blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 88
Today's Topics:
Re: Old and New Testaments
Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
RE: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Re:Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Blake and Zen -Reply
Handwriting, Industrialism, & Cities -Reply
Little White Boy: a diversion
Re: Re:Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Re:Blake, Jesus, Forgiveness, anti-Semitism
Re: Blake and Zen - Reply
Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
CHISTOPHER CAUDWELL ON BLAKE (SIGHTING)
Re: Blake and Zen - Reply -Reply
Nature vs Eternity
MCGANN ON BLAKE VS. AUTONOMY OF CULTURE, AND MORE
Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 19:20:44 -0400 (EDT)
From: "C. S. Beauvais"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Old and New Testaments
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
More on the Old Testament
Anyone is entitled to his/her opinion on the Old Testament. But it can
not be denied that the Old Testament was a source of inspiration for
Blake in many ways. Here are some examples from his visual art:
The series on Joseph and his brothers (3 paintings 1785)
God Judging Adam (1795)
Elijah About to Ascend in the Chariot of Fire (1795)
The Body of Abel Discovered by Adam and Eve(1799)
Eve Tempted by the Serpent (1799)
Creation of Eve (1804)
Ezekiel's Wheels (1804)
Goliath Cursing David (1804)
Jacob's Dream (1805)
God Blessing the Seventh Day (1805)
The Job Series (22 plates published 1826)
Illustrations of Milton's " Paradise Lost"
All of this is not to say that the Old Testament should be
important to you, but rather that it was important to Blake, and still is
important to some people.
.chip
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.chip
URL's
HOMEPAGE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/
BLAKE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/blake/timeline.html
ARTS & TECH>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/north/at201/test.html
OCEANQUEST>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/OQ/
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 19:52:18 -0400
From: ted ross
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Message-Id: <1.5.4.16.19960716235218.211fccac@pop.atl.mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
On 7/15 Carolyn Austin wrote:
I hope the list will now continue as it always
>has, with its usual decorous and insightful exchange.
>
Sorry for the frivolity, but my only question is, what list has she been
reading?? This one?? With posts referring to the "Last Testicle"??
He who sees the infinite in all things, sees God. He who sees the ratio only,
sees himself only.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 18:47:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: Darlene Sybert
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue, 16 Jul 1996, Ralph Dumain wrote:
> Christopher Hottel has me in stitches. One cannot show enough
> contempt for Jehovah and his Old Testicle, known to you as the Old
> Testament.
>
> Can Carolyn Austin and Scott Leonard be seriously accusing me and
> Christopher of anti-Semitism? Did I make any scurrilous remarks
> about my oppressed Eastern European ancestors? No, I referred to
I am not Jewish--in fact, I am of German descent and a Christian.
However, I have to agree with Carolyn and Scott that your remarks
were anti-semitic and racist...
And your defense in this letter--which I erased in the interest
of saving space--IS insulting--and what's more you KNEW that both
the post in question and this one were. One might consider that
before Carolyn and Scott posted, you could have assumed that there
were no Jews, Christians nor Islamic believers on the list. But
when you wrote this response, you knew better...and you can't have
the education you do and not know that all three groups consider the
Old Testament an important book. So you knew that your psuedo-clever
name for that book would be offensive to a few people on the list,
anyway. But, hey, what do you care? Being insulting and offensive
is your modus operandi...your signature attitude.
And, hey, this is the age
of skepticism and no one is supposed to believe any more--or dare
to admit it if they do...So why show any respect for the beliefs of
and politeness towards such ignorant people?
If anyone is offended, let them unsubscribe from the list and leave
you to get on with your self-glorification project in peace...right?
It never ceases to amaze me that people can go to school for 16
years in a (relatively) free country and never learn any manners...
> (Does your mother know you talk this way?)
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~c557506/index.htl
University of Missouri at Columbia (English)
******************************************************************************
Certain passages in the argument employed by Hegel in defining the relation of
master to slave apply much better to the relations of man to woman. -Beauvoir
******************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 23:48:25 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Message-Id: <960716234825.6033eaab@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Duh, I think Carolyn was being ironic. You know, irony, that 18th century thing.
rpy
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 03:06:19 -0400
From: WaHu@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re:Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Message-Id: <960717030618_239476448@emout13.mail.aol.com>
In a message dated 96-07-16 21:15:37 EDT, you write:
<< So why show any respect for the beliefs of
and politeness towards such ignorant people? >>
Really one is at a loss to know why one should. And be wary of manners.
