blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 94
Today's Topics:
one key to *J*
RE: Blake and Archetype Cities -Reply
geography, individuality,poetic genius -Reply
2 more points on *J*38[43]
Re: Divisions of Blake
Re: Bacon Fried
Vague Versus Specific
Re: Bacon Fried
Re: one key to *J*
Re: geography, individuality,poetic genius -Reply
Re: one key to *J*
Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43]
JACK LINDSAY: INTERESTING BLAKE SIGHTINGS
WILSON HARRIS ON BLAKE'S TYGER
RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43]
Key to Jerusalem
RE: Key to Jerusalem
Re: Divisions of Blake
Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43]
Re: one key to *J*
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 1996 22:17:00 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: BLAKE@albion.com
Subject: one key to *J*
Message-Id: <960723221700.2020293a@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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Randall,
You've asked about how to enter *Jerusalem*. The easiest way I know is to
check out plate 38[43], Erdman 184-186. The bulk of the plate is a speech by
Los to the Friends of Albion. They're all standing around trying to figure
out what to do about Albion's fall. Los is frustrated by the whole process,
and he's ready to move. The thing I like about the speech is that *is* a
*speech*. It's a very rhetorically shrewd piece of work by a fully rounded
character. And I would argue that Los is clearly not just a mouthpiece for
Blake, especially in a scene like this. It is a speech that you can actually
imagine someone delivering.
OneOne way to see how it works is to look at lines 48-50. How do you read that
pronoun "we" at the beginning of line 48? Los's passion is rising in his
speech, and at this point he is surveying, rhetorically for the Friends of
Albion, the battlefield on which the dead are not "
"embosom"[ed] by "Daughter nor Sister nor Mother" and he can't believe that
these are "Jerusalems children." So to make his point he calls to mind the
enemy "Hark! hear the Giants of Albion cry at night" and then he himself
assumes their voice -- it's a classical rhetorical device, prosopopoeia,
discussed in Aristotle's *Rhetoric* which Blake, of course, may have known, but
may not have. Those particular moves are in the cultural consciousness
pretty deep, so anybody who likes a good speech would know this one. Anyway,
What Los imagines the Giants as saying is that familiar remnant of the Jack
the Giant Killer stories "We smell the blood of the English!" But then a
whole complex of images sets in that associates that folk cycle with the
narrative of the Canaan campaign from Numbers 13. But the references are
secondary(?) in a sense to the drama of the moment, as Los continues to build
to my favorite lines of the passage -- lines I think we all on this list
respond to: "I will not endure this thing! I alone withstand to death, /
This outrage!" (71-72). And then Los's turn to the audience: "Ah me! how
sick & pale you all stand round me! / Ah, me! pitiable ones ones! do you also
go to deaths vale? / All you my Friends & Brothers! all you my beloved
Companions! / Have you also caught the infection of Sin & stern
Repentance?" (72-75). How would an actor read those lines? Quietly with
dawning recognition, or angrily, or with resignation? It's a great speech
that has always struck me as a throwback to Blake's Shakespeare imitations
in Poetical Sketches -- but much better that anything there.
My point is to start with the more user friendly parts of *Jerusalem*.
Contrary to the majority opinion, I do believe that Blake's characters -- the
foreground ones anyway -- are rounded, and that there is a dramatic,
continuous narrative to the poem. It is *very* difficult to follow, but
that's game. And this speech is a good access point to the narrative and to
Los's character.
Have fun.
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 08:42:13 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, RPYODER@ualr.edu
Subject: RE: Blake and Archetype Cities -Reply
Message-Id:
Paul, I think we should avoid false dualities of `pastoral' and `urban'. In
the cosmic vision of Blake, we have Jerusalem in Innocence in Eternity
and Beulah where all Cities (being expanded into their divine human
forms) desire union with her and aspire to be like her in spirit. Then,
owing to Urizen's contraction and deluding himself that Jerusalem is a
`harlot', all cities of Earth ultimately become like Babylon, embracing all the
attributes associated with her - of greed, pride, cruelty etc. The Book of
Urizen 's setting is in the psyche of Albion, I should think. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 09:27:25 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: geography, individuality,poetic genius -Reply
Message-Id:
Beautifully put Mark. Enough to make the enlarged portrait of Blake on my
bookcase smile! Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 08:22:13 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: BLAKE@albion.com
Subject: 2 more points on *J*38[43]
Message-Id: <960724082213.20203189@ualr.edu>
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It occurs to me to add to 2 comments on what I said last night about *Jerusalem*plate 38[43]:
1-- In the 3-line speech that Los imagines the Giants as saying, Blake blends
not only the folklore Jack with Biblical Joshua, he also adds into the mix
his own biography, and in particular his encounters with the law, by naming
the giants "Hand & Scofield," and "Scofield & Kox."
