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<PRE>
blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 84
Today's Topics:
Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Re: Experiment Pictures -Reply
Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply -Reply
blake in chicago?
Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Blake and the Country versus City
D.H. Lawrence and Blake
Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply -Reply
Re: sweet science
Re: blake in chicago?
Re: Blake and the Country versus City
Re: Blake and the Country versus City
Re: Blake and the Country versus City
Re: Blake and the Country versus City
RE: Blake and the Country versus City
Re: blake in chicago?
Re: Blake and the Country versus City -Reply
Re: BLKAKE CONTRA EMPIRICISM, OR 'THER IS NO NATURAL RELIGION'
Re: Blake and the Country versus City -Reply
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:50:58 -0800
From: george@nowhere.georgecoates.org (George Coates)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Message-Id: <v01520d01ae0883fab4d1@[140.174.231.19]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Pam van Schaik wrote;
>Hugh, I much enjoyed your statement that BLake's characters are not
>`any more developed than comic-book oafs'...
Then which of the following equivalents are most accurate and why?
Thel = Betty Boop, Olive Oil or Lois Lane?
Urizen = Dick Tracy, Bluto, Mr. Natural, Elmer Fudd, Lex Luthor, or Hagar
the Horrible?
Los = Popeye, Superman, the Green Lantern,
Steve Canyon or Zippy the Pin Head?
Orc = Sweat Pea, Charly Brown, Jimmy Olsen, Denise the Menace, or Dilbert?
Enitharmon = Lucy, Wonder Woman, or Blondie?
GC
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:12:59 -0400
From: WaHu@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Message-Id: <960710011258_573439402@emout15.mail.aol.com>
All Art aspires to the condition of Betty Boop. In Betty Boop begins
responsibility. In Xanadu did Betty Boop a stately Pleasure dome decree. My
mother bore me in the southern wild, and I am Betty Boop, but oh my soul is
Koko the clown.Blake is sublime. Sublimity, delicate poison flower that it
is, DEMANDS parody. So we have Lewis Carroll doing Wordsworth: I search the
fields for Haddocks' eyes...
Parody is not the negation of Blake, or any other artist. It is a way of
testing a product. Like jumping up and down on a matress in the store....If
it breaks, it isnt well made, so good riddance. You can sing pretty nearly
any Emily Dickenson poem to onward christian soldiers, yellow rose of texas
or Hernando' Hideaway.
All great song writers understand parody.
Best description of sublimity I ever heard was by Geoffrey Hartman. I'll
look for the essay....
What are Blake's illustrations if not, literally, cartoons? [OED:Set of
cartoons for the tapetries of the Sistine Chapel]
After I wrote that sillyness about the tower it cleared my head. I realized
Blake is writing stuff not more than a couple molocules different in chemical
composition from say, Cowper's The Task, but they are being performed by a
radical dance / theatre troup in the nude! A daring 18th century innovation!
Which explains a pet theory of mine that the Ghost of the Flea was Julian
Beck of the Living Theatre!
For my bonny Betty Boop I would lie me doon and dee...
In one Betty Boop cartoon Cab Calloway turns into a Walrus and sings St.
James Infirmary. The first time I played it for Blake he wept and laughed
and said, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time, can I borrow
this video?"
Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:57:55 +0200
From: P Van Schaik <VSCHAP@alpha.unisa.ac.za>
To: blake@albion.com, EEB4@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Experiment Pictures -Reply
Message-Id: <s1e37eba.045@alpha.unisa.ac.za>
There is a passage in which Blake equates `Science' with Architecture,
inter alia and, as Nelson Hilton points out, Los, as Urthona in Eternity
forges the `golden armour of Science' at his eternal Forge. I think Blake
saw God as the source of all knowledge and wisdom and probably
knew that in Kabbalah the first emanation from God is equated with
Wisdom. Los's activities in Innocence are symbolic : his role, being the
Zoa of Imagination in Albion, is to create all the the implements used in the
fiery intellectual `mental conversations' of heaven which are so intense
that Blake sees them as `Wars of Intellect' (as opposed to the
horrendous carnal wars of mortals). He not only forges `Swords' and
`arrows' but also implements with which to gather the golden harvests
of `knowledge' in Eternity. (Thanks Elisa for the reminder that the
Shadowy Female is also associated with an inverted Tree.) Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 10:14:01 +0200
From: P Van Schaik <VSCHAP@alpha.unisa.ac.za>
To: blake@albion.com, george@nowhere.georgecoates.org
Subject: Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply -Reply
Message-Id: <s1e38280.062@alpha.unisa.ac.za>
George, My range of comic book characters isn't as wide as yours, so
I'd plump for:
Thel as Little Bo-Beep
Los as PopEye on account of his pumped up muscles at the Forge, but
also with a tinge of Superman since he always comes to the rescue of
frozen, cold-limbed Albion
Urizen as TinTin having a really bad dream
Enitharmon as the Hag-restored to -beautiful-girl a la Wife of Bath's Tale
Orc as a type of 2nd Jesus - in the shape of all Consuming Fire (that is
when he isn't chained howling Prometheus-like to the Rock of Ages).
