Today's Topics:
Blake list reopens
is anybody out there?
texst
Re: anti-patriarch-reply -Reply
Re: anti-patriarch-reply -Reply
Interesting parallels -Reply
Theology vs. psychology -Reply
psychology vs "psychology" -Reply
Unidentified subject!
Re: searching
Re: searching
Re: your mail
Re: your mail
Re: texst
Re: texst
Re: that great red dragon
dragon
the Last Judgment
Re: the Last Judgment
Re: the Last Judgment
Re: texst
Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply
Re: Unidentified subject!
Re: psychology vs "psychology" -Reply
Re: your thoughts on this.
Never seek to tell your love
minor Blake sighting
Re: Never seek to tell your love
Re: Never seek to tell your love--PS
Re: Never pain to tell your love
Your chance to help a Linnell!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 97 12:00:44 -0800
From: Seth T. Ross
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake list reopens
Message-Id: <9701072000.AA00226@albion.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
After a brief hiatus, the Blake Online mailing list is open
for posting.
With best wishes for the New Year,
Seth
PS To leave Blake Online, send an email message to
blake-request@albion.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the
SUBJECT field, like so:
TO: blake-request@albion.com
SUBJECT: unsubscribe
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 16:22:30 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: is anybody out there?
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I can't seem to contact the moderators to find out if I've been
unsubscribed accidentally, but I haven't received anything from the list in
two weeks. Is it just me, or has there been a holiday hiatus?
Jennifer Michael
(apparently trapped in the Mundane Shell)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 12:40:39 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul E Kayak
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: texst
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hello...?
Hello. Is anyone there?; are we subscribed? If you see Blake tell him hi.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 12:16:19 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: anti-patriarch-reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Ralph, Have just popped in to the office to see what's happening on-line
and was delighted to find your genuinely warm response of 1o
december. Just want to say that I look forward to the resumption in
March of interchanging ideas with you. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 12:27:41 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, eris@siu.edu
Subject: Re: anti-patriarch-reply -Reply
Message-Id:
I think Brian Buckman's insight into Blake's reawakening the human spirit
and treading the little trodden path of inspiration to be right on the mark -
only I would say that he saw his mission as reawakening Albion to what
he once knew in Eternity, but was misled into forgetting by Urizenic
visions of a false god and false memory of one's divine origins.
Interestingly, the thoughts he expresses re the possiblilty that literature
which departs from the controlling power of reason and follows the
visionary path may become chaotic is relevant, too, to the acceptance in
South Africa of black protest literature. At first, there was much debate
about whather angry poems which metaphorically spat on the white
society could qualify as lit -- yet, its transformative power was beyond
dispute. Anyway, I'm glad we all seem to be looking the same way re
perceiving Blake as a conduit even in this age to transforming society, if
he is rightly understood and not simply turned to whey by theorists. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 12:41:38 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, TomD3456@aol.com
Subject: Interesting parallels -Reply
Message-Id:
Tom D, Thanks for the very interesting passage you quoted from Some's
novel. I spent the Xmas break reading John Carey's "Oscar and Lucinda"
which , though less Blakean in imagery, would , I think, also appeal to
Blakeans. Inspiration figures in this , as opposed to orthodox religion
though it is basically a love story with really `odd bods' as characters.