2-- Los's speech is quite successful, for the Friends of Albion rise up
"With one accord in love sublime"(39[44]:1) to help the problem, but Blake's
brutal irony is that what Los urges turns out to be exactly the wrong thing
to do: "They Albion surround and with kindest violence to bear him back /
Against his will thro Los's Gate to Eden" (39[44]2-3), at which point, "Albion
dark, / Repugnant; rolld his Wheels backward into Non-Entity" (5-6). Their
"kindest violence" only makes matters worse. This mistake does not, I think,
that the Friends should have continued to stand "here trembling around / Calling on God for help; and not on ourselves in whom God dwells" (38[43]:12-13).
But I think Los's error does suggest Blake's awareness that however satisfying
the expression of "honest indignation" may be, it is not always wise to act
in the heat ofthe moment.
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 08:49:05 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Divisions of Blake
Message-Id: <9607241355.AA24881@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> And what do
>you make of the Prolific and Devourer plate, anyway? I read it on a number
>of levels. One is the frustration of an artist and an unappreciative,
>un-understanding audience. Another is the irony of being an artist, because
>you still need to devour something before you can be prolific, which
>undermines the whole message of the plate.
Do you? What the plate says is something different, though it equally
testifies to the necessity of both functions: "The Prolific would cease to
be Prolific unless the Devourer as a sea recieved the excess of his
delights." Whatever you produce needs somewhere to go. But why describe
it in terms of devouring or consuming? This, to me, suggests the
commercial marketplace that you hint at: the devourer thinks the producer
is "in his chains" because he buys "portions" of his work. On the other
hand, if both are necessary, why call them "enemies" and why must the
devourers have "weak and tame minds"? Presumably they need to have taste!
Does this mean the "giants who formed this world," and who presumably are
depicted at the top of plate 16, are artists? It seems that way to me.
Sorry I don't have answers, only more questions!
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 08:26:11 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Bacon Fried
Message-Id: <9607241332.AA21158@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>O why was I born with a differnt face? Why was I not born like
>this envious race?
>... or something to that effect. BLake was of course acutely
>conscious of his differnce, and acutely conscious of the
>unconcsciouness of the people around him. No remedy but to labor
>upward into futurity.
Yes, Ralph, that was the passage I was thinking of, but I couldn't locate
it. Thanks.
JM
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 10:02:04 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Vague Versus Specific
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Pam:
For new _Jerusalem_ visitors like me, could you point to specific passages
to back up what you're saying. If you have to cross-reference that you feel
are necessary to bring up between poems, and I'd prefer if you didn't,
that's fine. Stuff like this below often sounds to me like broad, sweeping
generalization, and for a poet that contradicted himself often, loving to
baffle and move into the realm of the enigmatic, I find it hard to believe
to what your construct is referring. Give me an example, a welcome mat into
the complexity, if you will.
In the meantime, I see Blake wrestling, changing over time. _Vala_ turned
into _The Four Zoas_. Voltaire and Rousseau got birds flying over them in
_The Song of Los_, but are later considered part of the problem. So this
further makes me frustrated by these summations, when to me he's a moving
target... and so are you and so am I! (Bloom, for instance, changed his
"view" on Blake AT LEAST once.............)
Thanks-
Randall Albright
>Paul, I think we should avoid false dualities of `pastoral' and `urban'. In
>the cosmic vision of Blake, we have Jerusalem in Innocence in Eternity
>and Beulah where all Cities (being expanded into their divine human
>forms) desire union with her and aspire to be like her in spirit. Then,
>owing to Urizen's contraction and deluding himself that Jerusalem is a
>`harlot', all cities of Earth ultimately become like Babylon, embracing all the
>attributes associated with her - of greed, pride, cruelty etc. The Book of
>Urizen 's setting is in the psyche of Albion, I should think. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 10:05:03 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Bacon Fried
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Ralph Dumain writes:
>O why was I born with a differnt face? Why was I not born like
>this envious race?
