, colour-
correction failed as well, and as a result some of the reproductions
look closer to *America*, copy F, which is printed in blue (and also
on the BM Print Room's Blake cupboard), than to copy H, collated from
pulls that had been printed in sometimes bluish, sometimes dark olive
green. (Though I had asked for colour proofs, the production schedule
apparently didn't allow for sending them to far-away Germany which
was all my own fault, of course, since I didn't manage to hand in my
typescript in time to meet the ultimate deadline ...). What's even
worse is that I allowed myself to be fooled by the colour slides
provided by the BM as an aid to memory when I changed the colour
description in the notes taken at the Print Room for the published
commentary (see s.v. p. 78, below).
My apologies for these and other blunders in volume 4 of "Blake's
Illuminated Books"! Of course, I'd appreciate (well, ...) to learn
about any other typos, inconsistencies, and factual errors in the
book which may come to the notice of subscribers to "Blake Online"
(my e-Mail address is doerrbec@pcmail.uni-trier.de).
+++++
William Blake, *The Continental Prophecies*, ed. D.W. Doerrbecker,
["Blake's Illuminated Books"; vol. 4], London: Tate Gallery
Publications; and Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, in
conjunction with the William Blake Trust, 1995
A preliminary list of errata, with few exceptions same as the editor's
page proof corrections of which the less important ones did not make
it into the finished book:
p. 5, l. 3: add a comma after "TEXTS"
p. 13, l. 19: after "also pages 206-7" add "and passim"
p. 14, l. 12: for "(v. 181)" read "(see 181)"
p. 22, l. 23: insert a comma after "116)"
p. 31, l. 4: for "<<panting struggling womb>> (Behrendt" read "<<panting
struggling womb>>' (Behrendt", i.e., add end-quote mark
p. 39, l. 29: for "grew a `cowl of flesh & scales on his back and
ribs'" read "grew a `cowl of flesh . . . & scales on his back &
ribs'"
p. 60, l. 27: for "multi-faceted" read "multi-facetted"
p. 64, l. 8 from bottom: add a comma after "cheerful monster"
p. 67, l. 2 from bottom: for "downwards" read "downward"
p. 74, fn. 31: again, for "multi-faceted" read "multi-facetted"
p. 78, ll. 10-11: for "shades of blue and blue-green" read "shades of
dark olive or `Hooker's' green and blue-green"
p. 81: for "[Plate 1 frontispiece]" read "[Plate 1, frontispiece]"
p. 84, l. 1: except for the "Preludium" line, the remainder of the
text ought to be pushed further down the page
p. 91, l. 11: for "atmo. | -shere" read "atmo- | -sphere"
p. 108: push text five lines down
p. 115: move text three lines closer to the bottom of the page; l.
23bis: for "(men" read "men"
p. 127, title: as in earlier volumes of the series, titles in this
position ought to refer to the illuminated book, not just to "Blake's
text" as on the page of contents; thus, read "Notes to America: a
Prophecy"
p. 128, l. 12: for "Supplementary illustration 6 above" read
"supplementary illustration 6, above"
p. 135, plate b, l. 12bis: move "house." a little further to the
left, so that it begins below "the" in line 12, proper; at the bottom
of the page, delete "-dy shield" and move this to page 136 where it
is line 10bis, above "his clou-"
p. 136, l. 1: see previous correction
p. 157, l. 21: for "Christ's Nativity" read "Christs Nativity" as in
Milton's original spelling
p. 177, l. 4: for "itegrated" read "integrated"
p. 187, l. 21: for "ground, a dead child" read "ground, is a dead
child" or "ground, one faces the depiction of a dead child"
p. 200, ll. 4-5 of indented quotation from Defoe: for "to another
with repeated cries of `Lord, have mercy" read "to another, with
repeated cries of, `Lord, have mercy" [these additional commas are
Defoe's or his editor's, not mine]
p. 206, l. 1 for Appendix 1: move the period at the end of the line
to its proper position; i.e., not to be set in superscript
p. 211, l. 3 of fn. 57: for "his copperplates, in Essick" read "his
copperplates' in Essick"
p. 220: push the entire text (except for the "PRELUDIUM" sub-title)
further to the bottom of the page
p. 224: skip a line between "A" and "PROPHECY"
p. 266, title: read "Notes to Europe: a Prophecy" (see s.v. p. 127,
above)
p. 270, l. 2: for "Abraham's wishful thinking" read "Abrahams' [or
Abrahams's] wishful thinking"
p. 298, l. 2: for "a utopian" read "an utopian"
p. 310, l. 27: for "an image whose historical impact would appear"
read "an image the historical impact of which would appear"
p. 347, title: read "Notes to The Song of Los" (see s.v. p. 127,
above)
p. 359, s.v. Ferber: for "Revolution', History" read "Revolution', in
History"
p. 360, s.v. Fisher: replace comma with a period after "Frye"; s.v.
