Today's Topics:
Re: The Tyger -Reply -Reply
Please Remove Me!
Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
An Analogy
Re: The Tyger -Reply -Reply
RE: Altizer introduction
Re: Gnosticism/Crabbe Robinson
Re: Altizer introduction
Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Dumain's Intimidation Tactics
kitten with string
Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
tyger tygir tegir tegre tigar tygar tigre
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 09:25:17 -0600
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Tyger -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Jake, you're absolutely right to see Icarus and Prometheus in "The Tyger."
I would only suggest a refinement of this part of your reading:
> "On what wings dare he aspire?" The fall of Icarus was hubris. So who
>could have the strength to set aside pride and arrogance, unlike the
>church and others of Blake's time, and dare soar to the heights of the
>imagination, to aspire or find inspiration to think freely, to create?
>Could it be the Bard who could be such? Inspiration to create ones art
>is creation in its self, and could that art/knowledge be capable with
>the "Mind-forg'd manacles" of oppression? Is this all getting any where?
>From whose point of view is Icarus "proud"? From the perspective of the
gods, who say that no mortal should be able to fly as high as the sun, just
as mortals aren't supposed to possess fire (hence Prometheus). So one
man's hubris is another man's *daring*. Even the act of creation could be
seen as hubris, because it places man in the role of God. There are
interesting parallels, by the way, in Gray's "Progress of Poesy" and
Collins' "Ode on the Poetical Character," where a poet dares to compare his
own creative act with God's. For Blake, the exercise of the imagination
*is* the achievement of humanity's divine essence, and *not* to exercise it
is to fall into fatal sleep.
>is! Why do I keep flashing to the movie "Joe verses the Volcano" with
>Tom Hanks? Tom Hanks broke away from the dredge of industrial labor and
>found life. Kinda dumb of me adding that in, but I did like the movie!
>:) Not as much as Blake though! I feel that the poet, as god or creator,
>creates for us the Tygers of our life through their art, the Tyger coul
>be a symbol of awakening. Not only can we draw from the strength of the
>Tyger, can also die from it as well.
I haven't seen the movie, but would just point out that the creation of the
Tyger *is* industrial labor of a sort: the work of a blacksmith in a fiery
forge. There is a literalness to "what the hand, dare sieze the fire": to
work with metal, you have to heat it to unbearable temperatures and
physically shape it. Art, then, is not only the ability to imagine a new
form but the courage to give it shape.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 10:42:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Baileyr2@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Please Remove Me!
Message-Id: <970214104207_1514037363@emout08.mail.aol.com>
This is my second plea for help-- I'm so sorry for the disruption but I am
leaving for vacation in 5 minutes and cannot have excess mail in my mailbox!
Please remove me--
Sincerely,
btr
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 09:52:01 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Message-Id: <97021409520127@wc.stephens.edu>
Well, with characteristic floods from both Van Schaik and Albright, I
see it's time to say good-bye again. Too bad for me, obviously.
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:16:56 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: An Analogy
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
What is wrong with trying to systematize, or trying to give views that
"illuminate" but can ultimately further deepen the complexity and
bafflement?
I offer "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge as a sample of this,
in which he added the gloss to the original text... as a navigational
tool?... to "help" the reader?... or to further baffle? How much is
illuminated by that gloss, how much is skimmed over by it, and how much
does it simply enlarge the enigmatic meaning of that poem, like the
illustrations do for Blake's work?
Getting back to one of the greatest poems in the language, "Tyger, Tyger":
Maybe that illustration is based on the constellation that Mark Trevor
Smith pointed out. And maybe that would be a comment on the tyger's
immortality, out there, in the human mind that connects dots and makes
certain "constellations"... meaning out of the stars out there. But then...
who's hammering that tyger into being? Los, not discussed in this book? Who
connected the dots and came up with the Lynx? What other associations were
disregarded in that decision to call that constellation the Lynx?
The Gospel according to... Erdman, Frye, Damon, Davis, and others. They all
add points of view, don't they? They also limit points of view with their
constructs. And if you take Erdman's historical approach, or Damon's
encyclopedic: "Well, in this instance... it means...", how much is NOT
explained by that extra meaning that they give to you about the text. Or if
you go directly to the source text/illustration, Blake, and read his
*entire*, at times self-contradicting oeuvre, what pieces are you going to
pick up to say:
"The tyger is a devourer."