What you quoted rings true to real life, too. My daughter spent the last
four days looking after my ex-maid's grandson, while she ( my ex-maid)
was staying with me for a visit. Reading to the child, teaching him to
swim, and swinging in the hammock with him, my daughter found her
true centre and her face was really happy ... she finds white kids too
spoiled in general to like that much and gets intense pleasure from seeing
Kagiso (which means 'peace') respond to every gift and new idea with
openness and delight. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 12:51:33 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, TomD3456@aol.com
Subject: Theology vs. psychology -Reply
Message-Id:
I think the distinctions you draw, in relating theology to threefold and
fourfold and pschology to twofold etc, very appealing... and to answer
your original question re whether Jersualem and Vala have resonance
inwardly to( my own) or the female psyche -- no, except that I've
always been more Jerusalem oriented in what I like , and how I like to be
seen by others. That is, more delighted by matters of the intellect and
spirit than by my own sexual attractiveness, or lack of it. What Urizen
represents in Blake had very real resonances at home and in the
work-place for me, and the fact that Blake had defined this Class of
person, helped me to do battle vigorously with Urizens wherever I found
them, or, they found me.... usually the latter. Urizens readily snuff a
seeming victim! Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 13:07:34 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, izak@igs.net
Subject: psychology vs "psychology" -Reply
Message-Id:
Gloudina asked whether there is an unfallen state of Vala or whether
she is then only one with Jerusalem. As I understand Blake, there is an
unfallen state of all the female emanations and male zoas - but all
become one with Jesus and Jerusalem when they are fully expanded
into God's light - where psychology and theology , as Tom intimates,
become `one'. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 08:51:35 +0000
From: sternh@WABASH.EDU
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Unidentified subject!
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
This is just to check whether ur list is down or I've somehow
gotten disconnected. I haven't received a posting in quite a while.
Bert Stern
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 1997 10:06:59 +1100
From: Billy Horton
To: blake@albion.com
Subject:
Message-Id: <1.5.4.32.19970106230659.0067e450@mail.cnl.com.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
does anybody have a blake picture entitled, "The GreatRed Dragon and the
Woman Clothed with the Sun"? I have been looking for this everywhere and
cannot find it.. Perhaps you can help.
____ _ _ _ _ _ _
| __ )(_) | |_ _ | | | | ___ _ __| |_ ___ _ __
| _ \| | | | | | | | |_| |/ _ \| '__| __/ _ \| '_ \
| |_) | | | | |_| | | _ | (_) | | | || (_) | | | |
|____/|_|_|_|\__, | |_| |_|\___/|_| \__\___/|_| |_|
|___/
Billy Horton
/ rwhpl@cnl.com.au \
\_billyhorton@geocities.com_/
IRC nick ~ BETTA
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 1997 12:26:37 -0600
From: Ross Deforrest
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: searching
Message-Id: <32D2955D.150C@prismnet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
D. Baerwald wrote:
>
> If you are the Bill Blake that lived in Cedar Falls Iowa and went to HS
> there in the 50's, give me a shout, please!
>
> Dean Baerwald
> E-Mail soter@erols.com
I am not Bill Blake from anywhere
--
Ross E. Deforrest
Visit my page at http://www.prismnet.com/~ssor
You'll be glad you did
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 15:03:08 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: searching
Message-Id: <97010715030870@wc.stephens.edu>
I wander down each row of corn
Near where the John Deere does roam
And mark how tasseled ears forlorn
In ethanol bring profit home.
Nor shall I fail to plough the land
Nor deprive Waller of settings grand,
Till I have built -- maybe Des Moines?
"Bill Blake"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 18:51:20 -0500 (EST)
From: "C. S. Beauvais"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: "C. S. Beauvais"
Subject: Re: your mail
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue, 7 Jan 1997, Billy Horton wrote:
> does anybody have a blake picture entitled, "The GreatRed Dragon and the
> Woman Clothed with the Sun"? I have been looking for this everywhere and
> cannot find it.. Perhaps you can help.
You can find a link to this picture at:
http://www.yawp.com/cjackson/blake/
Hope that helps,
.chip
---|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|----------|---------|---
-4-|---------|---------|---------|---p-p---|---------|----------|---------|---
---|-p-------|-p-p-p---|---------|-p-------|-p-------|-p-p-p-p--|-----p---|---
-4-|---p---p-|---------|-p-p-p---|---------|---p---p-|----------|-p-p---p-|---
---|-----p---|---------|---------|---------|-----p---|----------|---------|-o-
.chip
URL's
HOMEPAGE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/
BLAKE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/blake/timeline.html
ARTS & TECH>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/north/at201/test.html
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 17:11:36 -0800 (PST)
From: "M. Persyn"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: "C. S. Beauvais"
Subject: Re: your mail
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I just bought a small print of this picture at the National Gallery of
Art, where it is housed. I imagine that they could send you one, if you
were to contact them.
