Today's Topics:
Re: Blake and Nature and Wordsworth
Re: a couple of conferences (fwd)
Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply -Reply
Re: England's other anthem -Reply
Urizenic world -Reply
Intro & Qs on Sublime
Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake (fwd)
Re: Urizenic world -Reply
Introduction -Simon Kovesi
Introduction- Simon Kovesi, P.S.
Re: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Re: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Re: Unidentified subject!
Re: Introduction -Simon Kovesi
Re: Blake and the Bible
Re: Your chance to help a Linnell! -Reply
Re: The Sublime
Re: framing the sublime
Re: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Re: Ralph Dumain Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Re: Ralph Dumain Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 13:11:01 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, DMEDEARI@mind.hcpc.uth.tmc.edu
Subject: Re: Blake and Nature and Wordsworth
Message-Id:
I think that Blake's attitude to nature emerges very clearly in "To Tirzah"
which is perfectly consistent with his views in the longer poems - that is,
that nature , being only a distorted, contracted form of eternal realities, is
misleading if we are looking to find truths, or God, through interpreting its
hieroglyphs. For Wordsworth, the divine could be found in the moral
pressure which he perceived nature to exert on him as a child and
budding poet, and nature's hieroglyphs pointed to the power and majesty
of God.. as in poems such as on the Simplon Pass and the White Doe of
Rhylstone. For Blake, the seed of all truth can only be found in eternal
fields and sown by Wisdom ( or Jesus, or the equivalent of Wisdom in
Kabbalah, which is represented by Hokhmah). Pam van Schaik.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 11:21:39 +0000 (gmt)
From: "T.J. Connolly"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: a couple of conferences (fwd)
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 11:20:19 +0000 (gmt)
From: "T.J. Connolly"
To: Francis MOUGENEZ
Subject: Re: a couple of conferences
On Wed, 29 Jan 1997, Francis MOUGENEZ wrote:
> Ref: Blake mailing-list
> Tristanne J. Connolly wrote:
> > and/or check out the web page (wowee!) at
> > http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~he-courses/research/NASSR.HTM
> > (what a mouthful!)
>
> Sorry but that address does not seem to work properly. Here is what the
> navigator answered when I looked for it :
>
> 404 Not Found
> The requested URL /~he-courses/research/NASSR.HTM was not found on this
> server.
>
> best wishes,
> Virginie
>
>
Thank you for letting me know! It is only a typo of one letter. Try
/~hc-courses/ The rest is the same. Sorry!
Speaking of the conference, I forgot to mention that Hamilton is only one
hour away from Toronto, and forty-five minutes from Niagara Falls --two
more great reasons to go....
Tristanne
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 13:25:52 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: vdemers@mailnews.rsad.edu
Subject: Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Virginia, Yes, I was speaking too loosely when I spoke of Urizens rather
than of those who have Urizenic qualities. However, I see such not
only as those who are super-rational....I see the Urizenic urge as that
which attempts to hinder others in every age in their `work'. ...as being
one with the Devourer who is always at large to devour the excesses of
those who are Prolific (to use other Blakean images) and one encounters
them everywhere, as Blake knew ... in families, where there often are
mental and physical bullies, as at school where those with physical
prowess jeer at those more intellectually inclined, ... at work, where
those with rigid views most often prevail over those less aggressive and
more fluid, or who respect inspiration, and where every age ( few
months?) produces new forms of political correctness and insistence
on toeing some newly drawn line of behaviour or rhetoric. I am certainly
not the type to go out looking for windmills to tilt at, but, as I intimated,
those with Urizenic impulses generally know who is being subversive,
as if by instinct, and hinder them if possible. That which is Urizenic
prowls the forests of the night and is the worm in the Rose. If one
exposes such to the light, uncovering their secret devourings, then
perhaps the Rose and Lamb will more easily survive. At least, these are
some of the ways in which I have found Blake relevant to life.... I was
tempted into trying to define Urizen in life-experience terms by earlier
postings asking about whether Blake's symbols have particular
relevance to us. Pam van Schaik.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 13:30:53 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk
Subject: Re: England's other anthem -Reply
Message-Id:
I agree with your interpretation of the lines ~And did those feet,...?", but
would think to add that Blake himself would really have believed that
Jerusalem herself in ancient times would, indeed, have walked on
English shores if the story of Jesus's having visited England were true...
