blake-d Digest Volume 1996 : Issue 99
Today's Topics:
Re: LYCA
Re[2]: Thel -Reply -Reply
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Re: LYCA
RE: Thel -Reply
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
blake and biblical hermeneutics
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply -Reply
Re: LYCA -Reply
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply -Reply
Re: LYCA
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply -Reply
Re: blake and biblical hermeneutics
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 10:49:52 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
Subject: Re: LYCA
Message-Id:
If the Earth did, indeed, `arise and seek/ For her maker meek' as Blake
prophesies in "The Little Girl Lost", would earth not begin to resemble `a
garden mild' in which humble, divinely eloquent beings such as the Lily of
the Valley would be seen in both her human and flowery forms?
Lyca, it would seem, has lived all of her seven years in a place where
`summer's prime' never fades away. At first, this sounds as if it could
be on earth in equatorial Africa, but what relates this poem, in my mind,
with the events and imagery in The Book of Thel, is the way in which this
very young child empathises with the grief of her mother and father,
caused by the child's own desire to `sleep'. This, in itself, makes me
suspend belief in an earthly setting for the events of this poem. Rather, it
makes sense to see Lyca as succumbing to the torpor which overcomes
the expansive senses of all the spiritual beings in Innocence at one time
or another. For, Repose is the Contrary of Energy and is necessary to
existence. However, there are dangers in falling into too deep a `Sleep'
and in wandering into the regions of Beulah furthest removed from God's
sustaining fiery energy. That is, having `wander'd long' , delighted with
`wild birds' song', Lyca has strayed into the lowest, darkest portions of
Beulah, lit by the Moon, where `Sleep' can more easily overwhelm the
being.
In Blake's poem "Night", guardian angels roam these darker spiritual
regions where, because beings can lapse (or have already lapsed) into
their Selfhoods, one thing can devour another, and divine protection is
needful.
Lyca invokes `Sleep' but offers to refrain from it, if it would prevent her
mother from weeping: "How can Lyca sleep/ If her mother weep?"
Ultimately, however, she lapses through weariness after long wandering
into `Sleep'. Luckily, though, the realsm into which she has strayed are
still sufficiently within the realms of Innocence for the wild creatures -
the Leopards and Tigers - to have retained their divine humanity so that,
as in "Night", they perform a sacramental role rather than savaging the
child. On the still `hallow'd ground' where she lapsed into `Repose',
they weep tears of compassion and the lioness conveys her sleeping
form to the safety of a cave where her eternal form will await her return
from mortal birth and restoration to the realms of eternal day. Albion is
similarly laid on a golden Couch until such time as he shall awaken from
his `Sleep'. When Lyca's parents, not comprehending the fate of their
child, seek her, weeping, they encounter the divine human form of the
Lion. Seeing his golden `crown' - a token of his inner spiritual majesty
and of the fact that he has been crowned by the Prince of Love (as are
others in The Book of Thel) , and being shown the eternal form of their
child, they are comforted and await the return of their loved one without
grief or fear of the denizens of the wilderness in Beulah. They see that
God's mercy extends even to the wilderness.
How does this interpretation strike you? It is one I have been sending to
my students in Tutorial Letters for many years , this being a
correspondence university. Pam van Schaik , Unisa
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 11:52:06 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu,
agourlay@risd.edu
Subject: Re[2]: Thel -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Dear Mary-Lynn, I find some difficulties with your reading, just as you
probably do with mine (which I posted prior to reading yours, so will try
to avoid repetition of ideas here). We agree that Thel is asking
meaning-of-life questions, but whereas you perceive these as existential
as well as `about sexuality', I see them as existential and primarily about
grasping the central significance of the incessant flux of all things in
Eden and Beulah.
If THel is a mortal on earth, why is she described as the `youngest' of
the `daughters of Mne Seraphim'? Surely she is among those who live
in the tempered beams of God's beams of love in the pastoral spiritual
realms of what in the later poems, is known as Beulah, and there tends
her sheep? The fact that she seeks the `secret air' to `fade away' from
her present state of existence in which she feels unfulfilled precisely
because all things fade and dissolve continually - in order not to become
entrenched in a permanent Sefhood - can be seen as distinctly unearthly
-despite the fact that BLake uses the term `mortal day'. Thel herself , in
her inexperience of the principles of Innocence, views such transience
as being indicative of her own mortality so this word cannot be
interpreted literally. Her desire to fade away into a reposeful `Sleep' is
parallel to Lyca's desire to `sleep' the `sleep of death'.
