blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 96
Today's Topics:
Re: Blake to Whitman connection?
Re: Blake to Whitman connection?
Re: Blake to Whitman connection?
Cain and J35
Re: More Keys to Jerusalem
Re:Re: Unidentified subject!
Re: Cain and J35
RE: Cain and J35
2 more points on *J*38[43] -Reply
Re: More Keys to Jerusalem -Reply
blake on stage -Reply
_MHH_ and Taste -Reply
MCGANN, THE GHETTO, AND ME -Reply
Re: Divisions of Blake -Reply
re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] -Reply
re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] -Reply -Reply/ LOS< JESUS
Joseph of Arimathea -Reply
Streaming Blake's Urizen
Eternity and Blakean Evolution
Re: Eternity and Blakean Evolution
Re: Eternity and Blakean Evolution
Re: Eternity and Blakean Evolution
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 15:20:59 -0500
From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake to Whitman connection?
Message-Id: <96072715205915@womenscol.stephens.edu>
Justin Kaplan tells us Whitman "ordered the construction of his tomb,
'a plain massive stone temple' of unpolished Quincy granite. He
designed it himself, with one of William Blake's symbolic etchings,
'Death's Door' in mind." (_Walt Whitman: A Life_ 49) On pages
326-327 of the same biography, Kaplan describes Swinburne's
essay and its comparisons of Blake and Whitman: "The 'points of
contact and sides of likeness,' Swinburne said, were 'so many and
so grave, as to afford some ground of reason to those who preach the
transition of souls.' John Swinton was so captivated by the
resemblances that he claimed he was able to pass off lines from Blake
as coming from _Leaves of Grass_--this was not hard to do with
Blake's 'Energy is the only life, and is from the Body . . . Energy
is Eternal Delight.' Swinton 'asked me pointedly whether I had not
met with Blake's productions in my youth,' Whitman reported. 'Quiote
funny, isn't it?' He rejected but could not escape the connection
and found his poems being cross-promoted with two other titles on
Hotten's list, Swinburne's study of Blake and a color facsimile of
_The Marriage of Heaven and Hell_." In a note, Kaplan quotes
Whitman's own effort to distance himself both from claims of
similarity and of influence; Whitman considers himself relatively
sane by comparison, but "the sole exmaple of any direct 'influence
' is the design of Whitman's tomb which, according to Anne Gilchrist's
daughter Grace, he adapted from a Blake engraving."
Apparently both Swinburne and D.G. Rossetti saw affinities between
Blake and Whitman, as did the Gilchrist circle (Mrs. Gilchrist
corresponded with Whitman and considered him a prophet like
Blake.) Allen Ginsbert has closely associated the poets in
our own time (Ginsberg, sorry), and he is not alone. But
Kaplan discounts the notion of any direct influence, since
Whitman seems not to have known Blake's works until he was
well into his own career.
Paul Zweig (in _Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet_) makes
somewhat more of the connections, but only by way of parallelisms,
connecting Blake and Whitman because of somewhat similar attitudes
toward sexuality, toward the role of the prophetic poet, and toward
the actual practice of poetry. The superficial similarity on the
page of the long lines of both poets (and for that matter, of
Christopher Smart--though his Jubilate was unread at that time)
might suggest common prosodic ideas and Zweig explores that
possibility.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 16:44:27 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake to Whitman connection?
Message-Id: <9607272150.AA23429@uu6.psi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Thanks, Tom Dillingham, for some concrete data on Blake's influence on
Whitman. I've always been struck by the similarity in the way both poets
celebrate the body, although, as my American poetry professor once put it,
"I don't think Blake ever got around to extolling armpits." To get back to
my favorite topic, the city, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" embraces the crowd
(almsot literally!) and celebrates the city's spiritual potential in a way
that's much more Blakean than Wordsworthian. (It also undermines the false
dichotomy between nature and the city
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 18:57:24 -0500
From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake to Whitman connection?
