blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 95 Today's Topics: Re: Darlene Keys to Jerusalem RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] More Keys to Jerusalem _MHH_ and Taste RE: _MHH_ and Taste influence? Re: _MHH_ and Taste Unidentified subject! RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Re: More Keys to Jerusalem Re: Unidentified subject! Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Blake to Whitman connection? Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Re:Re: Unidentified subject! Re: Blake to Whitman connection? Re: More Keys to Jerusalem ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 17:53:40 -0400 From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Darlene Keys to Jerusalem Message-Id:Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'll check them out Darlene. Thanks.... And I like your quote of at the bottom. -R >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 19:10:56 -0500 (CDT) From: RPYODER@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Message-Id: <960725191056.20207dcc@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Come on, Randall. Let's get some exercise. Why do I think Los failed? Well, why I think he failed is not nearly as important as why the poem suggests he failed. My "in the heat of the moment" was intended to summarize a whole raft of complex questions. It seems to me that the first tip off -- and here I should note Hugh's earlier suggestion about the rhetorical style as a tip-off -- anyway,the first obvious clue is the "kindest violence" by which the Friends try to force Albion "against his will" back through the Gate of Los. The irony of "kindest violence" should suggest that this kindness is misdirected -- kinda like tough love, I guess -- and the fact that they try to force Albion "against his will" indicates that the Friends have overstepped the bounds. Freedom of choice is what energizes the system. If Albion wants to fall, you can talk to him, you can set a good example, you can rage, but you finally cannot stop him if that's what he wants to do. That's the thing we fear most about freedom -- that people will actually use it. But a few lines further down the narrator offers something of an explanation: "But as the Will must not be bended but in the day of Divine / Power: silent calm & motionless, in the mid-air sublime, / The Family Divine hover around the darkend Albion" (39[44]:18-20). The Divine Family (at this point still including the Friends of Albion, but see 39[44]:32) can only watch as Albion makes the wrong decision. Clearly it is not in their power to bend Albion's will, but I frankly am not sure what it means or implies that the Will apparently *can* be bent in the "day of Divine Power." The idea reminds me of Saul/Paul on the road to Damascus, and indeed, when the Gate of Los episode begins (35[39]:12) Los asks Albion "Whither fleest thou." It's not what God says to Saul/Paul, but it does have a "quo vadis" quality to it. "Whither fleest thou" might also recall Job, also. In any event, apparently when it wants to Divine Power can -- well, it's not "can not" but "must not," it's a decision or an imperative rather than a statement of disability -- when it want to Divine Power will bend the will. This conclusion does not seem to is not proven one way or the other at the end of the poem in which Jesus chooses persuasion to convince Albion rather choosing to "bend" Albion's will. Is it possible that the "day of Divine Power" is simply the day of Albion's reawakening, and that Albion's awakening of itself signifies that his will has been bent? Paul Yoder ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:47:47 -0500 (CDT) From: Darlene Sybert To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 25 Jul 1996 RPYODER@ualr.edu wrote: [text deleted] > of "kindest violence" should suggest that this kindness is misdirected -- kinda > like tough love, I guess -- and the fact that they try to force Albion "against > his will" indicates that the Friends have overstepped the bounds. Freedom of This is not too pertinent to your topic, but in the interest of accuracy, what his Friends did would be "intervention," wouldn't it? Isn't tough love more like turning your back on some one for his own good? That is, refusing to put up with self-destructive behavior (for example)? [text deleted] > Whither > fleest thou" might also recall Job, Hmmm...I don't recall Job going any place except to set in the ashes. And what God said to him was more like, who the hell do you think you are to question my behavior? Perhaps you were thinking of Jonah here who fled on the ship, so he wouldn't have to go to Ninevah to prophesy becuase he knew prophets usually ended up dead (killed by unrepentent listeners who grew tired of his bad news) or embarrassed (because the listeners repented and then all the bad predictions didn't come true.) [text deleted] > it want to Divine Power will bend the will. This conclusion does not seem to > is not proven one way or the other at the end of the poem in which Jesus > chooses persuasion to convince Albion rather choosing to "bend" Albion's will. > Is it possible that the "day of Divine Power" is simply the day of Albion's > reawakening, and that Albion's awakening of itself signifies that his will > has been bent? If we are still talkiing divine power in the Judeo-Christian tradition, wouldn't "bending the will" be an overstepping of the bounds that God set for himself. He allowed himself to chastise the unrepentant; to comfort and encourage those who needed it; to die in the place of man...depending on which manifestation he was indulging (or which one man was responding to, depending on your attitude), but wasn't part of the deal that man had the right (responsibiity) to manipulate his own will and also to suffer the consequences of it (sort of like real life). or, at least, let God suffer the consequences? 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: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 06:18:39 -0500 (CDT) From: RPYODER@ualr.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Message-Id: <960726061839.202088c3@ualr.edu> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Thanks for the corrections, Darlene. You're right that I was thinking of Jonah when I wrote Job -- that's what I get for typing and watching the Olympics at the same time. The other possible reference/context that escaped me was Judas going out to betray Jesus after the last supper. You are also obviously correct about the Divine Power (who or whatever it may be) overstepping bounds it has set for itself by "bending the will." In *Paradise Lost* God's defense of free will is based on an opposition to necessity -- that if the agents are not free, then their god is necessity, not God. Nevertheless, the lines from *Jerusalem* do seem to indicate that Blake's Divine Power does reserve to itself the right to bend the will. Blake's Jesus goes "beyond the limits of possibility" (quoted from memory for *J*). I had always read "possibility" as a human construct -- that Jesus redefines the possible beyond the typical fallen human conception of it -- but perhaps it is that Jesus implies for Blake the "o'erleaping" (Milton's word) of God's own bounds. That God has bounds is itself a pretty radical view of God -- that's why Milton has such a hard time with it. But certainly Blake's Jesus overturns the standards of the God of Judgment, of what was "possible" before Jesus (if there is a before Jesus). It may just be that whatever we may think about the system, Blake's experience was that the Divine Power sometimes *did* bend the will. Paul Yoder ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 12:53:32 -0500 From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright) To: blake@albion.com Subject: More Keys to Jerusalem Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Darlene: The grain of sand on plate 37. It's true poetry, it's true life, a key into eternity that reflects the past, present and future. That's why Satan will never find it. Satan is merely DEAD. Plate 91: The first line is an inverse of "A Poison Tree", but equally true. I've been Blake-bashing, haven't I? Blake was Swedenborg bashing in MHH. But read what I say about him on my Web page, and you'd think only that I find him endlessly fascinating. Corporeal versus spiritual gifts? Yeah.... that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it reminds me of one of my favorite songs: "If I gave you everything that I owned, and asked for nothing in return, would you do the same for me, as I would for you? Or take me for a ride, and strip me of everything, including my pride. But spirit is something that no one destroys." -Steve Winwood, Traffic, "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" And distinguishing hypocrisy from real love... yes. Saw a public information billboard yesterday: "Know a man by his acts, not by his words." --Benjamin Franklin Plate 96: My current construct (hey, I'm just a new visitor to "Jerusalem", and have gotten seriously ill here in the past, so... it's tentative) is that this answers what turned out to be a dustbowl for Los in Plate 38. You have to realize there's something _outside_ you as well as within. And that that outside-ness is kind and forgiving. For Blake, it's his vision of Christ, and it is able to get Urizen, Luvah, Tharmas, and Urthona to rise (line 41), and for the crescendo of the poem to begin. -Randall Albright http://world.std.com/~albright/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 12:53:52 -0500 From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright) To: blake@albion.com Subject: _MHH_ and Taste Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jennifer Michael asked a question, in relation to the "Prolific and the Devourer"section in _MHH_, something like (sorry, Jennifer, I'm on another computer now): "Is it because the audience doesn't have TASTE?" Seeing how I've connected Blake in my mind with Rimbaud's "Ville" poem, the Arts and Crafts and beyond... my construct is to push this into an affirmative: "Yes, that's part of it." And where do I read it other than the crooked versus strait roads passage (which itself can be read in many more ways than my contruct)? from "Proverbs of Hell": "The cistern contains: the fountain overflows One thought. fills immensity. Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you." As far as LITERAL good taste: "The best wine is the oldest. the best water the newest." Plate 11 talks about art creation-- for Blake it's religion creation-- but it again has the problem of: "Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mentail deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood. Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had orderd such things. Thus men forgot at All deities reside in the human breast." I can come to peace with "loving the greatest men best" in terms of a pantheon of artists. It has nothing to do with the creed of Jesus, in my opinion. But it has everything to do with the creed of good taste and good judgment. Any viewer of _MHH_ that doesn't have the good taste to see the imaginative brilliance of Blake's painted prints ... Plate 11, for instance, in black and white can't begin to compare with what it is in color. I saw it last on the Web (at Cal State Poly San Luis Obispo? as a demo of their CD-ROM project... now perhaps elsewhere, poem complete in color with probably frustratingly long download times...), in the Tate hardbound, or even my own little Dover paperback is, well, *OK*. And critics who complained, in Blake's day, that clothing seemed to merge into something else... they merely missed a part of the visual message, didn't they? Why DO children have a Disneyland-like fun ride on a serpent in "Thel" and "America"? Are they just... being TAKEN for a ride? Or can the serpent be our friend, unlike Adam and Eve found? Are the children riding the serpent REALLY children, or just the child within each of us as adults? The visual images themselves compound irony. (I intentionally slipped to those other poems, Pam... rules are meant to be broken!) In _MHH_ itself, plate 2, is the woman being pulled up the tree, or is the guy (or is it a woman?) being led DOWN? Is that the villain, watching passively how they do it on the side so he can merely mimic them? Where's the path that the argument is talking about? Climbing up or down a tree constitutes a path? Maybe a tree of knowledge gets debased into a tree of ripped-off, faked, repetitive, liturgical, or mechanistic knowledge that you have to abandon for "barren climes". Maybe, by doing this, Blake is opening the doors of perception instead of shutting them down. Randall Albright http://world.std.com/~albright/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 16:34:27 -0500 From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright) To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: _MHH_ and Taste Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A nice thought, Watt. But of course you bring up more questions... Like... how did we get in this predicament of being in a cavern? There's safety in the familiar. It's cozy, a Freudian womb perhaps. From the moment we're born, we get "Jesus loves me, this I know, because the Bible tells me so..." or some other substitute like "Barney". This is a fascinating question for me on Blake, because we get piled up with language and expectations... how to dress for dinner... what's "nice" and what's not. So Blake comes smashing through with _MHH_ Taboo breaking, upside-down viewing. It's obvious that "In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy." Actually, it ISN'T to alot of people, who think they have no time to kick back and do the 3rd part. They're in a cave, bereaved of light, Work Ethic Go Go Go... until they die of a heart attack! "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." --Rousseau But if the doors WERE cleansed, and we DID see everything as it is, infinite, free of chains, free of the cave, wouldn't it be sensory overload? Wouldn't it be like looking at Medusa's Head, capable of turning us to stone? "The eagle never lost so much time. as when he submitted to learn of the crow." and "One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression" indicate the subjectivity of perception as well as other aspects of being. So these doors can never be fully "cleansed" except to the highest degree possible for each of us, as individuals. And like some people who are "Jerusalem" trekkers may be finding, you have to keep stoking the flames, reassessing, forgiving yourself as you try to invent new, hopefully *positive* and not just *mechanistic*, wheels. -Randall Albright http://world.std.com/~albright/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 15:46:09 -0500 From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: influence? Message-Id: <96072615460920@womenscol.stephens.edu> Blakeans, take a look at the cover of this week's _New Yorker_. Surely this is a Blakean design, adapted to the subject "At the Beach"? Only a few weeks ago. the design from _Milton_ showing Los appearing like the sun at Blake's back (the one some suspect of portraying fellatio) appeared with the review of Ackroyd's biography. This composition is strikingly similar. (There is also an affinity with the "ancient" frontispiece of _Europe_.) No claim of direct influence, but it seems not impossible. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 16:31:21 -0500 From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: _MHH_ and Taste Message-Id: <9607262137.AA13835@uu6.psi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Jennifer Michael asked a question, in relation to the "Prolific and the >Devourer"section in _MHH_, something like (sorry, Jennifer, I'm on another >computer now): "Is it because the audience doesn't have TASTE?" What I really meant to ask was, does the Devourer imprison the Prolific because of the Devourer's lack of taste? And is that lack of taste a given? Because if they don't have taste, they're obviously *not* consuming Blake's work; they're buying the trash of the day instead, which destroys the symbiotic relationship between artist and audience. Presumably, if the audience had taste equal to the artist's (!), the division between them would disappear. But then, if those "weak and tame minds" all became active and creating, who would consume their work? I still think there's a conundrum there. JM ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 16:42:24 -0700 From: rmcdonell@ucsd.edu To: blake@albion.com Subject: Unidentified subject! Message-Id: MieVein:1 Conten-ye etpan cre="-siiTo: blake@albion.com rm:mdoe@cs.u Ret cnll bjc:laendWianQe I seem o el rdn ttWhtns o, tWtmn ehs wstenfo le ei. A iremeig Me eell,wa rth ohr oncis,i n,btenWimnadBa? Hp hsi o o eetin qeto owratarpy Tak. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 20:09:48 -0500 (CDT) From: Darlene Sybert To: blake@albion.com Subject: RE: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 26 Jul 1996 RPYODER@ualr.edu wrote: > Jonah when I wrote Job -- that's what I get for typing and watching the Olympics at the same time. The other possible reference/context that escaped me > was Judas going out to betray Jesus after the last supper. Certainly that would work, too, if you didn't push it too far. 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: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 20:51:30 -0500 (CDT) From: Darlene Sybert To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: More Keys to Jerusalem Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 26 Jul 1996, R.H. Albright wrote: > > The grain of sand on plate 37. It's true poetry, it's true life, a key into > eternity that reflects the past, present and future. That's why Satan will > never find it. Satan is merely DEAD. Your comment reminded me...I have been reading Zizek this week about the conditin of (im)possibility re:Hegel. When I read this part about his partial moment, I thought of Blake's moment. Is there any connection here or is my brain just on overload... "The picture of the Hegelian system as a closed whole which assigns its proper place to every partial moment is therefore deeply misleading. Every partial moment is, so to speak, "truncated from within," it cannot ever fully become "itself," it cannot ever reach "its own place," it is marked with an inherent impediment, and it is this impediment which "sets in motion" the dialectical development..." followed shortly by, "a paradoxical "One" of radical negativity which forever blocks the fulfilment of any positive identity." What do yu think? 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: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 20:58:05 -0500 (CDT) From: Darlene Sybert To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Unidentified subject! Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 26 Jul 1996 rmcdonell@ucsd.edu wrote: > I seem o el rdn ttWhtns o, tWtmn ehs wstenfo le ei. A iremeig Me eell,wa rth ohr oncis,i n,btenWimnadBa? Hp hsi > o o eetin qeto owratarpy Tak. Which may be the most coherent thing that has ever been said on this list.> 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: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 21:35:51 -0500 From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Message-Id: <96072621355127@womenscol.stephens.edu> "whither fleest thou?" -- Job? no; Jonah, more likely; Judas, perhaps; how about Cain? ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 20:34:56 -0600 From: rmcdonell@UCSD.EDU (Robert McDonell) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Blake to Whitman connection? Message-Id: <199607270333.UAA25771@ mail.ucsd.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I seem to recall reading that Whitman's tomb at Camden was based on a design from Blake. Am I misremembering? Are there (other) connections between Blake and Whitman? robt mcdonell ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 23:54:19 -0500 (CDT) From: Darlene Sybert To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] Message-Id: Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 26 Jul 1996, TOM DILLINGHAM wrote: > "whither fleest thou?" -- Job? no; Jonah, more likely; Judas, perhaps; > how about Cain? > The first flee-er 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: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 15:37:22 -0400 From: WaHu@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re:Re: Unidentified subject! Message-Id: <960727153721_247026979@emout14.mail.aol.com> What is coherence, Darlene, and who has it? He that died a'Thursday. -to paraphrase Sir John.