Today's Topics:
Re: Ralph Dumain Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
why pillory Guillory? Cultural capital--who cares? -Reply
Re: framing the sublime -Reply
Re: The Sublime
e-journal publication (was framing the Sublime)
the body
Re: The Sublime
Re: Robert Lowth
Re: Stuffing Linnell's Reputation (was Yr chance etc.)
Re: Blake and Nature and Wordsworth
Re: The Sublime
Thanks
Re: Sasha Stone's take on Dead Man and William Blake
Re: The Sublime
Re: Sasha Stone's take on Dead Man and William Blake
The Tyger
e-journal publication (was framing the Sublime) -Reply
Re: Blake and Nature and Wordsworth -Reply
Re: The Tyger
Romancing the Net
Re: The Tyger
Re: The Tyger
The Tyger
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 00:21:02 -0500
From: ted ross
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Ralph Dumain Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id: <1.5.4.16.19970205052102.34afd512@pop.atl.mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Let me say I am interested that anybody has constructed a Blakean
iconography out of Dead Man, because I did not
perceive the characters as representative of Blake's archetypes. But even if
you successfully argue that Jarmusch faithfully depicted a set of
relationships in Blake, what does the film espouse that either sheds light
on Blake, his text, or his themes? And when you say the video imagery is
such that we need to decode it, when we decode it, what does cannibalism
and grotesque imagery have to do with Blake, who would surely not have
presented such imagery without a countervaling image "to give that thought
relief."
Dead Man did have an exciting surreal ambiance, but as a narrative engineer
Jarmusch can't seem to figure out where the caboose is.
At 04:10 PM 2/4/97 -0800, you wrote:
>
>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.
>
>
>
>
>
In walks the village idiot and his face is all aglow.
He's been up all night listening to Mohammed's radio.
W. Zevon
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 12:53:30 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: why pillory Guillory? Cultural capital--who cares? -Reply
Message-Id:
Ralph, Every word of this rings true for me, Pam
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 12:40:30 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: 100575.2061@CompuServe.COM
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: framing the sublime -Reply
Message-Id:
Phil, Certainly, there may be Gnostic elements in BLake's work - as
explored already in a thesis and book by Andrew Welburn. I personally
have found the complex and rather vague details of Gnosticism less
applicable than the many, clearly defined ideas and symbols of kabbalah
and have written a `book' on this ... but not yet found a publisher for it. If
anyone knows how to put up sections on the net for feedback without
losing control of copyright, I could share ideas but I guess this is not
possible. Blake may well have read books of which we have no record
that he did so, and this poses a real problem for any comparative
researchers. From my own research, it would appear that he knew a
great deal of the symbolism of the Kabbalah, and of PreLurianic and
post-Lurianic ideas re the Fall, but, even if one shows convincing
evidence of many correspondences, purists still insist on research into
possible sources ... which cannot, as far as I can see, ever amount to
more than conjectures.... some more convincing than others. I think there
are also elements of Indian mystical thought (in relation to tree-imagery)
and of Norse mythology in BLake's work ...e.g. the picture of Valkyrie-like
figures weaving bloody fibres on their looms ... but this is integrated into
a consistently developed strand of images re fibres and looms in Blake's
mythology. Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 15:01:22 -0800 (PST)
From: "CONNOLLY T.J."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Sublime
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Hi!
You just have to read DeLuca's book on Blake and the sublime--one of the
best books on Blake in years--almost makes me feel he's said it all, which
is saying a LOT, in the case of Blake.
Does anyone know if there is an edition of Lowth's lectures on Hebrew
poetry--in English--available in book form? Microfilm gives me a
headache...
and, I ask again (in case my message somehow went astray), does anyone
know of any writing on Blake and the body--even if it's not overtly about
Blake? Would appreciate any suggestions...
Tristanne
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 07:29:49 -0800
From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: e-journal publication (was framing the Sublime)
Message-Id: <199702051529.HAA18862@dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com>
Pam,
I think I mentioned once before that the website Romanticism 0n the Net
bills itself as an "electronic journal devoted to Romantic studies."