Or:
"No! The tyger is prolific!"
Damon: "The TYGER is wrath. (MHH 9:5; FZ ii:35)"
Speaking of "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", isn't there a great deal of
Blake's most enduring poetry that comes out of carefully conceived WRATH at
injustice, at political correctness, at expediency for the sake of progress
which dehumanizes in its process of creating "new times"? (I think of the
Chimney Sweep poems in both _Innocence_ and _Experience_.) And why do
people continue to marvel at MHH, even in all its complexity, stumbling
through its mazes but finding riches, whereas the numbers that search for
Golgonooza drop off considerably? Certainly greatness is not measured in
popularity by the masses, as Nietzsche correctly noted. Or Blake: "What is
great is necessarily obscure." But what IS it about the _Songs_ and
"Marriage..." that endure and grow in significance for many people? Could
it be... accessibility? Or that this was his creative peak? I personally
find it visually to be around this time that he was doing his visual art
masterpieces. But that's a merely subjective view!
And why is it that Gloudina Bouwer bemoans the lack of posts by Hugh
Walthall, but not the total dropout of creative geniuses like Matthew
Dubuque and Sarah Clayton from this group of seemingly five who talk and
hundreds who listen? She and I have gone through our own allotropic states
towards each other, I think she would agree................. But it doesn't
disregard the brilliance which the Blake Archives contains for Dubuque's
and Clayton's contributions.
The seen and the unseen.
The nice little bows to tie things up
and the tygers that rip out of the boxes that tried to reductionistly
stereotype them.
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:27:45 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: The Tyger -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Good points, Jennifer!
-Randall Albright
>...the creation of the
>Tyger *is* industrial labor of a sort: the work of a blacksmith in a fiery
>forge. There is a literalness to "what the hand, dare sieze the fire": to
>work with metal, you have to heat it to unbearable temperatures and
>physically shape it. Art, then, is not only the ability to imagine a new
>form but the courage to give it shape.
>
>Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 17:53:58 +100
From: "VLADIMIR GEORGIEU"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: Altizer introduction
Message-Id: <14A865B7D66@picasso.ceu.hu>
Dear Prof Altizer,
Many thanks for your reply. Please do not bother about being
recognized by others. Nobody of the great minds of humanity has
achieved fame in his lifetime and many even died for what they
thought.
I am a monk (Orthodox church) and lecturer with a monthly salary of
10$ which must be compared to Chad or Upper Volta. I arrived in
Hungary to do some research and my budget here is also rather tight.
May I receive a sample copy of your latest book titled The Contemporary
Jesus or any other, in which you deal with modern Gnosticism? When I
return to Bulgaria, I can send you in exchange a book or a music
cassette.
My postal address until July 1997 is: Vladimir St Georgiev, room 726,
CEU Centre, 87 Kerepesi ut, 1106 Budapest, Hungary.
As far as I understand, you founded the God is Dead theology. Does
your system develop Nitzsche's premises or does it stem from the 2nd
century Gnostic master Basilide?
Yours truly,
Vlado.
> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 97 01:26:09 UT
> From: "tHOMAS aLTIZER"
> To: blake@albion.com
> Subject: RE: Altizer introduction
> Reply-to: blake@albion.com
> Vladimir Georgiev,
>
> My e-mail address is jonathanjackson@msn.com and my postal address is P.O.
> Box 331, Buck Hill Falls, Pa. 18323. Have you really been interested in my
> work? This is rare. I did just publish a book which has a good deal on
> Gnosticism: The Contemporary Jesus (State University of New york Press) and
> there is a paperbound version.
>
> Tom Altizer
>
> ----------
> From: Vladimir Georgiev
> Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 2:46 PM
> To: blake@albion.com
> Subject: Re: Altizer introduction
>
> 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
>
>
>
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 18:31:57 +100
From: "VLADIMIR GEORGIEU"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Gnosticism/Crabbe Robinson
Message-Id: <14B2DEF45AC@picasso.ceu.hu>
Dear Ed,
Happy Valentine! Thank you very much for the title. Since it is very improbable
that H. C. Robinson's 1922 book is available in Budapest. may I
stretch your kindness just a little more and ask you to quote the
particular passage concerning Gnosis in Blake. It is very important
for me. Thank in advance and God bless.
