------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 6 Today's Topics: Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_. Re: Blake's Music Aspire ? Harold Bloom Discussion Group Re: Aspire ? Re: Aspire ? Re: Aspire ? Re: Aspire ? Re: Aspire ? RE: Aspire ? Re[2]: Aspire ? RE: Aspire ? text project Re: Harold Bloom Discussion Group RE: Re[2]: Aspire ? RE: Aspire ? electronic Erdman; _Songs_ hypertext; more aspiring Illuminations/Urizen Re: Re[2]: Aspire ? Re: Re: Harold Bloom Discussion Group Aspire, redux ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 18:30:33 +0000 (GMT) From: Mae Tang To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Help with the Greek in _The Laocoon_. Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Greetings, I'd like to thank everyone on the list who's replied to me with help on this question. Your time and effort are much appreciated. :) Regards, Mae ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1996 23:34:54 -0500 From: RobertsonG@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake's Music Message-Id: <960128233453_408975643@mail06.mail.aol.com> I read, I am sorry I cannot remember the source, a London wag attending a salon that Blake went to, said; "Mr Blake sang some songs and they were all quite lovely." The man also said Blake played the guitar. I have often wondered about Blake's music and I have enjoyed listening to others thoughts of what it might me like. I suggest highly Greg Brown's Songs of Innocence , Think it is Red Barn or Red House records in Minnesota. Fantastic to listen to the music and though I dont know if Mr. Brown is correct, I do think that one doesnt understand the Songs until they are heard in melodyand song. it is like reading Jeruselem without the illuminations. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jan 96 13:22:13 CST From: Kyle Grimes To: blake@albion.com Subject: Aspire ? Message-Id: <9601301951.AA26031@uu6.psi.com> I'm curious to hear how other Blake readers interpret the word "aspire" in the second stanza of "Ah! Sun-Flower." The stanza goes like this: Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. What I'm puzzled about is this: Ordinarily, "aspire" would be a verb requiring some kind of complement (e.g. "aspire to greatness," or "aspire to happiness.") A second meaning, has "aspire" as roughly synonymous with "rise up" (e.g. "the steeples aspire above the village"). If Blake's poem is read with the first meaning in mind, it violates the idiomatic use of aspire--which may be okay. It would suggest, I suppose, that the Virgin and the Youth remain locked in a condition of nameless longing. If read with the second meaning in mind, it would suggest that the Virgin and the Youth have "risen up" and that their earlier longings have been fulfilled. So which is it? Or is it both? Or does it depend on the innocence or experience of the reader? Kyle Grimes Univ. of Alabama at B'ham arhu018@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 23:44:38 -0500 From: Damion001@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Harold Bloom Discussion Group Message-Id: <960130234436_410850203@mail04.mail.aol.com> ~~~~~~~~~~ H-Bloom, the new Harold Bloom Discussion Group ~~~~~~~~~~ H-Bloom is an e-mail group devoted to the discussion of the writings of Harold Bloom. Bloom is the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University and Berg Professor of English at New York University. He has authored twenty books and edited hundreds more, his most recent work is the controversial bestseller "The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages." To Subscribe to H-Bloom send the following message to listserv@listserv.aol.com : Subscribe H-Bloom YOUR FULL NAME If you have any questions about H-Bloom send a message to me, Damion Doohan, at BloomList@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 11:31:17 +0000 From: dcr To: blake@albion.com Cc: dcr@aber.ac.uk Subject: Re: Aspire ? Message-Id: <4268.823087877@osfa.aber.ac.uk> In message <9601301951.AA26031@uu6.psi.com>, Kyle Grimes writes: > I'm curious to hear how other Blake readers interpret the > word "aspire" in the second stanza of "Ah! Sun-Flower." The > stanza goes like this: > > Where the Youth pined away with desire, > And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: > Arise from their graves and aspire, > Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. > > What I'm puzzled about is this: Ordinarily, "aspire" would be > a verb requiring some kind of complement (e.g. "aspire to greatness," > or "aspire to happiness.") A second meaning, has "aspire" as roughly > synonymous with "rise up" (e.g. "the steeples aspire above the village"). > If Blake's poem is read with the first meaning in mind, it violates > the idiomatic use of aspire--which may be okay. It would suggest, I > suppose, that the Virgin and the Youth remain locked in a condition > of nameless longing. If read with the second meaning in mind, it > would suggest that the Virgin and the Youth have "risen up" and