Message-Id: <96072718572423@womenscol.stephens.edu>
One more small note: In a very late (1890) letter. Whitman writes "Did
I tell you that a monument designer, Phila: has bro't me a design
for the Cemetary vault (do you remember Blake's 'Death'?)"
The assumption is that he refers to "Death's Door," which exists
in several versions, most familiarly in the sequence illustrationg
Blair's _The Grave_. (The quotation is from vol. 5 of the
NYU Press edition of Whitman's correspondence.)
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 19:29:32 -0500
From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Cain and J35
Message-Id: <96072719293234@womenscol.stephens.edu>
I should have been more specific about the suggestion of Cain as the
"first flee-er" in Darlene's phrase. We know that Blake was very
interested in the figure of Cain, not only because he wrote "The
Ghost of Abel" in response to Lord Byron's _Cain_ but because he
worked for many years on visual representations of Cain and Abel
culminating in the great painting of "Adam and Eve Discovering
the Body of Abel" which almost precisely illustrates the
scene description at the beginning of "Ghost of Abel." Plate
15 {14} of Blake's _Milton_ shows the dead body of Abel beside
the sacrificial altar, with Cain reaching toward flight.
This is significant, because an answer to "Whither fleest thou""
may be found on that plate.
And Milton said, I go to Eternal Death! The Nations will
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam; in pomp
of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come; to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility; O when Lord Jesus wilth thou come?
Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death.
In _Jerusalem)
Los was the friend of Albion who most loved him. In Cambridgeshire
His eternal station, he is the twenty-eighth, & is four-fold.
Seeing Albion had turn'd his back against the Divine Vision,
Los said to Albion. Whither fleest thou? Albion replyd,
I die! I go to Eternal Death! the shades of death
Hover within me & beneath, and spreading themselves outside
Like rocky clouds, build me a gloomy monument of woe:
Will none accompany me in my death? or be a Ransom for me
In that dark Valley? I have girded round my cloke, an don my
feeb
feet
Bound these black shoes of death, & on my hands, deaths iron gloves:
God hath forsaken me, & my friends are become a burden
A weariness to me, & the human footstep is a terror to me.
It is not merely that the phrase "I go to eternal Death" repeats
here, but that the complex ironies involved in putting off
selfhood and entering into death in order to overcome it are
tied to the problems explored in "Ghost of Abel" and related
to what it may be that [Cain] must do to escape the "life for a life"
vengeance for his act.
Los asks
Must the Wise die for an Atonement? does Mercy endure Atonement
No! It is Moral Severity, & destroys Mercy in its Victim.
So speaking not yet infected with the Error & Illusion
I don't mean to argue that the question "Whither fleest thou""
is meant to evoke *only* Cain (for one thing, Cain and Judas are
linked typologically, I think, though I don't have the relevant
texts handy to check on that), but that as is often the case,
such moments bring together multiple associations; I think Jonah
is possibly relevant (and "my friends are become a burden" would
even justify folding in Job, though probably it evokes the
guilt we might associate with Cain or Judas). It is also
necessary to analyze more carefully the interesting and complex
relationships between Milton 15[14] and Jerusalem 35 [39] since
only the full context would justify conclusions or identifications
I have suggested.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 21:15:23 -0700
From: "Charlie K."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: More Keys to Jerusalem
Message-Id: <199607280414.VAA21615@gost1.indirect.com>
Randall Albright wrote:
> 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.
I've been skimming (not really reading) all these different
interpretations of Jerusalem and I thought I'd add my $.02.
Jerusalem & The Marriage are two of my favorite Blake poems to read.
I think they are two good examples to use when contrasting younger
Blake with older Blake. The Marriage, like Jerusalem, is an epic
poem, but, unlike Jerusalem, it is also a sort of academic rebuttal
to Swedenborg. At the time it was written, Blake was still thinking
about other current ideas of the time, building upon them, and
improving them in his own way. Some of The Marriage is presented in
a logical manner, such as an argument to illustrate a point.
