Blake List — Volume 1998 : Issue 17

Today's Topics:
	 Re: _MT_ Stanza 2
	 Our Los
	 Re: Blake and Alchemy
	 FW: hELP US WITH OUR PROJECT! (PLEASE)
	 Do you, hysterical Cathy, take mad Bill to be ?
	 RE: Do you, hysterical Cathy, take mad Bill to be ?
	 The west
	 Re: Blake and Alchemy -Reply
	 chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst
	 chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst -Reply

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Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 18:57:58 -0700
From: holly 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: _MT_ Stanza 2
Message-Id: <199803130157.SAA26187@taisp1.in-tch.com>
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>To: blake@albion.com
>From: Izak Bouwer 
>Subject: Re: _MT_ Stanza 2
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>
>  Just a few comments on Stanza 2 of _MT_.
>
>  The word "joy" is used twice in this stanza, which shows 
>that the rhetoric of the poem is not unremittingly negative.  
>
>  Each Babe is "born in joy,"  since it is in an assertive 
>phase, and will not only survive in the face of the (then) 
>powerful opposition, but will triumph over it a quarter 
>cycle later, and will age into a state of unopposed 
>supremacy at the antipode (to be followed by decline).     
>
> ". . . begotten in dire woe": Viewing the male 
>as signifying the Spirit, and the female as Nature, the 
>"dire woe" of course corresponds to the Fall for the one 
>and the Apocalypse for the other.  [There are precedents 
>for the use of sexual imagery for these theological events. 
>In the case of the Fall, one has - from the Book of Enoch - 
>the Descent of the Sons of God to the Daughters of Men 
>(illustrated by Blake), and in the case of the Apocalypse 
>the image of the Bridegroom taking his Bride.] 
>
>  It is interesting to consider the implication of each of
>the two figures being born in the environment of the other,
>thus emerging in the garb or 'clothing' of the other. In the 
>case of the Spirit, this is of course evident in the expression 
>that Jesus is born of the Flesh, or that he is the Word made 
>flesh.  In the case of Nature,  the Female Babe emerging 
>from the fire in the hearth, is said to be "all of solid fire." 
>The word 'solid' here indicates her own nature, emerging
>from the 'fire' in the divine hearth.
>
>  Izak
>
>

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Date: Fri, 13 Mar 98 17:14:12 GMT
From: Paul Tarry 
To: Blake Group 
Subject: Our Los
Message-Id: 
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...A world in which Man is by his Nature the Enemy of Man,
In pride of Selfhood unwieldy stretching into Non Entity
Generalizing Art & Science till Art & Science is lost.
Bristol & Bath, listen to my words, & ye Seventeen: give ear !
It is easy to acknowledge a man to be great & good while we
Derogate from him in the trifles & small articles of that goodness:
Those alone are his friends, who admire his minutest powers
Instead of Albions lovely mountains & the curtains of Jerusalem
I see a Cave, a Rock, a Tree deadly and poisonous, unimaginative:
Instead of Mutual Forgiveness, the Minute Particulars, I see
Pits of bitumen ever burning: artificial Riches of the Canaanite
Like Lakes of liquid lead: instead of heavenly Chapels built
By our dear Lord: I see Worlds crusted with snows & ice;
I see a Wicker Idol woven round Jerusalems children. I see The 
Canaanite, the Amelkite, the Moabite, the Egyptian:
By demonstrations the cruel Sons of Quality & Negation.
Driven on the void in incoherent despair into Non Entity
I see America closd apart, & Jerusalem driven in terror
Away from Albions mountains, far away from Londons spires: 
I will not endure this thing: I alone withstand to death,
This outrage ! Ah me ! how sick and pale you all stand round me!
Ah me! pitiable ones! do you also go to deaths vale ?
All you my Friends & Brothers: all you my beloved Companions:
Have you also caught the infection of sin and stern Repentance ?
I see disease arise upon you ! yet speak to me and give
Me some comfort: why do you stand silent ? I alone
Remain in permanent strength. Or is all this goodness & pity, only
That you may take the greater vengeance in your sepulcher.

So Los spoke.     

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Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 17:05:28 -0600 (Central Standard Time)
From: Mustafa Farid 
To: Blake Group 
Subject: Re: Blake and Alchemy
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

I am trying to find works that explain alchemical symbols in the art of
Blake. Please advise which books. MLA was little help.

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Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 15:20:16 -0800
From: "Steve Perry" 
To: "'Blake List'" 
Subject: FW: hELP US WITH OUR PROJECT! (PLEASE)
Message-Id: <199803132320.PAA21826@mailhub1.ncal.verio.com>
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-----Original Message-----
From: Mustafa Farid [mailto:mef092s@nic.smsu.edu] 
Sent: Friday, March 13, 1998 3:02 PM
To: Steve Perry
Subject: RE: hELP US WITH OUR PROJECT! (PLEASE)


Well, I had written a couple of papers related to the life  of blake- you
might check Crabbe's entry regarding his visit with Blake. you might also
investigate whether or not Catherine was literate or not-there was much
speculation because she signed the marriage register with an 'x' that she
was illiterate, however, my contentionis that she was hysterical at the
time and therefore, was unable to sign her own name and that actually she
had completed grammar school by the time she met Blake.

	In addition, you might investigate sleeping patterns that seemed
to be very common-that is- of Blake arising while it was still dark and
beginning to write and Catherine being very still and quiet while he did
so. 

