Blake List — Volume 1999 : Issue 5

Today's Topics:
         Whoops
         Re: [Introduction   -Reply]
         Swedenborg and Blake
         More on Swedenborg, Though...
         Re: critical editions
         compasses
         Re: introduction
         Re:  Re: [Re: introduction]
         Re: [Introduction   -Reply] -Reply
         Re:Missiologist killed
         Re: introduction
         Re: [Re:  Re: [Re: introduction]]
         Re: Introduction
         Re: Introduction -Reply
         Re:  Re: [Re:  Re: [Re: introduction]]
         Re: Introduction   -Reply -Reply
         Re: John Evans -Yale Center of British Art

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Subject: Whoops
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 13:23:01 EST
From: TomD3456@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com

Once again, I posted a private post to the list by mistake.  Apologies.
-Tom Devine

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Subject: Re: [Introduction -Reply]
Date: 3 Feb 99 10:23:29 PST
From: mark peterson 
To: blake@albion.com

Dear MArk, I'm going to reply  in pieces to your questions  which I find
very relevant to the whole experience of loving and teaching Blake. From
a personal point of view, Blake has been deeply relevant in that  he
addresses the problem of how a good God could create a world in
which so many suffer and which it seems you either gobble others or
are gobbled  - in which the Devourer prevails over the Prolific at every
turn, as exemplified in...//...I think Blake will be loved
for his compassion and probity .... many people who have introduced
themselves to this group as newcomers  have mentioned  their strong
affection for the poet - a spontaneous response from the heart, not only
the head, and I think this will increasingly be the case in the next century
as the young look for depth and sincerity to guide them in their search for
the meaning of life.
Pam van SChaik, Dept English, Univ of South Africa.

Dear Pam:
Thanks for your response, and I've thought about your points for the past day.
What I truly benefitted by was your emphasis on "a future generation" as the
real benefactors of Blake's way of relating to the Bible. It reminded me of
Isaiah's plea to "bind up my testimony for a future generation..." And,
obviously, toward the end of Blake's life most biographers concurred that
Blake himself found peace in acceptance by the young "Ancients" :-) My own
experience with High School age students  confirms the incredible acceptance
of what Blake's vision means in looking at the Jesus of the Gospel.

As far as the cosmology you point to, though, I'm still trying to place Blake
in your picture of creation. Although, in looking at various strands of
biblical creation-- there is no clear ("scientific") interp. either, Genesis,
Proverbs 8, the Psalter, Deutero-Isaiah each put a little different spin on
it: and the Joban poet, deeply connected with Blake, defies clean categories,
it seems, when the Unspeakable One Speaks out of the "Suf" telling Job (of
Behemoth) that he was made with that beast... The Kabbalah and Gnostic
literature do attempt to unify the picture of theodicy to come out with
something useful in relating to God and man in a world of disorientation. But
I'm still not convinced whether Blake's work is leaning more to that side or
more to the side of a true understanding of the Christ in John's Gospel
(meaning, I believe Blake didn't really through out the Genius of the "Old
Testament" depiction of God as much as he initiated what is today called
'form-critical' or 'narrative-critical' discipline in reading the ancient
texts...). Hope to hear back from you, and if you've heard of a missiologist
named David Bosch (was killed in S. Africa I believe about seven years ago--
could you let me know?)

Thank you, again, for your last response. Mark Peterson

As f
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Subject: Swedenborg and Blake
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 13:59:00 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com

Gloudina:

I would agree w/ you here:

>There are several scholars that reckon that
>Swedenborgís influence on Blake is generally underestimated.  The more I
>try to understand Swedenborg, the more I think I understand not only Blakeís
>ìthinkingî but also the methods he uses in his poetry to situate and
>insinuate
>his hearer into approaching a psychological universe where heavens and hells
>are not constructs to be sneered at but psychic realities to be looked at
>and seen for what they are.  When I read the enumerations of the counties
>of England or the tribes of Israel woven by Blake into his narrative, I have
>always felt energized by it but could not understand why.  Now I get the
>same feeling from Buddhist visualizations, even although in the end one
>is always instructed to dissolve the visualized creation.

