Today's Topics:
Back safe to their Humanity (J30)
Re: Quote (with commentary)
Re: Quote (with commentary)
Re: Quote (with commentary)
that doggone rose
Re: Quote (with commentary) -Reply
Re: that doggone rose
re: visions of the daughters of albion
re: visions of the daughters of albion
Re: re: visions of the daughters of albion
Re: re: visions of the daughters of albion
Brief Introduction
Re: Quote (with commentary) -Reply
Yale Blake exhibit
Re: that doggone rose
vision and blake
DEAD MAN -- FIRST THOUGHTS
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 23:06:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Back safe to their Humanity (J30)
Message-Id: <199704130306.XAA20970@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Charlie K.,
Thank you for the time you take to type in all these
excerpts from Blake. It is not the same as going to the
bookcase and reading a bit of Blake. There is a kind of
double exposure: Blake and Charlie K. And I like that.
I am not sure I understand what "postmodernism" is.
But if it means "creating through decreation, displacing
that secure perspective of a stable vantage point from
outside" (Waugh, 1992) then I think Blake's poetry is a
great example of postmodern writing. I think Blake,like
some of today's postmodern artists, is trying to train
us to think in a relativistic way, to understand what
vortex we are in, and where we are in the specific vortex.
Psychologically quite scientific, if the truth be told.
As long as you can let go of some of the old socalled
necessities of thinking, like beginning and middle and
end, and "meaning" as a fascistic prerequisite. That is
why I find "The Mental Traveler" such a supreme compass.
Jack Jacobs talked the other day of sense expansion leading
to apocalypse when one learns to perceptually annihilate
the selfhood. I wish he would write more.
So, Charlie K., hang in there. And it does not matter
if it makes "sense" or not. I find the only thing that one
has to keep straight is which energy you are dealing with.
There is however another thing that I want to speak to you about.
Every time you type in something about love or sex, I agonise,
Charlie. I start worrying that you might believe all that stuff
that, taken in isolation, will destroy your belief in the supreme
humanness of the female of the species and in the process destroy
your own humanness. Remember, when you read "Man who respects woman
shall be despised by Woman" among other things, Blake is trying
to manipulate you, to prevent you from becoming a disciple of
"the Sexual Religion." He wants to make sure that you have looked
at things from a lot of different angles. He wants to make sure
that you are circumcized by the truth.
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Apr 1997 21:04:45 -0700
From: "Charlie K."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quote (with commentary)
Message-Id: <199704130401.VAA14896@gost1.indirect.com>
Darlene Sybert wrote:
> First, I understand that the Spectre is the negation , but if Los
> (more or less) represents imagination,, why is his Spectre
> "negative reasoning power" as opposed to just reason, objectivity
> or dullness. Or perhaps, a better question would be, what IS
> "negative" reasoning? Is that "poor" reasoning or "faulty?" Or am
> I trying to "push" Blake's mythology too far?
Hmmm... Not sure, ever since the "Man who respects Woman" quote,
I've been thinking about the Spectre. I'd say 'negative' points out
how the Spectre produces the sort of reasoning that negates or in
effect kills what has been produced by the Imagination, which itself
is positive since it creates. So 'negative' because it attempts to
destroy what Imagination has created. I see this happen in
Philosophy classes all the time, where the big Mr. Doctor Professor
will tear apart a student's Ideas... in fact they become quite good
at it. The Philosophy departments of most Universities, I'd Imagine,
are full of Spectres. The Spectre's motto: "I'm right, your wrong."
He is a Doubt creator.
Thanks for the response Darlene.
Charlie
"Negations are not Contraries! Contraries mutually Exist:
But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs
Exist not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever:
If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation: a meer
Reasoning & Derogation from me, an Objecting & cruel Spite
And Malice & Envy: but my Emanation, Alas! will become
My Contrary: O thou Negation, I will continually compell
Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when
And where & how I please, and never! never! shalt thou be Organized"
[from Jerusalem, plate 17]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 02:32:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: TomD3456@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: chaz@take3soft.com
Subject: Re: Quote (with commentary)
Message-Id: <970413023252_-500583698@emout09.mail.aol.com>
Oh, Charlie-
There is so much in your latest posting that it could keep us occupied for a
year. I find myself in agreement with some of your commentaries, in
disagreement with others, especially the section about "soft mild arts" (I
don't think this line refers to painting, poetry, etc., but to the "arts" of
deception and political manipulation) and the section on sex. In
particular, I think "mingling condensing in Self-love" is a very ambivalent
description, and the lines that follow are intimately interwoven with it.