George: insert comma between "Museum" and "1935-42"
p. 361, s.v. King-Hele: insert period after "Hants"
p. 362, s.v. Mallet: for "Customs, Religions, and Laws" read
"Customs, Religion and Laws"; for "[trans. T. Percy]" read "[trans.
Thomas Percy]"
p. 367, s.v. Worrall, ed.: for "Blake's Illuminated Books, vol. 6"
read "Blake's Illuminated Books 6"; for "Tate Gallery Publications/
William Blake Trust" read "Tate Gallery Publications, for the William
Blake Trust" (compare s.v. Eaves, Essick, and Viscomi, s.v. Lincoln,
and s.v. Paley for vols. 1-3)
plus one more general remark:
Though once or twice the commentary refers to Constantin Francois
Chasseboeuf, Comte de Volney's *The Ruins; or A Survey of the
Revolutions of Empires* (1st English edn. published in 1792; here
quoted from the 2nd edn., London: J. Johnson, 1795), other such
references have been inadvertently omitted by the editor. In fact,
*The Ruins* may well have functioned as an important source book for
Blake's continental prophecies and, in particular, his account of the
history of religions in the first part of *The Song of Los*. Volney
speculates about the `origin of the idea of God' in the `worship of
the elements' (see 226-31) and about the `worship of the stars' (see
231-37) that is such a prominent feature of the full-plate designs in
*The Song*. Furthermore, he has a section discussing the `worship of
the soul of the world, that is, the element of fire, the vital
principle of the universe' (271-73), and a vital element in Blake's
iconography of Orc, too. His treatment of the religious concepts
considering `the world a machine', subtitled `worship of the Demi-
ourgos, or supreme artificer' (274-79), offers a good introduction to
the critique of enlightenment Deism and the net of religion as woven
by Urizen in the Lambeth books (see also David Worrall's commentary in
vol. 6 of the series). Moreover, Volney's account of `Braminism, or
the Indian system' (282-83) should have been listed with other
possible sources for Blake's idea of the `Abstract Philosophy' which
is given by Rintrah `to Brama in the East' (*The Song of Los* 3:11).
Of course, it seems more than likely that numerous other publications
of the period which may have figured as `sources' for Blake's ideas
concerning political philosophy and the history of religions
similarly have been overlooked. However, when I recently reread
parts of Volney's book (with an entirely different context in mind),
I was struck by the number of significant parallels in subject matter
between *The Ruins* and the continental prophecies, and as another
publication which is likely to have been discussed in the Johnson
circle (just as Darwin's *Botanic Garden* or Bonnycastle's
*Astronomy*), the commentary certainly should have indicated Volney's
possible importance for Blake during the 1790s much more clearly than
it does in its present form. Similarly, the appendix on the designs
in *Europe* and "The History of England" on p. 207 may usefully have
discussed the possibility of Blake's awareness of Jacob Bryant's
*Observations upon the Plagues Inflicted upon the Egyptians; in Which
Is Shown the Peculiarity of These Judgements, and Their Correspondence
with the Rites and Idolatory of That People; [...]* (London: Printed
for the author, 1794).