The `grave' can therefore logically be seen as entry into mortal birth.
However, if your interpretation is correct, and Thel is mortal and rejects
the `death' of her body, as you suggest , then why, when she enters
the `grave' imaginatively, does she see not rotting bones, but images of
sexual love in a body with contracted senses? I simply can't follow the
logic of this perception of her and saying that she encounters her `buried
self' in the `grave' doesn't clarify anything for me.
There is no need to impose an overly schematised four-fold pattern of
Eden, Beulah, Generation, Ulro derived from later poems on Thel, but it
does help in interpreting the poem to be aware that all of BLake's poems
refer ultimately to what the soul once was in Innocence and what it has
become. How the Rose becomes a Fungus and Womb and all things
darken and contract is absolutely central to his vision, even as early as
the `Songs'. For example, where has the speaker in "London" been, if
not in realms where everyone is universally happy and free as opposed
to those in fallen London-Babylon who are bound and sullen? In any
case, I think critics do over-schematise what is meant by fourfold in
BLake. In Eternity, where all the ZOas co-operate with one another in
the Eternal, Albion, the fact that four of them continually intermingle their
essences and visions means that they are at least sixteen-fold, but can
be infinite in their permutations.
Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 07:55:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Avery F. Gaskins"
To:
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
Content-Type: Text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
As I read "The Book of Thel" I understand Thel's repulsion with death and all
it entails, but I think she is equally repelled by that last series of quest-
ions, spoken by the voice of experience (cynicism). The negative self-pity
expressed in those lines is something she cannot bring herself to endure.
Avery Gaskins
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 09:53:55 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Pam,
Perhaps "reeking of mortality" was too strong a phrase, but Thel does come
"to her own grave plot," which makes her sound mortal to me. I agree that
the poem works as an allegory to show that physical mortality is not the
limit of our existence, but for that to work, it seems Thel needs to be
mortal as well; otherwise we'd be comparing apples to oranges. Also, why
does Blake keep calling her a virgin if virginity isn't relevant at some
level?
You say that mortal life is the grave of all that Innocence is. Does that
mean that the children in the Songs of Innocence aren't real children, that
the infant in "Infant Joy" hasn't physically been born? I agree that the
fall is the forgetting of innocence, but that need not coincide with the
moment of birth.
Like The Book of Thel, The Visions of the Daughters of Albion ends with a
long series of questions, some of which address similar themes:
Does not the eagle scorn the earth & despise the treasures beneath?
But the mole knoweth what is there, & the worm shall tell it thee.
Does not the worm erect a pillar in the mouldering church yard?
And a palace of eternity in the jaws of the hungry grave
Over his porch these words are written. Take thy bliss O Man!
And sweet shall be thy taste & sweet thy infant joys renew!
To be reconciled to mortality does not necessarily mean to accept its
finality, but to find the door of eternity opening beyond it, as the worm
does here. That enables human beings to embrace the spiritual joys of the
body, as Oothoon passionately exhorts them to do, without fear of eternal
death.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 10:01:20 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: LYCA
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Pam,
I haven't spent as much time working with the Lyca poems as you obviously
have, but I wonder if you aren't reading the meaning of "sleep" back from
the later poems onto the earlier ones. Is sleep ever as sinister in the
Songs as it is when Albion falls asleep? The children resist sleep in
"Nurse's Song," but in "Night," to which you refer, the angels encourage
sleep:
If they see any weeping,
That should have been sleeping
They pour sleep on their head
And sit down by their bed.
There's also "A Cradle Song," and of course the chimney sweeper Tom has his
vision of liberation while he sleeps. If imagination falls asleep, that is
fatal, but the sleep of the body can enable imagination. I just think that
distinction needs to be made.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 15:52:45 +0100 (BST)
From: Jane Bruder
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: Thel -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I have recently subscribed to this newsgroup on behalf of my sister Dr
Helen Bruder as she does not have access to the internet or e-mail. I
notice that her name is mentioned in connection with an ongoing debate on
the Book of Thel. She has asked me to let subscribers know her home
address if they wish to contact her with regard to her work on the Book
of Thel,her forthcoming book "William Blake and the daughters of Albion"
or indeed any aspect of Blake studies. Her address is
Dr Helen P. Bruder, 187 Divinity Road, Oxford OX4 1LP U.K.,
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 21:45:09 -0600
From: "Jeffrey Skoblow"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Message-Id: <9608070247.AA19006@daisy.ac.siue.edu>
Jennifer writes to Pam:
I agree that the
> fall is the forgetting of innocence, but that need not coincide with the
> moment of birth.
