------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 7 Today's Topics: RE: Re[2]: Aspire ? Re: Re[2]: Aspire ? RE: Re[2]: Aspire ? Re: Aspire, redux The Marriage Rule: Re: The Marriage Re: The Marriage Re: electronic Erdman; _Song NEW LIST: CALLS FOR PAPERS ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 17:43:48 -0600 (CST) From: JLFARRIS@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Re[2]: Aspire ? Message-Id: <960201174348.2542ae@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Do you not think that "Ah! Sun-flower" fits in with the "Songs of Experience" in that there would be no need to seek out "that sweet golden clime" if innocence had never been invaded by experience? It is experience that creates the need for the resurrection. Also, you point out that the words "and aspire" sound much like "and despair;" Of what, do you think, are the Youth and the Virgin in despair? I'm interested to know what else in the poem leads you to a "negative" ending. Jennifer Farris jlfarris@athena.ualr.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 1 Feb 1996 20:26:37 -0800 From: Devine/Apple@eworld.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Re[2]: Aspire ? Message-Id: <960201195215_23927448@hp1.online.apple.com> I have never thought as hard about "Ah, Sunflower!" as in the last day, thanks to all the mail about "aspire." I have never felt I understood the poem, but this discussion helps immensely. Here's what it's led me to. Nelson Hilton's concordance convinced me that Blake was following Shakespeare's use of "aspire" as an intransitive verb meaning "to rise up" and requiring no prepositional complement, no "to ___". That's a relief -- at least THAT part of the grammar might make sense. But does that give a conventional happy ending to the youth and the virgin? M. L. Johnson's fine reading and Chad Rackowitz's reminder that this is, after all, a Song of Experience, convinced me that a happy ending is not what Blake had in mind. (Though as for "and aspire" & "and despair"--aren't there enough problems with what's actually there?) Anyway, that led me to notice something else: A "Sweet golden clime/ Where the traveller's journey is done" does not sound like Blake's idea of a good time. At least in the later poems, Eternity is the place of Mental War and Hunting, "Building the Universe Stupendous Mental Forms creating", etc. And Songs of Experience were at least contemporary with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (if not later), so the notion that "Energy is Eternal Delight" was already clear to Blake. But what the Sunflower (like the youth and virgin) is yearning for doesn't sound like energy: it sounds like Non-being. Also, since "Ah! Sunflower" is on the same plate as "My Pretty Rose Tree" and "The Lilly" (the only such multiple-poem plate in the series), it seems right to treat the three poems as a unit. Read that way, the Rose Tree tells the story of the youth and the maiden who reappear in Sunflower, while the Lilly is a counterexample. The youth of "Rose Tree" chastely refuses the offer of "such a flower as May never bore," because he has a pretty rose tree of his own. But (an ironic reward for his chastity) his rose "turnd away with jealousy:/ And her thorns were my only delight." The Sunflower, following this, seems weary with the world of jealousy and generation, but the only answer it imagines is the static "golden clime" where one's journey is done (but there's still no joy, no energy). The Lilly, in contrast, makes the most of her time: "...the Lilly white shall in Love delight, /Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright." So, taken that way, the three poems might represent the battle of the sexes (Generation), a world-weary or escapist response to it, and a better response, respectively. I think I will never again try to read "Ah! Sunflower" in isolation. This may give us a handle on the problem of Sunflower's grammar, which does indeed round back on itself. The three "Where"s are an M.C. Escher-like "strange loop": Either the Sunflower seeks after that clime where: * the traveller's journey is done, and * the youth and virgin aspire where the Sunflower seeks to go; or, redundantly, the Sunflower seeks after the clime where: * the traveller's journey is done, * the youth and virgin aspire, and * the Sunflower seeks to go. Neither alternative makes much sense. But I'd suggest that this loopy syntax may be there to help create the strange lack of energy in the last stanza. The poem seems to go up into the air (aspire?) and dissolve in a dreamy mist, with no real climax or resolution, no explosion of energy such as one might expect from a poem about a resurrection -- in short, as M. L. Johnson suggested, the lovers and the Sunflower are still caught in unsatisfied yearning, and the poem is enacting/embodying that feeling-state. It could easily end with "...". Could Blake have deliberately used strange grammar to help create an effect such as that? Could the unusual use of "aspire" be part of the same effect? I'm beginning to believe it. --Tom Devine ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 02 Feb 1996 02:52:01 -0600 (CST) From: JLFARRIS@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: Re[2]: Aspire ? Message-Id: <960202025201.258c40@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I think that when "My Pretty Rose Tree," "Ah! Sunflower," and "The Lilly" are read as a unit, a progressive pattern can be seen. In "My Pretty Rose Tree," the narrator discovers that he has unknowingly lost something that can't be regained. Because knowledge was offered to him (of "such a flower as May never bore"), his innocence is somehow now lost, and his Rose Tree turns away and leaves him with only thorns in which to delight. This reminds me on "The Gardenof Love," in which it is the Priest who is "binding with briars, my joys and desires." As we can see, even chastity can't preserve innocence. This