Today's Topics:
Re: Looking for a "way in" to Blake
Re: Blake's work somewhere online ? also "to get 'into' Blake
Re: Introduction
Re: Elohim -Reply
Frontispiece of "Europe" Again
More than the Sum of Parts...
Re: Elohim
Left Hand, Eternals
Re: Frontispiece of "Europe" Again
Re : Looking for a "way in" to Blake
Re: Blake's work somewhere online ?
Re: Elohim
New arrival
Re: Re : Looking for a "way in" to Blake
Albright's 4 Zoas & Building Jerusalem
Re: Blake's work somewhere online ?
Re: Query for Blake group
Re: Elohim
Was ist los ?
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 22:07:00 -0700
From: Steve Perry
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Looking for a "way in" to Blake
Message-Id: <337A99F4.F13AAECB@surf.com>
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Alison Bell wrote:
>
> Hello Blakeans,
>
> I'm looking for a way in to Blake. Feel I need to unravel the "characters"
> before I can even attempt to read the long poems. Also feel I need the
> graphics. I've tried "Fearful Symmetry", but it seems to be for those who
> already have already internalized the poetry. (Although, as with any Frye,
> it's enjoyable even without knowing the subject). I'm capable of reading
> anything. (Except Blake, it seems). Any suggestions?
Something that helped me to have at my side when I first attacked the
longer poems was S. Foster Damon's _A Blake Dictionary_. While not
always difinitive or even always helpful, at least always accessible and
not overly invasive while you are in the act of reading the poems. It
is nice to just turn alphabetically to a specific topic then having to
wade through some glib diatribe or recitation of some extinct
bibliographic reference.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 23:08:29 -0700 (PDT)
From: mhanson@gladstone.uoregon.edu (Michael Hanson)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake's work somewhere online ? also "to get 'into' Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Though it's been mentioned on this list many times before, a good place to
start is The Blake Digital Text Project at
http://virtual.park.uga.edu/~wblake/, which also will lead you to further
links - including images. I'm sure many on this list can add to this
suggestion.
And BTW, Allison, What first got me 'into' Blake, as an adolescent, was a
little book by Ruthven Todd, called "The Lost Traveler". I don't know why,
since in retrospect it reminds me more of Coleridge, but thus was my
earliest introduction.
Much luck to the both of you,
Michael Hanson
>I'm new to Blake, in fact I only signed on because I had read
>something many years ago from Blake's work which interested me
>very much. I vowed to check him out someday, and here is where
>I started. Can I find any of Blake's work on the internet ? Thanks.
>
>Don
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 01:41:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: WOLFMANDR@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Introduction
Message-Id: <970515014145_-2001678094@emout11.mail.aol.com>
Hello Davyyd,
Nice to meet you....
Truly,
Brian
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 09:50:31 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Elohim -Reply
Message-Id:
David, I found your posting very informative, but would have to disagree
re what you say concerning all things going back only as far as Urizen
and Blake favouring `multiple gods' qua 'poetic geniuses'. Rather, he
posits an Eternal Great Humanity Divine within whose imaginative and
loving fires all Eternals exist in `unquenchable burnings'. One of those
Eternals, falling into too deep a `Sleep' (an occurrence from which others
are often rescued by eternal helpers in time to prevent catastrophe)
begins to believe his nightmarish delusions are the only reality, and to
believe that Urizen, his Zoa of Intellect, is correct in dismissing the divine
vision of love as a fantasy. Urizen is then given liberty to create a world
reflecting his own delusions in the abyss.
It is only through exercising our god-given intellects in harmony with love
and imagination that we can reverse the effects of the Fall and this is
where trusting `men of greatest Genius' most comes in. "Poetic Genius'
can provide the end of a `golden string' to lead us out of the dark
labyrinths and mazes of the intricately serpent-wound and
serpent-bound world of nature. Pam
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 10:49:35 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Frontispiece of "Europe" Again
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I think another very important point that about the Frontispiece of Europe
is this:
* the wide variation of moods
which Blake could evoke in hand coloring a plate
Perhaps Jennifer Michael saw a version more like the 1827 illustration
which appears in my Michael Davis book, _William, Blake, A New Kind of Man_
(1977, University of California). According to Davis, Blake did in 1827 for
Frederick Tatham and was given as "Urizen Creating the Universe".
