Today's Topics:
Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply -Reply -Reply
William Blake
Sarah Clayton, D.W. Doerrbecker and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man
Returned mail: Host unknown -Forwarded
Re: The Tyger -Reply' reply
Blake's designs...
Re: The Tyger -Reply
Gnosticism
Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply -Reply -Reply
Re: Altizer introduction
Re: Sarah Clayton, D.W. Doerrbecker and Jim Jarmusch's Dead
Why Swedenborg is Not Sublime
Blake, Bateson, and Capra
Please remove me
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 14:49:22 -0600
From: David Medearis
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
I think it is important to remember that Bake's vision of the "Urizenic" or
"super-rational" persona is extremely bias and one-sided. While many
of us here may admire Blake to the point of seeing him as flawless, I
tend to view Blake's fear and even hostility towards science and
technology as a tragic flaw. Moreover, I find it Ironic that Blake created
Urizen to represent this aspect of his personality, since it is at this
point, that Bake's own reason seems to break down into a sea of
emotional misoneism. I have often wondered whether or not Blake may
have even realized this Irony himself, or if Urizen's development was a
purely unconscious projection, resulting from Blake's repressed fear.
As an afterthought:
I would like to thank all the Urizens out there for making this discussion
about Blake possible.
But before all you Los out there start breaking out your hammers to hit
me on the head, let me just say this: "Please don't hurt me! I am not even
a graduate student yet!" :)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 13:09:55 -0800 (PST)
From: "Tonya Gaunce"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc:
Subject: William Blake
Message-Id: <199702102109.NAA14191@f7.hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
I must give an oral report on BLake, and need some help on a few things. What do
you feel Blake's mythology represented? Who do you feel are the main characters
in his mythology? Why do you think Blake's poetry is so powerful? What makes
him stand out from all the rest? Thanks for your site. It was informable. I
hope to hear from you soon. Tonya
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Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 18:28:29 -0800 (PST)
From: "Josh J. Hansen aka Bill Blake"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Sarah Clayton, D.W. Doerrbecker and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Ms. Clayton, Mr. Doerrbecker, and fellow Blakeans:
After consulting the archives I noticed the two of you had a
strong difference of opinion regarding the film Dead Man and William
Blake's representation in it. I was wondering if I might contact each of
you personally via the net to hear some of your views pro or con.
Also, if anyone happens to know how I might contact either of
these two (or if they care to answer any of my questions for that matter)
could you please post it. It would be a great help to me in my research.
Sincerely,
Josh Hansen
e-mail: n9410677@henson.cc.wwu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 09:09:59 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Returned mail: Host unknown -Forwarded
Message-Id:
I tried to send this reply to the personal sender, rather than the group and
it didn't get through, so am trying again.Pam
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Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 08:51:56 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com, PJermolow@aol.com
Subject: Ecstasy to Eternity? -Reply
Your poem seems to me to reflect the opening of your psyche to your
whole self - particularly to the child within who seems to have had to
stand alone in clear-eyed perception of the lack of integrity of others
around. Having nurtured the honest and true in yourself , you have
individuated (in the Jungian sense), receiving the help of your
sub-conscious mind which is , it would seem, offering to co-operate
with your conscious mind, and bringing you all the gifts of apparent
communion with a divine helper within. Perhaps this is what it signifies
to carry the `baton' of the Piper and go forth renewed, but also with a
`load' to bear - of transmitting the new insights derived from your
psychic transformation, as well as release from the too narrow
constraints of the ego. Hope this rings true. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 02:13:27 -0500 (EST)
From: RONROONY@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com, bd@stac.ac.uk
Subject: Re: The Tyger -Reply' reply
Message-Id: <970211021326_1962366888@emout15.mail.aol.com>
I have been having some trouble getting my posts through and I was wondering
if someone would give me an acknowledgemt that this is received and properly
posted to the list or any other fate it might encounter.
I agree with your position. It is somewhat consistant with my own thought on
the Tyger is to capture at once the incredible beauty that only the world of
experience can offer cause only experience has the ability to be heated to a
temperature sufficient to create the complexities of form movement and
texture which capture our imagination and give us the slimmest peak of the
incredible power of the forces which fire the forms of time in the furnace of
eternity. No moral judgement in this poem really.
Keep up the great discussion.
In a message dated 97-02-07 20:18:07 EST, blake@albion.com
bd@stac.ac.uk writes
<< ~Twinkle, twinkle. little star ...' in posing a question re the nature of
the
star is somewhat like Blake's `Tyger' poem in that both point to the
nature of the creator behind what one sees. I think it is an
oversimplification to relate the Tyger simply to Satan or reduce the
cosmic scope of the poem to the industrial revolution. I think Blake saw
clearly the predatory nature of the world in which the tiger devours the
lamb and the worm the rose and raises the question, as a child might
well do, but obviously with deep wisdom and concern too, of how a
goo >>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 01:51:09 -0500
From: Sharon Doty
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake's designs...