Jerusalem, on the other hand, I see as more of a pure visionary
*catharsis*. Nothing academic about it. Blake had some deep stuff
on his mind, the eternal stuff, and I imagine that it all would get
to the point where he would just let it pour down onto the paper.
The overheated brain. He would get the torments, struggles and
trembling down on paper as a means not only to create art, but to
feel the emotional release that catharsis brings. And his command
of the language was so powerful that he could get all that emotion
effectively down into words. In fact, he was so good at this that
one may experience a sort of catharsis of their own simply from
reading the words. And if you think about it, it's all in there in
Jerusalem. Death, birth, life, sadness, the difference between the
sexes, God, eternity, etc. The big stuff. True religious writing.
The kind of things some people are uncomfortable even considering.
Blake thought about them a lot.
So I don't look for meaning or a story line when I read Jerusalem.
The interaction of the characters is a symbolic way to show the
interaction of different aspects of humanness. As if Blake was
playing with the archetypes and writing stories about them... in
eternity. Not very grounded in logic at all. Logic doesn't have
much of a place in visionary inspiration. Either does time.
And of course some of the politics and philosophy of the day is
thrown in there too. Blake was sort of the counterforce at a time
when logic and rationality were being cultivated and rewarded almost
universally among the "thinkers." He used them in The Marriage to
help make his point, but by the time he got to writing Jerusalem he
had all but abandoned them in favor of furthering his own visionary
mythology/cosmology.
One thing that does puzzle me are the two different attitudes Blake
displays about science. In The Marriage he speaks of science in a
negative tone, while in his later works he links science with art and
speaks about them together most positively, as if they stood as the
highest Human achievements. Did Blake's feeling about science &
experimentation change as he got older, and if so what prompted the
change?
And does anybody know anything about Blake's actual visionary
experiences? How did Blake achieve ecstasy?
Of course I may be over-simplifying, but I always tend to do that.
Charlie
(a person not accustomed to writing about literature)
"All things Begin & End in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore."
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 02:03:04 -0500 (CDT)
From: Darlene Sybert
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re:Re: Unidentified subject!
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Sat, 27 Jul 1996 WaHu@aol.com wrote:
> 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.
Apparently I said something about coherence...but I'm sorry
I forgot what it was...
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~c557506/index.htl
University of Missouri at Columbia (English)
******************************************************************************
The world is so full of a number of things
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.. -RLS
******************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 02:32:03 -0500 (CDT)
From: Darlene Sybert
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Cain and J35
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Thanks for expanding on Cain, Tom...and I apologize for my quip... I
thought you were just being witty so I didn't even take time to
consider a serious connection. I thought your explication made sense...and
I'll keep it in mind while reviewing the next couple weeks--Blake and
Byron both.> >
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: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 06:00:02 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: Cain and J35
Message-Id: <960728060002.2020bab8@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Good stuff, Tom
rpy
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 09:14:12 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: BLAKE@albion.com, RPYODER@ualr.edu
Subject: 2 more points on *J*38[43] -Reply
Message-Id:
Dear Paul, In this case, I don't think Los is in error to urge the Eternals to
try to save Albion from falling ever further into the delusions of the
SElfhood. Blake describes, elsewhere, how Africa once fell into a
potentially fatal `Sleep' and how he was recovered from this alluring
descent into the state of Experience by divine mercy. Help comes too
late for Albion, so he descends into the Selfhood and all that once was
within his bosom is given permanent form in the abyss. Blake's point is
that all Eternals have the freedom to contract into their Selfhoods and to
fall into the deadly `Sleep' of the Soul represented by that of Albion.