Yours,
Vlado.
> From: Edward Larrissy
> To: blake@albion.com
> Cc: blake@albion.com
> Subject: Re: Gnosticism/Crabbe Robinson
> Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 13:43:29 +0000 (GMT)
> Priority: NORMAL
> Reply-to: blake@albion.com
> On Wed, 12 Feb 1997 15:41:06 +100 Vladimir Georgiev
> wrote:
> >Dear Edward,
> >
> >Thanks for the interesing information but would you please tell me
> >who Henry Crabbe Robinson was and in which work of his he
> mentioned
> >first the Gnostic traits in Blake. Please quote fully.
> >
> >Your fellow-Blakian:
> >
> >Vlado.
> >vladimir Georgiev
>
> Dear Vlado,
> He was a diarist who knew quite a number of writers and artists of the
> period. He had a few fascinating and quite detailed conversations with
> Blake. The edition I've always used is -Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth,
> Lamb, Etc: Being Selections from the Remains of Henry Crabbe
> Robinson-, ed Edith J. Morley (Manchester, 1922). The specific
> reference is at p.23. Good luck.
>
> Ed
> >
>
>
> Ed Larrissy
>
>
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 18:44:23 +100
From: "VLADIMIR GEORGIEU"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Altizer introduction
Message-Id: <14B61BD2469@picasso.ceu.hu>
Happy Valentine, one and all:
If someone on this list knows where Stuart Curran works or lives
(pereferably with his E-mail URL), please reply. I would like to
consult him on Gnostic elements in Blake's thought. Thanks in
advance.
Yours,
Vlado.
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 10:36:57 -0800 (PST)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu
Subject: Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Message-Id: <199702141836.KAA16929@igc2.igc.apc.org>
Ironically, I did see a film called "The Last Supper", but a
rather different one from the one Pam describes. Mine was made by
a famous Cuban director, and it concerns a Cuban plantation owner
in the nineteenth century who invites his African slaves to dinner
in order to convert them to Christianity. They spend most of the
film laughing in his face. It's a masterpiece.
Now praytell, what is PC in my views on Blake? Did you see me
support the feminist moaning and groaning about Blake's alleged
sexism? Have I insisted on limiting any aspect of Blake
interpretation to some crass political line? This accusation is
just too obtuse. Rather it is a lazy excuse for not paying
attention at all.
What do Pam's rejoinders have to do with anything I have written?
I am interested in Blake's possible motivations for his
statements, whereas Pam can only cite doctrine. I am not denying
the Kabbalah as a source for Blake, but this doesn't answer the
question why and to what end. What is it that makes Blake
different from Huxley, Capra, Heisenberg, Jung, Berkeley, or
Plato? How plain do I need to be to suggest there are decisively
different points of departure, in social being, in ideological
orientation, in intellectual and political purpose? One does not
have to reduce Blake to a limited range of concerns in order to
recognize these decisive dynamics. Can I make this any plainer?
Am I stupid? Are you?
And here is an issue of practical list dynamics. If you don't
like what I say, you can easily delete or download my posts, since
I keep all my arguments to one message at a time and don't break
them up into ten-twenty different messages. I get two copies of
each of Pam's messages. Worse, instead of one concentrated
reflection on a topic, she sends 10-20 tiny little posts on the
same topic, which then gets multiplied by two. Consider the
practical consequences. Not only does this practice complicate
the downloading process, it wastes disk space as well as time.
Attached to the top of each message is a system header message of
about 25 lines announcing the date, time, etc. of each message.
If you put what you have to say in one message, I only have to
suffer through this once. But when you send 10 teeny weeny
messages, the bulk of my disk space gets taken up by system
gibberish rather than substantive content. This is pissing me
off.