You might want to visit their website at
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~scat0385/
0r contact
Michael LaPlace Sinatra at
(e-mail: michael.laplace-sinatra@st.catherines.oxford.ac.uk)
or at
St. Catherine's College
Oxford OX1 3UJ
England
about the ramifications of publishing your work there.
Susan
You wrote:
>
>Phil, Certainly, there may be Gnostic elements in BLake's work - as
>explored already in a thesis and book by Andrew Welburn. I personally
>have found the complex and rather vague details of Gnosticism less
>applicable than the many, clearly defined ideas and symbols of
kabbalah
>and have written a `book' on this ... but not yet found a publisher
for it. If
>anyone knows how to put up sections on the net for feedback without
>losing control of copyright, I could share ideas but I guess this is
not
>possible. Blake may well have read books of which we have no record
>that he did so, and this poses a real problem for any comparative
>researchers. From my own research, it would appear that he knew a
>great deal of the symbolism of the Kabbalah, and of PreLurianic and
>post-Lurianic ideas re the Fall, but, even if one shows convincing
>evidence of many correspondences, purists still insist on research
into
>possible sources ... which cannot, as far as I can see, ever amount
to
>more than conjectures.... some more convincing than others. I think
there
>are also elements of Indian mystical thought (in relation to
tree-imagery)
>and of Norse mythology in BLake's work ...e.g. the picture of
Valkyrie-like
>figures weaving bloody fibres on their looms ... but this is
integrated into
>a consistently developed strand of images re fibres and looms in
Blake's
>mythology. Pam van Schaik
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 09:38:00 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: the body
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>and, I ask again (in case my message somehow went astray), does anyone
>know of any writing on Blake and the body--even if it's not overtly about
>Blake? Would appreciate any suggestions...
>
>Tristanne
Somehow I missed your question before. There's lots on Blake and the body:
the first that comes to mind, although it's not quite in the line of
current "body" criticism, is Anne Mellor's _Blake's Human Form Divine_,
from the 1970's. Thomas Frosch's _The Awakening of Albion_ is subtitled
"The Renovation of the Body," as I recall, and it's very good. Jean
Hagstrum's _The Romantic Body_ has a chapter on Blake, too. More recently
I read an interesting article on Blake's response to Locke's notions of the
body: here's the citation:
Glausser, Wayne. "Locke and Blake as Physicians: Delivering the
Eighteenth-Century Body." _Reading the Social Body_. Ed. Catherine B.
Burroughs and Jeffrey David Ehrenreich. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1993.
218-43.
Hope this helps. I'm sure I'll think of more. The fourth chapter of my
dissertation deals with the city as body in _Milton_. It's not published
(yet), nor is it available yet from UMI, but I'd be happy to tell you more
about it if you want to write me privately.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 09:37:33 -0600 (CST)
From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Sublime
Message-Id: <199702051537.JAA27516@dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com>
Thanks, Tom!
Susan
You wrote:
>
>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: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 08:01:16 -0800
From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Robert Lowth
Message-Id: <199702051601.IAA08942@dfw-ix4.ix.netcom.com>
Tristanne
I love your name. Are you writing from Cambridge?
There are several modern editions--reprents, selections, and facsimile
editions--of Robert Lowth's _Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the
Hebrews,_ and numerous libraries in the U.S. own copies of one, some,
or all of these. If you have access to a library which is an OCLC
provider, you can request a copy on loan (I have done this many times,
from U.S. and British libraries, and it is fast, free, and efficient).
Garland Press printed a facsimile edn in 1971 from the copy in the
Beinecke Library, Yale University.
G. Olms brought out a reprint of the 1787 edn in 1969
Routledge has just printed a 2-vol edn of selections, 1995.
If you have no luck with these or they are not the exact editions you
are looking for, let me know. There are others.
Susan
You wrote:
>
>Hi!
>You just have to read DeLuca's book on Blake and the sublime--one of
the
>best books on Blake in years--almost makes me feel he's said it all,
which
>is saying a LOT, in the case of Blake.
