Today's Topics:
Re: Blake & Ginsberg
Small Fryes
Re = Old and New
Re: Of war and strategies
Re= Old and Young
of war and strategies-reply
Re: Small Fryes
Re: Small Fryes
Re: BLAKE SIGHTINGS: WILSON HARRIS AGAIN
Re: of war and strategies-reply
leaving the Blake list (was Re: BLAKE SIGHTINGS: WILSON HARRIS AGAIN)
note of sympathy
Resending John Axelson post.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 02:20:04 -0500
From: joz@cove.com
To: Blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake & Ginsberg
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 02:08:28 -0500
>To:reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
>From:joz@cove.com
>Subject:Re: Blake & Ginsberg
>
>Dear Susan Reilly
>
>Thankyou for your lengthy posting. I understand Ginsberg, love him and
>his stuff. What I wonder about is this.
>
>If we had the "freedom" Ginsberg directs us to, would we need him? No.
>
>Can we say the same of Blake? Yes, but
>
>to attain what Blake talks about is prohibited by two things
>
>- our acceptance of cognated scientific fact as the true template of reality.
>
>We do that by turning on a light. Recently scientists decided that
>electrons move
>in the opposite direction to current, not the opposite, as was previously
>believed.
> do we care? No. We do not cherish the light either as a blessing or a
>brilliant manifestation. It simply is and we do not care to understand
>it.
>
>- We maintain only that notion of individuality that is permitted by
>that science. Science is a version of reality that is less open to
>question than church dogma because so few of us have the time to learn
>it. We accept it's ample benefits, with out asking how it really works.
>The television has it's own message. How does it work and why? how many
>of us can explain a cathode ray with any amount of clarity? not me and
>not many others.
>
>We do not ask. But we expect religion to make sense, and disbelieve in
>things like the resurection and miracles. What sort of beings are we?
>
>We believe the earth revolves around the sun, but few of us can prove it
>or have seen it. We like to laugh at people who think the earth is flat.
>The illiterate medieval peasant believed heaven was in the sky probably
>because the sky is very beautiful and big on a summer day when it's warm.
>His own experience is the basis for his cosmological view. Well, how much
>better off are we? No one would say that the peasant isn't doing better
>spiritually but none would give him the benefit of thier imagination the
>way Blake would and did.
>
>The native american suffers from the same abuse that the peasant gets. He
>or she is revered by many. But his life and point of view recieves real
>spiritual commitment about as often as people volunter to give back the
>land ripped from his or her loving grasp.
>
>Here is my point. I don't think Blake is about freedom or religion. I
>think that blake believes himself to be something of a reporter and not a
>poet at all. I think he was desparately trying to preserve a notion of
>humanity that was the first impulse of philospers and from which they
>strayed in thier Urizenic pursuits. a view of reality that represents a
>human fact about man and god, which has a terrible price to exact when
>ignored.
>
>And now we have arrived at a place where there can be no philosophers,
>because we have science. that may be the most terrible delusion of all.
>We step out of a personal reality, into a theater of effects in which we
>observe facts presented to us as cognated and established before us and
>after us, with or without us. The peasant lives in a spiritual reality of
>choice. He must choose what to believe. Indeed, he may even have to make
>up the choices, from an inspecific natural enviroment. Prehaps thats why
>it was so necessary to impose the "correct" choice on him. It mattered
>what he thought. Does it matter what we think? No, partly because we
>are "free". Blake may have been free, he may have not been. Whatever.
>He was a cultivated man who insisted on having the peasant's choice.
>Since he is the only one I know of who does that, I am stunned and in awe.
>
>Joz
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 12:58:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Small Fryes
Message-Id: <199704241658.MAA17708@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Charlie K.
You posted this recently. I expected that somebody else
would challenge that quote, but nobody did. So I better do
it. He operated, after all, mainly on my side of the border.
