------------------------------ 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 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." 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 "<> (Behrendt" read "<>' (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 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." 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 To: blake@albion.com Subject: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_. Message-Id: 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 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 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 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 To: blake online Subject: Blake's Music Message-Id: 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 -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #5 ************************************