the whole story of Joseph of Arimathea, who traded in tin, I think and
was the uncle of Jesus is relevant here, if I remember correctly. Pam van
Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 13:38:40 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, sperry@infogenics.com
Subject: Urizenic world -Reply
Message-Id:
Steve, In realting Blake to the Kabbalah, I particularly see paralleles
between Urizen and Din (rather than Binah) as Din represents the
qualities of divine rigour and judgement as oppsed to the infinite
compassion and love of Hesed. Moreover, in some kabbalistic versions
of the cause and rise of evil, Din is specifically mentioned as the `root' in
which disharmony commences. It is, however, equally true, as you
suggest, that any imbalance in the harmony between the zoas and
emanations can set in process the diminishing of god's light in the soul of
the Eternals. Blake dramatises this in evoking how Urizen's delusions
lead Luvah and Vala to `act up' and try to seize power, and in his
dramatisation of how all the Zoas try to create a world of power for
themselves in the darks of the abyss. WHen Enitharmon flees from the
embraces of Los because of the misguided moral strictures of urizen,
the reader knows that Albion is really in trouble! Pam
------------------------------
Date: 03 Feb 97 12:07:21 EST
From: Philip Benz <100575.2061@CompuServe.COM>
To: "internet:blake@albion.com"
Subject: Intro & Qs on Sublime
Message-Id: <970203170721_100575.2061_GHW133-2@CompuServe.COM>
Well, I suppose it's high time I introduced myself -- since I've
been posting messages for a week. But first, an important question.
RE: the Sublime in Blake
One of my sources(1) claims that Blake referred to Orc of the
Lambeth books as "a Sublime Energizer".
I may well be a neophyte Blakeite, but this looks downright
incorrect.
Making a quick check of the _eE_, I see that Blake used the words
"sublime" or "sublimity" a total of 69 times, and the *only* time he
used the expression "a sublime energizer" was in reference to the
Strongest Man (in _A Descriptive Catalog of Pictures_, "Number V: The
Ancient Britons"), clearly an avatar of Los.
Surely the notion of the sublime, in as much as Blake often uses it
in reference to Great Art, could not possibly apply to Orc, a lesser
manifestation of Luvah. If I've understood anything at all so far, Los
has the corner on the human creativity market.
As you see I'm grappling with the notion of the sublime in Blake. It
appears to be tied up in the opposition between inspiration and memory
and all their symbolic representatives.
Sooo... I s'pose I'd better introduce myself at last. Phil Benz,
professeur d'anglais at the Lycee Astier in Aubenas (France). I'm
preparing the agregation exam, a sort of upper-level teacher
certification, and Blake is on my list. While the official list only
includes SoI, SoE, MHH and Ur, I'm now convinced that I'll never get the
whole picture without reading all the major pieces, especially FZ.
My biggest obstacle is lack of access to a research library. Sure, I
have a nice view of the Ardeche river valley from my study window, but
it doesn't help a great deal when it comes to reading Blake. Then again,
he wanted us readers to have to grapple with the poetry ourselves, to do
some hard thinking and reinvent the wheel all on our own, so I guess I'm
not too far off from filling the shoes of his ideal reader.
I don't quite know what is appropriate to this list yet, so I'll
hold off for the time being from exposing my ideas on Blakean influences
in Mike Moorcock's oeuvre. But I will be asking (many) questions. Thanx
for listening.
Cheers, --- Phil
_________________________________________________
Notes:
(1) from the 1997 "Programme des Concours Externes de l'Agregation",
Ministere de l'Education nationale (France).