It is called "The Ancient of Days" with no specific date (or "Urizen" name)
on my postcard from the British Museum, and is much "sunnier" than the 1827
version in Davis. The explanation that this is an imperfect god, Urizen,
representing Reason, appears, I believe, on a card/envelope (?) or other
material from the same British Museum's reproduction, which I cannot find
at this time. But there was not judgment made whether Urizen is comforting,
scary, or any other such commentary.
Without any explanation, friends to whom I showed the postcard often
remarked that it was a kind of "timeless" representation of God, like Zeus
or The Creator from the Bible. People have also remarked on how it could be
used for a rock album cover, because of this "timeless" quality.
The hand-coloring on yet another version of this plate, and on which I was
basing my original interpretation, has no title, is contained in the Dover
(1983) facsimile republication of what is claimed to be a 1794 version of
the plate. This version is to me the most ethereal and comforting, with
Urizen's hair (? - again, not named-- as is the character of the last
plate, who to me looks like Orc) seeming to merge into the white-bordered
clouds around him. In the other two versions, the white borders around the
clouds are gone, and the relative softness of the image is hardenned up as,
indeed, the "sky" is much blacker around him, and by 1827 his own radiance
is more of a muted orange/brown with black in his inner circle.
=======
Similar moodiness changes of hand-coloring appear throughout Blake's
oeuvre. I once saw a slide of the 2nd plate of "The Ecchoing Green", for
example, which I believe was from a combined _Songs of Innocence and
Experience_ book, and had a much darker vision than the little Dover
edition that I own. To me, that later version brought up the question of
"Who IS that man supposedly guiding these children's through the night,
pointing with his authoritarian finger?" Such a contrariness between words
and variation in the hand-coloring adds a richness to the depth of play in
Blake's work which mere black and white reproductions, or reference to
merely one hand-colored effort, of the plates cannot adequately describe.
-Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 11:46:57 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: More than the Sum of Parts...
Message-Id:
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Jennifer wrote:
>If I were the only person who found it distant and terrifying, would that
>invalidate my experience of it? (For the record, it's not that distant
>from me at the moment: I have a poster of it on the wall behind my
>computer, so it has become a familiar part of my environment, for better or
>worse.)
Or course not!
But do you ALWAYS feel that way when looking at the poster?
>I don't know how much of it is based on what I know of Urizen. I can't
>remember when I first saw the painting.
Neither can I. It was a very long time ago..........
Which version of the plate is your poster/interpretation based on? Mine was
on the Dover reproduction (1983). And, as I further fleshed out yesterday,
I have deeper, perhaps *changing* views of the plate in relation to
"Europe" than I initially verbalized. Maybe part of the point of Blake's
illuminated books is that words alone simply can not express... and neither
can pictures... and that these things *change*.
[On another note: I must note that the Frontispiece has no text on
it. I think the plate functions well as a standalone piece, as sold in
cards by the British Museum, and as sold by Blake to Frederick Tatham in
1827. Did Tatham have to read... how much of Blake's repertoire?... and in
what sequence?... to have a reaction to the visual imagery which appears to
have been sold alone to him? What did he NOT get by receiving that one view
of Blake, and not my Dover 1794 view?]
I, however, was talking about "Europe", which should be able to function as
a standalone poem, in my opinion. Greater knowledge of Blake's oeuvre may
help, or deceive, in understanding that poem, as Blake's own moody
watercolor changes to the "Frontispiece" imply and as I have noted before
in other organic changes both in Blake's own, complex life (artist) and in
our own, complex lives (viewer/reader).
>Perhaps it's an illustration of Blake's witty epigram "To God":
>
>"If you have formd a Circle to go into
>Go into it yourself & see how you would do" (E516)
Perhaps.......
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 11:05:02 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Elohim
Message-Id:
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>>From Blakes work, he would mostly favor the idea of Multiple Gods, or
>"poetic geniuses." The multiple Gods beginning of Genesis can be traced
>to similar Egyptian creation myths, but of course we all know that
>everything in the universe leads back to Urizen !
It does?
While we're on the subject of plural gods, I've always been somewhat
puzzled by Blake's occasional references to "The Eternals". I think this
occurs mostly in _The Four Zoas_, but in context he seems to be referring
to beings other than the Zoas. Who, for example, are the "Seven Eyes of
God" in Night the First (E 312)? Earlier in the same Night, "those in
Great Eternity met in the Council of God / As one Man," but they do so to
discuss Albion's sickness. I find this confusing because Albion is
supposed to contain everything, human and divine, within himself. Who are
these other people, if they are not elements of him?