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:32:25 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: BLAKE@albion.com
Subject: blake in chicago?
Message-Id: <960710093225.603216c0@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Hi,
What can anybody tell me about Blake collections in the Chicago area? I'm
team-teaching a course on poetry and painting in the spring, and the art
department is considering sponsoring a trip to Chicago. The course will
have a large component on Blake and Reynolds (the teachers' hobby-horses), so
we would like some idea of what might be available.
Thanks,
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 07:43:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain@igc.apc.org>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Message-Id: <199607101443.HAA21536@igc4.igc.apc.org>
Did I see same parody in "Amadeus", or have you broken down under
the strain of rehearsals? In Betty Bop begins responsibililty?
But I thought said skirt was the oothoon, the clitoral goddess of
commodity fetishism. Oh, HUgh, it must be the strain, or is it
the storm and stress of city living in the Strictdick of
Coldhumpia? The culture of poverty doesn;t help my morale, these
iognorant Bible-humpers get me down. Do you feel same? I think I
can get my bodyguard to take me into that stinking neioghborhood
to see your friggin' play. It better be good, mate.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:26:43 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake and the Country versus City
Message-Id: <v01510100ae095ae8f901@[10.0.2.15]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Paul Yoder writes:
>As much as he and Catherine looked forward to the move (to Felpham), and
>to working with Hayley, Blake quickly became disillusioned with life at
>the beach. Catherine was sick almost the whole time they were there;
>Blake was sick much of the time. Moreover, it is not at all clear that
>Blake enjoyed small town life.>>>>>
Catherine was "sick" even before leaving for Felpham: exhausted, according
to Blake. But when Blake got there, according to Peter Ackroyd, "His was
one continual hyperbole of enthusiasm...." and his cottage is called by
Blake "the Spontaneous Effusion of Humanity, congenial to the wants of
Man".
True, as time went on, the damp and cold got to both of them. Maybe an
inland country setting would have been better. If only he had had a patron
in inland Somerset... truly Jesus's presence is felt around Glastonbury's
Tor, even by non-believers such as myself.
However, he still claimed that in Felpham, outside of London's hectic
world, "voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, & their
forms more distinctly seen, & my Cottage is also a Shadow of their houses".
(quoted in Ackroyd's _Blake_)
Changes to his artistic vision and philosophy were also happening at
Felpham, which are seen (whether you like them or not) in "Milton" and
"Jerusalem". Stuff like material world being a shadow of some eternal drama
elsewhere, mortal life and mortal part being unimportant. As Ackroyd says,
"This sounds different from his earlier celebrations of sexual energy and
radical optimism, and suggests not only that he was growing older but that
his 'mortal' hopes and aspirations were now being devalued or discounted.
Perhaps he had decided to make a virtue out of his withdrawal from the
city." (Perhaps also he had decided to make a virtue out of the incredible
failure of the French Revolution, out of his frustration even with the
American Revolution for not ridding itself of slavery and even more... like
commerce, industrialization, exploitation, and more.) Another Ackroyd
quote: "....now, having left London, his visions were true comfort. They
suggested the reassurance of a world beyond this one, and may even have
assuaged his 'Nervous Fear'." Or this: "For Blake, there now opened a
period of happy industry."
All Ackroyd quotes come from the "Felphams Vale" chapter of _Blake_
The important points are multi-fold. One is that Blake was beholden to his
patron; he wasn't FREE in this "country" and resented the condescension,
even though gently put by Hayley. Another is that this seaside place where
Hayley happened to live may not have been conducive to his and his wife's
physical health... and knowing how much mental and physical health are
intertwined, I think Mr. Yoder brings up a valid point on that issue. Yet
another is the power of regeneration that Felpham, for all its faults, held
for Blake. He re-tooled his imaginative powers there to then go on and
create the "Milton" and "Jerusalem" prophetic works.
