Today's Topics:
Hello
Response to the Response to Beulah as an Edenic state
Re: Response to the Response to Beulah as an Edenic state
Re: Re: Response to the Response, etc.
hello to newish fathers and mothers
Re: hello to newish fathers and mothers
Re: Re: Response to the Response, etc.
Re: Response to the Response to Beulah as an Edenic state
-Reply
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 18:32:46 +0000 (GMT)
From: "H.W.D. Brenton"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Hello
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hello,
I'm a second year English undergraduate doing a dissertation on Blake and
Metaphor. This disscusion group looked interesting so I
thought i'd sign up. If anyone has any thoughts about Blake and metaphor
i'd greatly appreciate hearing them.
In the words of Arthur Symmons
"For Blake the universe was the metaphor"
Many thanks
Harry Brenton
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 14:39:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: "H.W.D. Brenton"
To: calisto3@ix.netcom.com
Cc: Blake@albion.com
Subject: Response to the Response to Beulah as an Edenic state
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE
I couldn=92t find the original posting on this topic so I am responding to
the response and not the original.
I take Jerome J. Mcgann=92s view that Beulah is associated with threefold
vision. Blake tries to rouse the reader from single vision (such as the
sleep of Newton) into the double vision which is the generative symbol of
the fourfold vision in eternity. Double vision is to perceive through
contraries, to perceive not only that nature is a prison house but that
it is also a garden of delights. Threefold vision is to perceive the
identity of the contraries:
There is a place where Contraries are equally True
This is a place called Beulah, It is a pleasant lovely shadow
where no dispute can come. Because of those who sleep
=09=09=09=09=09=09Milton 30: 1-3 =20
Beulah is a place of "mild and pleasant Rest" (30:14) for Blake=92s
pilgrim=92s of eternity. It is a passive and transitory state before
reaching fourfold vision which is active and demands that all things be
forsaken, it is a place to pass through not a place to be stuck in.
Fourfold vision is the gateway to infinite vision. To prompt the reader=92s
imagination though these stages is to awaken the universal poetic genius
which he believed was in us all.
This is basically a paraphrase of the end of his essay "The aim of
Blake=92s prophecies and the uses of Blake criticism" in the collection
"Blake=92s sublime allegory" so I might as well end with a direct quote
from him:
"Meaning is not the issue in such matters, nor could it be, since
experienced worlds are perpetually crossed with networks of warring ideas
and systems of ideas. All ideas have their contraries and the sets of
contraries are indefinitely expandable within worlds mapped along four
dimensions. For Blake, the essence of human life is not thought but
experience, the imaginative apprehension of the unseen worlds which we
believe will always exist for the joy of man=92s discovery. These may as
well be worlds of thought, but for Blake the experience of discovering
them rather than the intellectual possession of them is paradise, Eden,
fourfold vision."=20
Harry=20
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:46:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Response to the Response to Beulah as an Edenic state
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980119194604.24e7e5e6@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Fine up to this point:
At 02:39 PM 1/19/98 +0000, H.W.D. Brenton wrote:
>"Meaning is not the issue in such matters, nor could it be, .....
>These may as
>well be worlds of thought, but for Blake the experience of discovering
>them rather than the intellectual possession of them is paradise, Eden,
>fourfold vision."
I don't quite believe this. I see Blake as wishing to preserve the
variegated elements of experience within an integrated whole, preserving
outline, which nature has not and imagination has. Blake wants the
experience of the different states in the Wars of Eternity, but
imaginatively redeemed from their deleterious material consequences. There
is a postmodernesque anti-intellectualism in the above quote which I find
rather suspect.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 01:45:54 EST
From: TomD3456
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re: Response to the Response, etc.
Message-Id: <34042e0c.34c599a5@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
In a message dated 1/20/98 9:06:48 AM, Ralph Dumain wrote:
>>"Meaning is not the issue in such matters, nor could it be, .....
>>These may as
>>well be worlds of thought, but for Blake the experience of discovering
>>them rather than the intellectual possession of them is paradise, Eden,
>>fourfold vision."
>
>I don't quite believe this. I see Blake as wishing to preserve the
>variegated elements of experience within an integrated whole, preserving
>outline, which nature has not and imagination has. Blake wants the
>experience of the different states in the Wars of Eternity, but
>imaginatively redeemed from their deleterious material consequences. There
>is a postmodernesque anti-intellectualism in the above quote which I find
>rather suspect.
This is a key issue, and I'm not sure I understand both sides clearly. Please
help me out. And thank you, Ralph, for bringing it up. I realized, in
writing this, that it has to do with much more than Blake studies.
It sounds as if McGann is arguing that the meaning of Blake's prophecies is
not their ultimate "point" -- they are "self-consuming artifacts" (to use
Stanley Fish's term), which point not to themselves but beyond themselves to,
e.g., the process that created them. (Since I have not read the article, I
cannot be sure of this.) Thus, the reader who adopts Blake's system
passively, "on faith," has missed Blake's main point -- that we all must wake
up and be active thinkers and creators. (Like the crowd following Brian in
Monty Python's "Life of Brian": Brian, trying NOT to be taken for the Messiah,
says "Don't follow me! You've got to think for yourselves!", and, of course,
they repeat in zombie chorus, "Yes, we've got to think for ourselves!") If
this is what McGann means, I have no problem with it.