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 15:39:09 -0800 (PST)
From: "Josh J. Hansen aka Bill Blake"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake (fwd)
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 11:42:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Josh J. Hansen aka Bill Blake
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Fellow Blakeans-
First of all thank you for adding me to your list. I do hope to
receive some useful information from your group regarding the 1995 film
Dead Man and William Blake. I realize I may be in the domain of some
intellectual heavy hitters so please bear with me. I am curious as to
what your group thought of the film and if you thought Blake's work was
accurately represented. This academic quarter I will be attempting to
decipher the references in the film and how they apply to the overall
dramatic structure. Any opinions will be welcomed as I am not a Blake
scholar but I must say Jarmusch has piqued my interest. Could you
suggest a definitive work of criticism that might apply? I have a few
Northrup Frye texts and his name seems to be coming up over and over in
my research queries. Any opinions will be welcomed and assistance is
greatly appreciated.
Yours,
Josh J. Hansen
n9410677@henson.cc.wwu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 15:53:19 -0800
From: Steve Perry
To: P Van Schaik
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Urizenic world -Reply
Message-Id: <32F67A6F.F18@surf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Pam
I see your point, and agree that Urizen is definetly Din-like...
However, it has always seem to me that the top three sepheroh and, maybe
Ain Soph are something like the root, with the other seven being
emanations or that which arises from the four elemental forces, the
first three and nothing. And though I am not the greatest proponent of
a systematic comparison of anything in Blake, I rather fancy Urizen as
Binah, Luvah as Chokma, Los as Chether and Tharmas as the Ain Soph.
In other words in an unfallen state there would be just the three
sepheroh, or what is known as the golden triangle, and the fallen state
with the transactions of the "emaninating" seven. The various paths
that exist between the sephers can be seen then as
providing/illustrating the modus vivendi for the interactions in the
drama of the zoas.
P Van Schaik wrote:
>
> Steve, In realting Blake to the Kabbalah, I particularly see paralleles
> between Urizen and Din (rather than Binah) as Din represents the
> qualities of divine rigour and judgement as oppsed to the infinite
> compassion and love of Hesed. Moreover, in some kabbalistic versions
> of the cause and rise of evil, Din is specifically mentioned as the `root' in
> which disharmony commences. It is, however, equally true, as you
> suggest, that any imbalance in the harmony between the zoas and
> emanations can set in process the diminishing of god's light in the soul of
> the Eternals. Blake dramatises this in evoking how Urizen's delusions
> lead Luvah and Vala to `act up' and try to seize power, and in his
> dramatisation of how all the Zoas try to create a world of power for
> themselves in the darks of the abyss. WHen Enitharmon flees from the
> embraces of Los because of the misguided moral strictures of urizen,
> the reader knows that Albion is really in trouble! Pam
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 00:10:53 GMT
From: Chloe Gorman and Simon Kovesi
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Introduction -Simon Kovesi
Message-Id: <199702040010.AAA25437@arachnid.btinternet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hello Blake readers. My name is Simon Kovesi and I'm currently working for a PhD at the Nottingham
Trent University on an intertextual reading of John Clare. Whether I can justify references to Blake
or not remains to be seen. There is no evidence to suggest that Clare ever had access to Blake's
poetry, but there are some remarkable congruences between the two poets' work, especially in Clare's
later poems, often loosely termed the 'visionary' or 'asylum' poems. If anyone has ANY textual
information on Clare in relation to the major Romantic poets I would be more than grateful. Also,
does anyone know of a poet who died 130 odd years ago who still has a copyright on his works as
Clare does? Imagine what Blake studies would be like if one person held the copyright to all of his
work. I would love to start a discussion on this very controversial topic.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 00:21:22 GMT
From: Chloe Gorman and Simon Kovesi
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Introduction- Simon Kovesi, P.S.
