Today's Topics:
Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer? -Reply
Political...science of sciences
Re: Political...science of sciences
a very literal eye
Humanity of humanities...
Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer?
Re: Political...science of sciences
Ralph's first riddle
Re: a very literal eye
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Subject: Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer? -Reply
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 10:12:45 -0500
From: "J. Michael"
To: blake@albion.com
>This reminds me of Eliot's `garlic and sapphires in the mud' where the
>axle-tree lies buried.. I think Eliot, like Blake, was aware that London
>was like Babylon being built on the groans and sighs of multitudes
>betrayed , not only by commerce, but by the sordidness of their own
>souls. The only answer to human sorrow and degradation for both lay in
>a spiritual transformation which would build the new Jerusalem , as far
>as possible, on earth. This is what, I think, Los is trying to do throughout
>Blake's longer works, but, in the fallen world, Golgonooza is about as
>close as can be managed.
>Pam
Thank you, Pam, for this observation. Rather ironic that Eliot didn't have
much appreciation for Blake, when they shared such crucial concerns.
Jennifer
jmichael@sewanee.edu
The mind of man is fashioned and made up
Even as a strain of music. . . . --Wordsworth
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Subject: Political...science of sciences
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 09:28:26 -0800
From: Raymond Peat
To: blake@albion.com
Maybe the political right, the Nazis, etc., are the only ones who take art
seriously, and can see that it is political work of the most effective
sort. Science, when it is approached in the same way, is Art and Politics,
and participates in intellectual war.
Acadamic obtuseness has always made it possible to ignore ironic and
dialectical language, so I suspect that Ralph Dumain's riddles won't ignite
many mental fires.
"The wretched state of the Arts in this Country & in Europe originating in
the Wretched State of Political Science which is the Science of Sciences
Demands a firm & determinate conduct on the part of Artists to Resist the
Contemptible Counter Arts"
. . . strength to form the golden armour of science
For intellectual War The war of swords departed now
"Are not Religion & Politics the Same Thing? Brotherhood is Religion"
Good & Evil are Riches & Poverty, a Tree of Misery, propagating Generation
and
Death.
A Poet, a Painter, an Architect: the Man Or Woman who is not one of
these is not a
Christian.
The Unproductive Man is not a Christian, much less the Destroyer.
You must leave Fathers & Mothers & Houses & Lands if they stand in the
way of
Art.
Prayer is the study of Art.
Praise is the Practice of Art.
Fasting &c., all relate to Art.
The outward Ceremony is Antichrist.
Without Unceasing Practice nothing can be done. Practice is Art. If
you leave off you are Lost.
Jesus & his Apostles & Disciples were all Artists. Their Works were
destroy'd by the Seven Angels of the Seven Churches in Asia, Antichrist
Science.
The Old & New Testaments are the Great Code of Art.
The Whole Business of Man Is The Arts, & All Things Common. No Secresy
in Art.
Christianity is Art & not Money. Money is its Curse.
>I don't think anybody is playing arbitrary games with definitions or
>willfully stretching the definition of the political beyond recognition.
>Notice your key word above, "working", (my emphasis added): the implication
>seems to be that working is acting, engaging in overt political activity,
>not writing. But Blake was a writer and artist, who took definite positions
>as a writer if not as an activist on issues of hunger, poverty, tyranny,
>imperialism, slavery, and much more besides. How you could interpret this
>as indifferent to improvement of the human condition in the material world
>is beyond me.
>This is where a productive discussion should begin, rather than end. I hope
>I am not remembering something different than you are, but what comes to
>mind is the question of Blake's attitude towards the literal: is the sun a
>flaming disc that looks like the size of a guinea or the heavenly host
>screeching holy holy holy? Such symbolic acts of defiance of material
>reality have yet to be properly analyzed by anyone on this list, including
>me, esp. in conjunction with some more down-to-earth statements such as "we
>eat little we drink less /this earth breeds not our happiness." There is an
>issue of psychological resistance to material conditions in the face of
>which one is powerless, but these gestures of psychological resistance, that
>come from real, material, palpable suffering and the will to endure, cannot
>be reduced to New Age suburbanite hippy-dippy drivel that changing your
>interpretation changes what's happening, tiptoeing through the tulips as if
>one gets a free ride to live in a fantasy world.
>
>I would be interested to know whether the scholarly Blake literature
>addresses all these questions, because I've not seen any that has to date.