But there are some possible versions - or perversions - of this idea that I
disagree with. For instance: that Blake's prophecies have no clear meaning,
or that he made them purposely impenetrable or ambiguous in order to prevent
readers from adopting his system, or that it isn't important to understand
them clearly. Or that any reader's vague impression of what they mean is as
valid as a clearly argued scholarly interpretation.
I think all those versions have to be wrong. The beauty and power of the
writing and images in the prophecies only hit you when you understand them,
just as the beauty and power of a great opera -- say, La Traviata -- only hit
you when you put in the effort to read the libretto and understand what the
singers are singing about. And then they hit you like a freight train, and
give you a concrete experience of the Poetic Genius in its glory. That's when
art becomes a transformative experience, and wakes you up, and very possibly
makes YOU want to be an artist, or at the very least to live your life more
passionately.
Another possible implication of the paragraph quoted from McGann is that, from
some ultimate viewpoint, "meaning is not the issue" because all belief systems
are equal, "just other perspectives." (Is that what you mean by
"postmodernesque anti-intellectualism," Ralph?) If so, hmm... maybe there is
some such transcendent viewpoint, but I'm not there yet, and I don't think you
get there by turning off your intellect. Too quick a transcendence misses the
point entirely. I firmly believe that Blake's prophecies had a clear meaning
to him, and that he cared passionately about his ideas, to the point of
practically martyring himself to preserve them. He would like you to explore
the worlds of Eternity yourself, and to engage in mental warfare with him, but
that does not mean that he does not believe in the importance of his own
ideas. If he had not had that "firm perswasion," he would not have created as
he did. Mental warfare is impossible without clear and passionately believed
ideas. And to really experience the power of Blake's poems, we need to work
at understanding what he meant by them.
But I suspect that Ralph is not as concerned about possible misinterpretations
of literature as about more important matters. (Ralph, this is where you keep
waking me up.) The attitudes we bring to all aspects of life are probably
similar. How are we to deal with politics, or social justice, or with any
other aspect of practical life? With the idea that all belief systems are
equal, whether Nazi or Liberal Socialist? Or by engaging in mental warfare,
with clear ideas battling against error, so that the best ideas may prevail in
the world we all live in? I believe Blake would endorse the latter.
We may never reach an ultimate synthesis, but I think we must hold our own
thesis firmly if there is ever to be progress.
--Tom Devine
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 05:43:16 -0500
From: jonj@interlog.com (Jon James)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: hello to newish fathers and mothers
Message-Id: <199801211041.FAA16530@gold.interlog.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
The most active place I've yet discovered. I't been fun just listening to
the conversation so far.
Meredith made me re-read "Infant Joy" again. Thank you.
To Tim the Newish Father: I'm an oldish father. My daughter, now 18, had
Cholic for the first 6 agonizing weeks of our lives together and yet, went I
read "Infant Joy" I have no problem remembering HER as a joyful infant, eyes
open or closed. Boy, the time sure does ramble on.
Jon James
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 08:24:27 -0500
From: Robert Anderson
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: hello to newish fathers and mothers
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980121082423.0075f580@pop.oakland.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 05:43 AM 1/21/1998 -0500, you wrote:
>To Tim the Newish Father: I'm an oldish father. My daughter, now 18, had
>Cholic for the first 6 agonizing weeks of our lives together and yet, went I
>read "Infant Joy" I have no problem remembering HER as a joyful infant, eyes
>open or closed. Boy, the time sure does ramble on.
>
>Jon James
>
how wonderful--I think this captures the essence of the song: a consciously
visionary reworking of experience.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 10:35:06 -0800 (PST)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com, blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re: Response to the Response, etc.
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980121133431.2dcf13a0@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Tom Devine has read me exactly right and has expressed my own views more
eloquently than I could. I think I agree with his entire post.
At 01:45 AM 1/21/98 EST, TomD3456 wrote:
>It sounds as if McGann is arguing that the meaning of Blake's prophecies is
>not their ultimate "point" -- they are "self-consuming artifacts" (to use
>Stanley Fish's term), which point not to themselves but beyond themselves to,
>e.g., the process that created them.
Blake is keenly interested in the process rather than the product. As for
Blake's mythology itself, well, its range of meanings have to be deciphered
precisely to go beyond the surface level of Los did this, and Tharmas said that.
>Thus, the reader who adopts Blake's system
>passively, "on faith," has missed Blake's main point -- that we all must wake
>up and be active thinkers and creators.
This is surely true.
>(Like the crowd following Brian in
>Monty Python's "Life of Brian": Brian, trying NOT to be taken for the Messiah,
This is my favorite theological treatise. Thank goodness I found the script
for this film in paperback at some flea market for 50 cents, so now I have
the complete lyrics to "Always look on the bright side of life...", which
gets me convulsed in hysterics every time.
>But there are some possible versions - or perversions - of this idea that I
>disagree with.....
>..... The beauty and power of the
>writing and images in the prophecies only hit you when you understand them,
>And then they hit you like a freight train, and
>giv