Message-Id: <199702040021.AAA26320@arachnid.btinternet.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sorry, but I forgot to mention the two greatest Romantic scholars I have had the fortune to work
under: Professors Mark L. Reed and Robert Kirkpatrick of UNC at Chapel Hill, to whom I will always
owe an enormous thanks. Oh, and if anyone does have any intertextual information on the poet John
Clare, please email me at:
Chloe.Simon@btinternet.com.uk
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 18:29:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id: <199702040229.SAA05298@igc6.igc.org>
I misseed DEAD MAN in the theatres. Can someone inform us when/if it
comes out on video? BTW, there was an article on this film in
CINEASTE last year.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 08:06:15 -0500 (EST)
From: Nelson Hilton
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
_Dead Man_ is out in (US) video rental stores as of last week, but not yet
for sale.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 08:58:19 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Unidentified subject!
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>stuff too, but . . . enough. An anecdote: I took a course in Blake
>during my junior year of college. I wrote an essay on Blake's "Mental
>Traveler" for the course and received an initial grade of B. My professor
>encouraged me, however, to rewrite the essay so that I could expand my
>thesis and receive a better grade. i rewrote the essay twice, managing to
>work my way down to a C on the essay. Blake must have chuckled from the
>grave. Still, I am a babe in the woods.
Kerry, given the cyclical aspect of the poem, if you'd just done it a
couple more times you might have gotten an A!
Welcome to the list, by the way. It occurs to me that all the new members
who so kindly introduce themselves have no way of knowing who's already
here (without tediously searching the archives). I've been hooked on Blake
since my junior year of college, wrote a senior thesis on _The Four Zoas_,
and just got my PhD from Northwestern with a dissertation on "Blake's Urban
Romanticism," which I hope to turn into a book before long. I'm now an
assistant professor at the University of the South, better known as
Sewanee, in the mountains of Tennessee (a setting that manages to look
Romantic even on rainy days like this one.)
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 15:28:15 +0000 (GMT)
From: AS Rounce
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Introduction -Simon Kovesi
Message-Id: <199702041528.PAA04669@mail.bris.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> does anyone know of a poet who died 130 odd years ago who still has a
copyright on his works as
> Clare does? Imagine what Blake studies would be like if one person held
the copyright to all of his
> work. I would love to start a discussion on this very controversial topic.
>
Eric Robinson's hegemony of Clare's texts is rather lamentable, mostly
because his editing isn't particularly remarkable; you also get the
impression that he doesn't understand Clare's radical side, and thus, the
politics tend to get rather watered down. You could argue that this is no
different to the dominance over an author's work by an authoratative
edition, such as the Twickenham Pope. However, Robinson's edition's are
also so expensive that they are unlikely to help introduce Clare to a
wider audience.
Clare has suffered more than Blake even at the hands of
editors all too willing to mangle his work through repunctuating, etc.
The attitude of editors isn't really different from those in the poet's
lifetime like Lord Radstock, who would only let Clare publish on their own
conservative terms. I was amazed to hear a paper at a conference last year
that went through Taylor's 'editing' of one of Clare's poems, and then
suggested other bits that perhaps "Taylor should have put his blue pencil
through" instead!! One day, we might start realising that no one has any
right to get their blue pencil out at all, but until then, Clare continues
to be patronized.
Not entirely relevant to the Blake list, I'm afraid, but your private
e-mail address didn't work.
Best,
Adam Rounce
University of Bristol.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 11:19:39 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and the Bible
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
The pervasive illiteracy of current US culture concerning the Bible is
summed up by the fact the editors of the Norton Anthology feel obliged to
footnote a reference to the Virgin Mary.
