------------------------------ Content-Type: text/plain blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 8 Today's Topics: I am new here... Re: The Marriage h-net Re: h-net AH!SUN-FLOWER Need Info on Dutch Translations of Blake looking for Frank Vaughan ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 21:20:46 -0500 (EST) From: Jonathan Epstein To: blake@albion.com Subject: I am new here... Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello! My name is Jonathan Epstein, and I am a senior undergrad student at Dickinson College. I just began to study Blake last semester, so I am still pretty new to it all. However, I have made it the topic for my senior thesis where I use his poem, "Milton" as a means to show an examination into the "self." I also used Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_ as a secondary source, showing the parallels between Milton and Victor Frankenstein. I really don't know what else to say, aside from I am very excited to join a group to talk about his works. Sincerely, Jonathan Epstein epstein@dickinson.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 15:50:02 -0500 (EST) From: Morris Eaves To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: The Marriage Message-Id: <01I0WCSRVXMA8Y54T7@db1.cc.rochester.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT If anyone _really_ wants the full story, watch out for a forthcoming issue of the Huntington Library Quarterly that contains a long piece by Viscomi that attempts to reconstruct, plate by plate, the composition (if that's the world) of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Viscomi draws new evidence from several sources. But if the original question was something more like "how do I learn the basic facts about Blake's printing methods?" the simplest and shortest accurate version is at the beginning of vol. 3 of the Blake Trust/Princeton series of B's illum books, William Blake's Early Illuminated Books, ed. Eaves, Essick, and Viscomi. Then read the short section on "Plates and Printings" in that same volume for MHH. Morris Eaves At 01:24 PM 2/5/96 -0500, you wrote: > > >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: Wed, 07 Feb 1996 14:27:41 -0500 From: Ruegg Bill To: blake@albion.com Subject: h-net Message-Id: <199602071927.OAA16900@ronell.ucet.ufl.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Maybe this would be of interest to the list... - ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 09:59:19 -0600 From: James J. Sosnoski To: Multiple recipients of list RHETNT-L Subject: H-Net seeks literature lists Colleagues: As you may already know, H-Net is the newest, and now one of the largest organizations in the humanities. It is a network of daily newsletters and discussions groups edited by and for scholars. Its 49 operating lists reach 33,000 subscribers in 62 countries, with another 2000 subscribers added every month. The lists are free and publish news, discussions and original scholarly reviews and short studies. The H-Net lists have been endorsed by dozens of scholarly organizations, and comprise the single most-used communications medium in higher education today. The lists are used by teachers--they teach several hundred thousand undergraduates each semester, and use H-Net list to keep in touch with fresh ideas and new techniques. Richard Jensen, the director of the H-Network, teaches in the History department at UIC. Under his direction, H-Net has flourished--especially in historical studies. Recently, H-Net received two grants from NEH that enable them to extend their services to other Humanities studies. I write to invite you to start a H-Net list in literary studies. If you are the owner of discussion list devoted to a literary period, figure, or theory, you may wish to link that list with the H-Network to take advantage of belonging to a world-wide network of discussion lists. If you are interested in starting a discussion list on a literary topic or in linking an existing list to the H-Network, please send a message to Richard Jensen or me. RJensen@uic.edu Sosnoski@uic.edu If you wish more detailed information about H-Net lists, please reply to this message and I will forward it to you. PLEASE FORWARD THIS INVITATION TO FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES WHO MAY WISH TO BE INVOLVED IN THE H-NETWORK jjs _________________ James J. Sosnoski Department of English University of Illinois at Chicago 1516 North State Parkway, 6D Chicago, IL 60610 (312)337-3979 ------- End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 08:40:09 +0900 From: Seiichi Miyamachi To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: h-net Message-Id: <9602072340.AA10698@earth.sgu.ac.jp> Content-Type: text Dear Mr. J. J. Sosnoski, I am interested in joining discussion groups on William Blake and Thomas Hardy, an interesting combination. Please let me know if there are any links available in these fields. Sincerely yours, Seiichi Miyamachi Department of English Sapporo Gakuin University Hokkaido, Japan ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 19:02:18 -0500 From: izak@igs.net (Izak Bouwer) To: blake@albion.com Subject: AH!SUN-FLOWER Message-Id: <199602080002.TAA22716@host.igs.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A rather belated contribution to the discussion of "Ah! Sun-flower" : I rebel against any attempt to explain this poem by virtue of its juxtaposition with any other poem. If there were ever a poem of Blake that stood on its own legs, this is the one. I also feel that the chief feature of this poem is the contemplation of the phenomenon of TIME. And it is necessary for us to remember that Time is a manmade postlapsarian TECHNOLOGY. I would also like to suggest that when the Youth and the Virgin are discussed, attention should be given to their distance away from the Sun. The Youth burned and then died of desire. He was therefore like the little Black Boy in Songs of Innocence nearer the Sun than the Virgin, far away from the source of heat, therefore shrouded in snow. The poem is for me intensely a poem about the state of Experience where the technology of Time holds sway, and by the same token a cri de coeur for the state of Innocence. The poem is therefore supremely Neo-platonist in its thinking. (After all, "graves" rhyme with "caves.") One can do worse than read Kathleen Raine on this subject, although I notice that she too wants the three flower poems to be read together because " they contain a complete philosophy of love." But when she says that "the soul is compelled to move through time," I feel that she is coming very close to what this poem is all about. Gloudina Bouwer ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Feb 1996 11:31:40 -0500 (EST) From: Patricia Neill To: blake@albion.com Subject: Need Info on Dutch Translations of Blake Message-Id: <01I10ANGTV9U8Y540O@db1.cc.rochester.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT At the Blake journal office yesterday, I received a fax from Christien Jonkheer in the Netherlands. Here is the text of his fax: For my work (literary translator from English into Dutch) I need info on existing Dutch translations of Blake's works. Is there a central registration point of Blake-translations, and if so, where? Does anyone on this list know of Dutch translations of Blake's works? If so, please email the titles and publishers to me and I'll fax the info to Mr. Jonkheer Thanks, everyone Patricia Neill Managing Editor Blake ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 09:13:19 -0600 (CST) From: William Neal Franklin To: blake online Subject: looking for Frank Vaughan Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Can anyone tell me where I can contact Frank Vaughan, author of the soon-to-be-released *Again to the Life of Eternity*.... -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #8 ************************************