Mary Kelly Persyn
On Wed, 8 Jan 1997, C. S. Beauvais wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Jan 1997, Billy Horton wrote:
>
> > does anybody have a blake picture entitled, "The GreatRed Dragon and the
> > Woman Clothed with the Sun"? I have been looking for this everywhere and
> > cannot find it.. Perhaps you can help.
>
> You can find a link to this picture at:
>
> http://www.yawp.com/cjackson/blake/
>
> Hope that helps,
> .chip
> ---|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|----------|---------|---
> -4-|---------|---------|---------|---p-p---|---------|----------|---------|---
> ---|-p-------|-p-p-p---|---------|-p-------|-p-------|-p-p-p-p--|-----p---|---
> -4-|---p---p-|---------|-p-p-p---|---------|---p---p-|----------|-p-p---p-|---
> ---|-----p---|---------|---------|---------|-----p---|----------|---------|-o-
> .chip
> URL's
> HOMEPAGE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/
> BLAKE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/blake/timeline.html
> ARTS & TECH>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/north/at201/test.html
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 23:08:30 -0500 (EST)
From: MoonVI@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: texst
Message-Id: <970108222955_578339415@emout04.mail.aol.com>
Willie says "hey"
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 15:49:10 -0800
From: rene
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: texst
Message-Id: <32D583F6.20C5@pacific.net.sg>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hey yourself, Willie.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 12:56:56 MET
From: "D.W. DOERRBECKER"
To: "M. Persyn" , blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: that great red dragon
Message-Id: <574FBF36732@netwareserver.uni-trier.de>
January 9th, 1997
Yesterday, Mary Kelly Persyn responded to Billy Horton's post by
stating that
> I just bought a small print of this picture at the National
> Gallery of Art, where it is housed. I imagine that they could
> send you one, if you were to contact them. > Mary Kelly Persyn
>
and
> > On Tue, 7 Jan 1997, Billy Horton wrote: > > > does anybody
> have a blake picture entitled, "The GreatRed Dragon and the
> > > Woman Clothed with the Sun"? I have been looking for
> this everywhere and > > cannot find it.. Perhaps you can help.
"Chip" had pointed out that
> You can find a link to this picture at: > >
> http://www.yawp.com/cjackson/blake/ > > Hope that helps, >
> .chip [...] URL's >
> HOMEPAGE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/ > >
> BLAKE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/blake/timeline.h
> tml > ARTS &
> TECH>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/north/at201/test.html
> > > > > >
Now, to all this I'd just like to add that Blake interpreted the
encounter of the Woman Clothed with the Sun and the Great Red Dragon
(as described in Revelation) in more than one of his Biblical
paintings. Another version is in the Brooklyn Museum (the one which
figured in that early-80s thriller). Searching the title index in
vol. 1 of Martin Butlin's *Paintings and Drawings of William Blake*
(New Haven, Conn. and London: Yale University Press, for the Paul
Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 1981) will easily lead you
to the required information (including a list of reproductions).
Best wishes to all, and for all of 1997!
--DW Doerrbecker
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 09:12:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Joseph Viscomi
To: blake online
Subject: dragon
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Detto, there seems to be a run on the dragon. A few days ago, the Blake
Archive received this:
> From: Marco Poponi
> Subject: blake archive
>
> -- good work (in progress!)
> i surfed into your site searching for the blake's painting quoted in
> thomas harris book Red Dragon. the painting is called the red dragon and
> the sun dressed woman, or something about it, I don't know the exact
> translation.