"Charlie K." さんは書きました：
>[from 'Fearful Symmetry' by Northrop Frye, pg. 210]
>
>
>As soon as we begin to think of the relation of Orc to Urizen, it
>becomes impossible to maintain them as separate principles. If Orc
>represents the reviving force of a new cycle, whether of dawn or
>spring or history, he must grow old and die at the end of that
>cycle. Urizen must eventually gain the mastery over Orc, but such a
>Urizen cannot be another power but Orc himself, grown old.
Charlie, do not take everything Northrop Frye says as gospel.
Orc is a type of Luvah, and cannot age into Urizen. Orc is
a phenomenon of the emotive energy. It can interact with the
cognitive energy, but cannot age into it.
Frye perpetuated the same misconception in his interpretation
of the "Mental Traveller." In the first half of the poem,fledgling
Spirit, at first tortured in the Natural world, grows stronger,
overpowering the Natural at the Apocalypse. The Natural then becomes
the dwelling place of the Spiritual, and subservient to it, until
mature spirit dominates. Frye wrongly interprets the poem as Orc
aging into Urizen. By implication, the old man in the second half
of the poem at the mercy of the female babe, and growing younger
as the Fall approaches, must be Urizen too. And I think that is
wrong.
Frye, in my view, has done us another disservice in not giving
enough attention to the phenomenon of Golgonooza in "Fearful
Symmetry." (Mentioned 17 times, most of the time in passing only.)
To him, it seems, Golgonooza was just the early beginnings of the
state of Jerusalem. And I believe that is wrong.
To the other members of this list group who have read my views
before, I apologize. It is just these two bees buzzzing aroung
in my bonnet.
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 19:36:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re = Old and New
Message-Id: <199704242336.TAA24079@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Jim Watt posted this recently. I like it so much, I
am reposting it.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 00:39:39 -0500
From: Lola Scott
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Of war and strategies
Message-Id: <335AFD9A.40A@swtexas.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
bouwer wrote:
>
> Steve Perry, what you wanted to say was already
> clear the first time. Sorry I am late responding to
> your post, because the matter is important to me.You
> are right. The work of building Golgonooza would not
> be going on but for the war raging around it. Thank
> you for sending me back to study the causes of that
> war, the progression of the war and the strategies
> of the war.
>
> Steve Perry さんは書きました：
> >TomD3456@aol.com wrote:
> >>
> >> Steve-
> >> Umm ... Huh? I don't really understand what you're trying to say. Want
> to
> >> run that by us again?
> >>
> >
> >Gloudina had said:
> >> I would also like to think about how his Spectre helps Los
> >> in the building of Golgonooza.
> >
> >and I responded:
> >>Blake and Los are certainly not losing anything in their tasks
> >>by not having the reasoning power afforded by their
> >>respective Spectres. In that the drama is post-lapsarian,
> >>there is a sort of hegelian dialectic going on here; the work of
> >>Golgonooza would not go on lest for the war over which it
> >>were raised. Likewise, the tools of the Urizenic world, the
> >>metals, the forge, the hammer, the brush and awl are all part
> >>of the science wrought by the fall.
> >
> >I can see your point, I guess the flu bug I was fighting last week
> >wasn't only affecting me physically.
> >
> >My point was that the spectres and for that matter the emanations
> >(thanks for your illuminating post Pam) are active participants in the
> >creation of Golgonooza, if not only by the disharmony that they create.
> >In that sense I was suggesting that this whole process seems somewhat
> >Hegelian. I think that Los' Spectre, who may be self doubt or as you
> >suggest the absence of live or perhaps the accuser drives Los to create
> >materialize his image of eternity and divinity, which is the building of
> >Golgonooza. Finally, I was also saying that even the tools created by
> >the specrtes of Urizen, science and the instruments of war, end up being
> >used in the creation of Golgonooza.
>
> When I want a fresh point of view, I often go back to
> "The Valley of Vision" by Peter Fisher. Fisher drowned in
> 1958 at the age of 40 in a boating accident in Lake Ontario
> near Kingston. At his death he was head of the English
> Department at the Royal Military College of Canada in the
> city of Kingston. According to Northrop Frye, who edited
> his book after his death, he was a soldier with a fine
> military record, keenly interested in the theory of strategy,
> wrote papers on the campaigns of Alexander the Great, and
> was ready to discuss military theory from Sun-Tzu Wu to
> Clausewitz.