>... or something to that effect. BLake was of course acutely
>conscious of his differnce, and acutely conscious of the
>unconcsciouness of the people around him. No remedy but to labor
>upward into futurity.
Nice post, Mr. Dumain. I like the way you insert your own "envious" word
into it, because it's a valid reading of the poem and reflects your view on
Blake.
But shouldn't a heterogeneous society, like Locke, and Voltaire and
Rousseau in Locke's wake, be able to accept difference more than the
ignorance and rigidity of believing in the divine right of kings, or taking
a wafer of "bread" in a state-sponsored church, and pretending it will all
be OK because at least in the after-life you'll get justice?
Authoritarianism under any guise is bound to persecute different faces
easier than a republic with at least a baby step toward freedom. (Although,
as I've said in deference to Lenin, Mao, and Castro, it's... complicated!
Getting food and medicine to all people in a country is nothing to sneeze
at, either.)
I'm not saying that it all happened overnight... or that it's not
continuing to happen. (Reading a biography of Whitman right now is like
that Blake poem: the man behind the art, how stifled he was despite the
IMAGE of being this free spirit...) But where have people with "different
faces" been given more of a break? There are setbacks, like for Oscar Wilde
(bigtime). But what about the looney-toons in Concord, Mass. in the 1850s?
What about... Flaxman, Wollstonecraft, Godwin, Priestly, that whole "gang"
(a bunch of individuals)? Whereas Voltaire had to go from friendly regime
to friendly regime before wearing out his welcome mat. And what is it that
Voltaire wanted... (because he too gets lambasted later by Blake)? Freedom
for the individual, as I read it, not freedom for the collective.
And the mystery to me is... what did Blake want out the Revolutions, if not
Locke's promise of an equal footing for all? If not for assuming, like
Bacon, that in some ways, all of us are the same. Going back to the
prophetic nature of Blake, where Fuseli thought he was off the deep-end
with superstition, isn't there a message that, interpreted your way you see
the Devils as doing all the work, another way I see the Devils as being
just another aspect of ourselves that Blake is trying to liberate? Either
way, it's liberation.
Thanks for replying--
That's one of my favorite Blake poems, as perhaps some of you know.
Hope others feel free to talk about either that poem or whatever, too--
If Blake looks baffling, it's because... he's baffling! And makes each of
us think... each, according to their own way. And without taking a dive,
how are you ever going to test the waters?
Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 10:08:13 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: one key to *J*
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Thanks, Paul. As perhaps you heard, I just upgraded from Selected Poems to
the Complete Erdman, so I see exactly the page numbers to which you're
referring. I also have _Illuminated Blake_, which of course means alot less
to this poem than many of his others.
I'll look into this and get back to you and the group!
-Randall Albright
Paul Yoder wrote:
>You've asked about how to enter *Jerusalem*. The easiest way I know is to
>check out plate 38[43], Erdman 184-186. etc.......
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 96 09:05:18 CDT
From: Mark Trevor Smith
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: geography, individuality,poetic genius -Reply
Message-Id: <9607241408.AA26755@uu6.psi.com>
Thanks for the compliment, Pam. I was worried that my message might
be too disorganized or brief for anyone really to appreciate. -- Mark
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 14:06:24 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: one key to *J*
Message-Id: <9607241912.AA12666@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Thanks, Paul. As perhaps you heard, I just upgraded from Selected Poems to
>the Complete Erdman, so I see exactly the page numbers to which you're
>referring. I also have _Illuminated Blake_, which of course means alot less
>to this poem than many of his others.
Randall, are you saying that the illuminations are less important in
_Jerusalem_? I'll bet many of us would argue otherwise . . . .