These lines may describe "Blake's Ideal of Sex," but it seems far from "just
beautiful & pure." Instead, it leads the way into the fallen world with its
"Rocky Law of Condemnation & double Generation, & Death," all of which seem
to be consequences of "Self-love," maybe even appositives to it. The passage
seems deeply ambivalent about the sexual act. But this is part of the
pattern Blake sketched as early as the Book of Thel: Sexual experience leads
into the fallen world of Generation; that world (and that act, come to think
of it) seems horrible from the standpoint of childhood innocence, but we must
enter that world in order to experience a last judgment and resurrection, as
you seem to say in your final comment. O holy Generation, Image of
Regeneration! We may be in agreement, but it's hard to tell.
So let me know what you think about that.
But I also want to ask the list for help with another point raised in this
passage: Is Los the Spectre of Urthona, or is Urthona the Spectre of Los? or
are they each other's spectre, as the passage seems to say? And how can this
be? What would it mean?
My guess right now is that they are each others' spectre, and that this is
another example of the perspectivism that we see on the first plate of Book 2
of _Milton_. There the characters inside the plate are reading the "mirror
writing" ("How wide the Gulf & Unpassable...," etc.) while we are reading the
"normal writing" ("There is a place where Contrarieties are equally True,"
etc.), which itself appears as mirror writing to those inside the page. That
plate illustrates how Beulah and Eternity each seem (to the other's
inhabitants) to surround the other (M30: 8-14), with the plate itself being
the translucent border between the two worlds, the two perspectives. (The
plate could also be read as asking, "Which reality is primary? From our
side, we are reading a poem in which Los, etc., are characters. From the
other side, does it appear that we are characters in a poem that Los, Milton,
Urizen, et al., are reading?")
In a similar way, perhaps, could Urthona be seen as the Spectre of Los from
Los's perspective, while from Urthona's (or Albion's?) perspective, Los is
Urthona's Spectre? (To take it further, Could we be the Zoas' Zoas? As if
an eagle or a bear were to say to an Indian, "You are my totem animal,
human...".)
Or is there a simpler explanation?
--Tom Devine
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 07:10:32 -0700
From: "Charlie K."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quote (with commentary)
Message-Id: <199704131554.IAA23302@gost1.indirect.com>
Oh yeah, not that all Philosophy Professors are Spectres, or even
that Spectres are bad. It is all necessary to each other. All
teachers are good.
Charlie
Illustrative purposes only.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 1997 23:15:14 -0700
From: Hugh Walthall
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: that doggone rose
Message-Id: <3351CB72.40F6@erols.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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I find the word rose 6730 times in the OED. About half of the instances quoted might
have been seen by Blake (before 1830).
The answer to every one of Blake's riddles is "man". He's very Sphynxy, that way. If
Madame S. asks you a question, always give her the same answer. Never answer the
Sphynx's question with "walnut shells" or "fine Corinthian leather". There is only one
answer.
There is a meaning of rose which has not been considered:
Christ rose from the dead.
Godzilla rose from Tokyo Bay. (2 equally plausible fictional notions)
Does that pesky worm "find out" something that a Watch-fiend cannot find out? Maybe.
The worm has an appetite. (We usuallly yoke the epithet "healthy" to that word.
Appetite is a Blakean word.) Watch-fiends can't find anything because they are
clock-watching gaolers. Rent-a-cops. "Man is a worm, seventy inches long." Hmmm? Is
that a quote from Blake? Worms are very useful on fishing expeditions.
Worms are more dangerous than watch-fiends. Men are more dangerous than devils. Angels
are only devils that have been "fixed".
ROSE is the conventionally argued cluster of false (half-baked may be a better choice
here than false: The bread rose as it baked.) spiritual intimations that human beings
personally survive their death.
What happens to us when we die? Hell, we don't know what happens to us when we live.
Hugh Walthall hugwal@erols.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:37:24 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: chaz@take3soft.com
Subject: Re: Quote (with commentary) -Reply
Message-Id:
Tom, I liked your take on the different perspectives from different worlds.