I don't deny that London was and would be again a great place for great
creativity in Blake. He had been born and raised in London; there is often
a certain kinship to the town you know so well. (Joni Mitchell tried NYC,
but ended up back in LA, although she's originally from Alberta, Canada, to
be specific. Bowie is supposedly moving back to London, after having tried
Zurich, LA, NYC, and a thousand places in between.) But Blake's poems are
often romanticizing an ecchoing green, a shepherd on a vale, speculating
whether Jesus walked "upon England mountains GREEN" (my capitalization) or
cities of imagination, whereas the real cities are less than favorably
painted, as in "Chimney Sweeper" and "London". The satanic wheels of
Locke/Bacon/Newton grind out industrializing "progress" there, don't they?
Quite different from nature's TRUE wheels, which are a mere shadow of the
wheels that they are a reflection of... Am I wrong?
As far as the fracas with Scofield, after which Blake was tried and
acquitted for sedition, it could have happened anywhere with Blake's
republican attitudes and stubbornness, couldn't it? What does that have to
do with country versus city life?
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:29:34 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: D.H. Lawrence and Blake
Message-Id: <v01510108ae097c77dbe3@[10.0.2.15]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
This piece of a D.H. Lawrence poem shows how he, too, is concerned with the
dilemma of "staining the water clear", as Blake puts in in the
"Introduction" to _Songs of Innocence_.
from NEW HEAVEN AND EARTH
by D.H. Lawrence
II
I was so weary of the world,
I was so sick of it,
everything was tainted with myself,
skies, trees, flowers, birds, water,
people, houses, streets, vehicles, mechines,
nations, armies, war, peace-talking,
works, recreation, governing, anarchy,
it was all tainted with myself, I knew it all to start with
because it was all myself.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:29:03 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply
Message-Id: <v01510106ae0978c8fe51@[10.0.2.15]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
You're a very creative person, Hugh. A pleasurable post, indeed!
-Randall Albright
>All Art aspires to the condition of Betty Boop. In Betty Boop begins
>responsibility. In Xanadu did Betty Boop a stately Pleasure dome decree. My
>mother bore me in the southern wild, and I am Betty Boop, but oh my soul is
>Koko the clown.Blake is sublime. Sublimity, delicate poison flower that it
>is, DEMANDS parody. So we have Lewis Carroll doing Wordsworth: I search the
>fields for Haddocks' eyes...
>Parody is not the negation of Blake, or any other artist. It is a way of
>testing a product. Like jumping up and down on a matress in the store....If
>it breaks, it isnt well made, so good riddance. You can sing pretty nearly
>any Emily Dickenson poem to onward christian soldiers, yellow rose of texas
>or Hernando' Hideaway.
>All great song writers understand parody.
>Best description of sublimity I ever heard was by Geoffrey Hartman. I'll
>look for the essay....
>
>What are Blake's illustrations if not, literally, cartoons? [OED:Set of
>cartoons for the tapetries of the Sistine Chapel]
>
>After I wrote that sillyness about the tower it cleared my head. I realized
>Blake is writing stuff not more than a couple molocules different in chemical
>composition from say, Cowper's The Task, but they are being performed by a
>radical dance / theatre troup in the nude! A daring 18th century innovation!
> Which explains a pet theory of mine that the Ghost of the Flea was Julian
>Beck of the Living Theatre!
>
>For my bonny Betty Boop I would lie me doon and dee...
>
>In one Betty Boop cartoon Cab Calloway turns into a Walrus and sings St.
>James Infirmary. The first time I played it for Blake he wept and laughed
>and said, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time, can I borrow
>this video?"
>
>Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:29:43 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quest Literature, Sci-Fi, etc. -Reply -Reply
Message-Id: <v01510109ae09806dca35@[10.0.2.15]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Pam:
Now that you go into details of your own cartoon characters for Blake, I'd
have to say...
>Thel as Little Bo-Beep>>>>> sounds good.
Los.....>>>>>> Superman, for sure. At least after he grows up after
chaining his poor son to that rock.
>Urizen.......>>>>>>>>> I'd say the Emperor Ming from Flash Gordon.
>Enitharmon..............>>>>>>>> I have to think on that. She reminds me
>of the Mother in the film _Spanking the Monkey_, a kind of aging Grace
>Slick who still thinks she knows best (even though Grace was a free love
>advocate and Enitharmon's a control freak) and got her poor MIT Freshman
>student to seduce her (she seduced him, really)! How about Snow White's
>evil stepmother, thinking "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall"? And to think she
>was so beautiful in the "Pity" watercolour! Oh well! We all move through
>STATES..........