> Can you help me to find it? Or doesn't exist at all?
> thanks in advance, i wish you good work from italy.
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
the work harris refers to is a watercolor painting called The Great Red
Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun;
it is in the Brooklyn Museum in New York, and is entry 519 in
Butlin's catalogue of drawings and paintings.
Joe
Ps. to Bill Horton:
The painting in the National Gallery is entry 520 and is titled:
The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun: 'The Devil is
Come Down."
These two paintings are part of a series of four dragon pictures; the
national gallery has another, The Great Red Dragon and the Beast from the
Sea, and the other, The Number of the Beast is 666, is in the Rosenbach
Museum and Library. See Butlin 521 and 522
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 16:04:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Marcus Rudolf Brownell
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: the Last Judgment
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
I've been studying Blake's renditions of the Last Judgment lately and am
wondering if anyone knows how many he did. I am familiar only with the
pencil drawing in the Rosenwald collection and a painting(?) in the
Stirling Maxwell collection in Glasgow. Does anybody know any other
versions and where I might find them?
Thanks,
Marcus
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 19:46:00 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: the Last Judgment
Message-Id: <97010919460081@wc.stephens.edu>
Some years ago, _Blake:An Illustrated Quarterly_ published a special
issue for a session at the MLA that reproduced several versions of
the Last Judgment (if I remember correctly). That would be a handy
aid to memory if you could find a copy. According to Butlin, the
Rosenwald drawing precedes the watercolors found in the Maxwell
collection and the royal collection. The "companion" picture,
"The Fall of Man," is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Butlin
mentions the connection of all to the earlier final plate for
_The Grave_.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1997 22:02:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Alexander Gourlay
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: the Last Judgment
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Thu, 9 Jan 1997, Marcus Rudolf Brownell wrote:
> I've been studying Blake's renditions of the Last Judgment lately and am
> wondering if anyone knows how many he did. I am familiar only with the
> pencil drawing in the Rosenwald collection and a painting(?) in the
> Stirling Maxwell collection in Glasgow. Does anybody know any other
> versions and where I might find them?
The source for all paintings and drawings is Martin Butlin's P & D of
William Blake, which lists extant versions at Petworth House, in the
collection of George Churchill Esq., at UT Austin, in the National Gallery
in DC, and in the collection of Gregory Bateson as well as those you
mention and several more lost or ghost versions and related works.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 01:19:51 -0500 (EST)
From: RONROONY@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: texst
Message-Id: <970110011950_1924355728@emout12.mail.aol.com>
I saw Blake, he said " whats the difference between an angel and a devil?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 01:34:22 -0500 (EST)
From: RONROONY@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com, TomD3456@aol.com
Subject: Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply
Message-Id: <970110013420_1044567722@emout17.mail.aol.com>
In a message dated 97-01-08 18:40:59 EST, blake@albion.com writes:
<< I think the distinctions you draw, in relating theology to threefold and
fourfold and pschology to twofold etc, very appealing... and to answer
your original question re whether Jersualem and Vala have resonance
inwardly to( my own) or the female psyche -- no, except that I've
always been more Jerusalem oriented in what I like , and how I like to be
seen by others. That is, more delighted by matters of the intellect and
spirit than by my own sexual attractiveness, or lack of it. What Urizen
represents in Blake had very real resonances at home and in the
work-place for me, and the fact that Blake had defined this Class of
person, helped me to do battle vigorously with Urizens wherever I found
them, or, they found me.... usually the latter. Urizens readily snuff a
seeming victim! Pam
>>
But in the big picture, if orc is just a part of a cycle which ends in
urizen, or visa versa, battling Urizen is just part of a vicious circle and
the only path to Eden is in the visionary words of Vala which comprises the
sea of dreams in chorus all the Daughters of Bulah whose dance mesmorizes
Luvah. This is what Milton is saying. The journey to awaken the giant Albion
is the only worthy spiritual adventure. But its not a
journey for the unhardy of spirit.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 01:36:07 -0500 (EST)
From: RONROONY@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Unidentified subject!