Re your query about Urthona-Los- Spectre, from my own research into
Blake, I understand that Uthona is the name appropriate to the Zoa of
Imagination in ALbion when that Zoa is fully expanded into GOd's light, in
which capacity he forges the `golden armour' for the intellectual battles
in Eternity. When the Zoas are separated by the mistaken visions of
good and evil of Urizen, Urthona becomes Los who labours at his
Furnaces to create a better world than that created by Urizen in the
abyss, and to restore the sick-unto-death Albion to life and Jerusalem to
his bosom. Since, however, Los is forced to `behold' the deformities
spawned by Urizenic vision, his psyche is affected (as he partly
becomes what he beholds). Los keeps himself fit for his true work of
uplifting the fallen divine sparks by separating off that part of himself that
succumbs to Urizenic vision into the Spectre .. so the SPectre is
essentially that portion of himself which he must cast off in order to fulfil
his task of restoring Albion's divine humanity. For these reasons, I don't
see Urthona,Los and the Spectre as interchangeable, (any more than I
can see the Rose as also Satanic). Pam van Schaik, Pretoria
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 07:57:47 -0500 (CDT)
From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: that doggone rose
Message-Id: <199704141257.HAA07984@dfw-ix6.ix.netcom.com>
Hugh,
Love the caption.
S.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 16:43:18 MET
From: "Ib Johansen"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: re: visions of the daughters of albion
Message-Id: <4E3417013E@hum.aau.dk>
To whom it might concern,
I am trying to find out about facsimile editions of Blake's
"Visions of the Daughters of Albion". According to ordinary book
catalogues, there seem to be no editions of this prophecy available
(in print) at the moment - but maybe somebody/colleagues or fellow
students associated with this network know(s) about copies of this
work that I might possibly buy (maybe it is stored somewhere in a
second-hand bookshop - I think it was published in facsimile in the
1920s). I have got Erdman's The Illuminated Blake, but of course, the
illuminated works printed there are only available to us in black-and-
white versions - and I would prefer colours. Is this prophecy still
in print in one of the old (hand-coloured) Trianon Press editions?
Hopefully, someone can come up with answers to this inquiry?
Ib Johansen,
Dept. of English,
University of Aarhus,
Denmark.
E-mail address: engij@hum.aau.dk
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 11:57:05 -0500 (CDT)
From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: re: visions of the daughters of albion
Message-Id: <199704141657.LAA22041@dfw-ix4.ix.netcom.com>
[Notice that I am skipping the salutation because I cannot determine
title or gender form your unfamiliar name! Please excuse...]
As far as I know, The Trianon Press facsimile edns (1959) were issued
in limited numbers of 446 copies in London, and in an even fewer
numbers (200 copies in slipcase) in France, same year (ed Keyenes,
both). I can give you the accession numbers on these; this may help
you acquire microfilm or other reproduction forms (there is one
microfilm edn of the 1793 edn in the Fitzwilliam) or possibly copies
through interlibrary loan, if your University is a subscriber to this
service.
There was another, 1926 (as you know) facsimile edn; (eds Sloss &
Wallis).
HOWEVER: a (no doubt very fine) 1993 4-vol set facsimile set of the
early illuminated books was recently brought out (1993) by the Blake
trust, (eds. Eaves, Essick, Viscomi) which has an IBSN # and therefore
is most likely in print and readily available (Joseph Viscomi where are
you? jump in here any time now, please!). I think V of D of A is in
vol 3 (Eaves).
As for locating second hand copies--it seems a longshot, but who knows?
(and I don't). You could start with the various search engines like
"Excite" --which are amazingly effective, or (and Excite and other
sites should lead you to these) places like the Frankel Rare Book
Collection, The Great Northwest Bookstore, Mermaid Books, etc.
If you require further details, please e-mail me privately, as I do not
wish to try the patience of fellow list-members :).
Susan Reilly
Ib Johansen wrote:
>
>To whom it might concern,
> I am trying to find out about facsimile editions of Blake's
>"Visions of the Daughters of Albion". According to ordinary book
>catalogues, there seem to be no editions of this prophecy available
>(in print) at the moment - but maybe somebody/colleagues or fellow
>students associated with this network know(s) about copies of this
>work that I might possibly buy (maybe it is stored somewhere in a
>second-hand bookshop - I think it was published in facsimile in the
>1920s). I have got Erdman's The Illuminated Blake, but of course, the
>illuminated works printed there are only available to us in black-and-
>white versions - and I would prefer colours. Is this prophecy still
>in print in one of the old (hand-coloured) Trianon Press editions?