Manners are a function of income. Only the most violent and calculating
people have manners. The better the manners, the higher the income, and the
more concealed violence by the manner-er toward the manner-ee. (For example:
is there more violent action in all of literature than when Miss Cardew gives
her guest cake and puts sugar in her tea?)
Of course manners are necessary, because we are all to a degree violent &
calculating and earn tens of thousands of dollars. But our manners should
not be confused with Real Manners. Consult the Protocol Officer at the State
Department.
"Did you see that?" "Yes, Mr. Secretary." "He crossed his legs and smiled."
"Yes, Mr. Secretary." "This means War."
Be Wary of Manners.
Have a nice day, Ms. Sybert. It's been a pleasure conversing with you.
Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 10:29:28 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, albright@world.std.com
Subject: Blake and Zen -Reply
Message-Id:
In relation to letting each moment slide by into the new in Zen, how do
you like Blake's:
He who beds (or binds) to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses it as it flies
Lives in Eternity's Sunrise ? Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 10:44:31 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, albright@world.std.com
Subject: Handwriting, Industrialism, & Cities -Reply
Message-Id:
To answer fully the question raised re the human form of London, I think
it is again necessary to invoke the whole spectrum of unfallen and fallen
light. In Eternity, when all Nations were one with God in Innocence, all
the Nations and Cities had human, divine forms. When Albion falls into
the sluggish `Sleep' which overwhelms his faculties, they can no longer
expand into God's humanising light, and he can no longer assimilate with
Jerusalem, the beautiful `Bride' of Jesus. Thus, Blake sees London in the
state of Experience as aged and bent and as being led by Babylon who
gains pre-eminence when Jerusalem is cast out of ALbion's bosom
by Urizen. The street names are surely actual names of those in
London and simply convey the breadth of the area devastated by
Urizen's distorted visions of good and evil? Pam.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 12:43:23 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, rdumain@igc.apc.org
Subject: Little White Boy: a diversion
Message-Id:
Someone asked me the other day if there was a Contrary to Blake's Little
Black Boy. I couldn't think of one but the following words came to mind
quite readily so I thought I'd share them with you - just for fun:
The Little White Boy
My mother bore me on a cold, dark night
And though I'm white, my soul is black,
Black as a coal-sack,
Bereaved of all light.
At Church I was told
To be good as gold
So God would give me grace
And in heaven a place.
But, wherever I go
I give as good as I get -
A punch on the nose, or blow
My enemies will never forget.
That's what the Bible says, if rightly read -
Dismay those who disobey God's laws
And on their sinful heads tread
Like a tiger with bloody paws.
Make them pay who me and my God gainsay
And live to regret their every defect.
Show no mercy, but prod them every day
So they will aspire to be as I, in every way.
Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 08:41:22 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Avery F. Gaskins"
To:
Subject: Re: Re:Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Message-Id:
Hugh, your post on manners went completely over my head. Could you (as Byron
asked of Coleridge) "explain your explanation"?
Avery Gaskins
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 10:18:20 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re:Blake, Jesus, Forgiveness, anti-Semitism
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hugh Walthall writes:
>>>>>>>>... be wary of manners. Manners are a function of income. Only the
>>>>>>>>most violent and calculating people have manners. The better the
>>>>>>>>manners, the higher the income, and the more concealed violence by
>>>>>>>>the manner-er toward the manner-ee.>>>>>>>>
Yes. Be wary of manners. The English (talk about a generalization!) used
them very well, while hypocritically doing the exact opposite of what they
said as they were busily conquering the world.
Also be wary of flawed correlations with "class struggle" and blatantly
insulting members (of any class, race, religion, or simply as a personal
attack) on this list. Netiquette (which Albion.Com provides online, in case
any of you want to review it) doesn't have anything to do with class or
income level.
I've actually had this "discussion" in other groups, which got more lewd
and mean-hearted than the level currently displayed. Here are examples of
the flaws in your logic:
1) Camille Paglia doesn't have "manners" in the common sense of the word.
But you'll find her criticism of Susan Sontag in _Vamps and Tramps_ to be
articulate, not merely derogatory, DESPITE having grown up in a lower
middle class Italian household.