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:30:26 -0400
From: WaHu@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43]
Message-Id: <960725003025_584280341@emout09.mail.aol.com>
Excellent Paul,
You have found Blake at the top of his game. What I can't remember is where
are Hyle & Koban, them other two giants. (Hyle is a transliteration of
Hugh-lay, attic greek for something like vegetable/nature, and koban probably
is as Frye suggests a wicked near anagram of bakon....as in bakon yer
lordship's pardon. Although it could be banok, a faux-Summerian Thunder God
corrupted into a mis-spelling of an old english word for pancake (Bannock).
Pancake and bakon? Does Blake intend to have Sir Francis for breakfast?
I've always suspected that a little of Finnegans Wake language resideth near
ol' Blake. Silly? Is Island in the Moon far from Joyce, or Tristram S.?
Food for thought: is the fact that the speech you quote is written in a
Shakespeare-cum-Thucydides rhetoric meant to tip us off that the advice is
bad? like the song in Merchant of V. where all the end words rhyme with Lead?
You are wonderfully sure-footed in the higher elevations.
The play I'm in, Mad Forest, has gotten mixed reviews....
But Richard Howard just took a poem of mine for Paris Review, so what care I?
Actually, our show is quite good....
Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 21:51:56 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com, tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu
Subject: JACK LINDSAY: INTERESTING BLAKE SIGHTINGS
Message-Id: <199607250451.VAA23810@igc2.igc.apc.org>
Time is at a premium right now, but let me toss out a couple of
interesting Blake sightings for future discussion.
Jack Lindsay's A SHORT HISTORY OF CULTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO THE
RENAISSANCE (New York: Citadel Pres, 1963) compares Blake to
Taoism (p. 209f), which share the common trait of denouncing
"morality", i.e. official morality comes as a result of, not a
remedy to, the corruption of society.
The same Jack Lindsay's WILLIAM BLAKE: HIS LIFE AND WORK (New
York: George Braziller, 1979) makes some interesting comparisons
of Blake to Hegel and Marx, which at first glance seem to agree
with mine. Also, Lindsay makes some interesting remarks on
Blake's critique of Newton.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 23:24:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu
Subject: WILSON HARRIS ON BLAKE'S TYGER
Message-Id: <199607250624.XAA01452@igc2.igc.apc.org>
WILSON HARRIS ON WILLIAM BLAKE
Harris, Wilson. "Guyana Prize Address", KYK-OVER-AL [Georgetown,
Guyana], no. 38, June 1988, pp. 24-34.
This is the expanded text of an address Harris gave on the
occasion of receiving the 1987 Guyana Prize for Best Book of
Fiction. Harris refers to Blake's "The Tyger" (p. 29) and the
cross-cultural imagination. Harris was employed as a surveyor
decades before he became a writer and led expeditions into
Guyana's jungle. One of his crewmen came across this poem and
couldn't understand it. Harris relates how he helped the crewman
to find meaning in the lines "Tyger tyger burning bright / In the
forests of the night". I do not have time now to type out
Harris's text in full. Another time perhaps. You should know,
however, that Harris is a brilliant man and one of the foremost
writers of our time. C.L.R. James viewed Harris's work as an
independent New World development with striking similarities to
(but going beyond) European existentialism, specifically
Heidegger. I met Harris and discussed James with him, but alas,
not Blake.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 05:57:15 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43]
Message-Id: <960725055715.20205ce1@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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Congrats on the poem, Hugh. About Los's Shakespeare-cum-Thucydides rhetoric:
I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a tip off that the advice is bad or not.
One of the things that interests me about the speech is that it *seems* so
"natural" despite the stylized rhetoric -- of course, in *Jerusalem* "stylized"
is virtually meaningless inasmuch as the whole thing style heavy. My sense is
that Blake is offering Los here as an example of the inspired orator, heralded
throughout rhetorical history -- including some choice words from Milton. Such
an orator does not have to worry about sincerity or any lack of formal
training because of his or her "natural" ability to address an audience, *and*
this ability is only enhanced by the movement of the "spirit" in the speaker --
however you choose to interpret or identify that spirit. I see the tension in
Los's speech as being between this "natural" quality -- as if he's delivering
the speech impromptu -- and the care Blake evidently took in putting the speech
together. There's a Shakespearean element in Blake's work that doesn't get
enough attention because we are often too busy looking at the prophetic elements.