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Date: Sat, 14 Mar 98 09:53:58 GMT
From: Paul Tarry 
To: Blake Group 
Subject: Do you, hysterical Cathy, take mad Bill to be ?
Message-Id: 
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Steve could you please say a little more about Catherine being 
hysterical on her wedding day ? I've never heard about anything like 
that before.

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Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 09:39:46 -0800
From: "Steve Perry" 
To: 
Subject: RE: Do you, hysterical Cathy, take mad Bill to be ?
Message-Id: <199803141740.JAA22445@mailhub1.ncal.verio.com>
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Hi Paul,

Actually I was merely forwarding a post that accidentally got sent to me
from Mustafa Farid.  The question is best put to him.  I do like your
subject header though!  

Steve


>
>
> Steve could you please say a little more about Catherine being
> hysterical on her wedding day ? I've never heard about anything like
> that before.
>

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Date: Sun, 15 Mar 98 13:31:17 GMT
From: Paul Tarry 
To: Blake Group 
Subject: The west
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Because of the Opressors of Albion in every City & Village:
They mock at the Labourers limbs! they mock at his starved     
  children!
They buy his Daughters that they may sell his Sons:
They compell the Poor to live upon a crust of bread by soft mild arts:
They reduce the Man to want: then they give with pomp & ceremony.
The praise of Jehovah is chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst:

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 10:01:12 +0200
From: P Van Schaik 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Alchemy -Reply
Message-Id: 

I don't think any work relates the visual symbols of alchemy to Blake in
any depth,  but  there would probably be allusions to aspects of alchemy
in Kathleen Raine's works on Blake.  The spiritual significance of the
phases of the alchemical process could be seen to relate to Blake's
deeper spiritual vision of the fall and redemption of man.
Pam

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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 98 15:29:46 GMT
From: Paul Tarry 
To: Blake Group 
Subject: chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

 Because of the Opressors of Albion in every City & Village:
 They mock at the Labourers limbs! they mock at his starved     
   children!
 They buy his Daughters that they may sell his Sons:
 They compell the Poor to live upon a crust of bread by soft mild
   arts:
 They reduce the Man to want: then they give with pomp & 
ceremony.
 The praise of Jehovah is chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst:
 

Having enjoyed this section of plate 30 (44) from Jerusalem I typed it 
in to the list and also forwarded to a few friends, one of whom now 
asks me what "chaunted" means. As far as I know it is a coinage 
and a very effective one too. Morton Paley addresses a note with 
this line (number 32) as follows "An allusion to the Fast Days that 
were proclaimed during the French wars."  At present I cannot see 
the exact reason for his attaching the note just here, but being as I 
know nothing of the Fast days maybe there is a link to chaunting that 
somebody can enlighten me about ?  

More generally I think this passage is a favourite of mine because of 
the political bite. I have been asking myself what our intelligence is. 
Thinking what's next ? Play the game ? But which one ? Save ? Put 
things away for a rainy day ? But what for ? Change society ? Reform 
the administrative councils, the revolutionary committees ? Replace 
them with planning commissars, narrow minded technocrats ? Would 
that transform mankind ? And what about death ?

That is how our intelligence grinds us down, saps and suppresses 
our peace of mind. It no longer spares anything or anybody. The 
discourse narrows, becomes concentrated. It becomes an aphorism, 
an arrow. repetition is the opposite of renewal, so it is a form of death. 
As soon as you act differently you become a dandy, a character. The 
esoterik can't be expressed in words, whats written in books doesn't 
really matter.

 "There is no solution because there is no problem."

I always thought or rather came to the conclusion that art is above all 
a fraud. I'd add that it is a mirage as well. I believe in artists as 
persons, as individuals, but art is a mirage. 
 
 

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 09:25:51 +0200
From: P Van Schaik 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst -Reply
Message-Id: 

 Because of the Opressors of Albion in every City & Village:
 They mock at the Labourers limbs! they mock at his starved     
   children!


I think the allusion in these lines is wider in scope than merely to this
mortal world.   When Albion is laid asleep on the Rock of Ages and his
fallen Zoas take over his faculties, all of his formerly Innocent Children
become victims of cruel moral bans on free love and subject to the
cruelties of Opprssors who have lost their essential humanity.
In real terms, the allusion is to real earthly tyrants who exploit the labour
of others and become fat-cats.  There is parody in their mocking the
starving , skeletal children of those they exploit.

As before the French Revolution, there is also power over others
sexually ... as in every generation, in fact, where the females are lured
by the prosperity of the fat-cats and their aura of power. 

 They buy his Daughters that they may sell his Sons:
 They compell the Poor to live upon a crust of bread by soft mild
   arts:

Very often the Church itself is, ironically,  the  source of patronising 
exploitation and self-congratulatory charity-giving which is cold-hearted::

 They reduce the Man to want: then they give with pomp & 
ceremony.
 The praise of Jehovah is chaunted from lips of hunger and thirst:


The last line allows the reader no escape from the  unmitigated reality of
people starving in a wealthy land and , in order to receive any food at all,
or any spiritual comfort, even of the most debased sort, chanting songs
of praise to a god who resembles Noboddaddy rather merciful Jesus.


This is how I would respond to these lines.
Pam



 

 

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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #17
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