Randall Albright is even worse, for he is a moron, and clogs up my
inbox with an even more voluminous spattering of his little rabbit
turds. Albright, I was most happy when you disappeared from the
list. Did your absence indicate a relapse, or were you well in
the meantime and have only just relapsed, now gracing us once
again with your mental illness online? Please take your Prozac,
and then calm down and collect your thoughts before responding to
people. Pay attention to what they have written before your
sphincter starts pumping. The Blake list is not your personal
kitty litter box. If you can't control your bowel movements,
could you at least try to squeeze it all out into one post at a
time, so I can delete your posts without wasting half of my day?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:44:31 -0800 (PST)
From: "Josh J. Hansen aka Bill Blake"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: blake@albion.com, tomdill@wc.stephens.edu
Subject: Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Ralph-
I hope you do not see this as the equivaltent of an electronic
"bowel movement" on my part but is "The Last Supper" available on video?
Yours,
Josh Hansen
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 20:47:13 +100
From: "VLADIMIR GEORGIEU"
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu
Subject: Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Message-Id: <14D6E6F591D@picasso.ceu.hu>
>
> Randall Albright is even worse, for he is a moron, and clogs up my
> inbox with an even more voluminous spattering of his little rabbit
> turds. Albright, I was most happy when you disappeared from the
> list. Did your absence indicate a relapse, or were you well in
> the meantime and have only just relapsed, now gracing us once
> again with your mental illness online? Please take your Prozac,
> and then calm down and collect your thoughts before responding to
> people. Pay attention to what they have written before your
> sphincter starts pumping. The Blake list is not your personal
> kitty litter box. If you can't control your bowel movements,
> could you at least try to squeeze it all out into one post at a
> time, so I can delete your posts without wasting half of my day?
Dearest Ralph,
That's simply incredible. I never imagined that Americans can be so
vulgar and intolerable. Why do not you leave this list and let
discussion take it normal course again?
Vlado.
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 14:48:16 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Dumain's Intimidation Tactics
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Yawn................
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 18:07:30 -0500 (EST)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: kitten with string
Message-Id: <199702142307.SAA01082@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Ralph Dumain,
You say: " I have given you the end of a golden string.
Now where are you going to go with it?"
For the moment I want to go right to where we started;
where I asked you: what do you mean by the world as it is.
Have I missed something? Is there a "world-as-it-is" that
I have to recognize before I can understand what you are
talking about? (When Blake talks of "The God of This World"
I think I know what he is talking about.) But for now I
feel you are demanding that I have this allegiance to the
world-as-it-is, an intellectual empire of which I am not
a subject.
With the help of Blake's "phenomenology" and "psychology"
I have begun to understand that "I" am a vortex of states,
one vortex in the body of the Divine Humanity. As a mental
traveler I have, with Blake's guidance, begun to know
the relativity of the states in the vortex - how one moment
I could be in a state where spirit is dominant, having
overpowered the bonds of the natural. How ten minutes later
the spirit can be tortured at the hands of the natural,
catching my shrieks in cups of gold, to make matters worse.
My universe is a place where the psychic laws of relativity
apply; where the energies of instinct, feeling, cognition
and imagination control me, and their states determine where
I am in the vortex and how I cope. My universe is a relative
universe, where I cannot apply Newtonian laws to ascertain
my psychic position.
So when you talk of "the world as it is" I literally do
not know what you are talking about. It is as if I live on
another planet. The other explanation of my confusion could
however also be: that you have elevated an intellectual
construct to an absolute, one that I have to "believe", pay
allegiance to, before I can begin to understand what you are
talking about. Or are you just talking about the "Vegetable
Universe" which is but a faint shadow of the real and eternal
world (which Blake talks about on the same page as where he
has the illustration of the golden string - Top of J 77 in
Jerusalem.)
I like a lot of what you say about the Tyger,although
you seem to lean towards seeing something demonic, where I
just see a magnificent portion of eternity. But then I also
assume that Blake, supreme anthropologist of the spirit, sees
the lamb as an equally wonderful portion of eternity, as he
does when he contemplates the phenomenon of Christ.
I will tell you another time why in Blake criticism I
despise the phrases "unorganized innocence" and "organized
innocence" equally.
"Unorganiz'd Innocence: An Impossibility.
Innocence dwells with Wisdom, but never with Ignorance."