But this confuses me, at least in relation to Blake. If there is a
Fall, in Blake, it seems to me that it occurs with Urizen-- his is
the moment after which nothing is ever again the same, after which
there is nothing but struggle-- and this is way before any questions
of innocence and experience arise: or rather, questions of innocence
and experience (which are questions of Time and Space) only arise
after Urizen separates himself out from Eternity (altho "after" is a
poor fiction here, since all Eternal events-- like Urizen's isolation
of himself-- have always been: there's no before or after here--
hence no Fall, I suppose). Urizen creates his world, horrifying to
the Eternals tho a part of Eternity itself-- and among the conditions
of this world he makes are these questions of innocence and
experience. That's why, I think, there's no point really in
valorizing one over the other-- hey let's get back to innocence, hey
let's move on to experience-- I mean, it's not like we have a choice
in this matter. We live in a world (postlapsarian if you like) in
which innocence and experience are given, in which our existence is
defined in such terms. If we are to transcend this Vegetable Ratio,
it will not be back toward innocence but beyond both innocence and
experience-- toward the Eternal (or the Imagination).
No?
Jeffrey Skoblow
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 23:32:02 -0500 (CDT)
From: Rachel Wagner
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: blake and biblical hermeneutics
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I am currently a graduate student at the University of Iowa working on a
PhD in the Bible and literature, and I am based primarily in the religious
studies department. By May, I will have completed my comprehensive exams
and will be on my way to writing my dissertation, which will build upon
scholarship of people like E.P. Thompson, Leslie Tannenbaum, Molly Ann
Rothenberg, John Mee, Robert Essick, Jerome McGann, and others, by
exploring the precarious status of authority and revelation in the
context of biblical interpretation in the late eighteenth century, and
how this affected specifically Blake's incorporation of biblical genres
and types into his own poetry. McGann offers one of the most valuable
investigations to date of the possible conduits for Blake's knowledge of
Higher Criticism, by suggesting that Alexander Geddes shared his
expertise with Blake during the Johnson circle meetings. Rothenberg
offers a valuable follow-up to McGann, by attempting to posit Blake
within the higher critical debate, but she treats of it only briefly, and
primarily in the context of her larger, more philosophically oriented,
debate. What I propose to do for my dissertation is to dig into the
biblical commentaries themselves, and try to build upon what people like
Hans Frei (The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, 1974) have started. I want
to trace the movement of the hermeneutical crisis from the elite academic
circles to its popular manifestation in pamphlets, popular biblical
commentaries, and printed sermons. In his annotations to An Apology for
the Bible, Blake claims to be able to identify a hundred biblical
commentaries in conversation with Paine's The Age of Reason. Whether
this is hyperbole or not, Blake certainly read a number of commentaries
in addition to what can be explicitly identified as being part of his
library. I believe that by further clarifying the shape of the crisis of
biblical interpretation as it spread to the common reader, we will gain a
clearer picture of what was actually "in the air," and what Blake may
have gleaned from popular publications, and from his stints in Johnson's
print shop. From this, we may clarify the issues surrounding revelation
and authority, and read his texts with an eye to the WAY in which Blake
read the Bible, in addition to WHAT he read in it.
I am in the process of applying for a Fulbright grant to conduct research
in London. I am looking specifically for people willing to meet with me
there, for unofficial guidance, for discussion, and for conversation. If
any of you are willing, or know of any Blake scholars or other folks
interested in Blake who might be willing to serve as a contact for me
next fall, it would be appreciated. Does anyone know how to find Dave
Worrall, or perhaps he is lurking already on the list, undetected? My
advisor, Mary Lynn Grant, suggested I try to find him to support me in
London.
Any guidance will be welcomed.
What are we to make of the hermeneutical crisis anyway? Blake was an
active participant in the debate, that's clear. But what exactly is his
position? Paine was a pure-blooded Deist, and Watson a fairly typical
conservative. What do we make of Blake's contribution? Is it unique?