> To Fisher, the Spectre is "the rational product of memory and
> sensation, forming the basis of the individual's reasonable view
> of experience... and it tends to obscure the faculty which
> experiences.. It becomes the identification of the individual with
> his habits and tastes, his opinions and beliefs, his name and his
> reputation, and most of all, with his environment and conditions.."
> (p 213).What an adversary! And what need to heed Blake when he
> points out that in the battle for the imagination, one must enlist
> the help of the Spectre. The Spectre needs to be on your side.
>
> Gloudina Bouwer
>
>
Attention List:
William Bryan James Scott left this world on Friday, April 18, 1997.
Bryan's wife Lola will continue to use the E-mail account they shared.
It is her wish to be removed from this list. She would, however,
welcome any personal E-mail you may wish to send her.
This list brough so very much joy into my father's life.
Thank you all...
Leonard B. Scott (number 3 son)
ssidecop@electrotex.com
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 19:47:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re= Old and Young
Message-Id: <199704242347.TAA24928@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Jim Watt recently posted this. I like it so much,
I am reposting it.
WATT
Remember that "Los is by mortals (that's us) nam'd Time
>Enitharmon is nam'd Space/ But they depict him bald & aged who is
>eternal youth" [Milton 24 (26):68-69) In other words, this argument about
>old and young is another in a series of spectrous delusions perpetuated
>by the God of this world (Renegade Urizen/Satan) and his war-shippers
>to maintain corporeal and suppress spiritual strife. In fact we are all
>building Jerusalem exactly where we are because where we are in all its
>minute particulars is exactly where we need to be. Alas for the sons and
>daughters of Albion who wander perpetually from place to place
>pretending (to themselves and to the world) that they are seeking
>Jerusalem to free her. The Persian poet, Rumi, has some good advice
>for them:
>Even if you don't know what you want,
>Buy SOMETHING, to be part of the exchanging flow.
>
>Start a huge, foolish project,
>Like Noah.
>
>It makes absolutely no difference
>what people think of you.
>
>It is the flow which is eternally young --and it is in it & in our
connection with it
>that we discover the moment in every day that connects to eternity, the
>one that Satan and his watch fiends can never discover.
>Jim Watt, Indianapolis, IN
>
>p.s. it makes all the difference in the world what peopleFEEL of you!
>
>
Thank you, Jim.
A perfect falcon, for no reason,
has landed on your shoulder,
and become yours. (Rumi)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 20:10:15 -0700
From: Hugh Walthall
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: of war and strategies-reply
Message-Id: <33602097.1B00@erols.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
I would add to Peter Fisher's description of the Spectre only this:
Harold Bloom says ALL of Blake's poetry is written by the Spectre. This
is true. It's a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (sic?) Thing.
If you haven't got the Nerve (said the Cowardly Lion) to face up to the
fact that everything you believe, know, love, etc. might be in error,
and that your enemies will triumph--then the stakes aren't high enough.
This is a King Lear Thing. Blake's Spectre is very like the bastard
Edmund in Lear. It drives the action, what action there is. And
without it, everything in the play would be a soggy pagent indeed.
Yet nowhere in Lear is there a scene between Edmund and Lear! If you
cut Edmund out of the first scene, it would technically be possible for
one actor to play both Lear and Edmund! (A successful performance would
be impossible. No one possesses that much stamina.)
But thanks Gloudina for Fisher's quote. It's nice to hear the wonderful
Spectre accurately described. Most people on this list seem to think
the Spectre is just some Guy from Accounting who keeps screaming you're
way over budget!
Hugh Walthall hugwal@erols.com
p.s.: Military Quote: "Who defends Everything, defends Nothing."