+++++ Enough! or Too much already +++++
Hope this proves useful for an occasional reader ..., All best, DWD
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 11:20:15 +1100
From: s_harkin@eduserv.its.unimelb.edu.au (Brendan Harkin)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake texts
Message-Id: <199601240020.LAA10417@eduserv.its.unimelb.EDU.AU>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>I'm using Duncan Wu's anthology this quarter and, despite its very
>good "coverage" of the period, I'm not sure I can forgive Blackwell Publishing
>for "Tiger, Tiger burning bright/In the forests of the night,/What immortal
>hand or eye/Coud frame they fearful symmetry?" Did it really seem to
>improve readability or increase the accessibility of this poem to so
>spell and punctuate it? (oops! I typoed on "could")
>
>One of the pleasures of Blake's poetry is the way his spelling and
>ideosyncratic punctuation choices keep prodding readers--especially
>student readers into consciousness.
>
How on earth could they have gotten away with changes like that? How could
they have even thought of doing it? They shouldn't even be allowed to call
it "Blake" because it's not.
How _normalising_! What a sad emasculation! "Tigers" are found in zoos,
"Tygers" in forests of the night. The spelling even helps us with the tone
and mood.
I'm appalled.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 20:50:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan Miserocchi <nmiseroc@abacus.bates.edu>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake texts
Message-Id: <9601240151.AA03072@abacus.bates.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length: 1206
In response to the "normalising of Blake," Brendan Harkin writes:
> How on earth could they have gotten away with changes like that? How could
> they have even thought of doing it? They shouldn't even be allowed to call
> it "Blake" because it's not.
>
> How _normalising_! What a sad emasculation! "Tigers" are found in zoos,
> "Tygers" in forests of the night. The spelling even helps us with the tone
> and mood.
>
> I'm appalled.
>
Though I am in definite agreement with your sentiments, I can't help but
remark that "Tygers" are more often found in the late 18th century, i.e.,
'tis not a Blake idiosyncracy. Therefore, perhaps the editors wanted to
modernize Blake, thinking no doubt Blake would have written "tigers" had
he the "I" for it. Nonetheless, I do agree with your sentiments fully --
appalling.
--
*****************************************************************
Nathan P. Miserocchi nmiseroc@abacus.bates.edu
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the
rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places." (Eph. 6:12)
*****************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 09:07:06 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake texts
Message-Id: <9601241510.AA12595@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I agree with those who have deplored the revised punctuation and spelling,
but there's no need to single out Blackwell's for invective. "Normalizing"
Blake's orthography was routine practice until Erdman's edition of 1965,
and even Erdman's 1982 edition came under fire from the Santa Cruz Blake
Study Group, which argued essentially that no printed text can possibly
give an accurate sense of Blake's plates (_Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly_,
18.1, 1984).
It's not simply a matter of leaving Blake's punctuation and spelling
"alone." Transcribing his engraved hand is much like editing a handwritten
MS (ever seen the facicles of Emily Dickinson?). Can you decide whether
that dot is a period or a comma? If you're going to typeset the work, you
can't just leave the mark out. Nelson Hilton, in _Literal Imagination_,
uses the example of a word on plate 21 of _Jerusalem_ that looks like
"warshipped" but was printed in editions before 1982 as "worshipped." It
can really be hard to distinguish Blake's a's from o's. I guess I'm saying
that the folks at Santa Cruz are right, but that since we usually have to
settle for a printed text, we should cut the editors some slack and *read*
their textual notes. The best solution so far, IMHO, is in the
Princeton/Blake Trust volumes, which provide a typeset text along with
facsimiles of the plates.
Jennifer Davis Michael
University of the South
jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 04:35:23 +1100
From: s_harkin@eduserv.its.unimelb.edu.au (Brendan Harkin)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake texts
Message-Id: <199601241735.EAA18864@eduserv.its.unimelb.EDU.AU>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>I agree with those who have deplored the revised punctuation and spelling,
>but there's no need to single out Blackwell's for invective. "Normalizing"
>Blake's orthography was routine practice until Erdman's edition of 1965,
>and even Erdman's 1982 edition came under fire from the Santa Cruz Blake
>Study Group, which argued essentially that no printed text can possibly
>give an accurate sense of Blake's plates (_Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly_,
>18.1, 1984).
>
Interestingly, ironically, I said "normalising" and you reproduced it as
"normalizing". Trivial , eh? Or does it mark a difference which can be read
by those who see it?