I've been trying to find possible "sources" for this speech by Los -- it does
derive some from the Son's speeches in *Paradise Lost* Bk III (not very
surprising if you think about it, but it is a very interesting reading of
Milton's Savior), but the speech does have a definite Shakesearean feel. Any
suggestions for particular places to look?
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 10:12:50 -0500 (CDT)
From: Darlene Sybert
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Key to Jerusalem
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Paul Yoder:
I enjoyed your reading of Jerusalem's plate 8 and applaud the
idea that Blake's poetry can be enjoyed and (the longer ones) read as
stories with a plot, whatever else they are.
Randall:
Two other passages related to that one and equally enjoyable and
understandable on their own are the "grain of sand" paragraph on plate 37(41)
beginning with line 15 and plate 91, especially the first 30 lines where
Los reorders Imagination. The latter section actually reflects most of
the themes of the poem, including the references to Minute Particulars.
It's beginning is reminiscent of the "Poison Tree" which I believe
you have discussed on here previously, and a few lines later the
5th memorable fancy of MHH is invoked.
And there might be an interest in plate 96--the first 43 lines
reveal Blake's essential Christianity, a topic that has been some concern
to you and the list in the past--a plate that includes one of Blake's
most profound lines (in my opinion) "This is Friendship & Brotherhood
without it Man is Not." I find it has an extra dash of meaning now that
my students use NOT as an adjective and sometimes a noun.
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~c557506/index.htl
University of Missouri at Columbia (English)
******************************************************************************
This return to the world...can take place only if woman is released from
the archaic projections man lays upon her and if an autonomous and positive
representation of female sexuality exists in the culture. -Irigaray 17
******************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 13:44:18 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: Key to Jerusalem
Message-Id: <960725134418.202074ba@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
You send Randall to a great scene and plate on 96, Darlene. That plate
contrasts quite well with the conversation Los and Albion have on plate 42.
The history of plate 96 is fascinating and shows Blake making great use of his
materials. The copper for plate 96 is the corner of a larger engraving Blake
did for a carpet weaver (see Erdman's classic article on the altered and
suppressed passages in *Jerusalem*: _Studies in Bibliography_ 17 (1964): 1-54), and Paley's commentary in the Princeton/Blake Trust edition). The most
interesting about the composition of the plate is the "L" shape of the text.
In my dissertation (you knew it, didn't you) I argued that this "L" is the
"likeness and similitude" of Los's "character" or letter -- much of late 17th
and early 18th century linguistics is involved in a search for a "universal
character," the basis for a universal language. I don't think Blake supported
such a search, but I feel certain he would have exploited such a wonderful
pun on the different kinds of "characters," linguistic or dramatic.
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:49:59 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Divisions of Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>> And what do
>>you make of the Prolific and Devourer plate, anyway? I read it on a number
>>of levels. One is the frustration of an artist and an unappreciative,
>>un-understanding audience. Another is the irony of being an artist, because
>>you still need to devour something before you can be prolific, which
>>undermines the whole message of the plate.
>
>Do you? What the plate says is something different, though it equally
>testifies to the necessity of both functions: "The Prolific would cease to
>be Prolific unless the Devourer as a sea received the excess of his
>delights." Whatever you produce needs somewhere to go. But why describe
>it in terms of devouring or consuming? This, to me, suggests the
>commercial marketplace that you hint at: the devourer thinks the producer
>is "in his chains" because he buys "portions" of his work. On the other
>hand, if both are necessary, why call them "enemies" and why must the
>devourers have "weak and tame minds"? Presumably they need to have taste!
>Does this mean the "giants who formed this world," and who presumably are
>depicted at the top of plate 16, are artists? It seems that way to me.
THIS IS THE KEY::::::::::::::::::::::
>Sorry I don't have answers, only more questions!
>
>Jennifer Michael
Blake had to devour the Bible and a number of other sources before he was
then able to become prolific. You can look at it in a Lockean way, which of
course Blake would have hated... but his "inspirations" didn't come SOLELY
from angels flying through the window.
He's setting up double-binds, forcing us to do exactly as your last line
says: ask questions. Question Blake's authority, even though he's "The
Bard". This is the Blake I really love. He makes things shimmer, whereas so
many authors/artists can eventually turn to cardboard, all figured out, all
tied down or up.