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 97 12:54 CST
From: MLGrant@president-po.president.uiowa.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Left Hand, Eternals
Message-Id: <199705151800.NAA24255@cc-gate.uiowa.edu>
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So far the discussion of the frontispiece to *Europe,* Urizen's
creation of the world, a.k.a. "Ancient of Days," has omitted an
important point: it is the left hand that is wielding the compasses.
Elsewhere Blake seems to follow the convention that the left hand is
sinister. In *Jerusalem* Rahab (I believe) conceals a lie behind her
back in her left hand, for instance.
As for the Eternals, I believe that in *The Book of Urizen* Blake had
not yet developed the notion of Zoas, or Eyes, or anything like that
-- in this poem the Eternals are just an undifferentiated fluctuating
infinite mass of human-divine living-dying Being from which Urizen
willfully separates himself, contracting into a finite, solid,
inflexible, opaque Self obsessed with binary (me-them, good-bad,
controlled-out of countrol) distinctions.
In later works the Eternals become the Divine Family, or Divine
Humanity, which depending on perspective is an infinite multitude or
is one man, Jesus. At the beginning of *Milton,* however, since the
poet is in merely the limited heaven that he had imagined in PL, some
of the Eternals, those who reject the Bard's Song, are error-prone and
cast out both Milton and his Seven guards; these misguided Eternals
later turn out to be Ololon (or so she/they claim in repenting).
The Seven Eyes, as has been well documented by many scholars and
critics, have a biblical origin in Zechariah 4:10. Blake's names for
them are also biblical -- Lucifer, Molech, "triple Elohim," Shaddai
("Almighty"), Pahad ("Fear"), Jehovah, and the Lamb. I think of them
as stages in human perception and conception of the divine, both
through periods of history and in the spiritual development of the
individual. In *Milton* the "Starry Eight" include Milton himself. The
Eternals, concerned about humankind's sickness and death, keep
electing "Eyes" to die in man's place, but the first 6 fall short --
Lucifer refuses out of pride, Molech (the Canaanite god who devoured
children) becomes impatient, the Elohim grow weary and faint, Shaddai
is angry, Pahad is terrified, Jehovah is leprous; then the Lamb dies
as a Reprobate and is punished as a Transgressor.
I believe Rachel Billingheimer has a whole book on the Seven Eyes.
There is a good chapter in one of Michael Ferber's books. If I recall
correctly, Damon's dictionary provides biblical references -- as we do
also in footnotes to plate 13 of *Milton* in *Blake's Poetry and
Designs.* I'm sure the editors of the Princeton/Trianon facsimiles of
*Milton* and *Jerusalem* must go into all this very thoroughly.
-- Mary Lynn Johnson
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 13:45:44 -0500
From: jmichael@seraph1.sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
Subject: Re: Frontispiece of "Europe" Again
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Thanks, Randall, for pointing out the various versions of this plate: it's
an excellent example of how the effect of a plate could be altered by
Blake's coloring of it (in my opinion). The poster I have is from the copy
in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and as such I would describe it as
halfway between the British Museum version with the white-edged clouds
(which I don't care for) and the late copy Blake did for Tatham, which is
in the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester. The latter is reproduced in Raymond
Lister's _The Paintings of William Blake_, and to me it's the most
effective of all, though perhaps also the darkest, with the sun and clouds
almost blood-red and the shadow above Urizen's left knee most pronounced.
Your point about staying within the context of _Europe_ is also well taken,
and led me to look again at Urizen's role in that poem. In plate 3, his
role sounds innocuous enough, even positive, if you don't know who Urthona
is:
Again the night is come
That strong Urthona takes his rest;
And Urizen unloos'd from chains,
Glows like a meteor in the distant north
Stretch forth your hands and strike the elemental strings!
Awake the thunders of the deep.
(although it's interesting that in the picture Urizen isn't playing a harp
like a poet, but measuring like a mathematician.)
But by the time we get to plate 12, Urizen is the "clouds" and Orc is the
"flames"--but perhaps that gets us back to the old argument about Urizen
being Orc-grown-old.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 14:11:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: John Hubanks
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re : Looking for a "way in" to Blake
Message-Id: <970515141134.20a7f94c@ualr.edu>
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Allison,
In my experience, the point of reading the long poems is, at least in part,
the unraveling of the characters. I think you may be trying to "put the cart
before the horse" in this instance, if you'll excuse the cliche. My advice is
to jump on in and thrash about like the rest of us.