>Hopefully, someone can come up with answers to this inquiry?
>
> Ib Johansen,
> Dept. of English,
> University of Aarhus,
> Denmark.
> E-mail address: engij@hum.aau.dk
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 18:12:39 GMT
From: jlord@ull.ac.uk
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: re: visions of the daughters of albion
Message-Id: <97041418123990@ull.ac.uk>
Hi - the Supplement to Bentley's _Blake Books_ lists facsimiles at the
front of the book. Idon't have it to hand, so I am quoting from memory
here, but I think that (apart of course from Bindman's _Graphic works_
and Erdman's _Illuminated Blake_ - both in black & white) the only facsimiles
ever done are:
William Muir, back in the ?1880s
Trianon Press, ?1960s
William Blake Trust, 1990s
Dent (Ithink), around 1927 - edited by (I think Middleton Murry)
I shall check this out further
John Lord
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 20:13:54 GMT
From: jlord@ull.ac.uk
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: re: visions of the daughters of albion
Message-Id: <97041420135436@ull.ac.uk>
Hi - Further details which cancel my previous posting on this subject:
I have checked the Supplement to _Blake Books_, and Bentley lists the
following facimiles of VDA:
Bindman, 1978 _Graphic Works_ is Copy A (but in black & white, as we all know)
Erdman, 1974 _Illum. B_ is a composite of C, I, & J
Hand-cooured facsimiles:
Muir, 1884 (Copy A)
Muir, 1928 (Copy G)
Trianon, 1959 (Copy C)
All these are longout of print, and copies fetch well into three figures
of pounds sterling - the Trianon is easily the easiest to find, but will
cost (in the UK, anyway, around 250 - 300 pounds sterling. The Muir's
are very rare, and would fetch even more.
Bentley also refers, rather mysteriously to an 1876 facsim. of Copy B, but
I don't know this one - I suspect it is very scarce.
The only other facsims. I am aware of are the Middleton Murry, 1932 (Which
is Copy A), and which sometimes comes up for sale in the UK at least
for, typically, 30 to 45 pounds sterling, and of course the WBT
Collected Edition, which is (I hope) still in print!
Best wishes - John Lord
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 21:14:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: Davemult@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Brief Introduction
Message-Id: <970414211220_1086732293@emout09.mail.aol.com>
Here is the brief introduction you requested:
I can no longer recall when I came to William Blake. Like most my age (54),
I had had some exposure to him in high school and college. These exposures
lacked enthusiasm and didn't affect me much. In my second or third years of
college as I was gravitating toward psychology as a major, I encountered word
that he was mad, and this didn't affect me much, either.
I had encountered Allen Ginsberg as a teenager, and sometime after high
school Blake's significance for him registered with me. At the time, this
had no motivational force, but it stayed at the back of my mind.
It was only after I discovered the writings of Gregory Bateson in the
mid-sixties that I was drawn to a real involvement in the writings of WB. At
first through the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and later through the Songs of
Innocence and Experience. These opened up to me an idea of human nature that
undergraduate coursework in humanistic/existential/phenomenological
psychology had stimulated but left frustrated and unfulfilled. The
humanistic landscape, as it first came to me, was soft, self-righteous, and
covertly coercive. In Blake, this landscape was vast, energetic, liberating
(in somewhat the ways Bateson, Ginsberg, and Henry Miller are liberating),
and didn't take too much care not to break things. I have been with Blake
ever since.
For the past 25 years I have worked as a psychologist in a state psychiatric
hospital. Blake has informed everything I have ever done with the patients I
have known over this time, as it will for as long as I live.
Dave Nichols
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 22:23:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: TomD3456@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Quote (with commentary) -Reply
Message-Id: <970414214329_-301180725@emout03.mail.aol.com>
Thanks for your reply, Pam. I agree with most of what you say, but I'm still
confused by Blake's terminology here. How would you interpret the names?
Here's what we seem to have:
1- There are three characters: Urthona, Los, and the Spectre. I would agree
with this.