Why would Jesus continue divisions, not heal? Why aren't artist and
audience in harmony? What's been debased through that lack of taste, as you
suggest, so that we get blockbuster film garbage with real "staying power"
while _Dead Man_ and other art films-- like Robert Redford's _Quiz Show_,
which was lucky to break even-- disappear from the screen before the flash
of an eye? Do people really listen to what Jesus said, or are they willing
to follow Blake blindly along on this absurdist path?
To me, these plates, as is the whole poem "Marriage of Heaven and Hell",
modern art. The disorientation, the rollercoaster ride... what's real, what
isn't, what could be this but could also be that... puts Blake solidly in
the alienated artist realm, howling in a wilderness, speaking at his most
brilliant. (No offense to everything else in his canon... just my personal
fave, as far as his "extroverted" self.)
When the truth is found... to be LIES....
Question authority...
Quicksand...
We hold these truths to be self-evident... do you?
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:50:19 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43]
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Gee, Paul... I was just about to say how the following Los words should be
posted on all churches:
"Then Los grew furious, raging: Why stand we here trembling around
Calling on God for help; and not ourselves in whom God dwells
Stretching a hand to save the falling Man...."
-plate 38[43]
It was a thought I could get behind. And I thought it was just the ticket
to pull Urizen, Luvah, Tharmas, and Urthona out of what obviously clinical
depression. That plate 37 of the guy with his head down, and Blake not even
caring to reverse the handwriting of the scroll for us? Hey, no Prozac is
as good as EXERCISE. And no exercise, as Josh taught Cher in last year's
masterpiece film, _CLUELESS_, is as truly beneficial for yourself as doing
good for others.
But there are layers and layers to this, aren't there? Like, so what if you
do good but still feel a void inside YOU? I've seen this in do-gooder
friends myself. And that's why _I_ thought Los failed.
Let's see why you think Los was in error... heat of the moment? Hmmm...
seemed like the duldrums to which he was pumping up a fire in reaction.
Seemed like the kind of Christianity even _I_ could get behind.
But hey, I'm just a new-comer to *Jerusalem*............. specters, Satan,
and even my own emanation are lurking everywhere.
-Randall Albright
>It occurs to me to add to 2 comments on what I said last night about
>*Jerusalem*plate 38[43]:
>1-- In the 3-line speech that Los imagines the Giants as saying, Blake blends
>not only the folklore Jack with Biblical Joshua, he also adds into the mix
>his own biography, and in particular his encounters with the law, by naming
>the giants "Hand & Scofield," and "Scofield & Kox."
>
>2-- Los's speech is quite successful, for the Friends of Albion rise up
>"With one accord in love sublime"(39[44]:1) to help the problem, but Blake's
>brutal irony is that what Los urges turns out to be exactly the wrong thing
>to do: "They Albion surround and with kindest violence to bear him back /
>Against his will thro Los's Gate to Eden" (39[44]2-3), at which point, "Albion
>dark, / Repugnant; rolld his Wheels backward into Non-Entity" (5-6). Their
>"kindest violence" only makes matters worse. This mistake does not, I think,
>that the Friends should have continued to stand "here trembling around /
>Calling on God for help; and not on ourselves in whom God dwells"
>(38[43]:12-13).
>But I think Los's error does suggest Blake's awareness that however satisfying
>the expression of "honest indignation" may be, it is not always wise to act
>in the heat ofthe moment.
>
>Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:52:22 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: one key to *J*
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Randall, are you saying that the illuminations are less important in
>_Jerusalem_? I'll bet many of us would argue otherwise . . . .
>
>Jennifer Michael
Jennifer:
Disagreement's fine. But _Jerusalem_ is a sparsely illuminated poem. That
doesn't mean the illustrations he gives aren't OK. But my favorites in
illuminated art/poetry fusions are:
Europe-- my favorite
Book of Urizen
Song of Los
Song of Ahania
ALL of the Songs (sorry folks, I'm just a Songs kind of guy)
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Thel
and then parts of Milton and America (I know there are alot of America fans
out there, but visually I really prefer Europe)
The final page of Jerusalem, used as the cover for _Illuminated Blake_, is
great.
I've seen drawings for _Vala_ or _FZ_ that look like it could have been the
most sensuous, in a way.......
-Randall Albright
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End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #94
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