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19970211015107.0068a4a4@ramail.angelo.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I'm a Blake neophyte, but I was reading the email between Anders and
Jennifer Michael about Blake's designs. I'll definitely want to look into
the books that J. Michael suggested also. I usually try to copy Blake's
drawings so that I don't miss anything in them. The last two that I drew
were both from The Songs of Experience -- To Tirzah and Nurse's Song. To
Tirzah is rich with symbolism. The two women are important because of
their contrasting dresses and contrasting hairstyles. It's also very
significant in those drawings that Blake has the body of the "grey man" or
"Lazarus" figure descending into a point that appears to be going into the
ground. I don't know exactly how much we can read into the Nurse's Song
but I think it's especially relevant that the woman is drawn with large
breasts. Blake only does this on occasion -- if memory serves me right, he
only did it in the drawings (out of Songs for Innocence and Experience) for
Spring, The Angel, Infant Joy and the Nurse's Song. Another example of how
Blake tells stories with the drawings is that in the Nurse's Song (of
experience), the boy's arms are crossed practically across his whole body
-- completely different from the figures in the Innocent Nurse's Song.
Back to the experience Nurse's Song -- the woman has her hands poised in a
way that the boy is enclosed (and Blake loved to play with enclosed and
open spaces in his drawings), and her posture even mimics the upright
grapes that align on both sides of the her body. In most prints, Blake
also made the experienced nurse's dress match the grapes.
Gee I got carried away there, but one of the questions that has been heavy
on my mind is whether or not the Songs of Innocence and Experience can be
read separate from the drawings. I don't think Blake would have wanted the
poems to be read separate from the drawings.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 12:53:42 -0000
From: Owen Eden
To: "'Blake, William'"
Subject: Re: The Tyger -Reply
Message-Id: <01BC181A.B27A3120@pool08.netcom.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>No, you're not wrong to see the illustration of the tiger as rather
>appealing. Much has been written by critics on this, but many seem
> to miss the point of Blake's illustration. ... which, to me, is that all
> that the tiger represents, though real and very dangerous to all of
>those in the world of nature where the Devourer always feeds off the
> Prolific, is ultimately overcome by the mercy of a good and
>benevolent divinity. The tiger is as much an illusion as Satan in the
>end... there where time ceases . Its power is only for a limited time
> though that time seems forever to those enduring it.
> Pam van Schaik
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the discussion of Blake as the poet and illustrator of The Tyger
shouldn't we have firmly in mind that he had never seen a tiger
nor even a decent representation of one, or at least of the animal
we have in mind when we think of one?
My own feeling is that because I have seen a tiger -- and in virtual
reality on television and so on -- that his verse loses nothing and
even gains in power from my advantage over him. But I can't say
the same of the illustration, unfortunately. I can't buy the notion
that he intends to show us a more redeeming aspect of the creature.
Surely had he intended this, he wouldn't have put that illustration
on the same page as the verse, unless he had a sense of humour,
which is hardly ever true of a prophet. Isn't the illustration, rather, a
charming child-like example of the knowledge of the exotic world
held by virtually all people in England in those days?
Owen Eden
ode@netcom.co.uk
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 15:03:00 +0000 (GMT)
From: Edward Larrissy
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Gnosticism
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Henry Crabbe Robinson was the first to detect the Gnosticism in Blake's
thought. Blake could have encountered Gnostic ideas in Joseph
Priestley, -An History of Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ-, 4 vols
(Birmingham, 1786), I, 166-7; and in J.L. Mosheim, -An Ecclesiastical
History, Ancient and Modern-, trans Archibald Maclaine, 2 vols (London,
1765), I, 113-16. For some interesting recent thoughts, see Stuart
Curran, 'Blake and the Gnostic Hyle', -Essential Articles for the Study of
William Blake, 1970-1984-, ed Nelson Hilton (Hamden, Conn., 1986),
15-32.
Edward Larrissy
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 13:45:24 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Theology vs. psychology -Reply -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
David:
I just re-joined this discussion group, so I can't reply to the replies of
the replies, but I liked your post.
Blake's over-reaction to Urizen is nearly exactly what you said (can't be
"exactly" now, can it?), but if you think of the weight that the
Newton/Bacon/Locke triad, which is still held in high esteem as the modern
world moves on, and how much it was dominating the world of Blake...
Constable tried mixing colors based on Newtonian principles, for example.
Simple result: it didn't work! His intuition did, instead. Or the Cartesian
mind as... a machine???... you could perceive Blake as a COUNTER-weight to
all that. Plus, he was an artist, not a scientist.