However, God is merciful and tries to prevent the `Sleep' from becoming
dangerous to the sleeping soul , or Eternal. Thus, I see the passages in
line with Blake's compassionate exploration of the relationship between
God and man - not as an isolated example of irony. Albion, overcome by
delusions, of course resists those who would help him back to sanity
and the mental health of Innocence. Thel, unlike Albion, listens to those
who would help her and is thus safely restored to the Vales of Bliss
instead of falling into Experience. Ironically, however, the critics
generally present her as weak in refusing to take on the challenges of
mortal existence and the woes of fleshly love. Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 09:32:34 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, chaz@take3soft.com
Subject: Re: More Keys to Jerusalem -Reply
Message-Id:
Dear Charlie, For someone not used to writing about literature, I think
your instincts are very sound. I liked what you said very much and
would like to add that , in addition to all the spirituality in Blake which you
rightly perceive, there is the bonus of a story-line as the visionary
vignettes he provides us with all evoke the Fall of man in a sequential,
cyclical narrative form. They simulataneously try to expalin how a good
God could have created a fallen world. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 09:23:17 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, tmkeiser@piper.hamline.edu
Subject: blake on stage -Reply
Message-Id:
Re your query about a Blake play set in Blake's garden. I saw, about 12
years ago, a play at the Wardour Warehouse in London which opened
with a nude Blake sitting in a tree in his garden. It was philosophical as
Thomas Paine and his ideas figured quite largely in it. I can't remember its
title. . but the Blake Society in London would know of this. Pam van
Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 12:08:24 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: _MHH_ and Taste -Reply
Message-Id:
>>>
"The cistern contains: the fountain overflows
One thought. fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you."
Randall asks:
Why DO children have a Disneyland-like fun ride on a serpent in "Thel"
and "America"? Are they just... being TAKEN for a ride?
I think that they're portrayed as having a happy ride - for a change -
because all things will ultimately revert to being divinely human. As in the
Lyca poem, even the Devourers of this world can become
compassionate and cry tears of `gold' because, when they recover their
particpation in the divine humanity, they simultaneously recover the
capacity ot be merciful.
Randall asks: Where's the path that the argument is talking about?
Climbing up or down a tree constitutes a path?
In Kabbalah, the radiances of the Tree of Life are joined by shining
`paths' so, yes, the `tree' has `paths' - and so, I believe, does tha brain
since neural paths are laid down by our choices and actions - some
becoming virtual highways and others, the path `less-travelled'. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 12:36:23 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: MCGANN, THE GHETTO, AND ME -Reply
Message-Id:
Yes,Ralph, I'll witness to the truth of all that you say in this posting. Cant
and jargon and all the protean forms of political correctness that lead to
the next stonified strata of society and new mental chains do need to be
challenged and in doing so, I think you continue a mental struggle which
Blake would have applauded. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 12:52:22 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
Subject: Re: Divisions of Blake -Reply
Message-Id:
Just a very brief comment before leaving work on what you said re the
Prolific and Devourer. Blake, I think, always equates the Devourer with
characters such as the Worm in the Rose, the Tiger in the Forests of the
Night and all who endorse Urizenic thinking - that is, denying the divine
vision of selfless love - which, of course, includes hypocrites of all
types, even in the Priesthood. The Prolific I think Blake sees as all those
who continually fight against those who murder (`devour') the truth
about man's divine origins and the abundant mercy of a loving God. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 05:59:24 -0500 (CDT)
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: BLAKE@albion.com
Subject: re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] -Reply
Message-Id: <960729055924.2020ce95@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Thanks for the comments, Pam. Basically I agree with you that Los is not in
error to urge the Friends of Albion to try to save Albion, and I also agree
that this is not some isolated moment of irony, but part of Blake's
exploration of the divine/human relationship. But part of that relationship
is in the incongruity between what seems best to Los (or other characters)
and what the Divine Will feels obliged to do. Several times in *Jerusalem*
Jesus tells different characters that he must do things with which they
disagree; for example, at one point he tells Jerusalem (I think) that even
Vala and Luvah must be redeemed because "I cannot leave them in the gnawing
grave" (quoted from memory).
Also, I'm not convinced that going back into Innocence is the answer for Blake,
certainly not for later Blake. It is much more a matter of going *through*
the fiery furnace. I have argued elsewhere that issue is not one of
organizing Innocence but of organizing Experience.