Message-Id: <970110013606_1208148861@emout04.mail.aol.com>
I think you mistakenly published a private message to the system adm to the
whole group..... or if you wanna know whether I got it.... I got it.
Peace.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 01:45:18 -0500 (EST)
From: RONROONY@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: psychology vs "psychology" -Reply
Message-Id: <970110014518_1275203814@emout09.mail.aol.com>
They are As One Light in Eden
They are twofold in Beulah (the dreamer and the dream)
They are in generation an infinate stream of creation. The FAMILY OF LIFE,
all the parents and offspring that ever existed!
In Ulro the emanation is entirely absorbed in the stubborn selfhood of the
inatimate.
Each celestial pathway a tick in The Clockworks of the SpaceTime continum!
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 01:52:59 -0500 (EST)
From: RONROONY@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com, TomD3456@aol.com
Subject: Re: your thoughts on this.
Message-Id: <970110015258_644812488@emout10.mail.aol.com>
How do you think Blake would have reacted to the world as it sets today?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 06:02:36 -0600
From: Bryan Scott
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Never seek to tell your love
Message-Id: <32D62FDC.5083@swtexas.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
I have been on the Internet just a couple of weeks, and have found two
great sources of Blake material, yours and one from the University of
Toronto.
The poem I was looking for, Never seek to tell thy love, was in the
Canadian collection. The problem is that it was not worded as I recall
it. Line 3 as I remember it, used doth instead of does. This would be in
agreement with Blake=92s way of preferring Biblical words.
My problem, though is with line 12. The Canadian version has: O, was no
deny, This barely fits in rhyme and meter, and has little meaning. What
I remember for line 12 is: He took her with a sigh.
>From the documentation included with the Canadian version, this poem lay
around for seventy years before publication. Was the version I remember
a rewording by poets of the period when Blake was being rediscovered? .=20
Can anyone on the network Help me with this. I live in Utopia, Texas,
100 miles from an adequate library.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 11:21:23 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: minor Blake sighting
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
In the "Education Life" section of last Sunday's New York Times, a young
woman named Tirzah was quoted in an article about dating among college
students. I couldn't help wondering if her parents got the name from Blake
or from the Song of Solomon, but I rather suspect the latter. The context
certainly made it ironic, esp. since as I recall, she was quoted as some
sort of peer sex-ed advisor.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 11:51:09 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Never seek to tell your love
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>The poem I was looking for, Never seek to tell thy love, was in the
>Canadian collection. The problem is that it was not worded as I recall
>it. Line 3 as I remember it, used doth instead of does. This would be in
>agreement with Blake=92s way of preferring Biblical words.
>
>My problem, though is with line 12. The Canadian version has: O, was no
>deny, This barely fits in rhyme and meter, and has little meaning. What
>I remember for line 12 is: He took her with a sigh.
>
>>From the documentation included with the Canadian version, this poem lay
>around for seventy years before publication. Was the version I remember
>a rewording by poets of the period when Blake was being rediscovered? .
According to Erdman's facsimile of Blake's Notebook, Blake himself changed
the word "seek" to "pain" in the first line. The notebook has "does" in
line 3 but "doth" in line 8, so some editor may have revised that for
consistency. Blake also changed "He took her with a sigh" to "O was no
deny": a reading which, as you point out, is much less clear on the face
of it.
It might be worth discussing here why the outright narrative statement is
replaced with such an enigmatic line. Any thoughts out there?
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 11:51:30 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Never seek to tell your love--PS
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I should have added in my previous message that Blake also canceled the
entire first stanza of the poem.--JM
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 14:15:27 -0500 (EST)
From: Nelson Hilton
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Never pain to tell your love
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Fri, 10 Jan 1997, J. Michael wrote:
> According to Erdman's facsimile of Blake's Notebook, Blake himself changed
> the word "seek" to "pain" in the first line. The notebook has "does" in
> line 3 but "doth" in line 8, so some editor may have revised that for
> consistency. Blake also changed "He took her with a sigh" to "O was no
> deny": a reading which, as you point out, is much less clear on the face
> of it.