>Rather than continue explicating my own views, let me pose a series of
>riddles to advance the discussion onto the next level:
>
>(1) How are we to analyze Blake's statements of resistance in defiance of
>material conditions?
>
>(2) How are we to analyze the political claims of Blake's vague and
>symbolic descriptions of apocalyptic conditions which somehow result in
>redemption, the new Jerusalem, in the light of how social change takes place
>and was taking place in front of Blake's eyes?
>
>(3) When Blake says it was a mistake for Jesus to get involved in politics,
>and otherwise excuse his own disengagements from the political realm
>(including the statement Tim cites about how an educated citizenry would be
>immune to tyranny, and the statement that creation burns up when people
>cease to behold it), what kind of claim is actually being made? Is Blake
>advocating that everybody is wasting their time trying to change the
>political, material conditions of their lives, or merely that prophets like
>Jesus and himself are ill-advised to get mixed up in potentially
>life-threatening political situations in which they cannot possibly win?
>
>By pursuing questions such as these, which all follow a similar pattern, I
>think we can progress much further through this murky character of Blake;
>symbolic politics relates to material societal conditions.
>
>
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Subject: Re: Political...science of sciences
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 12:18:03 -0500
From: "J. Michael"
To: blake@albion.com
>Maybe the political right, the Nazis, etc., are the only ones who take art
>seriously, and can see that it is political work of the most effective
>sort.
This hasn't always been the case. Bertolt Brecht made a statement that
always reminds me of Blake's Los: "Art is not a mirror held up to reality
but a hammer with which to shape it."
Jennifer Michael
jmichael@sewanee.edu
The mind of man is fashioned and made up
Even as a strain of music. . . . --Wordsworth
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Subject: a very literal eye
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 15:05:41
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
I sometimes wonder how a ‘post-modernist’ would
read Blake. I imagine that his initial approach would
be to read Blake with a very literal eye.
For instance, Blake is reported to have said that
everything he knew was in the Bible, (HCR:)
“but then he understands by the Bible the spiritual
sense. For as to the natural sense, that Voltaire was
commissioned by God to expose.”
There is a radical change in Blake’s style of writing
at around 1784, during the writing of _An Island in
the Moon_. The pervading satiric bantering of that
work does not extend to the fragments of the Songs
of Innocence that make their appearance there.
Island was written ca 1784-5, and the change in tone
from this to his later work is dramatic: especially the two
tractates on religion that followed soon after, with their
undeniable tone of conviction.
In his Annot. to Lavater (1788) he exclaims:
“O that men would seek immortal moments! O that men
would converse with God!”
It bears pointing out that he was reading works of Swedenborg
at about this time (1784-9).
In a letter of 1804 to Hayley he wrote that “Suddenly, on
the day after visiting the Truchsessian Gallery of pictures,
I was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my
youth, and which has for exactly twenty years been closed
from me as by a door and by window-shutters.”
In a letter to Hayley just a week later he calls Religion the
“Sun & Moon of our Journey.”
About a year later, again in a letter to Hayley, he writes:
“In the mean While I am kept Happy, as I used to be,
because I throw Myself & all that I have on our Saviour’s
Divine Providence. O What Wonders are the Children
of Men! Would to God that they would consider it,
That they would consider their Spiritual Life, Regardless
of that faint Shadow call’d Natural Life, & that they would
Promote Each other’s Spiritual Labours . . . “
Izak
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Subject: Humanity of humanities...
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 20:50:19 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Raymond Peat said:
>>Maybe the political right, the Nazis, etc., are the only ones who take art
>>seriously, and can see that it is political work of the most effective
>>sort.
And Jennifer Michael replied:
>This hasn't always been the case. Bertolt Brecht made a statement that
>always reminds me of Blake's Los: "Art is not a mirror held up to reality
>but a hammer with which to shape it."
Certainly it came as no surprise to me that when Auden went Christian and
Brecht went Commie, they still remained friends. They had, perhaps, higher
things in common?
And didn't Blake, a Christian, have (at least at times) an affinity with
Percy B. Shelley, an atheist?