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 08:56:39 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: BLAKE@albion.com, RPYODER@ualr.edu
Subject: re: 2 more points on *J*38[43] -Reply -Reply/ LOS< JESUS
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Disposition: inline
Dear Paul, I'm glad you raise the points you do because they present
problems in interpretation which I have tried to wrestle with in my own
work. As I read the longer poems, the only time that Los is out of tune
with the divine will is when he becomes subject to Urizenic delusion
(becoming what he beholds, so that his own spectre of Selfhood rises
against him). Because Los succeeds in subduing his Spectre, he is able
to gather the scattered divine sparks and so help Albion recover his
integrity or wholesome fullness within the divine will. Because he
gathers the scattered divine light of Albion in his Furnaces, he can
restore some of the beauty -even in the fallen world - of Albion.
However, only Jesus, by casting himself into the Furnaces of Affliction
of mortal life can, by his perfect example of selflessness, set the
example in human (rather than archetypal) terms which - if mortals
imitate - can redeem them from the state of Error in which they live in
their Selfhoods.
Jesus, of course, must redeem all of those who once lived in harmony
within Albion's bosom in Eternity. He knows that sin is not what Urizen
sees as sin and that those engrossed in the Selfhood on earth are simply
in a state of Error which must be cast off like a rotten garment. Naturally,
though, those who have assumed these rotten garments of mortal flesh
are afraid to cast them off, equating these with death. Thus, both Los
and Jesus can be seen as fulfilling the divine will which allows for
expansion into the divine bosom and its contrary - contracting into Error.
But the divine will , in mercy and pity, sets a limit to the Fall because if
such a `limit' were not set, the result would be that the divine sparks of
Albion would dissipate into the dark abyss, there becoming more and
more `disorganiz'd' so that Albion would atomise into Eternal Death. The
contrary of this is the Organization of light into its original form in Eden. I
therefore see no reason to postulate an early Blake and later Blake
which, in my opinion, only adds fuel to those who regard Blake as
schizoid. Whle his earlier poems do have a pastoral touch reminiscent
of Spencer and the `Ginat' forms of his epic are only deveoped in his
longer , later poems, I see coherence of vision throughout BLake in the
sense that he consistently champions that which is Christ-like within us
and urges us to cast out all that is not-human, in the fullest sense of the
word. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 09:11:49 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
Subject: Joseph of Arimathea -Reply
Message-Id:
Dear Jennifer, I think you are right about Jesus accompanying Joseph of
Arimathea.. I heard something similar when I was recently in
Glastonbury. Also, there is, indeed, a close connection between the
Lamb of God and Jerusalem because in Innocence they are `one' in will
and intellect -as are all the other masculine and feminine spirits.
Jerusalem is the `Bride' and `Emanation' of the Lamb and sometimes
appears like a cloud of light enfolding Him like a garment, and sometimes
as a lovely, rainbow winged female, and sometimes as the holy city on
Mount Zion. Similarly, all the other emantions are protean in character
and vary their appearance , reflecting and fulfilling every desire of their
male partners. This harmony is not something which should provoke
feminists to fury, but is like the yin-yang of Eastern philosophy. This
view, of course, brings me into strong disagreement with those (such as
Alicia Ostriker and Anne Mellors) who see Blake as giving males free
rein in Eden while the females tend the children in `inferior' Beulah.
Pam van Schaik, Unisa, Pretoria
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 11:22:16 -0400
From: "Rick Van Valkenburg"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Streaming Blake's Urizen
Message-Id: <19960730151524.AAA19143@ppp20.spacelab.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi. I recently discovered this list and I thought I would de-lurk to
introduce myself and to inform you about the extraTEXTure Web edition of
The First Book of Urizen
In an attempt to make reading off a computer monitor more accessible and
provide a different way to experience the words I have presented the entire
text verse by verse. That is each verse is a separate file with buttons
linking to the next verse or to a table of contents page.