-Frederick the Great-
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 21:05:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phineus@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Small Fryes
Message-Id: <970424210105_708091402@emout13.mail.aol.com>
take me off the mailing list
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 09:39:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: John William Axcelson
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Small Fryes
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
I break my long silence because this issue has been puzzling me
for a while and I would like to learn more about it. I have heard Frye's
model of Orc ageing into Urizen dismissed fairly often, so much so that it
seems to be an established fact of recent Blake studies. Yet I've never
seen the definitive argument(s). I may simply have missed the crucial
sources, and I would like very much to look them over. If there is a
single work or series of works that makes Frye's argument obsolete, please
send this information across the wire.
My problem is this: The Orc cycle, as Frye represents it, suits so
well the narrative of the French Revolution and its unfortunate
consequences, that I'm reluctant to surrender it. One can remain a
a friend of liberty (as I'm sure Blake did) and yet deplore the
consequences of revolution (cf. the anti-Stalinist left in the US), and
even come to favor reform over revolution proper. I would not argue
that Blake that ever took this last step, but I need a bit more convincing
to relinquish the idea that Orc invariably lurches toward Urizen to
protect his victory, and that Los doesn't take Orc's place in the later
Blake as the source of positive social change, energy guided by vision.
Well?
John Axcelson
On Thu, 24 Apr 1997, bouwer wrote:
> Charlie K.
> You posted this recently. I expected that somebody else
> would challenge that quote, but nobody did. So I better do
> it. He operated, after all, mainly on my side of the border.
>
>
> "Charlie K." さんは書きました：
> >[from 'Fearful Symmetry' by Northrop Frye, pg. 210]
> >
> >
> >As soon as we begin to think of the relation of Orc to Urizen, it
> >becomes impossible to maintain them as separate principles. If Orc
> >represents the reviving force of a new cycle, whether of dawn or
> >spring or history, he must grow old and die at the end of that
> >cycle. Urizen must eventually gain the mastery over Orc, but such a
> >Urizen cannot be another power but Orc himself, grown old.
>
>
> Charlie, do not take everything Northrop Frye says as gospel.
> Orc is a type of Luvah, and cannot age into Urizen. Orc is
> a phenomenon of the emotive energy. It can interact with the
> cognitive energy, but cannot age into it.
> Frye perpetuated the same misconception in his interpretation
> of the "Mental Traveller." In the first half of the poem,fledgling
> Spirit, at first tortured in the Natural world, grows stronger,
> overpowering the Natural at the Apocalypse. The Natural then becomes
> the dwelling place of the Spiritual, and subservient to it, until
> mature spirit dominates. Frye wrongly interprets the poem as Orc
> aging into Urizen. By implication, the old man in the second half
> of the poem at the mercy of the female babe, and growing younger
> as the Fall approaches, must be Urizen too. And I think that is
> wrong.
> Frye, in my view, has done us another disservice in not giving
> enough attention to the phenomenon of Golgonooza in "Fearful
> Symmetry." (Mentioned 17 times, most of the time in passing only.)
> To him, it seems, Golgonooza was just the early beginnings of the
> state of Jerusalem. And I believe that is wrong.
> To the other members of this list group who have read my views
> before, I apologize. It is just these two bees buzzzing aroung
> in my bonnet.
>
> Gloudina Bouwer
>
>
>
John Axcelson
Assistant Dean
Columbia College
Hartley-Wallach Program
110 Hartley Hall
(212) 854-7307
jwa2@columbia.edu
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 11:17:32 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phineus@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: BLAKE SIGHTINGS: WILSON HARRIS AGAIN
Message-Id: <970425111716_1718248754@emout19.mail.aol.com>
take me off the stupid mailing list please
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 11:09:18 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: of war and strategies-reply
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>But thanks Gloudina for Fisher's quote. It's nice to hear the wonderful
>Spectre accurately described. Most people on this list seem to think
>the Spectre is just some Guy from Accounting who keeps screaming you're
>way over budget!
yes: at least once or twice Blake says of the Spectre, "He kept the Divine
Vision in time of trouble." Not a bad epitaph, in my opinion.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 97 18:06:27 -0700
From: Seth T. Ross
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: Phineus@aol.com
Subject: leaving the Blake list (was Re: BLAKE SIGHTINGS: WILSON HARRIS AGAIN)
Message-Id: <9704260106.AA06267@albion.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
> take me off the stupid mailing list please
Stupid?