>
>Does anyone know if there is an edition of Lowth's lectures on Hebrew
>poetry--in English--available in book form? Microfilm gives me a
>headache...
>
>and, I ask again (in case my message somehow went astray), does anyone
>know of any writing on Blake and the body--even if it's not overtly
about
>Blake? Would appreciate any suggestions...
>
>Tristanne
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 18:02:01 MET
From: "D.W. DOERRBECKER"
To: P Van Schaik , blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Stuffing Linnell's Reputation (was Yr chance etc.)
Message-Id: <80217C51CBB@netwareserver.uni-trier.de>
February 5th, 1997
On Monday, February 3rd, Pamela van Schaik wrote to the list, stating
that she
> [...] 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 [...].
This double-decker must have been a copy of *The Life of John
Linnell* (London: Richard Bentley, 1892) by Alfred T. Story (who also
wrote biographies of WB and Holmes and Varley), a publication of
which Tim Linnell has probably been aware since his childhood days
(and which contains important references to Linnell's role as Blake's
patron between 1818 and 1827).
Just as Gilchrist's *Life of WB*, Story's account of Linnell snr.
remains indispensable (for those who care), and I agree with PvS that
it is a "readable" biography, even though I find it well `stuffed'
with late Victorian preconceptions about art and its functions in a
bourgeoise society. Moreover, I feel that a bit of late
twentieth-century critical jargon might do Linnell *some good* where
it comes to `stuffing' his art historical reputation as a member of
the British `little masters' of nineteenth-century painting and
etching. Robert Essick's work on Linnell's impact on Blake's
engraving techniques was a first step in that direction even though
it is clearly written and devoid of the sort of `stuffy' prose Pamela
van Schaik seems to have had in mind.
--DW Doerrbecker
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 13:14:02 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Nature and Wordsworth
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>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.
Pam, although I agree in general with this characterization of Blake's view
of nature, I have to disagree with the implication that "To Tirzah" is a
straightforward statement of Blake's attitude. To me, the poem speaks
directly from Experience and its manifold division of humanity from nature,
and the sexes from each other: rather than overcome that division, it
solidifies it. "What have I to do with thee" speaks to me of utter
alienation, whether it refers to woman or to nature. Rather than viewing
the body as "a portion of Soul," as Blake contends in the _Marriage_, this
speaker sees it as "senseless clay." In other words, he is crippled by the
same materialism that he seems to reject.
As I understand it, Blake considers nature in its unfallen state as part of
man that only appears to be separate to the fallen senses. The "worship"
of nature that he so despises in Wordsworth arises from the mistaken
perception of nature as "other." In that sense, it is related to all the
other "otherings" that take place during the fragmentation of the fall.
Exalting nature and despising it are two sides of the same coin: in each
case, the subject distances himself from what he perceives as separate from
himself. We can also see both sides of this process at work in Night the
Second of _The Four Zoas_, in which the ashes of Vala go into the mortar
of Urizen's construction (the sacrifice of nature's energy), while at the
same time Ahania becomes a "shadowy mother," a goddess of mystified nature
to whom animals are sacrificed.
This is a huge topic but I'm glad to see it discussed here.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 15:29:53 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Sublime
Message-Id: <97020515295369@wc.stephens.edu>
Blake and the body--take a look at Anne Kostelanetz Mellor's
_Blake's Human Form Divine_ and, in a different vein, Jean Hagstrums
_Eros and Vision_ and _The Romantic Body_. And in a very different
vein, segments of Nelson Hilton's _Literal Imagination_ (and his
other publications) offer interesting explorations of bodily--
representation?
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 05 Feb 1997 16:46:23 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Thanks
Message-Id: <17443.199702051646@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sincere thanks to all who were kind enough to respond to my request for
information: I've now located the books I was looking for, as well as having
a number of interesting new references to follow up.
>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.
This would probably be James, Linnell's second son (and my great great
grandfather) who helped out with a number of requests for information on
Blake and Linnell in the 1890s.
The two volume set that Pam mentioned is presumably the 1890 Story
biography, which I have read, but which I'd love a copy of: if anyone comes
across it, I'd be most grateful for details. It's suspect as a work of
reference, since Story is often highly selective about what he quotes, but
worth a look if only for the section on Linnell's poetry, which is quite
dreadful!