It has already been suggested by a number of scholars that Blake
intended his "Bible of Hell," whichever writings he considered these to
be, to constitute a direct response to the crisis of the authority of
the biblical canon. But if the Bible is the "Great code of Art," its
value is not so severely demeaned as may first appear. If its value
lies not in its historical accuracy, nor in its moral validity, what
value does it hold for Blake? That is is sheer poetic inspiration does
not seem to be enough, since poetry is meant to ignite the reader to
"self-annihilation" and recognition of the Divine Human. How could a
text so "corrupt" as the Bible serve this purpose? I am in the midst of a
research paper, the babe in arms of my
dissertation. I will contribute my thoughts more fully later. In the
meantime, any comments and conversation are welcome.
Rachel Wagner
University of Iowa
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 09:07:36 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, jskoblo@daisy.ac.siue.edu, jskoblo@siue.edu
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Dear Jeffery, I construe the Eternal worlds to be those of Innocence and
Albion - because of Urizen's turning away from the selfless divine vision
of love in which the holy unions of Jesus and Jerusalem are the apex
of everyone's aspirations - progressively fades away into `Sleep'. This
is not the `gentle' Sleep (a necessary contrary to the fiery Energy of
Eternal Delight, which must occur frequently and without harm in
Innocence) but one which stonifies the senses to such a degree that
Los' s incessant labours are required to reillumine and reinvigorate the
cold body of Albion and restore his senses to their orignal fluxile,
expansive nature. I don't know if this answers the questions you raise
because, in seeing the Fall as I do, the same problems don't arise for me.
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 10:23:18 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
Subject: Re: LYCA -Reply
Message-Id:
I think you're right to make the distinctions you do re sleep as repose of
the body as opposed to the grand seizure of ALbion . In an earlier reply
today, before reading your posting, I also distinguished between Repose
as a necessary contrary to Energy in the spiritual realms of Innocence. It
is only when `Sleep' causes the divine vision of love (in which there is
no permanence for fear that the Self will seem greater than unity in
Brotherhood and Sisterhood) to seem like delusions of an `overheated
brain' or to fade into oblivion, that `Sleep' becomes fatal to the spirit. I
actually don't often get to teach Lyca. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 10:39:55 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Dear Jennifer, Re the term `Virginity' - this is a complex matter but I think
of this word in wider terms than sexuality because I relate it to Blake's
saying: "The soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd" and telling Satan
that he is but a dunce for thinking that his moral laws can ever `change
Kate into Nan'. This, I take to mean, that Jerusalem and all who love and
emulate her can never be a `harlot' as Urizen mistakenly perceives her to
be because all desire to unite with her in Innocence. By analogy, none
of us born into the state of Error which is Experience are sinners (as
Urizen and all the earthly cohorts of those who set themselves up as
moral judges of others deem us to be). Since we all will become again
what once we were, none can be deemed `impure' - only the State of
Error must be cast off. Thus, `Virgin' for me has connotations of
unsullied integrity of soul.
The words you quote from the end of "Visions of the Daughters of
Albion", re the worm releasing the soul from the rotting body in my
opinion suggest that the released soul can once again disport itself in
`palaces of eternity' - and so are perfectly consistent with the view
expressed in The Book of Thel in which even the lowly Worm is seen as
having a divine utility and capacity to be of service to others.
I see all the children in the "Songs' as being real children. Don't quite
understand the problem here. The babe in "Infant Sorrow" certainly
knows it is entering a limited existence, though, and sulks accordingly.
Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 10:34:32 -0500 (CDT)
From: Darlene Sybert
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: LYCA
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, P Van Schaik wrote:
>
> How does this interpretation strike you? It is one I have been sending to
> my students in Tutorial Letters for many years , this being a
> correspondence university. Pam van Schaik , Unisa
In fiction writing classes, we learn and/or teach that you have succeded
in creating believable characters when people start talking about them as
if they were real people. By this standard, Blake was certainly successful,
not only in creating characters like Thel, Oothoon, Los, etc, but in
creating a system that takes on a life of its own--and comes to seem like
a reality to his readers.
Even though his poems have totally different characters, locations and
"truths" to communicate, their meanings are interpreted by reference to
each other and a consistency is expected between them. As though
a rosetti stone were being used to figure out these symbols here and
those in the next poem... Is there convincing evidence beyond his proverb
about creating his own system so he won't be subjected to another's that
Blake expected his works to be interpreted as one whole piece? There
doesn't seem to be concern about the values or meanings in individvual
poems as much as a concern with working it into its place in his system.
Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with that, but does it
cause us to miss some of the aesthetic values and other meanings of--at
least--some of his poems?
Darlene Sybert
http://www.missouri.edu/~c557506/index.htl
University of Missouri at Columbia (English)
******************************************************************************
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
It's loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
-John Keats "Endymion"
******************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 08:23:56 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Dear Pam,
I heartily agree on the wider connotations of the terms "virgin" and
"harlot," but wouldn't you agree that the terms themselves grow out of a
Urizenic view in which the "comminglings" of delight are limited by the
body and therefore must be govered by moral codes? So to refer to someone
as a virgin implies mortality, though it doesn't prove it, of course.
>The words you quote from the end of "Visions of the Daughters of
>Albion", re the worm releasing the soul from the rotting body in my
>opinion suggest that the released soul can once again disport itself in
>`palaces of eternity' - and so are perfectly consistent with the view
>expressed in The Book of Thel in which even the lowly Worm is seen as
>having a divine utility and capacity to be of service to others.
Exactly. That's why I don't understand the reading of the vales of Har as
a place free from death: the worm can't do its job without death.
>I see all the children in the "Songs' as being real children. Don't quite
>understand the problem here.
I somehow got the impression that you were reading Innocence as a prenatal,
pre-embodied state. But I don't mean to drive this issue into the ground.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 96 08:41:17 EDT
From: Kevin Lewis
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: blake and biblical hermeneutics
Message-Id: <9608071258.AA03820@uu9.psi.com>
Rachel,
Yours is an exciting project, at least for someone like me in the religious
studies area. And I hope you will get help and keep your enterprise going.
Sounds as though you've got a good foundation.
You are probably in a good position to explicate one of my favorite passages
from the letter to Trusler (August 23, 1799), where Blake has been commenting
on how differently he "sees" the world by contrast to other men. He observes:
"Why is the Bible more Entertaining & Instructive than any other book.
Is it not because they are addressed to the Imagination which is
Spiritual Sensation & but mediately to the Understanding or Reason
Such is True Painting and such [was] alone valued by the Greeks &
the best modern Artists." [Erdman 1988, 702f]
How would one guess from this that Blake had been reading biblical commentaries
or other discourses on biblical interpretation theory? I sense that this is
the case, which is why I like your project so much, but what can be established
?
Kevin Lewis
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 10:17:04 -0600
From: pdecote@siue.edu (pamela and jack decoteau)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
ich nothing is ever again the same, after which
>there is nothing but struggle-- and this is way before any questions
>of innocence and experience arise: or rather, questions of innocence
>and experience (which are questions of Time and Space) only arise
>after Urizen separates himself out from Eternity (altho "after" is a
>poor fiction here, since all Eternal events-- like Urizen's isolation
>of himself-- have always been:
>Jeffrey Skoblow
Jeff, elaborate for me please, how time and space are innocence and
experience? Jack
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 22:31:32 -0600
From: "Jeffrey Skoblow"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
Message-Id: <9608080340.AA17516@daisy.ac.siue.edu>
Hello, Jack.
I didn't mean to say that innocence and experience *are* time and
space (as in *equal* time and space)-- what I meant to say was that
questions of inn & exp only arise in the context of t & s: that in
Eternity there are no questions of innocence and experience, that
these are fleshly concerns. Or maybe (since I think Everything, for
Blake, happens in Eternity, even the stuff that happens in this
confused/confusing zone of it, this vegetable ratio universe) it
would be better to say that innocence and experience are
temporal/spatial ways of understanding what goes on, sort of
temporal/spatial translations of Eternal goings-on.
Is that any clearer, or less so?
Jeffrey
> Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 10:17:04 -0600
> To: blake@albion.com
> From: pdecote@siue.edu (pamela and jack decoteau)
> Subject: Re: Thel -Reply -Reply
> Reply-to: blake@albion.com
> ich nothing is ever again the same, after which
> >there is nothing but struggle-- and this is way before any questions
> >of innocence and experience arise: or rather, questions of innocence
> >and experience (which are questions of Time and Space) only arise
> >after Urizen separates himself out from Eternity (altho "after" is a
> >poor fiction here, since all Eternal events-- like Urizen's isolation
> >of himself-- have always been:
> >Jeffrey Skoblow
> Jeff, elaborate for me please, how time and space are innocence and
> experience? Jack
>
>
>
>
--------------------------------
End of blake-d Digest V1996 Issue #99
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