2- "Los's Spectre is named Urthona" - Los's Spectre is a different character
from the unfallen Urthona but Blake says it has the same name as the unfallen
Zoa. Are we to assume that the identity of the names is only a reminder that
Los and Urthona are linked? I find this explanation suspect -- it would seem
a rather loose and cavalier way of throwing names around. I expect better of
Blake.
3- "Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthona's Spectre in songs..."
EITHER "Urthona's Spectre" is a name for Los, and Los is given credit here
for keeping the divine vision in time of trouble (that is the standard
reading of this passage, but it leaves unexamined the question of why Blake
refers to Los as a "Spectre," even if it's somehow classier to be _Urthona's_
Spectre than any other spectre);
OR "Urthona's Spectre" is the same as "Los's Spectre" -- Los is simply being
referred to by his unfallen name ("Urthona") and the "Urthona's Spectre" =
"the Spectre of Los." But then it's the Spectre who is being given credit
for keeping the divine vision. I don't believe it.
I've found that puzzles like 2 and 3 are often keys to meaning: if we can
find the right way to look at them, the whole poem may come into focus in a
different way.
So I'm still gnawing on this. Anyone else have a suggestion?
--Tom Devine
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Apr 97 22:06:30 CDT
From: MTS231F@vma.smsu.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Yale Blake exhibit
Message-Id: <9704150318.AA03929@uu6.psi.com>
The issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine that arrived today (dated April
1997) features "The Strange World of William Blake" with a reproduction
of plate 17 of the Book of Urizen, identified as "The Globe of Blood."
On p. 22 the calendar informs us of the dates, April 2 through July 6,
previously announced on Blake Online. On p. 26 the feature article by
Patrick Noon, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Rare Books, is entitled
"A 'Mad' but Compelling Vision." The epigraph: "At the heart of the
British Art Center's collections is a trove of delicate works on paper by
the English poet and artist William Blake. A show opening this month
illustrates the breadth and depth of his durably disturbing appeal."
The first paragraph astounds with its facts: "the collections of the
Yale Center for British Art constitute a repository of such richness
and depth that their rapid accumulation, primarily during the
third quarter of this century, is a feat which astounds visitors and
specialists alike. Two names dominate this exceptional story: Paul
Mellon '29, whose benefactions in the arts are fabled, and William
Blake (1757-1827), the visionary poet and artist whose own world of
archetypal giants largely inspired the program of acquisition that
culminated in the founding of the BAC. However, the centrality of
Blake to the Mellon collection is rarely apparent. Because of the
extreme fragility of Blake's works, only one of them is ever on
permanent view in the Center's galleries. . . . the one group of
graphic works that weaves the many strands of Paul Mellon's personal
interests and experiences . . . is the remarkable collection of
William Blake's books, paintings, and engravings, which Mr. Mellon
assembled piecemeal and entirely according to his own tastes. The
trove might be viewed as the core collection of the BAC."
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 00:01:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: RONROONY@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: that doggone rose
Message-Id: <970415000035_-2037173315@emout02.mail.aol.com>
The rose. the thorntree; one blade of grass consumed by one wig.
One wig, one worm burrowing through the mud, chewing the roots
Sipping the juice of the rose root a toxic brew.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 1997 09:28:40 -0400
From: Matthew Bodie
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: vision and blake
Message-Id: <3354D408.71AA@mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Dear Powers That Be:
I'm composing a paper on Blake and his use of vision within the works of
'Songs of Innocence' and 'Songs of Experience'. I'm in search of some
research with regards to this topic. Key things that I'm looking for
are his vivid visual descriptions; his analogies and allusions to sight;
the omniscient point of view of the narrators; his strong use of the
imagination, and his niche for envisioning or prophesying.
I've found information on vision in his other works, but not in his
Songs; however, it seems as these works would be a good subject for
discussion of vision, as well. If you can be of any help, please let me
know by e-mailing me here.
Thanks,
Matthew Bodie
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 1997 08:31:22 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: DEAD MAN -- FIRST THOUGHTS
Message-Id: <199704151531.IAA04313@igc6.igc.org>
I finally got around to seeing the film DEAD MAN. I think it was
an excellent film, though I am still mystified by what substantial
connection it could have to William Blake. Are there corollaries
between the plot line and Blake's mythology? Instead of trying to
establish connections, I will give my first impressions of the
film, and then we shall see what emerges.
First, the pervasive feeling of desolation and loss. The frontier
is not some brave new world, but a fearful landscape of death.