All the best
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 16:54:07 -0800 (PST)
From: "Josh J. Hansen aka Bill Blake"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Sasha Stone's take on Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Ms. Stone-
I would suggest that instead of viewing Jarmusch's film as being
devoid of context as far as his use of images, see it as a testament to
the transformative powers of poetry itself. The fact that Nobody felt so
strongly about Blake's words and "they spoke to him" implies a certain
kinship Blake has with Native American religious belief. Jarmusch's point
seems to be that regardless of time (300 years or 10000 years) the powers
of the visionary poet or shaman remain influencial and applicable even to
those of us that reside in our post-industrial world. This film is such a
relief in that it portrays poetry as a possible link to the transcendent;
something films like Dead Poet's Society and Il Postino failed to do. The
images, no matter how fragmented, are taken from Blake to construct a
landscape unique and subject to the whims of the filmmaker. Such is the
way of the postmodern film director. Jarmusch's driving of his cart and
plow over the bones of the dead Blake should be seen only as a testament
to his greatness.
Josh J. Hansen
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 19:14:38 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Sublime
Message-Id: <97020519143817@wc.stephens.edu>
I know I have already posted on this, but a title I forgot to include
(partly because it is not explicitly about Blake at all) is
Barbara Stafford's astonishing _Body Criticism_, which would be
of interest, I am sure, to anyone working on this topic. Throw in, for
good measure, her more recent _Artful Science_, in which she links
Blake's painting of "Christ Blessing" to a tradition of codified
hand gestures--not perhaps the most useful connection for a Blakean,
but still interesting. Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 00:04:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Robert McNamara
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Sasha Stone's take on Dead Man and William Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Wed, 5 Feb 1997, Josh J. Hansen aka Bill Blake wrote:
> Ms. Stone-
>
> I would suggest that instead of viewing Jarmusch's film as being
> devoid of context as far as his use of images, see it as a testament to
> the transformative powers of poetry itself. The fact that Nobody felt so
Again, someone quoted, quite out of context, something that Sasha Stone
wrote on a film mailing list probably about a year ago.
Perhaps you are responding to the person who sought to use her as a straw
man to knock down, but you do address your posting to her, and you use her
name in your subject line, so I'll try again...
As I thought I'd explained last night, Sasha was answering a question
someone had posed before the film had been released nationally, and she
provided what information she had in her possession based on a number of
news stories and reviews that had accompanied the film.
She had not been able to see the film yet when she helpfully provided what
limited information she had (and which she had clearly indicated was
limited information).
It's pointless to post about what little she said because she not only
isn't on the Blake list (though she does know a lot about Blake), but what
she said about the film (while essentially accurate) is being wholly
misconstrued.
-- Robert
rjmac@america.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 00:33:25 -0500
From: Mike Young
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: The Tyger
Message-Id: <32F96D25.7E42@calumet.yorku.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Hello all,
I was wondering if anyone would have some insights into Blake's 'The
Tyger'. One of my friends at Univerisity here, has a paper on this poem
due in a couple of weeks, and since I have a deep appreciation for
Blake's work, he asked me for help. I have some theories as to its
purposes/messages, but I was wondering if anyone else would like to put
their minds in motion on this one. Thanks very much to any and all,
Mike Young
myoung@calumet.yorku.ca
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 11:01:23 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, reillys@ix.netcom.com
Subject: e-journal publication (was framing the Sublime) -Reply
Message-Id:
Thanks, Susan, for the advice re the electronic journal, etc .. I shall try,
given some time, although I tried George coates' on http today and the
URL wasn't recognised ... often happens here. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 12:04:50 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu
Subject: Re: Blake and Nature and Wordsworth -Reply
Message-Id:
Jennifer, yes, this is quite a problem which you raise, and interesting.