Now, I realize this has a lot to do with the increasing diversity of our
students' backgrounds--I've encountered it in the classroom, realizing that
I can't assume everyone has been to Sunday school, just as I haven't been
through Jewish or Islamic education myself. It's too bad that the tortured
relationship between church and state in America means that all religion
has to be ignored (including Christmas) in the public schools. I'm not in
favor of institutional prayer, but some factual knowledge about the key
elements of the major world religions seems essential to grasping not only
literature, but history, art, and music as well. Of course, I also realize
I'm preaching to the converted here and not everyone thinks literature,
history, art, and music are desirable skills! In any case, I was
interested to hear that Canadians are dealing with similar issues in their
schools.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 14:48:10 +0500 (EST)
From: Meredith Thomson
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Your chance to help a Linnell! -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Tim, I hope you know that the 3 volume edition of Blake edited by
W.B.Yeats (1893) is dedicated to a Linnell (same family, though not John)
and discusses John Linnell at considerable length.
Meredith Thomson
On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, P Van Schaik wrote:
>
> Tim... I came across a fat two-volume , very old edition about Linnell in a
> bookshop right opposite the British Museum last year. If I can find the
> exact refs to this, I'll contact you again. It was a very readable ( that is,
> not filled with stuffy jargon) set, and I was allowed to borrow it for a
> few days by the owner. Pam van Schaik
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 14:00:57 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Sublime
Message-Id: <97020414005735@wc.stephens.edu>
Susan--I suspect someone will supply the full list (which I did not save)
but here are some highlights--
Samuel Holt Monk, _The Sublime: A Study in 18th Century Artistic Theory_
Vincent DeLuca, _Words of Eternity: Blake and the Poetics of the Sublime_
G. Lessing, _Laocoon_
Edward Young, _Conjectures on Original Composition_
Robert Lowth, _Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews_
Marjorie Holt Nicholson, _Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory_
William Shenstone, "Unconnected Thoughts On Gardening"
Mary Wortley Montagu, letters describing crossing the Alps
Edmund Burke, _The Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful_
Uvedale Price, _Essays on the Picturesque_
William Hogarth, _Treatise of Beauty_ (that may be wrong title)
Of course there are many other modern studies, as well as many texts
from the 18th/19th century--passages in the prose of Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Keats, mockery from Byron,etc. Good luck with your
search.
My little booklet is in the mail. Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: 04 Feb 97 16:17:26 EST
From: Philip Benz <100575.2061@CompuServe.COM>
To: "internet:VSCHAP@ALPHA.UNISA.AC.ZA"
Cc: "internet:blake@albion.com"
Subject: Re: framing the sublime
Message-Id: <970204211725_100575.2061_GHW136-1@CompuServe.COM>
Pam: << I think one has to break the `frame' of this world to `frame'
Blake's notion of the sublime... that is, one has to glean from all he
wrote what his vision of our eternal home in Eternity is like, and this
happens to have much in common with the Kabbalah, and with Hasidic 18th
century thought >>
OK, I'm game, but why just the Kabbalah? There are a lot of other
apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts that were just being translated in
Blake's day, some of which seem closely linked to his cosmology.
For instance, I understand Blake did or planned to do a series of
engravings for (one of) the apocryphal books of Enoch.
And the similarity between the Gnostic Demiurge Ialdabaoth (the
monstrous creator, the jealous god) and Blake's Urizen is striking. Was
Blake also familiar with texts like "The Secret Book of John" and "The
Hypostasis of the Archons"?
I have a harder time seeing direct connections with the Kabbala and
the Sephiroh, but it may well be that I just haven't looked deeply
enough.
How would you, Pam, or any of the others interpret Blake's reference
to "the Sublime of the Bible"? Should we read the word "Sublime" here as
simply meaning "great", "wonderful" and "super-human" -- up to and
perhaps beyond the threshold?
Cheers, --- Phil
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 14:34:07 -0800 (PST)
From: "Josh J. Hansen aka Bill Blake"
To: Ralph Dumain
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Ralph-
In the Seattle area Dead Man has been out on video for about a
week now. Miramax Pictures may or may not have a wide distribution scheme
for the film but check around. I am sure it will be worth the effort.