>Orc..........>>>>>>>>>>> He's too simple to be a Jesus type. (FIRE! Burn
>down the Urizenic House, Man!) I'd call him a Superman, too. A stud for
>the ages. Typical of the revisionist Blake (yes, we all move through
>STATES.....) that Orc gets virtually forgotten in later, "great" prophetic
>works. Listen to Los trying to forget he had that ultra-stud son in this
>quote from "Milton":
"...I the Fourth Zoa am also set
The Watchman of Eternity, the Three are not! & I am preserved
Still my mighty ones are left to me in Golgonooza
Still Rintrah fierce, and Palamabron mild & piteous
Theotormon filld with care, Bromion loving Science"
-E 118; K 508, plate 26
Appalling, isn't it? And to think his son led the American and French
Revolutions!
The "Gods of Priam" as well as the Gods of Egypt, which don't even get
mentioned in Blake...... definitely bad guys like The Joker, Riddler, et al
in Batman that must be overthrown in Gotham City.
Talk about fixing a shattered graven image... don't you love plate 18 of
"Milton", stud-like, hair shorn? Humpty Dumpty God CAN be put back together
again!
Or listen to this on plate 24. Rintrah and Palmabron say the cruellest
thing about Orc:
"...knowest thou not that he
Will unchain Orc, & let loose Satan."
Can you believe it? Orc, the leader of the American and French Revolutions,
now reduced (once again) to a mere correlation with Satan! What cartoon
characters are THEY, anyway?
I used to think of Rintrah as a revolutionary-inspired Zeus in "The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell"... but... I guess that was just a state, too.
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:00:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alexander Gourlay <agourlay@risd.edu>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: sweet science
Message-Id: <Pine.OSF.3.91.960710134602.24696A-100000@minnie.risd.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
The new OED doesn't give much evidence that "sweet science" was yet a cant
term for boxing in Blake's day, though it does include a 1669 instance of
the phrase in what appears to be a religious context, s.v. "respire," from
Theophilus Gale, _The Court of the Gentiles_. There is a well-established
meaning of "science" as a set of learned _physical_ skills rather than a
high form of knowledge, which is probably the basis of the boxing sense of
"sweet science," including an early instance of "science" in which a punchy
boxer is said to have "lost his science" after a few good blows.
Sandy Gourlay
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 13:05 CST
From: MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu
To: BLAKE@albion.com, RPYODER@ualr.edu
Subject: Re: blake in chicago?
Message-Id: <199607101813.NAA35027@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
Aside from private collections (I've heard of some but don't know how
to get into them), you'll find some rejected proofs for *Europe* in
the Newberry Library, and a pleasant staff to bring them to you.
--Mary Lynn
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:10:27 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and the Country versus City
Message-Id: <9607101816.AA09514@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
It isn't necessarily country *versus* city in Blake. Randall's observation
that Blake wasn't free in the country supports Raymond Williams' argument
that the dichotomy between country and city often masks the power relations
between the classes, substituting an easier opposition for the more complex
social and economic forces that control both places. Yes, Blake was
ecstatic when he reached Felpham and thought it was "a more spiritual place
than London." By the end of his time there, however, he was viewing
Felpham as a provincial prison and London as the place of freedom: "That I
can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoyd & that I may
converse with my friends in Eternity. See Visions, Dream Dreams, &
prophecy & speak Parables unobserv'd & at liberty from the Doubts of other
Mortals" (E 728). (Interestingly enough, he writes very friendly letters
to Hayley once he gets back to London.)
Blake's London was not so strictly removed from "the country." The squares
of the West End, near most of Blake's residences, were near open fields and
incorporated green spaces within them; many areas, such as Mayfair, had
once been villages and retained their village-like atmosphere. Cavendish
Square was famous for the sheep that were kept there, in an attempt to
incorporate a pastoral landscape within the city. Is that so different
from what Blake does when he places "The Shepherd" and "The Echoing Green"
near "The Chimney Sweeper"?
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:02:55 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and the Country versus City
Message-Id: <v01510107ae09b894fc0f@[10.0.2.15]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Blake isn't someone like Frank O'Hara in New York City, who celebrates the
exuberance of city life. Or is he? If so... please point me to some
examples. I'm curious.