For example, if you look at this WebSite:

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transweb/em-swed.htm

although it is supposedly talking about Swedenborg's effect on Emerson, I
think it can be equally applied to shed light on Blake, as well.

It is also interesting to me to see various views toward Blake from
Swedenborgians like Tulk and James Garth Wilkinson to the present, where
they now have the cover of _Jerusalem_ (Wilkinson thought Blake's later
works were too "ego" filled) on _Blake and Swedenborg, Opposition is Pure
Friendship_, published by the Swedenborg Foundation.

Interesting that Swedenborgian pharmacies pioneered things like homeopathic
medicine. Wonder if _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ were "on tap", as
well.

        --- Randall Albright

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Subject: More on Swedenborg, Though...
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 14:17:09 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com

I personally find his own texts (I own _Heaven and Hell_ and _Four
Doctrines_ including "New Jerusalem") to be... well... the man was a
scientist before he started talking w/ angels. It's Blake that gave it a
powerful poetic punch.

The end of "Heaven is a Correspondence" in _Heaven and Hell_ (#115) is much
like Blake's fall... although it also reminds me of Ovid's "Doctrines of
Pythagorus" warning in _Metamorphoses_.

A nice little pamphlet on "Uses, A Way of Personal and Spiritual Growth" by
Wilson Van Dusen that the Foundation offers gives a succinct account of the
famous "Doctrine of Use" that, I think, shows how when Blake warns that he
who thinks but acts not (proverb from Hell) is actually very REAL world.

I am actually beginning to get rather annoued by this distinction between
"idealists" and "materialists" (I've been reading Bergson lately). Ideals
are informed by conditions in the material world, and as Blake's own
repertoire shows, change in reaction to experience.

        --- Randall

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Subject: Re: critical editions
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 14:35:55 -0500 (EST)
From: Matt Kirschenbaum 
To: blake@albion.com

Since this has gone unanswered . . .

The current convention is to cite Erdman's Complete Poetry and Prose.

But if you really want to be daring, you can elect to cite from one of
the Blake Archive's electronic editions; we provide diplomatic
transcriptions of specific copies of the illuminated books (whereas
Erdman's text is necessarily a composite):

http://www.iath.virginia.edu/blake/

Directions for electronic citation are available on the Welcome page at
the URL above.

: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

                                              Matthew G. Kirschenbaum
                                                Department of English
                  Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
                                               University of Virginia

                             mgk3k@virginia.edu or mattk@virginia.edu
                                 http://www.iath.virginia.edu/~mgk3k/

>
>
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> Hello, all.
>
> I have been using the Norton Critical Edition, available to all impoverished students, for my citations in my MA
> thesis on the cultural influences that played into Blake's dialectics.  The editors are Mary Lynn Johnson & John
> Grant.
>
> If I were a real scholar, which text would I cite?  I see a lot of the older books & articles use Keynes; newer
> ones use Erdman.  Trinity is offering a Blake course this semester, so the shelf at the library is a vast desert
> wasteland.  I did manage to get a Bentely, though.  Is that okay, or should I resort to more drastic measures
> (such as ILL)--or can I just use my Norton...?
>
> Thanks,
> Thora Brylowe
>
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> 
> 
> Hello, all.
> 

I have been using the Norton Critical Edition, available to all impoverished > students, for my citations in my MA thesis on the cultural influences that > played into Blake's dialectics.  The editors are Mary Lynn Johnson > & John Grant. >

If I were a real scholar, which text would I cite?  I see > a lot of the older books & articles use Keynes; newer ones use Erdman.  > Trinity is offering a Blake course this semester, so the shelf at the library > is a vast desert wasteland.  I did manage to get a Bentely, though.  > Is that okay, or should I resort to more drastic measures (such as ILL)--or > can I just use my Norton...? >