Yours,
Josh J. Hansen
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 16:10:19 -0800
From: george@nowhere.georgecoates.org (George Coates)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Ralph Dumain Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Dead Man is such a great film it was bound to do poorly at the box office.
Few people saw it and of those who did even fewer recognized it as a film
based on Blakean themes. Now video rental houses offer a second
opportunity to rescue this extraordinary film from the oblivion that no
doubt awaits it there as well.
I first learned about the film from a Nelson Hilton alert last summer.
For those who don't already know about this movie, Robert Mitchum performs
the role of Urizen, Johnny Depp plays Los, and Gary Farmer is a native
american called Nobody, the character closest to Blake. Thel makes a cameo
appearence in the role of a flower girl who Los meets when he 'falls'
through a saloon door onto the muddy streets of a post civil war mining
town in the wild west.
When the movie was first released some posts to the Blake List did strive
to affirm, deny, ridicule and cite many of the Blakean themes and
references that the film clearly does and does not intend to depict. On
the whole, however, discussion of Dead Man here was slim and may reflect a
bias of writers who are naturally more proficient at examining Blake's
words than they are at decoding his visual artistry. For the
insufficiently bifurcated Dead Man is a potent remedy.
A usenet search did uncover some Dead Man/Blake discussion on newsgroups
devoted to cult movies and fans of the films director, Jim Jarmusch. Many
of the postings I found on these newsgroups admired the film without
recognizing any connection to Blake.
Sasha Stone wrote:
>
> Apparantly, Jim Jarmusch's new film is not about William Blake but about
> a case of mistaken identity. Johnny Depp's character is thought to be
> William Blake, the poet, by, I think, the Indian character named Nobody.
>(I'm assuming
> American Indian).
In fact most every camera shot shows evidence of a vast Blakean
stripmining operation with mountains of metaphoric rock having been
bulldozed into serving the films exotically mythic screenplay from
beginning to end. What is truly remarkable is the quirky spin Jarmausch
puts on Blake's Proverbs of Hell. He puts these famous aphorisms to use
as a stalking horse to conceal the far more richly laced Blakean imagery
'overtly hidden' within the fabric of the films natural landscapes. Is it
because a fool and a wise man may see things differently that the 'giants'
who so plainly appear in a brief scene near the end of the film are so
difficult to identify on the first viewing?
Dead Man is constructed by Jarmusch with a grammar of icons stolen from
Blake's visual and poetic imagery ripped from their frames and
reconfigured into a Blakean world of his own design. In the end Dead Man is
as much a tribute to the powers of Jarmusch's cinematic imagination as it
is to the films true director, W B himself.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 20:29:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert McNamara
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Ralph Dumain Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Tue, 4 Feb 1997, George Coates wrote:
> A usenet search did uncover some Dead Man/Blake discussion on newsgroups
> devoted to cult movies and fans of the films director, Jim Jarmusch. Many
> of the postings I found on these newsgroups admired the film without
> recognizing any connection to Blake.
>
> Sasha Stone wrote:
> >
> > Apparently, Jim Jarmusch's new film is not about William Blake butabout
> > a case of mistaken identity. Johnny Depp's character is thought to be
> > William Blake, the poet, by, I think, the Indian character named Nobody.
> >(I'm assuming
> > American Indian).
Just for the record, the person who wrote that, on a film list, did not
write with without "recognizing any connection to Blake." The author of
that quote is a friend of mine who happens to know quite a bit about
Blake. As evinced by her use of the word "apparently," she wrote what you
quoted before she was able to see the film, and using what she said to try
to make a point is a bit unfair.
In answering someone's questions about the film, she was relying on
reviews of the film and news articles she had seen. All the
contemporaneous press, of course, mentioned Blake and also mentioned that
the film pivots around a case of mistaken identity and that the "William
Blake" character in the film isn't the historical Blake.
-- Robert
rjmac@america.com
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #12
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