His contrast of "The Shepherd" and "The Ecchoing Green" with "The Chimney
Sweeper" and "London", for example, indicate that he prefers the wheels of
nature (at least they're spectres of the wheels of eternity?) to the wheels
of industrialized, Newtonian-sleeping man.
I do think Jennifer Michael brings up a good point when she says:
>Blake's London was not so strictly removed from "the country." The squares
of the West End, near most of Blake's residences, were near open fields and
incorporated green spaces within them; many areas, such as Mayfair, had
once been villages and retained their village-like atmosphere. Cavendish
Square was famous for the sheep that were kept there, in an attempt to
incorporate a pastoral landscape within the city.>>>>>>>>>>>
But if Cavendish Square is the inspiration for "The Shepherd"...
Wouldn't you say that his fascination with bucolic places...
A Renaissance of his imagination...
And other fantasies of NON-modern nature
are represented in a far more positive light than, say,
watching some of those crooked roads of London
be ripped down in favor of straight ones
that are marked for improvement?
I think the original point of this reaction was to a post wondering if
Blake would like roller blades and other inventions of the modern world.
You can skate well on fairly straight roads of concrete, but you need to
walk slowly, and give attention to detail, as you go through crooked roads.
Even America has at least once city that has roads which were laid out not
by people but by cows (Boston). It infuriates drivers, but is quite
charming from a pedestrian point of view.
What do you think?
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:07:12 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (j. michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and the Country versus City
Message-Id: <v01530501ae09d86e99a5@[152.97.30.148]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>But if Cavendish Square is the inspiration for "The Shepherd"...
>Wouldn't you say that his fascination with bucolic places...
>A Renaissance of his imagination...
>And other fantasies of NON-modern nature
>are represented in a far more positive light than, say,
>watching some of those crooked roads of London
>be ripped down in favor of straight ones
>that are marked for improvement?
See plate 27 of _Jerusalem_, the lyric that begins something like [I don't
have my text with me]
The fields from Islington to Marybone
To Kensington and St. Johns Wood
Were builded over with pillars of gold
And there Jerusalem's pillars stood
Morton Paley and others read this as a reference to the building of Regents
Park and the surrounding stucco terraces by John Nash around 1811, a
"greening" of West London that incorporates these ancient rural villages
into a new garden city, in contrast to the slums of "ever weeping
Paddington." (Plate 13 also describes the work of these "golden builders,"
but if you're determined to read Golgonooza as a fantasy city only . . . .)
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:34:32 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and the Country versus City
Message-Id: <v0151010fae09fc01d44e@[10.0.2.15]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Jennifer Michael wrote this from Blake's Jerusalem:
>The fields from Islington to Marybone
>To Kensington and St. Johns Wood
>Were builded over with pillars of gold
>And there Jerusalem's pillars stood
>
>Morton Paley and others read this as a reference to the building of Regents
>Park and the surrounding stucco terraces by John Nash around 1811, a
>"greening" of West London that incorporates these ancient rural villages
>into a new garden city, in contrast to the slums of "ever weeping
>Paddington." (Plate 13 also describes the work of these "golden builders,"
>but if you're determined to read Golgonooza as a fantasy city only . . . .)
No, I'm not determined. Utopia, and perhaps Golgonooza, is a place toward
which we should be striving. And I think you make a good point here.
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 19:37:41 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: Blake and the Country versus City
Message-Id: <960710193741.6030806b@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Instead of Ackroyd, read Blake. The Blakes arrived in Felpham on Sept. 20,
1800, late at about 11 or 12 o'clock (Erdman 710-11). His spirit is certainly
soaring and his language is clearly hyperbolic: "our cottage . . . is a
perfect model for Cottages & I think for Palaces of Magnificence only Enlarging
not altering its proportions & adding ornaments & not principals" (E710).
Indeed, in anticipation of the move, he writes to Hayley, "My wife is a flame
of many colours of precious jewels whenever she hears [Eartham, Hayley's
estate] named," and that "My fingers Emit sparks of fire with Expectation of
my future labors" (E709). These attitudes explain why the experience was finally so influential.
By May 10, 1801, less that 8 months after arriving, Blake has already begun
what we might call his "perpetually apologetic" mode with Thomas Butts, explaining that he has omitted his duty to his old friend because of his duty to his
new friend. "Mr Hayley acts like a Prince" (E715) -- is that good or bad?
"Painting Miniatures is become a Goddess in my Eyes & my Friends in Sussex say
that I Excell in the pursuit. I have a great many orders & they multiply."