You may want to look at Fritjof Capra's _The Web of Life_ to see Blake and
the Romantic Movement in broader context as well as to note that it has
taken "science" two centuries to "discover" many aspects that Blake felt
about "systems" (including how inner reflects the outer, etc.) in his art.
It's not and either/or situation, but both/and.
Also, The Economist magazine had a great article a year ago, called "Crimes
of Reason", March 16th, 1996, defends the Englightenment AND Blake well, I
think.
As to Blakes's breaking down into a sea of emotional misoneism, as you say,
I think there are a number of reasons that could be used to explain
that...........
:-)
---Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/blake.html
================================================
>I think it is important to remember that Bake's vision of the "Urizenic" or
>"super-rational" persona is extremely bias and one-sided. While many
>of us here may admire Blake to the point of seeing him as flawless, I
>tend to view Blake's fear and even hostility towards science and
>technology as a tragic flaw. Moreover, I find it Ironic that Blake created
>Urizen to represent this aspect of his personality, since it is at this
>point, that Bake's own reason seems to break down into a sea of
>emotional misoneism. I have often wondered whether or not Blake may
>have even realized this Irony himself, or if Urizen's development was a
>purely unconscious projection, resulting from Blake's repressed fear.
>
>As an afterthought:
>I would like to thank all the Urizens out there for making this discussion
>about Blake possible.
>
>But before all you Los out there start breaking out your hammers to hit
>me on the head, let me just say this: "Please don't hurt me! I am not even
>a graduate student yet!" :)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 21:49:00 +100
From: "Vladimir Georgiev"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Altizer introduction
Message-Id: <10670D430FA@picasso.ceu.hu>
Prof. Altizer,
Please send me privately your E-mail and postal address. I am
interested in modern Gnosticism and I have been looking for you for
ages. Thanks in advance.
Yours truly,
Vlado.
h96geo46@sirius.ceu.hu.
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 22:20:41 MET
From: "D.W. DOERRBECKER"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Sarah Clayton, D.W. Doerrbecker and Jim Jarmusch's Dead
Message-Id: <89668FF68C5@netwareserver.uni-trier.de>
------------------------------fwd message-------------------------
A NOTE ADDRESSED TO JOSH HANSEN, NOT THE LIST ...
February 11th, 1997
Dear Josh Hansen:
Yesterday, you posted the following to the Blake Online list at
blake@albion.com:
> Ms. Clayton, Mr. Doerrbecker, and fellow Blakeans: > After
> consulting the archives I noticed the two of you had a strong
> difference of opinion regarding the film Dead Man and William
> Blake's representation in it. I was wondering if I might
> contact each of you personally via the net to hear some of
> your views pro or con. Also, if anyone happens to know how I
> might contact either of these two (or if they care to answer
> any of my questions for that matter) could you please post it.
> It would be a great help to me in my research.
I *did* reply to your earlier enquiry, didn't I? And it was me who
directed you towards the archive of the Blake list. I cannot recall
that this particular response to your query "bounced" and was
returned with a delivery failure notification. So why should you ask
the subscribers to the list how you "might contact either of these
two", i.e. Clayton or myself? In any case, my E-Mail address is (as
above) doerrbec@uni-trier.de.
Sincerely,
DW Doerrbecker
------------------------end of fwd message---------------------------
P.S. I've sent the above message to your private E-Mail address,
and it *was* returned to sender about a minute later. So my initial
reply to your request for information may not have reached you
either. Sorry, but there's apparently some technical problem which
we'll have to solve; does your E-Mail address call for an "IN%"
prefix or anything similar?
--DWD
------------------------------
Date: 11 Feb 97 16:55:50 EST
From: Philip Benz <100575.2061@CompuServe.COM>
To: "internet:blake@albion.com"
Subject: Why Swedenborg is Not Sublime
Message-Id: <970211215549_100575.2061_GHW139-1@CompuServe.COM>
Tom, Pam & cie,
Thanx for your detailed answers. Thanx also to David Baulch, whose
paper "The Sublime of the Bible" I found on the Prometheus Unplugged
site at Emory. With your help and a little deep thought I think I've
understood both Blake's "Sublime of the Bible" and why he ultimately
rejected Swedenborg.
Pam said: << To try to answer re mountains and the sublime... in Blake,
all things that exist were once endowed with divine humanity in
Eternity. Thus, even Mountains, rivers [...] could speak with the
divine voice and with eloquent wisdom. >>
The thing that confused me most about this from the outset was my
all-too-conventional notion of what "speaking with the divine voice"
meant. As long as we see the Sublime of the Bible as a sort of human awe
and respect for the overwhelming force of God -- whether it's perceived
directly, through the voice of God, or indirectly, through mountains &
storms -- we are trapped in an empirical construction of aesthetic
experience. This is the sublime of the Gothics, of Burke, Milton &
Longinus, a sublime where the power of life, death and fear overwhelms
the feeble powers of man. In Blake, this form of aesthetic experience
derives not from the Sublime but from Urizen and his "thou shalt not"
voice of repressive reason.