Could this be a case where it is necessary to see Blake's attitude as
both-and, rather than either-or? Perhaps he can simultaneously perceive
that our bodies and the world of nature are simply husks or `shells' to be
cast off ultimately when we recover our divine immortal bodies... and
that there is divine light at the very core of the contracted forms of
nature, and that everything is `holy' despite its being transformed by the
State into which it has darkened and contracted. At least this is how I
would argue. The imagery you adduce is rather too abstruse and
ambiguous on which to rest a case, in my opinion. Pam van Schaik
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 07:57:53 -0800
From: Steve Perry
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Tyger
Message-Id: <32F9FF81.4443@surf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Mike Young wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone would have some insights into Blake's 'The
> Tyger'. I have some theories as to its purposes/messages, but I was wondering >if anyone else would like to put their minds in motion on this one.
Mike,
What are your thoughts? A dialouge would be preferable to a lecture....
Steve Perry
"Did He who made the Lamb make Thee"?
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 11:55:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Patricia Neill
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Romancing the Net
Message-Id: <199702061655.LAA21254@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
For anyone interested, Chadwyck-Healey (Alexandria VA based electronic
publisher) has one thousand valentine poems available for copying,
downloading, printing, whatever your red little hearts desire. Tis their
Valentine Day present to the net.
Visit the site at http://valentine.chadwyck.com/
"Online 24 hours a day and accessible from any part of the globe, One
Thousand Valentine Poems will enable the wired and the lovestruck instantly
to search four centuries of poetry for fitting lines containing romantic
words of the names of their loved ones."
>From a press release from Chadwyck-Healey.
Patty Neill
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 12:05:48 -0500
From: Mike Young
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Tyger
Message-Id: <32FA0F6C.5708@calumet.yorku.ca>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Steve Perry wrote:
>
> Mike Young wrote:
>
> > I was wondering if anyone would have some insights into Blake's 'The
> > Tyger'. I have some theories as to its purposes/messages, but I was wondering >if anyone else would like to put their minds in motion on this one.
>
> Mike,
>
> What are your thoughts? A dialouge would be preferable to a lecture....
>
I suppose I was looking into some sort of inner meaning etc. My own
personal thoughts revolve around the Lamb being the Son of God (Jesus),
and the Tyger being Satan. "Did he who made the Lamb make Thee?"
Another possibility is the many references to the Industrial Revolution
:
What the hammer! what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain
What the anvil, what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
And others throughout. Since Blake was strongly against the commonplace
hardships placed on people by industry, I felt that this was definatly a
possibility as to the meaning of the piece.
Thanks again for any help and comments on this. I'm sorry that it might
not be at the intelectual level of some of these messages. I suppose
that's what comes with any Undergrad English major :)
Mike Young
myoung@calumet.yorku.ca
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Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 12:52:06 -0500 (EST)
From: Nelson Hilton
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Tyger
Message-Id:
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Bruce Borowsky's extensive annotated bibliography of criticism on "The
Tyger" can be found at:
http://www.english.uga.edu:80/wblake/SIE/42/42bib.html
Nelson Hilton -=- English -=- University of Georgia -=- Athens
Was ist Los? "Net of Urizen" or "Jerusalem the Web"?
http://www.english.uga.edu/nhilton
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 97 20:17:40 +0000
From: bd@stac.ac.uk (Bob Davis)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: The Tyger
Message-Id: <415080.ensmtp@post.stac.ac.uk>
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APOLOGIES IF THIS HAS GONE TWICE. SERVER GLITCH WITH NEW MAILBASE.
I'm very interested in any dialogue which emerges on this fascinating topic.
I was struck on one occasion by a group of school children to whom I was
teaching 'The Tyger' who got very hung up on its resemblance to 'Twinkle,
twinkle little star' (1806) by Jane Taylor (1783-1824). There is a strong
metrical affinity as well as some other odd points of contact. The first
verse of 'Twinkle, twinkle' is reportedly the most popularly known snatch of
verse in the British Isles.
I have more to say on 'The Tyger', but would be interested to know, in the
meantime, of any wider experiences of teaching it or reading it to young
children.
Bob Davis
St Andrew's College
Glasgow
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Saint Andrew's College, Glasgow, Scotland.
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #13
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