is also seen in "Ah! Sunflower," with the "Youth pined away with desire," and the "Pale Virgin." They have both lost their innocence, even without ever having experienced sexual pleasure. If they were still innocent, the resurrection wouldn't be necessary. The sin of the two is simply in their desire. The description of the Virgin as "pale" reminded me of "A Little GIRL Lost," in which Ona, no longer innocent, must face her father and he addresses her as, "Ona! pale and weak!" I think that Blake is stressing the weakness of the Virgin toward her desire more than he is stressing her actual virginity. The Sunflower has the same desires as the Youth and Virgin, "seeking after that sweet golden clime" (climax), which the Youth and the Virgin, through death and resurrection do finally attain. This brings us to "The Lilly," which I find a bit confusing, but I interpret it as a sort of completion to the two preceding poems in that, finally, as "the Lilly white" is allowed to delight in Love (be it physical or otherwise), there are no repercussions to "stain her beauty bright," and there is also no pining desire, as was demonstrated by the Youth in "Ah! Sunflower." The Rose and the Sheep are described as being "modest," and "humble," respectively, with the Rose having a thorn, and the Sheep having a horn. The thorn and the horn are obviously not symbols of innocence, but I think that the most important aspect of the description of the Rose and Sheep is that, while modesty and humility are both good qualities to have, they are also behaviors that suggest a sort of conscious restraint which could not be practiced without the knowledge of what it is to not be humble and modest. In opposition to the Rose and the Sheep is the Lilly, which is white, and is representative of innocence. I would guess, that with the three poems being grouped together in this manner, that it may be assumed that fulfillment is found in "that sweet golden clime" because resurrection brings one back to a state of innocence in which he may delight in Love. Jennifer Farris ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 2 Feb 96 08:52 CST From: MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu To: blake@albion.com, Kyle Grimes Subject: Re: Aspire, redux Message-Id: <199602021453.IAA39955@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> I was just going to bring up the place of "Ah! Sun-flower" in the three-flower plate; I think those who have already brought this into the the discussion are right in seeing a progression. I realize it can be very misleading to read later poems backward into earlier ones, but as B's later writings would have it (my capitalization and punctuation won't be right because I'm quoted from memory), it's necessary to distinguish between states and individuals (according to *Milton,* states change but individual identities never change nor cease (cf. Gates of Paradise: Every harlot was a virgin once, Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan), yet according to *Jerusalem,* men pass on but states remain permanent for ever -- but at any rate an individual person, if alive and growing, goes through / and gets out of / whatever state he or she is in, and at any point in a lifetime may be approaching, almost in a given state, deeply sunk into it, or rising out of it). Blake's shifting of some poems between Innocence and Experience is one indication of this fluidity; in some songs the speaker is right on the borderline between states. The Lilly (or the speaker regarding the Lilly) sounds to me to be free from Experience (unlike Ona, who under the forbidding gaze of her father, accepts his condemnation of her sexual awakening). I once wrote an article contrasting B's 3 flowers on this plate to the presentation of those same flowers in emblem books, where the lily, an emblem of virginity, is usually depicted as being surrounded by a hedge of protective thorns. The sunflower is traditionally associated with the myth of Clytie's longing for Apollo, taken over by Christian emblemists as an expression of the soul's longing for God. I see Blake as expanding and correcting these images in contrasting Thel's cautious, self-protecting dialogue with her Lilly and Oothoon's risk-taking, self-giving dialogue with her Marigold. (This was in Huntington Library Quarterly sometime in 1974, I think.) I'm not usually such a yakker and am often too busy in this office even to read my mail, but I always appreciate this lifeline to others interested in Blake. -- Mary Lynn Johnson ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 12:07:03 -0400 (AST) From: Chantell L MacPhee To: blake@albion.com Subject: The Marriage Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I have a question for anyone who can help me. I have been unable to locate any information, in the books I have, when Blake engraved the designs and the text of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Were they etched simultaneously or independently? Were the engravings done before, during or after he wrote the text? Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Chantelle MacPhee University of P.E.I. Charlottetown, P.E.I. Canada ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 05 Feb 96 13:59:40 From: "bob lynch" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Rule: Re: The Marriage Message-Id: <9601058235.AA823557580@cree.cree.com> Your e-mail has been received. I will be out from 1/29 - 2/2. I will respond to your message upon return. Thanks, Bob Lynch ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 13:24:05 -0500 (EST) From: Alexander Gourlay To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: The Marriage Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, Chantell L MacPhee wrote, in part: > I have a question for anyone who can help me. I have been unable to > locate any information, in the books I have, when Blake engraved the > designs and the text