To leave Blake Online, send an email message to
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TO: blake-request@albion.com
SUBJECT: unsubscribe
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administrative queries.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 11:04:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: note of sympathy
Message-Id: <199704261504.LAA18372@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I am resending the following post, made by Lola Scott.
I have reason to believe that it did not reach America
On line subscribers because of their policy of screening
out any post with foreign script. By excerpting from my
post the Scotts picked up the offending script, which I
have now removed. I direct you to the announcement of the
death of Leonard Scott's father at the end of the post.
My sincere sympathy to Lola and Leonard Scott.
Lola Scott bouwer wrote:
>>
>> Steve Perry, what you wanted to say was already
>> clear the first time. Sorry I am late responding to
>> your post, because the matter is important to me.You
>> are right. The work of building Golgonooza would not
>> be going on but for the war raging around it. Thank
>> you for sending me back to study the causes of that
>> war, the progression of the war and the strategies
>> of the war.
>>
>> Steve Perry > >TomD3456@aol.com wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Steve-
>> >> Umm ... Huh? I don't really understand what you're trying to say.
Want
>> to
>> >> run that by us again?
>> >>
>> >
>> >Gloudina had said:
>> >> I would also like to think about how his Spectre helps Los
>> >> in the building of Golgonooza.
>> >
>> >and I responded:
>> >>Blake and Los are certainly not losing anything in their tasks
>> >>by not having the reasoning power afforded by their
>> >>respective Spectres. In that the drama is post-lapsarian,
>> >>there is a sort of hegelian dialectic going on here; the work of
>> >>Golgonooza would not go on lest for the war over which it
>> >>were raised. Likewise, the tools of the Urizenic world, the
>> >>metals, the forge, the hammer, the brush and awl are all part
>> >>of the science wrought by the fall.
>> >
>> >I can see your point, I guess the flu bug I was fighting last week
>> >wasn't only affecting me physically.
>> >
>> >My point was that the spectres and for that matter the emanations
>> >(thanks for your illuminating post Pam) are active participants in the
>> >creation of Golgonooza, if not only by the disharmony that they create.
>> >In that sense I was suggesting that this whole process seems somewhat
>> >Hegelian. I think that Los' Spectre, who may be self doubt or as you
>> >suggest the absence of live or perhaps the accuser drives Los to create
>> >materialize his image of eternity and divinity, which is the building
of
>> >Golgonooza. Finally, I was also saying that even the tools created by
>> >the specrtes of Urizen, science and the instruments of war, end up
being
>> >used in the creation of Golgonooza.
>>
>> When I want a fresh point of view, I often go back to
>> "The Valley of Vision" by Peter Fisher. Fisher drowned in
>> 1958 at the age of 40 in a boating accident in Lake Ontario
>> near Kingston. At his death he was head of the English
>> Department at the Royal Military College of Canada in the
>> city of Kingston. According to Northrop Frye, who edited
>> his book after his death, he was a soldier with a fine
>> military record, keenly interested in the theory of strategy,
>> wrote papers on the campaigns of Alexander the Great, and
>> was ready to discuss military theory from Sun-Tzu Wu to
>> Clausewitz.
>> To Fisher, the Spectre is "the rational product of memory and
>> sensation, forming the basis of the individual's reasonable view
>> of experience... and it tends to obscure the faculty which
>> experiences.. It becomes the identification of the individual with
>> his habits and tastes, his opinions and beliefs, his name and his
>> reputation, and most of all, with his environment and conditions.."
>> (p 213).What an adversary! And what need to heed Blake when he
>> points out that in the battle for the imagination, one must enlist
>> the help of the Spectre. The Spectre needs to be on your side.
>>
>> Gloudina Bouwer
>>
>>
>Attention List:
>
>William Bryan James Scott left this world on Friday, April 18, 1997.
>Bryan's wife Lola will continue to use the E-mail account they shared.
>It is her wish to be removed from this list. She would, however,
>welcome any personal E-mail you may wish to send her.