(K380)
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 17:06:53 +0000
From: "Steve Perry"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Message-Id: <199702150059.QAA17575@surf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
I can only imagine that Ralph is undergoing some sort of stress or
experiencing an hormonal embalance that has left him temporarily
abjurant from good sense, and that after reflecting on the quality
and substance of his speech he will again return to us with his
otherwise intelligent offerings.
> > Randall Albright is even worse, for he is a moron, and clogs up my
> > inbox with an even more voluminous spattering of his little rabbit
> > turds. Albright, I was most happy when you disappeared from the
> > list. Did your absence indicate a relapse, or were you well in
> > the meantime and have only just relapsed, now gracing us once
> > again with your mental illness online? Please take your Prozac,
> > and then calm down and collect your thoughts before responding to
> > people. Pay attention to what they have written before your
> > sphincter starts pumping. The Blake list is not your personal
> > kitty litter box. If you can't control your bowel movements,
> > could you at least try to squeeze it all out into one post at a
> > time, so I can delete your posts without wasting half of my day?
>
>
> Dearest Ralph,
>
> That's simply incredible. I never imagined that Americans can be so
> vulgar and intolerable. Why do not you leave this list and let
> discussion take it normal course again?
>
> Vlado.
> vladimir Georgiev
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 17:47:12 -0800
From: "T.Q.Alexander"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: THE EARTH & THE TYGER
Message-Id: <330515A0.5A34@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
VLADIMIR GEORGIEU wrote:
>
> Dearest Ralph,
>
> That's simply incredible. I never imagined that Americans can be so
> vulgar and intolerable. Why do not you leave this list and let
> discussion take it normal course again?
Hell of a discussion here with THE EARTH & THE TYGER. I have been
enjoying it very much. Of course, us undergrads really enjoy it when
Titans go head to head over Lit! :) LOLOL! Grads especially PhDers crack
me up at times! Any PhD's in the house?
We Americans can be vulgar just like the rest of the world however, I
do not hold with being vulgar or rude and sure as hell don't like
flamers on discussion lists! I for one would not like to see Ralph
depart and from the looks of things, he's not moving anyway. But I do
understand your responce.
Ralph Domain Wrote:
>
> Randall Albright is even worse, for he is a moron, and clogs up my
> inbox with an even more voluminous spattering of his little rabbit
> turds. Albright, I was most happy when you disappeared from the
> list. Did your absence indicate a relapse, or were you well in
> the meantime and have only just relapsed, now gracing us once
> again with your mental illness online? Please take your Prozac,
> and then calm down and collect your thoughts before responding to
> people. Pay attention to what they have written before your
> sphincter starts pumping. The Blake list is not your personal
> kitty litter box. If you can't control your bowel movements,
> could you at least try to squeeze it all out into one post at a
> time, so I can delete your posts without wasting half of my day?
Hey Ralph, That shits gotta go! I'll admit, that's some funny shit
though..."before you sphincter starts pumping." Really though, that
sounds more like what I would have wrote, not someone like you, Mr.
Intellectual. It is BENEATH you! Such statements usually come from some
kid with the handle of "Pearl Jam II" or "Metallica Rules" or some such
crap. I find your observations of THE TYGER closer to how I perceive the
damn thing. It's a Ball Buster of a poem that is for sure. Everyone has
food for thought when it comes to intense topic and sub- topic poetry
and works critique. I enjoy P Van Schaik and Ol' Albright as well, and
reading there posts has given me alot to chew on as well, I think bouwer
needs to read the world news or something to get that "The World as it
is" thing into perspective and out of her system, even if it applies for
both Blakes time and the now. I have enjoyed this string up from the
original post about THE TYGER but now its a damn flame war, I thought I
was on the Mac vs. IBM Compatible or the (God forbid) Scientology news
groups. Everybody scarred the hell out that poor kid, Mike Young who
started the string. The poor guy probably took up basket weaving as a
major by now. Although, I have a feeling he is enjoying the string and
getting much out of it as I have been...up to a point that is.
Albright wrote:
>Again, I am amused by Mr. Dumain's pronouncements. Santana and the
>counter-culture can be wholly dismissed. Fritjof Capra is some sort of
>yuppie lightweight. Pam Van Schaik is getting incoherent. His own bombastic
>pronouncements should be enough to scare off "weak and timid minds", too, I
>suppose.