... Tyger, Tyger, burning bright ...
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 15:10:38 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake texts
Message-Id: <9601242114.AA01083@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Interestingly, ironically, I said "normalising" and you reproduced it as
>"normalizing". Trivial , eh? Or does it mark a difference which can be read
>by those who see it?
>
> ... Tyger, Tyger, burning bright ...
Well, actually, I tend to use American spelling out of habit, and meant to
quote the word as a word rather than as a direct quotation, if that makes
any sense. I would not presume to make such a change if I were editing
your work. Frankly, neither "normalise" nor "normalize" has a great deal
of meaning for me, but one could also argue that the word "Tyger" spelled
as such means what it does for us only because of Blake's poem.
Jennifer Davis Michael
University of the South
jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 17:01:56 -0500
From: rooney@travel-net.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake texts
Message-Id: <199601242201.RAA10259@travel1.travel-net.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>someone wrote:
>How on earth could they have gotten away with changes like that? How could
>they have even thought of doing it? They shouldn't even be allowed to call
>it "Blake" because it's not.
>
>How _normalising_! What a sad emasculation! "Tigers" are found in zoos,
>"Tygers" in forests of the night. The spelling even helps us with the tone
>and mood.
>
>I'm appalled.
>
>
it does have the air of newspeak translation
amanda
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 20:16:20 MET
From: "DOERRBECKER D.W." <DOERRBEC@uni-trier.de>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Milton: Ein Gedicht!
Message-Id: <1AAEAC7870@netwareserver.uni-trier.de>
Last week, there have been a couple of contributions discussing an
electronic version of _Milton_, and everybody has probably seen that
Brown UP thesis on _Meaning and Madness in Blake's Milton_ which,
together with Blake's text, is advertized at least twice on the web.
For READERS, LOVERS OF BOOKS, however, it may be more important to
learn about the existence of a complete German translation of _Milton_
which was published only very recently: Hans-Ulrich Moehring, trans.
and ed. _Milton: Ein Gedicht_ (Vienna, Aus. and Lana, It.: Edition
Per Procura, 1995). Copy D in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection at
the Library of Congress is reproduced from the Trianon Press/Blake
Trust facsimile in black-and-white, with about twelve of the
illuminated pages in (mediocre) colour; as an appendix, one finds the
first German translation of "A Vision of the Last Judgment"; and --
Moehring has provided an extensive commentary on _Milton_ of about one-
hundred-and-fifty pages (demy 8vo.). The latter reads a bit like
Rudolf Kassner's Blake of 1900, whereas Moehring's version of
_Milton_ reminded me of Hoelderlin (the best possible choice for
Germanic Blake, I think). More information on Blake's current
reputation in the German-speaking countries will be supplied in a
short article I hope to publish in the near future.
DW Doerrbecker
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 16:14:01 +0000 (GMT)
From: Mae Tang <myt100@unix.york.ac.uk>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Message-Id: <Pine.SGI.3.91.960126161125.2582A-100000@sgi3.york.ac.uk>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Greetings,
I find myself unable to find a translation for the Greek written above
Yahwah's head in the engraving of Blake's _Laocoon_. Could anyone help?
Many thanks.
Mae
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 15:45:16 -0600
From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Message-Id: <96012615451596@womenscol.stephens.edu>
In Erdman's edition, the transcription of the full text of the
Laocoon engraving gives "Serpent-holder" as the translation of
"ophionchos"--direct, perhaps ironic, reference to the situation
of the Laocoon figure.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 15:56:47 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Message-Id: <9601262200.AA19831@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Greetings,
>
>I find myself unable to find a translation for the Greek written above
>Yahwah's head in the engraving of Blake's _Laocoon_. Could anyone help?
>
>Many thanks.
>
>Mae
Mae, I don't read Greek, but Erdman's edition gives "Serpent-holder" as the
translation.