Thanks, >
Thora Brylowe > > --------------B3E93AACFD8920D685880637-- > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: compasses Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 18:48:54 From: Izak Bouwer To: blake@albion.com At 05:09 PM 2/2/99 -0500, john.evans@yale.edu wrote: >The classic Urizen image for me is the Ancient of Days one >(not definitively Urizen but reasonably supported). He reaches down with >a compass, measuring, imposing standards and units and limits (Urizen from >the greek "to limit" same root as horizon, the limit of sight). Hi John: I thought it might be worth while just to have a look at the evidences pro and con for viewing the Ancient of Days as Urizen. This of course would not affect the basis of the rest of your posting. In his “Dictionary,” Foster Damon sees the figure as URIZEN, and quotes: _U_20:39: “He [Urizen] formed golden compasses,/ And began to explore the Abyss;/ And he planted a garden of fruits.” _FZ_2:141: “For, measur’d out in order’d spaces, the sons of Urizen/ With compasses divide the deep” Damon mentions that Urizen’s universe is geometrical, like Plato’s, and Plato’s Jupiter also holds the compasses (in Blake’s 3rd illustration to _Il Penseroso_) - as does Newton in the color print. On the other hand, the evidence for viewing the figure in The Ancient of Days as THARMAS seems to be as follows. In FZ1: “ . . . Tharmas groan’d among his Clouds Weeping; then bending from his Clouds, he stoop’d his innocent head, And stretching out his holy hand in the vast deep sublime, Turn’d round the circle of Destiny with tears & bitter sighs And said: ‘Return, O wanderer, when the day of Clouds is o’er.’ ” (Although there is a “circle,” there is no explicit mention of compasses.) Tharmas then sank down into Enion’s woof. Blake’s creation myth then unfolds: “The Circle of Destiny complete, they [daughters of Beulah] gave to it a space, And nam’d the space Ulro” Enion drew Tharmas’s spectre forth from her woof; they copulated, and she brought forth Los & Enitharmon. “He [Los] could controll the times & seasons & the days & years; She [Enitharmon] could controll the spaces, regions, desart, flood & forest” “... the two youthful wonders wander’d in the world of Tharmas.” Then Urizen descends and declares himself God from Eternity to Eternity. This is followed by the nuptial [earthly] feast of Los & Enitharmon. Therefore, Blake’s creation myth here shows the Fall as a process, starting with the setting of limits and the introduction of time and space. As Damon points out, in the bible the compass was used by the creator even before the creation of light. His reference is _Prov_ viii:27: “When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:” This image was elaborated by the poet Milton in _PL_7: “The King of Glory in his powerful Word/ And Spirit . . .// ... in his hand/ He took the golden Compasses, prepar’d/ In God’s Eternal store, to circumscribe/ This Universe, and all created things:/ One foot he centred, and the other turn’d/ Round through the vast profundity obscure,/ And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,/ This be thy just Circumference, O World./ Thus God the Heav’n created, thus the Earth” The main question should perhaps be - not who applies the compasses - but what is the nature of the compasses - and what is the nature of the deep? Here, I do like John’s idea of duality arising from unity. Izak --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: introduction Date: Thu, 04 Feb 99 00:53:40 GMT From: Paul Tarry To: blake@albion.com >>>>The more I try to understand Swedenborg, the more I think I understand not only Blake’s “thinking” but also the methods he uses in his poetry to situate and insinuate his hearer into approaching a psychological universe where heavens and hells are not constructs to be sneered at but psychic realities to be looked at and seen for what they are. When I read the enumerations of the counties of England or the tribes of Israel woven by Blake into his narrative, I have always felt energized by it but could not understand why. Now I get the same feeling from Buddhist visualizations, even although in the end one is always instructed to dissolve the visualized creation. >>Gloudina Bouwer This sounds very interesting Gloudina, would you (or indeed anyone else) care to say more about the methods Blake used to manouvre his hearers into psychology states ? I hope so, Paul --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Re: [Re: introduction] Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 01:51:46 EST From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com In a message dated 2/3/99 11:39:09 AM, you wrote: >I wish Merton spent more time on >Blake-- I haven't seen much that he wrote in actually interpreting Blake, just >fond references generally to his early poetry Mark-- Merton did a Master's Thesis on Blake at Columbia. It's student work, but it's available there. --Tom Devine --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: [Introduction -Reply] -Reply Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 09:26:23 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Dear MArk, Thans for the interesting response. I think the answer to your question is that Blake leaned equally to both sides ..to the Kabbalah and Gnosticism to explain the events and inner spiritual darkening accompanying the Fall, as all once within the Eternal Man flows outward and is scattered and deformed in the dark abyss ... and to Jesus as an exemplar of Selflessness and the true Vine of Eternity who, like the Upper Father of Kabbalah, is the spiritual progenitor of all that exists ... and REdeemer of the Fallen World. (Sorry .. this is a very long sentence) He skilfully weaves together all that he has absorbed by reading the Bible , the Classics and gathered from other sources, including Swedenborg, to present his own blend of a God in whom the Radiances are completely balanced and harmonious ... so that MErcy and Divine Rigour are never out of kilter with one another. THus, it is convenient to dramatise the Fall as happening to each of the Four Zoas of an Eternal and as following upon an original imbalance that was not rectified by Jesus in time -- as is usually the case when Sleepers fall into the delusions of the Selfhood. (For another example of this, Blake provides the case of Africa who fell into a Sleep of the soul, but was rescued in time ... relecting his belief in the superior spiritual insights of those who live in heart-shaped Africa1) Hope this helps to see the situation as both-and.... Pam --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re:Missiologist killed Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 09:47:59 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Mark, I seem to remember hearing of David, but associate this memory with a young man who was walking alone on a dusty road in Zimbabwe and was ambushed. There were many cases and still are, in Africa, of missionaries being killed. A nun was recently killed in Eshowe, Zululand, where I used to teach and the Catholic News regularly reports other cases, I believe. Doctors in isolated surgeries are also at risk. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: introduction Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1999 12:38:08 From: Izak Bouwer To: blake@albion.com At 12:53 AM 2/4/99 GMT, Paul Tarry wrote: >>>[Gloudina:]>>The more I try to understand Swedenborg, the >>more I think I understand not only Blake’s “thinking” but >>also the methods he uses in his poetry to situate and >>insinuate his hearer into approaching a psychological universe > >This sounds very interesting Gloudina, would you (or indeed >anyone else) care to say more about the methods Blake used to >manouvre his hearers into psychology states ? I hope so Paul, I want to give myself some time to give you a decent answer to the above request. However, I would like to point out that I said Blake attempts in his poetry to "situate and insinuate his reader into approaching a psychological universe.." and not that he wanted to manoeuvre his hearers into psychological states. I would also like to make it clear that I am not terribly knowledgeable about either Buddhism or Swedenborg. However, both seem to make a difference on a practical level, so I intend to pursue my interest further. Gloudina Bouwer --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: [Re: Re: [Re: introduction]] Date: 4 Feb 99 10:00:24 PST From: mark peterson To: blake@albion.com blake-request@albion.com wrote: In a message dated 2/3/99 11:39:09 AM, you wrote: >I wish Merton spent more time on >Blake-- I haven't seen much that he wrote in actually interpreting Blake, just >fond references generally to his early poetry Mark-- Merton did a Master's Thesis on Blake at Columbia. It's student work, but it's available there. --Tom Devine Tom, I recall hearing about Merton's thesis at Columbia on Blake-- is it still available (on-line, or otherwise)? My wish to see Merton's work continue on with Blake was in the light of his own experience in Catholicism and Blake's own (later in life) fondness of 'The Gray Monk' figure-- monastic inclinations ... Thanks, Tom, for the reminder of that thesis, maybe you know someone who has reviewed it (?) -- Mark Peterson ____________________________________________________________________ More than just email--Get your FREE Netscape WebMail account today at http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/mail --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Introduction Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 14:40:32 EST From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Mark-- Thanks for the questions in your introduction, which are right on target. I agree with what Pam, John Evans, and Gloudina wrote, and would like to add the following. You ask about >the outspoken biblical directive of a Gospel filled