Couldn't one call Thomas Paine a humanitarian, as well as a political writer?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Really, I think the key is to see the "Yin" in the "Yang" of Experience and
Innocence. Beyond these two sets of art/poems illustrating the contrasting
nature of human existence-- they are IN each other's sets of poems. For
example, do you honestly believe that "The Little Vagabond" in Experience
is getting solace from "The Human Abstract" or the unilluminated "A Divine
Image" from *experience*? I mean, anything's possible, but it looks like
Jesus to me. Same with "Holy Thursday" in Innocence. What are those poor
kids doing, marching around like that, THERE?
And isn't the opening "Introduction" to Innocence have more than a bit of
experience in it, knowing as I do what happened to that person who became a
child (Jesus)? He got nailed to a cross and died for my sins, as far as
most Christians then and now would believe, did he not? No wonder the child
"wept with joy to hear".
~~~~~~
But getting back to my favorite poem by Blake:
Another person named on one of my fave plates is now known as Paracelsus.
What was he all about?
"Have now another plain fact: any man of mechanical talents may,
from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand
volumes of equal value with Swedenborg's, and from those of Dante or
Shakespear an infinite number.
"But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better
than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine."
---end of plate 22, MHH
And I know Charles Darwin wasn't around yet, but his grandfather Erasmus was.
"A man carried a monkey about for a shew, & because he was a little
wiser than the monkey, grew vain; and conceiv'd himself as much wiser than
seven men...."
And what was REALLY wrong with Swedenborg, as stated on this plate? Well...
"....It is so with Swedenborg; he shews the folly of churches &
exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are religious, & himself the
single one on earth that ever broke a net.
"Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth.
Now hear another: he has written all the old falshoods.
"And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are all
religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate religion, for he was
incapable thro' his conceited notions."
So at this point of his life, Blake is willing to deal with both, isn't he?
"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from
Energy.
Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."
---from plate 3
In fact, doesn't he seem a bit biased towards energy, himself? Is it true
that this is the first "free verse" poem in English. Unfettered, unlike
Milton's problem? Or is Blake one with the Devil's party, too?
--- Randall Albright
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Subject: Re: Is William Blake A Political Writer?
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 23:23:20 EST
From: GaryG332@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
In a message dated 2/26/99 10:22:09 AM, john.evans@yale.edu writes:
<<
I feel like we're being a little unfair to good William, and holding him
up to standards to which he doesn't belong. I am remembering for instance
the comparison to Thomas Payne. Well, clearly Blake is not the political
writer that he was, or that any number of contemporaries were, as has been
much discussed. >>
OK. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention to this line of discussion,
but it seems to me that the comments that have been offered thus far have been
limited to considerations of whether Blake addressed political issues. It
strikes me that, if Blake is to be considered a "political writer," he must be
considered to have had a political effect. As far as I know, he had none to
speak of.
Am I missing something?
GaryG
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Subject: Re: Political...science of sciences
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 23:25:41 -0900
From: "Nathan Deeter"
To: blake@albion.com
Raymond Peat wrote:
> Maybe the political right, the Nazis, etc., are the only ones who take art
> seriously, and can see that it is political work of the most effective
> sort. Science, when it is approached in the same way, is Art and Politics,
> and participates in intellectual war.
>
> Acadamic obtuseness has always made it possible to ignore ironic and
> dialectical language, so I suspect that Ralph Dumain's riddles won't ignite
> many mental fires.
>
> "The wretched state of the Arts in this Country & in Europe originating in
> the Wretched State of Political Science which is the Science of Sciences
> Demands a firm & determinate conduct on the part of Artists to Resist the
> Contemptible Counter Arts"
>
> . . . strength to form the golden armour of science
> For intellectual War The war of swords departed now
>
> "Are not Religion & Politics the Same Thing? Brotherhood is Religion"
> Good & Evil are Riches & Poverty, a Tree of Misery, propagating Generation
> and
> Death.
> A Poet, a Painter, an Architect: the Man Or Woman who is not one of
> these is not a
> Christian.
> The Unproductive Man is not a Christian, much less the Destroyer.
> You must leave Fathers & Mothers & Houses & Lands if they stand in the
> way of
> Art.
> Prayer is the study of Art.
> Praise is the Practice of Art.
> Fasting &c., all relate to Art.
> The outward Ceremony is Antichrist.
>
> Without Unceasing Practice nothing can be done. Practice is Art. If
> you leave off you are Lost.
> Jesus & his Apostles & Disciples were all Artists. Their Works were
> destroy'd by the Seven Angels of the Seven Churches in Asia, Antichrist
> Science.