- In the work-a-day world, coherence usually starts at about $13.85 an hour, with a four hour minimum. But as almost no one is coherent for more than an hour, the actual cost is closer to $50.00 an hour. Hugh Walthall wahu@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 16:20:16 -0500 From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: Blake to Whitman connection? Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Well... here's my two cents' worth. Blake is often calling for the lifting of sexual as well as other moralistic taboos. So did Whitman. There are, however, serious differences between these poets, even if only roughly 80 years separate them. Blake's denial of "natural religion". Wouldn't Whitman say that we all have it? Blake's painting of "nature" in human terms. Landscapes become people, etc. God has a human face. Whitman... as Emerson called him, "a Hindoo-like poet", knew we're merely part of it all. Blake's constant (mechanistic? nah!) attack on science, epitomized in the Evil Triad of Locke/Newton/Bacon. Whitman at one point says "Hoorah for science!" while then going on to say that its actual "findings" may have little to do with him. Blake's mysticism and "prophecy" is hooked into the Bible. Whitman, in the New World, is trying to find religion in something as simple as leaves of grass... although at his best, Blake found it too in a grain of sand. One point that goes back to re-uniting the men, however, is their individualistic, "rebel" spirit. Whitman took alot of flak for _Leaves of Grass_ and even Emerson and Thoreau thought he could tone down the sex passages. He didn't. Other views? -Randall Albright http://world.std.com/~albright/ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 16:20:46 -0500 From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright) To: blake@albion.com Subject: Re: More Keys to Jerusalem Message-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Darlene Sybert wrote: > "The picture of the Hegelian system as a closed whole which >assigns its proper place to every partial moment is therefore deeply >misleading. Every partial moment is, so to speak, "truncated from >within," it cannot ever fully become "itself," it cannot ever reach >"its own place," it is marked with an inherent impediment, and it is >this impediment which "sets in motion" the dialectical development..." >followed shortly by, "a paradoxical "One" of radical negativity which >forever blocks the fulfilment of any positive identity." >What do yu think? Well, I'll tell ya, Darlene. I read _Phenomenology of Mind_ about 20 years ago, upon the recommendation of someone who said he's the father of Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. At the time, I found it rivetting (does that mean I was in a car assemby plant?), although this illusion of "progress" was to me always suspect. By the time you reach... what does he call it... some sort of Ideal Man, it seemed to me like it was time for either another fall or Hitler to march the Ideal off the side of a Romantic Cliff. That's why I like Nietzsche, who warns that while something is building up on one side, something else is probably eroding on another. (I can find the exact GAY SCIENCE quote when I'm home, if you care...) And that's also why I've always liked "The Clod and the Pebble" so much; because it seems like a dialectic we're stuck with. So while you and other _Jerusalem_ trekkers see how Los and company can try to wake up Albion, how we'll throw off the selfish part of ourselves-- how (men as well as) the women that Blake describes in the debased Babylon run around like sadist vampires-- I just think we have to be comforted by these grains of sand that Satan will never find because they're true and good. Sure, no matter where you are in Hegel's _Phenomenology_, you wouldn't have gotten there unless you'd had, as Blake says, the contraries that cause progression. They all make up a composite of "eternity." This brings up another point, related. I've been reading _Fantasia and the Unconscious_ by D.H. Lawrence lately, in which he warns against "Ideals" as being mechanistic, dead... the kind of thing that makes you look at yourself in a mirror and see a skull, not a person. To me, it sounded like Blake's complaints. Lawrence recommends LIVING, and if it sounds a bit flimsy with a "spontaneous" emphasis, it's worth noting that both he and Blake have been called Men Without a Mask. Now what does THAT mean, you might think, wandering through the multi-layered forests of "Jerusalem"? Well, for me, more comfortable in the "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" era, it means letting things all hang out, warts and all. Other views? Thanks for the Hegel tidbit, Darlene. -Randall Albright -------------------------------- End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #95 *************************************