of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Were they > etched simultaneously or independently? Were the engravings done > before, during or after he wrote the text? > The most definitive answer to this question is in Joseph Viscomi's terrific new book, _Blake and the Idea of the Book_, although Robert N. Essick said much the same thing on this point fifteen years ago. Most of Blake's plates for the illuminated books were relief etchings, that is, prints made from the raised areas of metal plates. These raised areas, which printed both text and design, were created by writing (backward) and then drawing directly on the plate, using for both a pen or small brush dipped in a varnish mixture that was impervious to acid. (Sometimes the design may have been drawn first, but it would usually have been easier to do the text first.) All the basic work of drawing and writing would have happened at roughly the same time, that is, before etching the plate in acid, though after etching Blake sometimes worked further on the plate with engraving tools, and he could make substantial changes as well when he colored the pages and touched them up with ink. Some people, most notably and recently Bo Ossian Lindberg, have argued that Blake transferred text and/or designs to the plate, but I think that Viscomi has demolished these arguments. Some designs, including some of those in MHH (for which all plates were etched on about 1790), had lives of their own outside of the illuminated books, both before and after they appeared there. But in general text and design were created together on the plate. That still leaves the question of when he thought up the designs and texts. Viscomi thinks he probably drafted the texts before writing them backwards on the plate, but we have few drafts of illuminated texts except for _Songs of Innocence and Experience_. For various reasons I doubt that Blake had "A Song of Liberty" on paper when he etched the titlepage or "The Argument," but he may well have had a draft of most of it done before he began writing and drawing on the copper plates. MHH has the look of something created piecemeal, but we don't have a record of false starts and rejected pages the way we do for some books. So it is likely that some of the MHH pictures were on copper before some of the text was even drafted, but it is hard to know which ones. I hope that longwinded answer covers at least some of your questions. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Feb 1996 14:19:24 U From: "Tom Vogler" To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: electronic Erdman; _Song Message-Id: Reply to: RE>electronic Erdman; _Songs_ hypertext; more aspiring Greetings from soggy Santa Cruz! I'll be glad to do 300 lines (or whatever) whenever. Just finished doing a whole section of _Ulysses_ which would make Blake looke like a peace of cake. On what wings dare who aspire? --tom -------------------------------------- Date: 1/31/96 8:15 PM To: Tom Vogler From: blake@albion.com 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"? ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by macmail.ucsc.edu with SMTP;31 Jan 1996 20:12:36 -0800 Received: by uu6.psi.com (5.65b/4.0.071791-PSI/PSINet) via UUCP; id AA05076 for ; Wed, 31 Jan 96 22:30:56 -0500 Received: by albion.com (NX5.67e/Albion+2) id AA03426; Wed, 31 Jan 96 19:20:44 -0800 Resent-Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 22:04:28 -0500 (EST) Old-Return-Path: 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: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Resent-Message-Id: <"4W5Ke.0.Rr.9634n"@los> Resent-From: blake@albion.com Reply-To: blake@albion.com X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/1401 X-Loop: blake@albion.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: blake-request@albion.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 19:52:46 -0500 (EST) From: Jack Lynch To: jlynch@dept.english.upenn.edu (Jack Lynch) Subject: NEW LIST: CALLS FOR PAPERS Message-Id: <199602060052.TAA70343@dept.english.upenn.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 6039 I apologize for the extensive cross-posting, but believe many subscribers should find this new list useful. Please direct queries not to this list, but to Jack Lynch at jlynch@english.upenn.edu. ===================== cfp@english.upenn.edu ===================== Calls for Papers in English & American Literature For the last two years, the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania has kept a collection of calls for papers, conference announcements, etc., on English and American literature, on Penn's English Web and English Gopher. To facilitate the exchange of information on upcoming conferences and publication opportunities, Penn English has created an electronic mailing list, cfp@english.upenn.edu. We encourage conference or panel organizers and volume editors to find the largest possible audience for their announcements by posting them on this list. Announcements can include upcoming conferences, panels, essay collections, and special journal issues related to English and American literature, and can include calls for completed papers, abstracts, and proposals. 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Remember, it may take several days for an announcement on the list to appear on the English Web or in the English Gopher. In order to keep traffic to a minimum, the mailing list is strictly for announcements, not for discussions of conferences. Advertisements of commercial products or services not directly related to the purpose of the list are forbidden. ------------- OTHER MATTERS ------------- To unsubscribe, address a message to listserv@english (not cfp@english.upenn.edu!) reading just "unsubscribe cfp" (don't include your name or address). If you have any questions, write to Jack Lynch at jlynch@english.upenn.edu -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #7 ************************************