2) Michael Harper has alot of anger. He dropped out of high school, came
from a poor family. Maybe, anti-Semites and haters of individuals of all
kinds, you can take a tip from a title to one of Harper's most famous poems
"Nightmare Begins Responsibility." When you make a post, derogatory
statements need to be re-thought at a higher level of "what am I _really_
angry about" before being posted. There's a responsibility to think as well
as feel (left and right brains, fused) before you click "SEND". And if you
DON'T think? Well... it reflects on you more than anyone else. There is a
permanent archive of what is said in this group. So you go down on record.
3) I have personally been the victim of vicious verbal attacks by Mr.
Dumain since I joined this list. They have ranged from derisive to clever,
with a heavy emphasis on the former, which "peaked" during his Memorial Day
weekend double-assault. This was so ostentatious that he was told to chill
out, bigtime, or face list removal. When I critiqued his original series of
July 7-8 posts, nothing was said at a personal level. And why should it? At
least he finally was saying stuff of high enough quality to critique. To
his reply of Gloudina Bouwer's post, I pulled out a paragraph of his that I
thought stood up well as his view on Blake. It has little to do with mine.
Is forgiveness a sign of my "class"?
4) If you want a funny, class-conscious view of the original Gospels versus
the Book of Revelation, I recommend D.H. Lawrence's (he came from the
WORKING class, Hugh!) _Apocalypse_, in which he theorizes that Christ and
Buddha are elite, able-to-afford-generosity (i.e. upper class) people and
St. John the Divine (or John of Patmos, as Lawrence calls him) brings up
the working-class people's revenge with this "Well, don't worry! There's
going to be an apocalypse that will blow all of you unbelievers to
smitherings." Lawrence said it all with a level of articulation that made
me laugh.
5) We're all on the same ship, Mr. Walthall... even if it's a Titanic. A
dialectic can challenge you. An insult can be excused. And apologies are
always welcome. I've enjoyed your wit, even in this post which tried to
brush off egregious other posts. I look forward to you employing that wit,
and intelligence, in more productive posts in the future.
-R.H. Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/blake.html
......where no one is advised to drink from standing water
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 10:30:39 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Zen - Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>In relation to letting each moment slide by into the new in Zen, how do
>you like Blake's:
> He who beds (or binds) to himself a joy
> Doth the winged life destroy;
> But he who kisses it as it flies
> Lives in Eternity's Sunrise ? Pam van Schaik
Very good one, Pam. In Zen practice, you let things flow in and out. So if
a beautiful thought alights in your head while meditating, neither do you
try to capture it nor deny it. But when it passes, you return to your
practice in peace.
This is very different than the practice of art or science, however. While
you need to keep open to new possibilities (the Post-It Yellow Stickie was
an accident, for example), you also need to keep your eyes on the prize, so
to speak.
Another Blake poem that lends itself very well to Zen:
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
---opening to "Auguries of Innocence"
This is perhaps where I begin to disagree with your view of the fallen and
unfallen worlds, Pam, as seen by Blake, or certainly as seen by me.
In Zen, the mindfulness in actions,
so that you feel like you're treading the sharp edge of a sword,
or running over the steep ridge of an iceberg,
(to paraphrase Katsuki Sekida),
it's important to feel that every step you make matters, and is part of
Eternity
(at least until you get out of this cycle of re-births).
You can see a glimmer of what that Eternity is in a grain of sand,
or feel something like an expression of Heaven (Nirvana) in a wild flower.
Another good one by Blake for correlation with Zen:
"Morning"
by William Blake
"To find the Western path,
Right thro' the Gates of Wrath
I urge my way.
Sweet Mercy leads me on
With soft repentant moan;
I see the break of day.
"The war of swords & spears
Melted by dewy tears
Exhales on high;
The Sun is freed from fears
And with soft grateful tears
Ascends the sky."
Zen doesn't talk about repentance much (to my knowledge), but its reliance
on the word "love" basically does the same thing. It also talks about
overcoming fear, and remembering that you contain the Buddha within you...
which ties into that famous Blake quote about Jesus being the real God, and
so am I and so are you.
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 21:27:18 -0400
From: WaHu@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Message-Id: <960717212717_363197360@emout17.mail.aol.com>
In a message dated 96-07-17 11:57:22 EDT, you write:
<< Hugh, your post on manners went completely over my head. Could you (as
Byron
asked of Coleridge) "explain your explanation"?
Avery Gaskins >>
The beautiful wooden floors of the Imperial Japanese Palace were waxed and
polished to the Nth degree. They were powerfully slippery. This was because
the various Shoguns refused to surrender their weapons, even in the palace.