But it is not Blake's view of the Sublime of the Bible. The key to
Blake's sublime and that of his reading of the bible is in *prophesy*.
David Baulch points to the explanations given by the prophets Isaiah and
Ezekiel in MHH: "my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing";
prophesy is "the desire of raising other men into a perception of the
infinite." The purpose of prophesy is to cause us to view the infinite
within ourselves by helping us see things from fresh perspectives,
through the sublimity of imaginative vision.
This is the meaning of Blake's desire "to speak to future
generations by a Sublime Allegory [...] addressd to the Intellectual
powers while it is altogether hidden from the Corporeal Understanding".
I had initially interpreted this as merely a defense of Blakean opacity
-- poetry that is purposefully difficult, to make the reader think
deeply in order to find meaning. In fact, understanding what constitutes
the "Sublime of the Bible" for Blake is essential to understanding the
very raison d'etre of his poetry. Without sublimity, Blake's poetry is
nothing more than an eccentric collection of odd names and characters.
His sublime purpose is to bring us to perceive the four-fold nature of
our inner selves.
OK, OK, this is doubtless all very obvious to you confirmed
Blakeites, but it surprised this neophyte when all these pieces began to
click into place around the notion of the sublime.
So why is Swedenborg not sublime? At first glance, his prophetic
mission is the same: to bring people to see the divine within themselves
from a new perspective.
The problem is that Swedenborg goes about it all wrong. Angels spoke
to him in his dreams, and his writings bring us the message, so that we
can share in this wonderful revelation. That's great, really, but when
do we get a chance to think deeply, to explore, to imagine? Swedenborg
*tells* us what it all means, very clearly, very plainly. Never does he
"stimulate the mind's powers of imaginative vision" (Baulch). There is
no opacity, no search for the infinite. The infinite is offered there on
a silver plate, there in Swedenborg's hand for us to partake in. With no
imaginative search on the part of the reader, there can be no sublime.
Blake doubtless admired Swedenborg's rebellion against church orthodoxy,
but not his empirical approach to describing the infinite.
So, is this awfully presumptuous of me, or what? Is it all wrong? Is
Blake's "Sublime of the Bible" hiding somewhere else, just beyond my
grasp?
For the record, David Baulch situates Blake's sublime aesthetic
between Burke's emirical construction of sublime experience and Kant's
idealist construction of sublime experience. He insists on the
opposition between the Elect and the Reprobate (identified with the
angels & devils of MHH) and the Redeemed as the site of conflict between
these two poles. I'll have to read further in Blake before I fully
understand this trilithonic model.
Cheers, --- Phil
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 19:18:11 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake, Bateson, and Capra
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I recently told an e-mail friend in this group privately about the Fritjof
Capra book, _The Web of Life_, which I think is worth expounding upon for
this group...
Don't tell me you've already been discussing this! Oh well. For those of
you who aren't...
I went to college in the late 70s, when Bateson was very "in" with literary
theory, semiotics and cybernetics, who's sending the message, who's
receiving it, what's a message, etc. You can tell in his description of
things like the "double bind" that, obliquely, he was also very into Blake
himself. Not only that, but a former member of this group, Matthew Dubuque,
studied with Bateson at UC Santa Cruz, and said to me that they would often
get into a kind of... puzzle... or something... after which Bateson would
send them "back to Blake!" Not that Blake was ever good at untangling knots
as much as representing the very real ones which hold us as well as unfold
us.
Anyway, I was also very into Capra at the time: _The Tao of Physics_, in
particular. How can you describe something as energy when you're looking at
it as matter, for example? Answer...? Read the book. But I had no idea that
Capra was so enduringly influenced by Bateson until this new book. Some of
Capra's views tie in so well with Blake: going microscopic can show us as
much as telescopic (Blake's lack of distinction, or blur, on internal or
societal dilemmas, for example). Capra also argues that physics (Newton's
domain, right?) will lose more and more to biology, that if such a
mechanistic approach to AIDS hadn't been followed, scientists might have
followed the mutations better. Finally, he ends the book with what I can
only describe as a salute to Bateson. And his only complaint about why
Bateson didn't get farther in his own life? Well, I'll let you read the
book rather than give my own reductionist, out of context quote.
Brilliant writer, Capra. Quite Apollonian. Clear.
-Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/blake.html
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 23:22:19 -0500 (EST)
From: Baileyr2@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Please remove me
Message-Id: <970211231337_1828251168@emout10.mail.aol.com>
Please remove me from this list. My apologies for this disruption. btr
--------------------------------
End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #15
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