with content... Does anyone > have some input here? If you're not familiar with E.P. Thompson's _Witness Against the Beast_, I believe it speaks to this side of Blake. I would also refer you to many of Ralph Dumain's best posts in the archive of this list, but there is so much material in the archive that it would be hard to sort through without specific references, which, alas, I can't give you. Ralph -- have you published anything on Blake yet, outside this list? >I'm asking about those who live and work and >have kids and bills and cannot afford to live a life of pure solitude-- in >other words, can the 'secularized' man or woman in a crisis of faith, turning >to a community of faith, find a place for our friend William Blake in that >context? I will apologize in advance for the homeliness of the following rambles. Rather than comments on Blake's grand scheme, which I still do not thoroughly grasp, these are suggestions for ways to apply some of his ideas singly to specific crises of faith. I think Blake's overall scheme -- or rather, Blake's personality -- is in any case present in each poem and each line. I find it easier to take in by small pieces. And as he says in _Jerusalem_ (E 37 [41]: 15-22), a grain of sand can open into a heaven. Blake's emphasis on forgiveness as the whole message of the Gospels was very important to me during a crisis of my own. That doctrine and its corollary (that whoever preaches vengeance for sin is actually worshipping Satan the accuser) pervade _Milton_, _Jerusalem_, _Vision of the Last Judgment_, and other late works, but I first heard about them (if I recall correctly) through Max Plowman's _Introduction to the Study of Blake_, a fine small book, quite old now but available in good university libraries. Study groups that would find the prophecies hard going might do well to start with Plowman or another spiritually or humanistically-centered introduction that could pique their curiosity without making them grope with Blake's difficulties right away. That message of forgiveness was one of the motives inspiring my initial study of Blake. The other was his fiery understanding of religion and epistemology, which Northrop Frye's _Fearful Symmetry_ first impressed on me. Indeed, Blake's intellectual acumen and grasp of philosophical and theological issues are what made his religious positions so impressive to me. He seemed to understand religion from the inside, better than the churches, and was able to expose the absurdities of still-powerful old images (NoboDaddy, etc.) while bringing the reader to genuine awe at the magnificent/terrifying possibilities of being. (He is never as abstract as my last statement, either. It's his concreteness that's useful.) That is, he was simultaneously a critic of religion and an undeniably spiritual writer -- that gave me hope for myself. B's statements that true worship means engaging in creative activity, and that honoring God (or the Holy Spirit) means honoring His gifts in others (see _The Laocoon_, marginalia to Lavater, Swedenborg; and also Frye's _Fearful Symmetry_), bring religion down to earth in a specific way that I find constantly challenging. You might ask, for instance, "If 'prayer is the practice of art,' what has your spiritual life been like, lately?" (And perhaps "art" in that context can be any creative act, not necessarily restricted to painting, poetry, music, etc. -- that's a fertile topic for discussion in itself). Blake's engravings to _Job_, in Damon's edition, are a wonderful statement on this theme, and a powerfully convincing interpretation of the Biblical text, IMHO. They encourage the view that a richly human and constructive life is the best form of worship -- much closer to an imitation of the Deity than Job's original static piety. They could be a fine introduction to Blake for a church discussion group (I think). As John Evans emphasized, Blake speaks as a contrary to any established church; and as Pam notes from experience, that often makes him anathema to unimaginative ministers. If your "secularized man or woman" is turning to a fundamentalist community of faith, he or she may not find a place for Blake there. But a crisis of faith usually bespeaks the need for a widening of vision, not a narrowing; and there Blake is a perfect guide and challenger. (One may say, with Thoreau in "Civil Disobedience," "They do well who stand by the Bible and the Constitution; but if they could follow those streams upwards to their source, they would do better" -- not exact, just a quote from memory.) Blake challenges narrow and rigid versions of Christianity at every point in his work. "The Everlasting Gospel" would be useful in raising those points, as would the marginalia to Bishop Watson's _Apology for the Bible_ and to Thornton's _The Lord's Prayer, Newly Translated_. Also, _A Vision of the Last Judgment_, especially the last few pages (starting with the section about Tree of Life versus