>
>This list brough so very much joy into my father's life.
>
>
>Thank you all...
>
>Leonard B. Scott (number 3 son)
>ssidecop@electrotex.com
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 11:04:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Resending John Axelson post.
Message-Id: <199704261504.LAA18380@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I am resending this post by John Axelson. I suspect that
America Online subscibers did not receive it because of
some foreign code that John picked up when he excerpted
my post "Small Fryes." I have now removed the offending
code. I hope the Axelson post will result in a long and
fruitful discussion. I am especially interested in the
opinion of Mark Trevor Smith.
John William Axcelson I break my long silence because this issue has been puzzling me
>for a while and I would like to learn more about it. I have heard Frye's
>model of Orc ageing into Urizen dismissed fairly often, so much so that it
>seems to be an established fact of recent Blake studies. Yet I've never
>seen the definitive argument(s). I may simply have missed the crucial
>sources, and I would like very much to look them over. If there is a
>single work or series of works that makes Frye's argument obsolete, please
>send this information across the wire.
>
>My problem is this: The Orc cycle, as Frye represents it, suits so
>well the narrative of the French Revolution and its unfortunate
>consequences, that I'm reluctant to surrender it. One can remain a
>a friend of liberty (as I'm sure Blake did) and yet deplore the
>consequences of revolution (cf. the anti-Stalinist left in the US), and
>even come to favor reform over revolution proper. I would not argue
>that Blake that ever took this last step, but I need a bit more convincing
>to relinquish the idea that Orc invariably lurches toward Urizen to
>protect his victory, and that Los doesn't take Orc's place in the later
>Blake as the source of positive social change, energy guided by vision.
>
>Well?
>
>John Axcelson
>
>On Thu, 24 Apr 1997, bouwer wrote:
>
>> Charlie K.
>> You posted this recently. I expected that somebody else
>> would challenge that quote, but nobody did. So I better do
>> it. He operated, after all, mainly on my side of the border.
>>
>>
>> "Charlie K." > >[from 'Fearful Symmetry' by Northrop Frye, pg. 210]
>> >
>> >
>> >As soon as we begin to think of the relation of Orc to Urizen, it
>> >becomes impossible to maintain them as separate principles. If Orc
>> >represents the reviving force of a new cycle, whether of dawn or
>> >spring or history, he must grow old and die at the end of that
>> >cycle. Urizen must eventually gain the mastery over Orc, but such a
>> >Urizen cannot be another power but Orc himself, grown old.
>>
>>
>> Charlie, do not take everything Northrop Frye says as gospel.
>> Orc is a type of Luvah, and cannot age into Urizen. Orc is
>> a phenomenon of the emotive energy. It can interact with the
>> cognitive energy, but cannot age into it.
>> Frye perpetuated the same misconception in his interpretation
>> of the "Mental Traveller." In the first half of the poem,fledgling
>> Spirit, at first tortured in the Natural world, grows stronger,
>> overpowering the Natural at the Apocalypse. The Natural then becomes
>> the dwelling place of the Spiritual, and subservient to it, until
>> mature spirit dominates. Frye wrongly interprets the poem as Orc
>> aging into Urizen. By implication, the old man in the second half
>> of the poem at the mercy of the female babe, and growing younger
>> as the Fall approaches, must be Urizen too. And I think that is
>> wrong.
>> Frye, in my view, has done us another disservice in not giving
>> enough attention to the phenomenon of Golgonooza in "Fearful
>> Symmetry." (Mentioned 17 times, most of the time in passing only.)
>> To him, it seems, Golgonooza was just the early beginnings of the
>> state of Jerusalem. And I believe that is wrong.
>> To the other members of this list group who have read my views
>> before, I apologize. It is just these two bees buzzzing around
>> in my bonnet.
>>
>> Gloudina Bouwer
>>
>>
>>
>
>John Axcelson
>Assistant Dean
>Columbia College
>Hartley-Wallach Program
>110 Hartley Hall
>(212) 854-7307
>jwa2@columbia.edu
>
>
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #50
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