So. They had to wear silk pantaloons that were seven feet too long. If
anyone drew a weapon in the palace, The guards had only to step on the
pantaloons to send the offending one flying.
Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 22:30:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com, marxism2@jefferson.village.virginia.edu,
tomdill@stephenscol
Cc: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu
Subject: CHISTOPHER CAUDWELL ON BLAKE (SIGHTING)
Message-Id: <199607180530.WAA13600@igc6.igc.apc.org>
"Blake begins by being 18th century, rapidly revolts to
Elizabethan Gothicism, moves on to Godwinism, and eventually can
find no satisfaction until he reaches a sort of
super-Protestantism, a complete individualism of mysticism which
is almost psychotic. The most genuine revolutionary, his tragedy
is the outcome of an age when, as for Donne, there were no social
forces making for the real release of individualism. He was
caught in the bourgeois circle. His interest in Milton and Job
needs no explanation."
from: Caudwell, Christopher. ROMANCE AND REALISM: A STUDY IN
ENGLISH BOURGEOIS LITERATURE, edited by Samuel Hynes. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970, p. 66.
This must be the single most idiotic paragraph Caudwell wrote in
his entire career. Caudwell was a brilliant autodidact, but this
passage illustrates what is most disturbing about this book, which
is at the same time an intellectually fertile tour de force and a
galling example of obtuseness to real works of literature.
Caudwell's strength lies in generalities, his talent lies in the
tying in of the various historical phases of capitalism with the
historical development and especially failures of literature, but
there is far too much generalizing and far too little
particularizing. Caudwell was in a rush to synthesize the entire
universe of knowledge. Perhaps had he not felt such urgency
(impossible in the mid-1930s), and had he not been killed on his
first day of combat in the Spanish Civil War, he could have
returned to his literary study to make the necessary refinements.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 09:17:27 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, albright@world.std.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Zen - Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Randall, I very much enjoyed the parallels between Blake and Zen which
you adduced. You say that, in Zen, `every step you take matters' and I
think this is also implicit in BLake's "No Bird soars too high if it soars with
its own wings" and even in "Everything that lives is holy". In such an
interactive universe, every action and choice would be significant and
one would indeed `become what one beholds' or what one endorses
spiritually. To resist that which can draw the spirit downwards is one of
Blake's central themes in my opinion - as dramatised in Los, consistently,
in the longer poems.
I think your quoting Morning is apt, but in this poem, I also see that Blake ,
having abjured the spiritual path of Urizen which leads through `the
Gates of Wrath', and led on by `Sweet Mercy' (of whom he sees Jesus
as representative) foresees the end of the `Night' of Experience. This,
surely, is why the dark, fallen Sun of this world is seen as becoming
rehumanised?
I'm not sure why you say you disagree with my reading of Blake.
Apologies for the typo in `He who bends to himself a joy ...' made in my
posting. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 09:33:49 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, saleonar@cc.ysu.edu
Subject: Nature vs Eternity
Message-Id:
In a recent posting to me personally, Randall described Blake as seeing
Nature as something which had to be endured rather than enjoyed. I
don't think this necessarily follows from his view of this world as a fallen
one. Although he sees the realms of Innocence in Eternity as the fullest
expression of the divine humanity of all things, and this world as a
distorted shadow of that world, he nevertheless champions Energy,
Delight, Joy, and Mutual Love in which even sexual love is an
expression of recognition of the divinity in another and is freed from the
`mental chains' of social and religious mores. Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 00:46:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com, jjm2f@lizzie.village.virginia.edu
Cc: marxism2@jefferson.village.virginia.edu, tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu
Subject: MCGANN ON BLAKE VS. AUTONOMY OF CULTURE, AND MORE
Message-Id: <199607180746.AAA23200@igc4.igc.apc.org>
Today I stumbled upon an essay, which is not only interesting in
its own right, but has passages in it confirming my hypothesis
about Blake's divergence from Culture-worshippers. Instead of
summarizing the article, permit me to cite a couple of
paragraphs.
In Re:
McGann, Jerome J. "Blake and the Aesthetics of Deliberate
Engagement (To the New Historicists)," in: SOCIAL VALUES AND
POETIC ACTS: THE HISTORICAL JUDGMENT OF LITERARY WORK, Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1988, pp. 32-49.