the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil). The wonderful engine of the Contraries is a way of bringing in what rigid orthodoxies (and rigid personalities) exclude. For instance, is bodily energy indeed holy -- or unholy (MHH)? Blake's view of the Human as encompassing both innocence and experience (Songs), reason and energy (MHH) -- and later, imagination, emotion, reason, and sensation all together -- is a challenge to us to widen our views of ourselves. How much of this really fits us? What mythology could we create that would fit us better? What "living creatures/zoas" live inside us? None of these questions has a single answer -- just to ask them is to look into oneself in a way that may have been shut off by religious indoctrination and fear. That's one of Blake's great uses. One small example: "For a Tear is an Intellectual thing" -- oh really? What can that mean? Are emotions as valid as beliefs? More valid? Are they intellectual things, or mere animal reflexes that we should try to ignore? Are they sometimes one, sometimes the other? Yesterday I saw a photo of an Iraqi soldier incinerated during the Gulf War, his blackened corpse rising grotesquely from his tank, frozen in the act of trying to climb out. What does one do with the emotions raised by an image like that? Ignore them? Act reflexively on them? Numb them by seeking out images of equal horror perpetrated by the other side? Blake honors emotions, and other undervalued aspects of humanity, in simple-sounding lines such as that, whose implications for day-to-day life are profound. Blake is richer in such opportunities for discussion and self-observation, with specific relation to theology and lived religion, than any other poet I know. And I have gone on too long. I hope some of this is useful. My apologies, but as John Evans wrote, "you hit a button." --Tom Devine --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Introduction -Reply Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 09:07:34 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Aaahh, Tom, those words breathe life into the Rose. Thanks for a fine disquisition. Pam --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Re: [Re: Re: [Re: introduction]] Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 02:45:50 EST From: TomD3456@aol.com To: blake@albion.com Mark- Re Merton's thesis, I found it in the Columbia library about 20 years ago, still in typescript. I don't know if it's available in any other form. If I were you, I would inquire of the Columbia University Library. --Tom Devine In a message dated 2/4/99 7:00:52 PM, you wrote: >Tom, I recall hearing about Merton's thesis at Columbia on Blake-- is it still >available (on-line, or otherwise)? My wish to see Merton's work continue on >with Blake was in the light of his own experience in Catholicism and Blake's >own (later in life) fondness of 'The Gray Monk' figure-- monastic inclinations >... Thanks, Tom, for the reminder of that thesis, maybe you know someone who >has reviewed it (?) >-- Mark Peterson --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Introduction -Reply -Reply Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 10:15:20 +0200 From: P Van Schaik To: blake@albion.com Dear John, Reading your post was like eating honey and for a few moments did that mystical thing with space and time. If the psyche so savours such ideas then surely there is a very relevant truth in Blake's visions ; or, an inherent predisposition of the mind and heart to find that, at the core of the infinite, seemingly impersonal, galaxies , there is `magic' ... in the sense of more than we ever could imagine of worlds within worlds where all creatures have a meaningful resonance. For me, Blake has the same widening effect on the consciousness as reading the tale of Psyche and Amor... and I think the idea of the soul being reunited with a loving God was the one dearest to Blake's own heart -- as evinced in his own Designs depicting the `cleaving' of the soul, represented by a female, to the male figure of divinity in a kiss of reconciliation , representative perhaps of the overcoming of all the disunity brought about by Urizen's delusions. In Kabbalah, this is the Grand Jubilee, when the Shekinah in exile is returned to her rightful home and place as Upper Mother on the Tree of Life. The Jungian resonances of reconciling animus and anima are also patently there. It is the moment when all doubt is fled , of which Blake speaks. Pam --------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: John Evans -Yale Center of British Art Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:14:39 EST From: Chatham1@aol.com To: blake@albion.com John-- Thank you for your insight and the direction in which you have steered discussion. I understand that the Yale Center for British Art was recently rebuilt and reopened some time this past January. How did the works of Mr. Blake fare??? Chatham Morell, I.C.S. 25 West St., Hadley, MA 01035