William Blake has indeed arrived in hell when he arrives in the
town of Machine. Blake's world of experience is not spiced up
with any of the joys of experience, beyond his brief encounter
with Thel Russell, which is what makes Blake into a dead man. The
little sexuality that is displayed in the film is itself brutal
and brief. One of Blake's first sights in Machine is a
gun-wielding ruffian getting a bow job in an alley. Later, Nobody
gets interrupted by Blake while having sex with an Indian woman in
the woods, and she runs off. The whole scenery of the film from
beginning to end is a world of death and desolation. The film is
not about life at all, but about a man undergoing a living death.
Secondly, I think of the triangular relationship between the white
man in America, the Indians, and Britain across the ocean. Before
the bounty-hunting Cole kills and eats his surviving partner, he
is asked about his ethnic origins in Europe. We never learn what
they are.
Then there is the curious case of Nobody the Indian. He is a
displaced person. He hates the whites, he performs Indian
religious rituals, but he is relegated to being a loner, as he is
no longer accepted by his own people. Also, his involuntary
sojourn in England has given him a unique perspective on the white
man and his origins. Curiously this victim of western
civilization finds that in the middle of the Caucasian hell he has
been abducted into, there is a poet whose message he can relate to
-- William Blake. This is one white man's medicine that inspires
Nobody for the rest of his life. Obviously Blake can't be like
the other whites. Nobody learns his Blake in English schools -- a
real impossibility in the nineteenth century, and he learn lines
from Blake's unpublished works that would not have been widely
circulated then. Anyway, Nobody, having been processed through
the dark satanic mills of western civilization, has become a
lonely individual, a displaced person, like the historical William
Blake and his namesake, the accountant Bill Blake. Nonetheless,
Nobody is a decent human being, as he tends to the wounded Bill
Blake even while calling him a stupid white man.
Thirdly, there is the theme of lack of communication,
disconnectedness, and the absence of the real holy word in the
horrendous world of experience in which all these displaced and
wounded souls find themselves. Nobody mistakes Bill Blake for the
real William Blake because of the identity of their names, and
wonders why Bill Blake can't remember any of his poetry. Bill
Blake is an accountant, who plays by the orderly rules of the east
until the structured world to which he is accustomed dissolves
into chaos in the wild west, which is quite disorganized
regardless of the pretensions of orderliness implied by the town's
name, Machine. Bill has to learn practical survival and play by
the only rules he is allowed to play by, i.e. violence. There is
no vision anywhere. The real Blake is absent, only appearing in
the disconnected utterances of Nobody. When Blake approaches two
federal marshals, he says "Do you know my poetry?" before shooting
both to death. This fulfills Nobody's earlier prediction, after
having asked Blake if he knows how to use his weapon, that "Your
poetry will now be written in blood." So this is American
pragmatism, where vision cannot exist, where the only poetry is
efficacious, violent action, which is what circumstance has
reduced human possibility to. Far from being a new world of
previously undreamed-of possibilities, the American frontier
becomes human life reduced to its lowest possible level -- Ulro, a
land of death, loneliness, and loss. The possibilities of
communication, of vision, are irreparably disconnected. There is
no place for the real William Blake's visions to be communicated
or understood. Even the Blakeian aphorisms don't offer much,
though there are telling phrases that are meaningful to Nobody in
his struggle against his white enemies: "The vision of Christ
that thou dost see, is my vision's greatest enemy", as Bill Blake
shoots the dishonest and deadly Christian trader. Blake is
Nobody's ally in dealing with the weaselly white Christians.
Blake's home is really in the spirit world, for there is no place
for him on earth, in America, where he can only live as a dead
man. Nobody's self-appointed mission is to return Blake to the
spirit world where he came from, where he belongs.
This is the broken world I see in the film. I don't know if the
plot is a correlate of Blake's mythical narratives or not. That
may not be the decisive question. For the key to the film seems
to be what is missing from the world it depicts.
No reason is given for why people should suffer so. Perhaps
Nobody keeps quoting the following lines from Blake, possibly
because he realizes there may be no Divine plan that explains his
people's suffering; it's just a spin of the wheel of fortune,
outside the world of vision, the realm of the spirit:
"Every night and every morn / Some to misery are born. / Every
morn and every night / Some are born to sweet delight / Some are
born to sweet delight / Some are born to endless night."
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #46
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