>
> It might be worth discussing here why the outright narrative statement is
> replaced with such an enigmatic line. Any thoughts out there?
This thought from my _Lexis Complexes_, ch. 1:
The revision of "seek" can indeed give readers "pain," because the rare
intransitive usage with its obsolescent reflexive sense ("to take pains";
the latest OED example is 1529) greatly complicates the
imperative mood, but unless we are proposing an example without much
relevance to an actual text, the particulars and context must matter.
Generalizing the largest implications ("Never," "never") from the
seemingly slender basis of one experience (an act that carries
implications of its own), the speaker presents a complex picture of
message and audience. The awkward sequence of the tenses--especially the
present indicative "doth depart" (which parallels "does move")--the
ambiguity of "love," and the vague reference of "she" ("my heart," the
already ambiguous "love"), all work to take us into an unstable ego we
might most naturally overhear as directing imperatives to itself. At this
point our interpretation could take a psychoanalytical turn into the world
of object relations and find the manifestation of an unconscious
depressive ambivalence highly relevant to the expression of ambiguity
centering on a female-gendered love. But it should already be
imaginable that the "pain" in part implicates the speaker's
subjective state, and its inner tensions are what the text--if not the
hypothesized speaker--intends. Regarding the text as the representation
of an illocutionary act rather than some direct communication in itself
does not resolve the question of its motivation, though the additional
displacement may suggest that such texts, like the productions for the
dream work for Freud, "are not made with the intention of being
understood" (Interpretation 377).
--the entire chapter is accessible at http://www.english.uga.edu/nhilton
[The above is responding to H. P. Grice's interesting adaptation of the
poem to illustrate the flouting of the "maxim of manner"--Grice concludes
"that the ambiguities are deliberate and that the poety is conveying both
... though no doubt the poet is not explicitly saying any one of these
things but only conveying or suggesting them".]
Evidently the sigh moves from the speaker to "her" and might suggest
(thanks to the Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry database) Heywood's
translation of Ovid's _Ars Amatoria_ (1625):
Nor let my words amongst the winds depart
If thou hast mov'd her once take no deny all,
Resolve to act, or never to make tryall
(interesting echoes! "winds," "depart," "move"--not to mention Blake's
speaker's apparent inability to act). He talks the talk, she
walks the walk.
Nelson Hilton -=- English -=- University of Georgia -=- Athens
Was ist Los? "Net of Urizen" or "Jerusalem the Web"?
http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~wblake
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 18:40:39 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Your chance to help a Linnell!
Message-Id: <27215.199701101740@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello all,
This is of only somewhat tangential relevance to Blake, for which
I apologise, but hopefully it shouldn't take much bandwidth.
I'm currently chasing some references to my ancestor, John Linnell,
and there are a couple of works which someone on the list might be
able to help with details of. Ideally, I'm looking for an ISBN, but
any information, e.g. publisher, price, etc, would be of interest.
The books are:
1) Firestone, Evan Richard. John Linnell, English artist :
works, patrons, and dealers / by Evan Richard Firestone. 1993
This appears to be a US published book (or is possibly not even
a book at all). I also have a reference to it as a PhD thesis
(University of Wisconsin, 1971)
2) Essays on the Blake Followers / by Gerald E. Bentley, Jr. ...
[et al.]. 1983
Any information on these, or indeed other essays or information
on John Linnell that anyone has come across would be of great interest
to me.
My email address is timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk, and answers
would be best directed to me, rather than clogging up the list
unnecessarily.
Best wishes and thanks in advance
Tim Linnell
--------------------------------
End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #1
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