Hope this helps,
Jennifer
Jennifer Davis Michael
University of the South
jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 96 16:00 CST
From: MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
Message-Id: <199601262205.QAA13863@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
---------------------------------- Forwarded ----------------------------------
From: MLGrant at president-po
Date: 1/26/96 3:59PM
To: Mae Tang <myt100@mailer.york.ac.uk> at internet
Subject: Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Erdman translates the Greek inscription as "Serpent-holder": same word
we get the zoological class "Ophidia" (serpent) from. (BTW: Serpents
were sacred to the Ophites, a Gnostic sect of the 2nd century.)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 19:07:13 -0600
From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Laocoon print
Message-Id: <96012619071357@womenscol.stephens.edu>
Since the subject of the Laocoon print has come up, I will parade
my ignorance or lapse of attention and ask why, in my students'
copies of Erdman (the 1988 paperback printing of the 82 edition)
the Laocoon print is "negative" that is, white letters on black
background and all other white/blacks reversed. It is still
credited to the Keynes collection, and the earlier editions
I own all have the engraving printed in a more familiar
black-on-white format. (My own sense, by the way, is that
the printing of that engraving in the 1965 edition was superior
to any later version.) I can think of several reasons why
the recent printing may have come out this way (ranging from
a simple printer's error to a revolutionary new understanding or
discovery about the print), and I can imagine I should have seen
some perfectly obvious explanation of it in print (possibly in
_Blake:An Illustrated Quarterly_) but it has slipped by me and
my students are wondering--especially since I am still using my
1982 printing which has the other version.
Tom Dillingham (tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 96 00:35:28 CST
From: Mark Trevor Smith <MTS231F@vma.smsu.edu>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Laocoon print
Message-Id: <9601270642.AA22413@uu6.psi.com>
Indeed the negative Laocoon, although highly suggestive of thought, was
the result of a simple printer's error, as were several other errata,
ironically enough in an edition touted for its editorial accuracies.
David Erdman was not pleased, although he was slightly amused, and
not nearly as annoyed as I would have guessed after all the painstaking
effort that he has put into his editing labors.
NB: Watch out for the "abdominable" Urizen in that edition,
a suggestive pun probably enjoyed by many readers, but once
again the result of a printer's error, nothing more. -- Mark
On Fri, 26 Jan 1996 19:07:13 -0600 <tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu> said:
>Since the subject of the Laocoon print has come up, I will parade
>my ignorance or lapse of attention and ask why, in my students'
>copies of Erdman (the 1988 paperback printing of the 82 edition)
>the Laocoon print is "negative" that is, white letters on black
>background and all other white/blacks reversed. It is still
>credited to the Keynes collection, and the earlier editions
>I own all have the engraving printed in a more familiar
>black-on-white format. (My own sense, by the way, is that
>the printing of that engraving in the 1965 edition was superior
>to any later version.) I can think of several reasons why
>the recent printing may have come out this way (ranging from
>a simple printer's error to a revolutionary new understanding or
>discovery about the print), and I can imagine I should have seen
>some perfectly obvious explanation of it in print (possibly in
>_Blake:An Illustrated Quarterly_) but it has slipped by me and
>my students are wondering--especially since I am still using my
>1982 printing which has the other version.
>Tom Dillingham (tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu)
>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 09:45:05 -0600 (CST)
From: William Neal Franklin <iy25@jove.acs.unt.edu>
To: blake online <blake@albion.com>
Subject: Blake's Music
Message-Id: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960128093102.8965B-100000@jove.acs.unt.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Bentley tells us (more than once) that although we know Blake sang his
poems, there are no records of the melodies used. We know he preferred
ballads to anything more complex, and we know he was moved to tears by
"The Border Melody" (Bentley 305), but beyond that there seems to be next
to no information.
Two questions:
Can anyone provide any information about Blake's music?
A lot of his poetry has been set to music, but I have no interest in any
of that unless it comes from Blake himself.
Can anyone provide me with a source for "The Border
Melody?" It's Scottish and begins with the lines
O Nancy's hair is yellow as gowd
And her een as the lift are blue
By the way, the Vauxhall Query remains unsatisfied. Thanks to Ursela
Rempel for faxing me the melodies to two potenial candidates, but I still
would like to find the melody to John Worgan's "Lucy."
William Neal Franklin
University of North Texas
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End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #5
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