> The Old & New Testaments are the Great Code of Art.
> The Whole Business of Man Is The Arts, & All Things Common. No Secresy
> in Art.
> Christianity is Art & not Money. Money is its Curse.
I'm not sure of what you mean by your terse statements nor how they
address Ralph's questions. Likewise, I'm not sure how you are applying
these Blakean Proverbs to your response.
Ralph may often be guilty of being disrespectful, or even vulgar--and
someone else's attitudes are simply no excuse for bad writing. But none
can dispute that he consistently comes up with some extremely difficult
and intriguing questions.
Please do develop your arguments a little more.
I take art very seriously, as do I'm sure all of us. Yet I am no
right-winger. I think that politics has nothing to do with "taking art
seriously" but rather with MAKING art seriously.
Your catalogue of quotes about Practice suggest something about the
relationship between making art and a political application of that art,
but I'm fuzzy on it and one thing I do not appreciate is fuzziness in
writing.
What exactly is this intellectual war you are talking about? How does
Science, Art, and Politics participate in that? And how do these
theoretical statements you pose at the beginning tie in with what Blake
has said about politics?
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@chugach.net
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Subject: Ralph's first riddle
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 07:06:56 -0500
From: Richard Blumberg
To: blake@albion.com
>(1) How are we to analyze Blake's statements of resistance in defiance of
>material conditions?
>
The answer to that, I submit, begins, "we are not", because analysis is a
pretty pitiful tool confronted with an Innumerable
company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty
.
The man tells us what he sees. And he reminds us that he sees "through, not
with the eye", so that what he sees is not limited by what science learns
(through analysis) about eyes. Sometimes what he sees is startling, like
heavenly host in full voice. And sometimes it's murky; maybe he didn't see
it clearly or maybe, with all his Art and fierce devotion he couldn't work
the line to show it as clearly as he saw it.
But a whole lot of the time, it's not murky at all; it is crystalline in its
clarity, persuasive and, quite simply, revelatory:
And this is the manner of the Sons of Albion in their strength
They take the Two Contraries which are calld Qualities, with which
Every Substance is clothed, they name them Good & Evil
From them they make an Abstract, which is a Negation
Not only of the Substance from which it is derived
A murderer of its own Body: but also a murderer
Of every Divine Member: it is the Reasoning Power
An Abstract objecting power, that Negatives every thing
This is the Spectre of Man: the Holy Reasoning Power
And in its Holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation
Clear, unrelenting, and unwaveringly political in its import. Those lines
have helped me understand how they do their work, these pundits and pious
politicians, this Pope, these ayatollahs and rabbis and media preachers. For
nearly 50 years, Blake's "statements of resistance in defiance of material
conditions" have helped me see them clearly, "Heavens & Hells conglobing in
the Void" to devil sad humanity.
"Go to these Fiends of Righteousness," we are advised...
Tell them to obey their Humanities, & not pretend Holiness;
When they are murderers: as far as my Hammer & Anvil permit
Go, tell them that the Worship of God, is honouring his gifts
In other men: & loving the greatest men best, each according
To his Genius: which is the Holy Ghost in Man; there is no other
God, than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity;
He who envies or calumniates: which is murder & cruelty,
Murders the Holy-one: Go tell them this & overthrow their cup,
Their bread, their altar-table, their incense & their oath:
Their marriage & their baptism, their burial & consecration:
That's as powerful a piece of political oratory as I know; far stronger and
more persuasive than anything in Paine. The man who saw the world so clearly
that he could write those lines, who saw the mingled predicaments of
humankind -- artistic, political, sexual, religious - with such overwhelming
clarity and detail that he could compress them all into the crystalline
hardness of "London" - when that man points at something, I will try to see
it. But I won't try to analyze the semiotics of the pointing finger.
Richard
Richard Blumberg, Proprietor
Wm. Blake Fabricators
Information|Communication|Cooperation
http://www.wmblake.com
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Subject: Re: a very literal eye
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 13:04:11 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Perhaps when reading the letters to Hayley, we need not only
to consider the source, but to consider the audience. Whether
Blake lost his sense of irony for a period or not is a very
interesting and valid question to pursue (whether as a postmodernist
or as a traditional philologist or whatever in between)--but
where, then, is that "very literal" approach? Perhaps not in
the incessantly ironic reading of the postmodernist?
Tom Dillingham