Blake is distinguished from Kant and Coleridge in his aesthetics
and its relation to the status quo on p. 43. Then:
"In the first place, the separation of 'subjective' and
'objective' artistic orders is canceled at the level of artistic
practice. The point is that, insofar as 'meaning' is involved in
his work, the poetry does not deploy a set of 'images' which 'have
reference to' a secondary order of ideas. The Kantian idea of a
disinterested art standing apart from social practice, within its
own sphere of autonomy, is the antithesis of everything Blake
believed and made." (p. 44)
Later:
"Blake's position on poetics -- it has much in common with
Shelley's and Byron's -- was not to prevail over that of Kant and
Coleridge. The complex of ideas which holds that poetry neither
affirms nor denies anything, that it erects a virtual and
autonomous world of its own -- in short, that art is not among the
ideologies -- came to dominate cultural thinking until late in the
twentieth century. Blake's work itself was eventually interpreted
within the general Kantian/Coleridgean framework. But there is no
question that Blake saw poetry very differently. He believed, for
example, that poetry's world is not a virtual reality separated
from the quotidian order; on the contrary, it is engaged with that
order -- engaged in an adverse and critical relationship." (p.
46)
And now I'll cite the entire final paragraph of the essay:
"In a framework where everything is as it is perceived -- and all
modern theories of artistic work rest on such a premise -- the
problem of art becomes that of the relation between artistic
perception and social engagement. Criticism formulates that
problem in the question: how does 'interpretation' acquire its
social meaning or significance? Marx expressed the same problem,
for philosophy, in his famous eleventh thesis on Feuerbach: 'the
philosophers have only _interpreted_ the world in various ways;
the point, however, is to _change_ it.' What Blake showed,
however, was that there could be an ideological production, even
in the modern world of capitalized productive fragmentation, where
gaps would not be fostered within an artistic interpretation and
its social reproduction. In a capitalized world, all work may be
abstracted and objectified. But some works resist the process
more vigorously than others, and may offer positive alternative
forms of communicative action, may suggest these forms even to
criticism." (p. 49)
You might think I would be ecstatic to see Blake tied in with
Feuerbach and Marx in the same paragraph. Instead I am perturbed,
for I feel I have been left hanging. McGann knows that Blake's
engagement with society was not Marx's, and though Blake sought to
change it, he did so by interpreting it. Marx's thesis 11 says
that the point is to change the world, but he doesn't say that the
point _of philosophy_ is to change the world or that _it_ can do
so. If we wanted to pursue this call to activism seriously we
could wring our hands like Jack Lindsay over Blake's failure to
engage in any political action or organizing of any sort. McGann
suggests the more modest notion of the artist's critical
engagement of society in his work. I won't argue with that, but
the invocation of Marx's thesis 11 is posits a question, not an
answer. The question is, what does the unity of theory and
practice mean for intellectual and cultural work in itself? The
relationship between the categories of the intrinsic
characteristics of an activity and its utilitarian, instrumental
deployment has been flubbed many a time, not least by invocation
of this Marxian quip. I have no fear that McGann has a Stalinist
view of art; I just don't understand the implications for artistic
practice of his specifically 'Marxian' conclusion.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 08:11:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Avery F. Gaskins"
To:
Subject: Re: Blake, Jesus, Forgivemess, anti-Semitism
Message-Id:
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Hugh, ignoring the question is not a suitable rhetorical reply. As I saw it,
your earlier post had little relationship to the debate at hand. At best, it
seemed to be arguing the equivalent of "black is white, red is green."
Avery Gaskins
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 11:08:19 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hugh Walthall's post on the stealth used in taking over a palace... is that
what they were doing, Hugh?... reminds me of one of the many campy
Revolutionary Operas in China which the current fascist regime has seen fit
to ban.
I actually only saw a few fragments of these operas, although I thought
they had a certain style which I rather enjoyed. But Brian Eno used the
title to one of them, "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy", for his least
successful album, commercially. (It took him years for him to find a new
label for _Before and After Science_ after that debacle.) And that title
reminds me of the stealth involved for the Just Man in Plate 1 of "The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell": how he makes the path, then abandons it for
the higher climes (pun intended). And what is "The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell" about, really? Well, uh... revolution is one. Just like "Taking Tiger
Mountain By Stategy", no doubt. And I'm sure Blake wanted the just to be
victorious, as did the creators of "Tiger Mountain..." The problem in real
life was, in both cases, that eventually the Villain(s) got the upper hand.
Blake, as many have noted in their particularly brilliant posts here, used
stealth extensively in his writing.
Nice post, Hugh.
-Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
Reality isn't that bad...
as long as it protects your dreams.
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End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #88
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