By the time Blake leaves Felpham, he has returned to his "giant forms" and the
sense of release is evident in the opening Preface to *Jerusalem*. But still
in May 1801, he can write, "Felpham in particular is sweetest spot on Earth
at leas
But by Sept. 11, 1801, not quite a year after arriving in Felpham, Blake is
clearly having trouble: "Time flies faster, (as it seems to me), here than in
London I labour incessantly & accomplish not one half of what intend . . .
[I endeavour] with my whole might [to] chain my feet to the world of Duty &
Reality, but in vain!" Put this against the "matchless industry" of Hayley
mentioned a few lines later, and you can see the problem. And of course, it
only gets worse when Blake shows Hayley early parts of what was apparently
_Milton_ and _Jerusalem_.
enough for now.
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 05:26:55 -0600
From: "Jeffrey Skoblow" <jskoblo@daisy.ac.siue.edu>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: blake in chicago?
Message-Id: <9607110431.AA13152@daisy.ac.siue.edu>
There is a small piece or two of Blake's at the Chicago Art
Institute-- one little b+w print and one small painting, I think--
and also a couple of big Fuseli paintings in the same room. Also
dark satanic mills and chartered streets all over town...
Jeffrey Skoblow
(I'm sure there's some Reynolds at the Art Institute too-- there are
a couple of rooms of late-18th century British painting (and a room
of French revolutionary-era pieces) that provide an interesting quick
study of some moods and methods and subjects of the time...)
> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:32:25 -0500 (CDT)
> From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
> Subject: blake in chicago?
> To: BLAKE@albion.com
> Reply-to: blake@albion.com
> Hi,
> What can anybody tell me about Blake collections in the Chicago area? I'm
> team-teaching a course on poetry and painting in the spring, and the art
> department is considering sponsoring a trip to Chicago. The course will
> have a large component on Blake and Reynolds (the teachers' hobby-horses), so
> we would like some idea of what might be available.
> Thanks,
> Paul Yoder
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:44:50 +0200
From: P Van Schaik <VSCHAP@alpha.unisa.ac.za>
To: blake@albion.com, jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
Subject: Re: Blake and the Country versus City -Reply
Message-Id: <s1e4cd28.024@alpha.unisa.ac.za>
Surely the references to Jerusalem in the passages you quoted are to
the appearance of the holy city as she was in Innocnece in Eternity -
before Urizen's misconceptions of the contraries brought her pillars low?
Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 11:55:18 -0500
From: Mary Beth Jipping <jipping@biochem4.iupui.edu>
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: BLKAKE CONTRA EMPIRICISM, OR 'THER IS NO NATURAL RELIGION'
Message-Id: <199607111655.LAA07903@biochem4.iupui.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
At 07:47 AM 7/8/96 -0700, you wrote:
>Blake, of course, is not interested the relation of scientific
>theories to empirical verification, but rather in the defense of
>the faculty of poetic imagination, hence the other propositions
>about desire and infinity. However, knowing no other discourse
>besides antinomian Christianity and British empiricism, Blake
>lacks the tooks to cast his ideas in the form of a logically
>elaborated dialectical philosophy, so he formulates his
>propositions in terms of the poetic genius and prophetic
>imagination. Hence, first series, proposition VI: "Conclusion.
>If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the
>Philosophical & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all
>things, & stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same
>dull round over again."
----Thank you, Mr. Dumain, for a clear, understandable posting. This is
why I subscribe.
----MBJ
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 09:24:18 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: P Van Schaik <VSCHAP@alpha.unisa.ac.za>
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and the Country versus City -Reply
Message-Id: <9607111432.AA11518@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Surely the references to Jerusalem in the passages you quoted are to
>the appearance of the holy city as she was in Innocnece in Eternity -
>before Urizen's misconceptions of the contraries brought her pillars low?
>Pam van Schaik
Yes, but that state is being restored in the present:
What are those golden Builders doing
Near mornful ever-weeping Paddington
Standing above that mighty Ruin
Where Satan the first victory won.
And where, a few lines later, are London Stone and Tyburns Brook if not in
London? These places have real historical significance. If the "fall" can
take place in the real world of London, so can the regeneration.
Blake's vision of an ideal community cannot be reduced to passive nostalgia
for a lost time. My point was that the lyric on J27 describes not the
destruction but the restoration of a childhood paradise: a restoration
that goes beyond merely turning back the clock, because it incorporates all
that has developed, historically and geographically, in the meantime.
Jennifer Michael
--------------------------------
End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #84
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