that > their earlier longings have been fulfilled. > > So which is it? Or is it both? Or does it depend on the > innocence or experience of the reader? > > Kyle Grimes > Univ. of Alabama at B'ham > arhu018@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu > Both the above readings sound valid to me. But I'm sure that Blake was also thinking of "aspire" as in (almost) "respire", i.e. breathe. (Latin: aspirare, to breathe upon, from spirare, to breathe.) So the dead, here, begin to breathe again. Also, this meaning and the sense of rising up are linked: the virgin and youth are imagined rising up here like vapour - breath - in the warmth of the sun (whose presence is implied by the sun-flower). Dominic Rainsford U of Wales, Aberystwyth ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 08:19:53 -0800 From: strider%toybox@agora.rdrop.com (Jean Mittelstaedt) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Aspire ? Message-Id: <199601311620.IAA28738@toybox> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm curious to hear how other Blake readers interpret the >word "aspire" in the second stanza of "Ah! Sun-Flower." The >stanza goes like this: > > Where the Youth pined away with desire, > And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: > Arise from their graves and aspire, > Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. > >What I'm puzzled about is this: Ordinarily, "aspire" would be >a verb requiring some kind of complement (e.g. "aspire to greatness," >or "aspire to happiness.") A second meaning, has "aspire" as roughly >synonymous with "rise up" (e.g. "the steeples aspire above the village"). >If Blake's poem is read with the first meaning in mind, it violates >the idiomatic use of aspire--which may be okay. It would suggest, I >suppose, that the Virgin and the Youth remain locked in a condition >of nameless longing. If read with the second meaning in mind, it >would suggest that the Virgin and the Youth have "risen up" and that >their earlier longings have been fulfilled. > >So which is it? Or is it both? Or does it depend on the >innocence or experience of the reader? > >Kyle Grimes >Univ. of Alabama at B'ham >arhu018@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu > You might consult one or both of these: 1. The OED, which would have valuable historical information to help you contextualize the usage. 2. _A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake_, by S. Foster Damon (1965 and 1988). Defines and explains many key terms and ideas as they are employed by WB, and provides references to the works. Hope this helps. Cheers, Jean Mittelstaedt strider%toybox@agora.rdrop.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 12:45:49 -0500 (EST) From: "Michelle L. Gompf" To: blake@albion.com Cc: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Aspire ? Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Actually I've always read the use of "aspire" in that poem to mean that their longings have been fulfilled and they have risen up, but I do like the possibility of a dual reading. Michelle ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 20:34:08 MET From: "DOERRBECKER D.W." To: Kyle Grimes , blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Aspire ? Message-Id: > Weitergel. am: Tue, 30 Jan 96 13:22:13 CST > Absendedatum: Tue, 30 Jan 96 13:22:13 CST > Von: Kyle Grimes > Betreff: Aspire ? > An: blake@albion.com > Weitergel. von: blake@albion.com > Antworten an: blake@albion.com As a non-native speaker of the English language, I probably shouldn't get involved in this at all, and yet I'd like to offer a simple (or is it a simplistic?) solution to the "Flowery" problem sketched by Kyle Grimes. The Virgin and the Youth, previously having been ... shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire [*to go exactly*], Where my Sun-flower wishes to go that is, they aspire to follow the sun just as sunflowers do day-by- day (as is particularly clear from the French *tournesol* for sunflower), to go West, to move in the same direction as James Barry's "The Phoenix", i.e. to America as the (imagined) land of the free where the spirit of freedom is reborn in Phoenix-fashion, whilst the "free-born English(wo)man" is in chains, a captive in Georgian Britain. Thus, the suggested meaning > ... "aspire to happiness" seems close indeed--to me that is. For those who don't like libraries, it may prove useful (in this and similar cases) to look up the poem in the "Blake TextProject" prepared for the Net by Nelson Hilton at the University of Georgia in Athens; Hilton supplies a very helpful synopsis of earlier interpretations for each of the *Songs* which may keep us from starting all over again. All best, DWD ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 13:55:56 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Aspire ? Message-Id: <9601312000.AA11075@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" These glosses on "aspire" have been very intriguing. What I've always found puzzling about the poem (and I know I'm not alone) is that it never forms a complete sentence: "Ah, Sunflower, who does this this and this . . . " and it never says anything *to* the sunflower. If the sentence is aspiring to completion, it doesn't reach it. Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 14:02:03 -0600 (CST) From: JLFARRIS@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Aspire ? Message-Id: <960131140204.24ec4a@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Webster's dictionary defines "aspire" as "to seek or desire (after); to be ambitious." You suggest that "the Virgin and Youth remain locked in a conditionof nameless longing." I think that that condition is named, yet not defined. It seems to me that the Virgin and Youth "aspire" (or seek after) "that sweet golden clime/ Where the travellers journey is done" (lines 3-4). If they are locked in any way, I feel that they are released from this state through the resurrection that is described. Jennifer Farris Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock jlfarris@athena.ualr.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 96 15:01 CST From: MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re[2]: Aspire ? Message-Id: <199601312104.PAA17109@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> And I, for my part, have always read "aspire" as meaning that the youth's longings (and the virgin's, if she has any that are unacknowledged) are unfulfilled BOTH before and after death -- that even after resurrection, at least as the one addressing the Sun-flower imagines the resurrected state, personalities and "values" don't change; self-liberation begins here, not in the hereafter. For this Youth and Virgin, perpetual longing has become so ingrained in their natures that they will continue to aspire in their world, as the Sun-flower does in ours, toward a "sweet golden clime" forever beyond reach, not realizing that they are already IN the clime they seek. It's significant, I think, that these two are not even yearning for each other; the Youth is like the lover on Keats's Grecian urn, and the Virgin still rejects him, but both really yearn for some unattainable ideal. I hear in the questioner's address to the Sun-flower an implied "If you only knew ..." What the questioner would like to tell the flower, crudely paraphased, is "Don't focus all your yearnings on something just out of sight beyond the sunset, beyond time; the grave's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace; unfulfilled lovers, though resurrected, still long as you do for something unattainable; since they have never learned to live in the Eternal Now, Eternity's sun rise, in this life; have never kissed the joy as it flies, being free of time does them no good. They have escaped their graves but are still bound in the prison of their inability to seize the moment, their self-involvement, self-enjoyings of self-denial; they -- like you, Sun-flower -- have counted the steps of the sun and are now beyond clock-time, BUT they are NOT in 'eternity' because eternity is a state of mind they know nothing about. I've had many discussions of this poem with my husband, who takes "aspire" in the more postive sense and insists that arising from the grave ought to count for something! He always tries to shoot down my argument this way: "The first six inches are the hardest!" Now that the lovers have arisen from their graves, he thinks, they're well on their way toward finding each other. But I still think the grammar of the second stanza rounds back upon itself. The Youth and the Virgin aspire [to go] "where my Sun-flower wishes to go"; they yearn for the same golden clime that she does, having found that it isn't, after all, just over the horizon. I realize, though, that you could take the grammar as saying that they aspire [in the place] where my Sun-flower wishes to go." But I think many of the *Songs* have trick endings like this one. -- Mary Lynn Johnson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:24:38 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Aspire ? Message-Id: <9601312228.AA00543@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Webster's dictionary defines "aspire" as "to seek or desire (after); to be >ambitious." You suggest that "the Virgin and Youth remain locked in a >conditionof nameless longing." I think that that condition is named, yet not >defined. >It seems to me that the Virgin and Youth "aspire" (or seek after) "that sweet >golden clime/ Where the travellers journey is done" (lines 3-4). If they are >locked in any way, I feel that they are released from this state through the >resurrection that is described. > >Jennifer Farris >Univ. of Arkansas at Little Rock >jlfarris@athena.ualr.edu Agreed, but when they arise from their graves, it is only to aspire further. This is the recursive incompleteness of the poem that I was trying to describe. Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:26:21 -0600 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: text project Message-Id: <9601312230.AA00828@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > For those who don't like libraries, it may prove useful (in >this and similar cases) to look up the poem in the "Blake >TextProject" prepared for the Net by Nelson Hilton at the University >of Georgia in Athens; Hilton supplies a very helpful synopsis of >earlier interpretations for each of the *Songs* which may keep us >from starting all over again. > >All best, DWD Although I love libraries, could you provide the WWW location for Hilton's project? If it's been mentioned before here, I've missed it. Thanks, Jennifer Michael ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:44:25 -0500 From: TSUNAMI886@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Harold Bloom Discussion Group Message-Id: <960131184423_308624277@emout06.mail.aol.com> Yeesh! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 18:45:30 -0600 (CST) From: JLFARRIS@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Re[2]: Aspire ? Message-Id: <960131184530.253f85@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I think that I would have to disagree with the idea that the Youth and the Virgin remain unfulfilled before and after death. I think that the sunflower is seeking after something that it cannot attain--something that is, however, attainable by the Youth and the Virgin. The "sweet golden clime" that is soughtafter by the sunflower is that place where the "pined away" Youth and the "Pale Virgin" are no longer what they were. They were once in this state, but from it they have risen and have gone "Where my Sun-flower wishes to go" (but isn't able). If the sunflower IS capable of attaining the "sweet golden clime" after which it seeks, then it still has yet to attain it; for now it can only wish. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 19:55:13 -0600 (CST) From: JLFARRIS@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Aspire ? Message-Id: <960131195513.254385@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I don't think that the Youth and the Virgin are seeking after anything after being resurrected. I think that they "aspire" (ascend) to that "sweet golden clime/ Where the travellers journey is done." This, to me, seems to suggest completion. Jennifer Farris ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 22:04:28 -0500 (EST) From: Nelson Hilton To: blake@albion.com Subject: electronic Erdman; _Songs_ hypertext; more aspiring Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks to Detlef Do"rrbecker for his recent mentions of the Digital Blake Text Project and of the _Songs_ hypertext. Readers of this list will recall that nearly a year ago I announced David and Virginia Erdman's permission to make _The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake_, Newly Revised Edition, available online (e-E). Since then, the entire text has been scanned, but the result requires extensive correction. I'm in the process of dividing it into small (300 line?) sections of plain text and will soon solicit assistance in proofreading those files several times over. The sections could be exchanged by e-mail. A number of you have indicated willingness to with this--you are not forgotten! Others will, I hope, be moved when the call comes--as it will soon. The only requirements (aside from patience with minute particulars!), are the capability to capture e-mail, so you can edit it, the capability to save and return your edited file as plain text (ascii), and a copy of E. Your labors will be immortalized electronically in the complete file. The corrected plain text will be made available for ftp, and also, more usefully, be marked up (tagged) appropriately. All of this is proving more, as they say, "non-trivial" than was at first imagined. But, ca ira! I would also like to announce the availablity of the _Songs_ Graphical Hypertext which offers black + white, low-resolution images of each plate (or text only, if you don't browse graphics) linked to each plate which preceded or followed it in any edition. Bibliographies created by a graduate seminar last quarter are available for many of the poems, and to come very shortly (this weekend) are capabilities for comment and comment searching by poem and/or various categories. Corrections especially are welcome and needed. The address: http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~wblake And I can't resist concordancing on the aspiring of the expired: "O Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead! That gallant spirit hath aspir'd the clouds, Which too untimely here did scorn the earth." (3.1.117) "Love is a spirit all compact of fire, Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire" ("Venus & Adonis," 150) Milton, "On the Death of a Fair Infant dying of a Cough": ...And after short abode flie back with speed, As if to shew what creatures Heav'n doth breed, Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire To scorn the sordid world, and unto Heav'n aspire? (63) and "Comus": Yet some there be that by due steps aspire To lay thir just hands on that golden key That opes the palace of Eternity... (12) Phillip Doddridge has a hymn which might let one see a (sadly misguided, IMHO) Son-follower in the Sun-flower as it tells of ... joys that cannot die, Which God laid up in store, Treasure beyond the changing sky, Brighter than golden ore. To that my rising heart aspires, Secure to find its rest... (no. 209.9-14) Could "steps of the Sun" be like "stages (stations?) of the Cross?" Does one "count" those? Nelson Hilton -=- English -=- University of Georgia -=- Athens Was ist Los? "Net of Urizen" or "Jerusalem the Web of Life"? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 10:55:40 +0000 From: Michelle Finney To: blake@albion.com Subject: Illuminations/Urizen Message-Id: I'm currently writing the dissertation part of my degree on Urizen and, through this, have discovered what an amazing difference having the illuminated text makes. (My understanding of -The Book of Urizen- was much enhanced by reading it from the colour plates) This has proved to be a bit of a revelation, and I'm eager for more. Does anyone know of a book - or a series of - containing *all* Blake's plates in glorious technicolour? I'd also be interested in hearing any thoughts on the early Urizen (ie. up to and including the Bible of Hell). If anyone is interested I have a short (1000w) comparative essay on the two -Holy Thursday- poems: beginner's stuff really, but still a useful starting point. Michelle Finney Turnpike evaluation. For information, email: info@turnpike.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 07:40:46 -0600 From: cerackowitz@mail.utexas.edu (Chad E. Rackowitz) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Re[2]: Aspire ? Message-Id: <199602011340.HAA29868@mail.utexas.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > And I, for my part, have always read "aspire" as meaning that the > youth's longings (and the virgin's, if she has any that are > unacknowledged) are unfulfilled BOTH before and after death [snip] I agree with ML Johnson's more negative reading of "Ah! Sun-flower." For what it's worth, I've noticed that few people, if any, have remarked that the poem is a Song of Experience--that fact alone makes me somewhat suspicious of a rosy (sunflowery?) ending to the poem. My suspicions rely particularly on the following line: Arise from their graves and aspire, If you read the line aloud, you'll notice that the D of "and" sounds almost like the initial consonant of "aspire." (In spoken French, this sort of thing is known as a liaison--is there an equivalent term in English?) In other words, the words "and aspire" sound very similar to the words "and despair." I'm sure Blake must have been aware of this similarity. At the very least, I think this detail complicates the optimistic reading of the poem. Cheers, Chad E. Rackowitz University of Texas at Austin cerackowitz@mail.utexas.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 14:24:54 -0500 From: TSUNAMI886@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Re: Harold Bloom Discussion Group Message-Id: <960201142451_211681789@emout08.mail.aol.com> Yeesh? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 96 14:43:15 CST From: Kyle Grimes To: blake@albion.com Subject: Aspire, redux Message-Id: <9602012235.AA10587@uu6.psi.com> Thanks very much to all who took the time to address my query about the word "aspire" in "Ah! Sun-Flower." I must say, I was not surprised by the lack of consensus among the respondents. The Songs have a way of generating precisely contradictory and yet fully supportable readings. My own inclination is to read the poem much as M L Johnson does--i.e. with the Youth and the Virgin, even in their resurrected state, still stricken with a vague longing after an ever-receding "sweet golden clime." (But, of course, I recognize that being freed from a grave ought to matter as well.) As I've been mulling over the poem, I've come to feel that the real "point" lies not in the fulfillment or lack thereof among the Virgin and the Youth, but in the Experience speaker's reading of the Sun-Flower. As this speaker sees it, the peculiar behavior of this flower (counting the steps of the sun) is the sign of a desire that can never be fulfilled. But this desire is more a projection of the state of the speaker's soul than an objective quality of the flower, the Virgin, or the Youth. An interpretation focusing on the speaker would at least help to explain the grammatical incompletion that Jennifer Michael pointed out. Since "Ah! Sun-Flower" is sandwiched on the plate between "My Pretty Rose-Tree" and "The Lilly," one might even make a case that the ambivalence of the poem stems from the speaker's possessive and jealous love for his "Pretty Rose Tree" in conflict with his image of purity in the thornless Lilly. In any case, thanks once again to all who have responded to the query. Kyle Grimes Univ. of Alabama at B'ham arhu018@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #6 ************************************