I would appreciate any feedback on this method.
I was excited by the aesthetic of Blake's words streaming verse by verse
through the void, but practically speaking it works best during low traffic
times (although the files are small, about 1K, and tend to load fast).
The URL is http://haven.ios.com/~wordup/blake/urpr.html
It works well with most browsers, but surprisingly there seemed to be a
problem with Netscape 1.* aligning the text properly, but it works as
intended with versions 2.0 and up.
grace be w/ ye,
Rick van Valkenburg
Publisher
////\\\\
word
\\\\////
http://www.spacelab.net/~upword
////\\\\
word
\\\\////
http://haven.ios.com/~wordup
\\\\////
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 15:14:31 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Eternity and Blakean Evolution
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Pam:
I really like your point of view, but... I just don't see it.
Eternity is made up of Time and Space, isn't it? Los and the ever-awful
Enitharmon hold it all together (at least, in "Europe" she's a horror! And
Los isn't exactly nice to his first-born in Book of Urizen, is he? But they
CHANGE... move through STATES...). So I disagree with what you think
"eternity" ALWAYS (?) is with Blake, because much of the time I find the
ever-handy FIRST definitions in Damon's Blake Dictionary for "eternity" to
be something to which I can relate. Your eternity sounds like the
ever-after with Jesus. Am I wrong?
Then... the tyger. Always a devourer? Endorsing Urizenic reasoning? What?
Because it sounds like, maybe if you read later Blake, LOS, not Urizen,
hammered it out in the _Songs_ poem? "The tygers of wrath of wiser then the
horses of instruction."-MHH. Hey, sometimes you have to burn down a house
to build a new one. So isn't this statement potentially prolific, not
merely devouring?
The serpent in America... are you SURE those kids aren't being taken for a
ride? Orc saved the day... but what IS he, other than a fiery anarchist? If
the kids are happy, someone else is crying in that last plate. Justice?
Doesn't seem fair.
The path that the just man is on in Marriage of Heaven and Hell... how many
people, in Blake's time, would have known that definition of a "path" as
climbing a tree? I see the tree as a metephor for a path only because Blake
has placed it on the same plate as the description. It expands my vision of
what he's describing, but literally you can't follow it... up up up... into
the barren climes. Unless it's a Jack in the Beanstalk situation for him to
hop off and get honey bees to sing and roar with lions.
To me, if I were to follow your explanation on the last 3 points, it would
reduce the elasticity of Blake... how he sometimes says one thing but draws
another... as is obvious in Tyger, Tyger" and I tried to show in my Book of
Urizen and Orc's Bum Rap posts (I admit these were sarcastic, but they were
based on visual-verbal CONTRAST to show how Blake expands, not contracts,
our doors of perception).
Still, I'm interested in this all-in-one Blake theory of yours. Please...
more! And plate, line # references, perhaps?
Thanks-
Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/blake.html
"Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement,
are roads of Genius."
---Plate 10, line 66, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 96 16:44:29 EDT
From: Kevin Lewis
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Eternity and Blakean Evolution
Message-Id: <9607302053.AA03945@uu6.psi.com>
Blake did not aim for elasticity. Where could anyone ever get the idea
that "eternity" is made up of time and space! Have an afternoon? Read the
columns on "eternity" in the _OED_. I thought Pam's comments were
insightful, learned, and unusually sensitive to the historical Blake.
Kevin
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Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 17:55:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Avery F. Gaskins"
To:
Subject: Re: Eternity and Blakean Evolution
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The traditional view of eternity is that it is both timeless and spaceless.
That is: Eternity equals Infinity. That shouldn't rule out sequences of events,
but they may have now objective measurement as to length.
Avery Gaskins
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Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 17:57:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Avery F. Gaskins"
To:
Subject: Re: Eternity and Blakean Evolution
Message-Id:
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Sorry about the typo. "now objective measurement" should be "no objective
measurement."
Avery Gaskins
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End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #96
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