Scare off, I don't think so, have you ever observed someone with a timid
and weak mind watch W. W. Wrestling on T.V. They love it! They will sit
for hours and watch that crap and God forbid you try and pull them away
from the viewer window at the automated car wash!...That is who you mean
by the "Timid" and "Weak Minded," right? You didn't mean people like
myself who are in college working on their AA degree, down here at the
bottom of the educational food chain, who actually utilize the Internet
for educational purposes and the betterment of grade point and out right
scholarly understanding?...I didn't think so. LOLOLOL :)
But hey everybody, here is what the Internet was initially created
for...
Bob Davis wrote:
>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
As a forum designed to exchange helpful information for the advancement
of knowledge for those seeking such knowledge! Not just scientist, but
educators as well. Hell, Ol' Bob Davis is more than not like the rest of
the educators for young kids, over worked and under paid. Drop the
Flames and stick to the discussion. If someone has stated something you
don't like, don't post back to them. Only a fool argues with a fool,
especially in a foolish way. And remember Mom?..."If you don't have
anything nice to say...don't say it!" Clean it up folks! I'm going back
to lurking the string. Ok everybody...break it up and back to the show!
Maybe I'm the fool here. It is Valentines day...damn, I should be down
at the bar with a pocket full of "Jimmy Caps" and rent money for one
night!
Jake
--
The good parts of a book may be only something
a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck
of his whole damn life---and one is as good as the other.
---Ernest Hemingway
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 01:40:50 -0800
From: Hugh Walthall
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: weber@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu
Subject: tyger tygir tegir tegre tigar tygar tigre
Message-Id: <330584A2.1B39@erols.com>
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Tiger is a very old word in English. The primary rhetorical source for
it in Blake's poem is Henri Cinq 3.1-- not a computer operating system
but one of the most well known passages in Shakespeare. "Then imitate
the action of the tiger....Then lend the eye a terrible aspect."
Every time I read this passage or see it performed correctly, I'm ready
to go out and kick frog butt. It ends with the Harry England and St.
George cry-- St. George we know slew the dragon.
We might not suspect Blake would admire this passage, but the teenage or
younger Blake was author of a warsong for Englishmen. And Blake was
profundly a Cockney and profoundly Patriotic. Nothing is more english
than English Blake.
Well. The OED gives 667 occurences of tiger. And 53 of tyger. If you
discard the occurences after 1800-- you still end up with a hefty number
that Blake might have seen before he wrote the poem. And some of them
I'm sure he did see. The most intriguing being the 3d Ed. of the
Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1797. Which I would love to know if Blake saw,
if it was illustrated--Hell, if Blake did the illustration.
Some things were known as tigers that we would not call tigers. The
Britannica reference is to the entry for mantegar (mantiger: corruption
of manticore or mandrill) and is called there a tufted ape.
Manticore's second meaning is monster represented with body of beast of
prey head of man with spiral or curved horns and sometimes feet of
dragon (by George!). Hey, suddenly we're in Sphinx Country!
The mantycors of the montaynes Myght fede them on thy braynes.
-Skelton
What was the answer to her riddle? It's on the tip of my tongue.
There is an entry for 1780 EDMONSON Heraldry ll. Gloss., Man-tyger, or
Manticora. Did Blake illustrate this?
Marticora: Old Persian for man-eater. (ticor being the wackily
appropriate portion under discussion).
Is all of this false, fabulous, and far-fetched? Of course. It is
exactly the kind of business that goes on in a dancer's or actor's or
poet's head when performing or writing.
1755 Hist. Descr. Tower Lond. 24 There is likewise a young Man Tyger, a
curious Animal of astonishing Strength....
Possibly a stripeless Sumatran Tiger? (now I think extinct). Is it
still there? (England, how great is thy taxidermy?) Could Blake have
seen it?
Tee Tee burning Bee for now,
Hugh Walthall hugwal@erols.com
"Yes, thou barabrian," said she, turning to Wagtail, "Thou tiger, thou
succubus." -Smollett
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #18
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