John Hubanks
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 May 97 22:04:09 -0700
From: Richard Record
To: "Blake List"
Subject: Re: Blake's work somewhere online ?
Message-Id: <199705160501.WAA07284@moon.aa.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
DOMESI@aol.com
>I'm new to Blake, in fact I only signed on because I had read
>something many years ago from Blake's work which interested me
>very much. I vowed to check him out someday, and here is where
>I started. Can I find any of Blake's work on the internet ? Thanks.
>
>Don
>
Don,
We have the plates and text of "Songs of Innocence", "Songs of
Experience" and "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" online along with a
number of his paintings at "http://www.aa.net/~urizen/blake.html"
Richard
Richard Record and Gail Gastfield |"Love BEARS all things."-Appostle Paul
GGRReat Expectations |"Eternity is in love
urizen@aa.net | with the productions of time."-Blake
http://www.aa.net/~urizen/ |"Please look after this bear.
13123 47th Pl.W.,Mukilteo WA 98275 | Thank you."-Paddington's Mother
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 00:11:19 -0700
From: Steve Perry
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Elohim
Message-Id: <337C0897.22C6E38D@surf.com>
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I don't know whether this is all to relevant, however I remember having
a converstion with a Rabi friend of mine many years ago about Elohim.
His take on it was that the Elohim were/are (yes plural) something akin
to demiurge, and were responsible for creating things in the world, or
for that matter, the world. He seemed to indicate that Elohim was
something less than Yahwe. This seems to support somewhat the excellent
post from David Downie. It is also interesting in the sense that Urizen
and Los at his behest are creating the world outside of eternity, which
one would expect to happen outside of the perview or maybe the interest
of the God of gods, Yahwe. That is not to say that this creation is
outside of eternity, but is rather a subset of eternity ruled by its own
subset of gods.
Steve Perry
J. Michael wrote:
>
> >>From Blakes work, he would mostly favor the idea of Multiple Gods,
> or
> >"poetic geniuses." The multiple Gods beginning of Genesis can be
> traced
> >to similar Egyptian creation myths, but of course we all know that
> >everything in the universe leads back to Urizen !
>
> It does?
>
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 00:30:31 PDT
From: "yunyeong kim"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: New arrival
Message-Id: <199705160730.AAA21212@f3.hotmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
Hello,
I'm a student in New Zealand and I very interested in Blake's work's. I am
presently doing a project on how Blake lifts the film of familiarity from life
through his poetry. I am concentrating on 'The Lamb', 'The Tyger', 'The Sick
Rose', 'London', and 'Infant Sorrow'.
If anyone has any suggestions on how I should tackle this subject or
can help me in any way I'd really like to know.
Thank's.
yunyeong@hotmail.com
---------------------------------------------------------
Get Your *Web-Based* Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
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------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 04:07:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: WOLFMANDR@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re : Looking for a "way in" to Blake
Message-Id: <970516040716_-1029915960@emout06.mail.aol.com>
I agree with John. that is what i am doing daily now. wading my way
through....
Truly,
Brian
P.S> that is why i keep my mouth closed most of the time
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 10:40:26 -0500 (EST)
From: WATT
To: Blake@albion.com
Subject: Albright's 4 Zoas & Building Jerusalem
Message-Id: <8226401016051997/A69294/RUTH/11B582A81500*@MHS>
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Hi Randall. I'm posting this because I want others to pitch in if they feel like
it. I'm responding to your thoughtful remarks about division and/or
separation of the Zoas and the "problem" of interpretation vis a vis
Blake's putative intention and what you call "readers' rights." This, naturally
enough, also involves the related question of Blake's work in terms of the
"earlier" illuminated texts and their delightful clarity and economy as
opposed to the later prophecies with their, to many (including you),
troublesome obscurity and excessive (some would say, obsessive)
particularity.
I'll start with your observation on frustration at the problem (reflected in
many Blake-List responses) of separation of the Zoas. In your posting of
5/9, you remark on the necessity of balancing (and inter-pentetration) of
the Zoas as a requisite to your experience of marvelling. And you add
that, in elemental terms, they (the Zoas) are, in fact our familiar (or
archetypal) old friends: Earth, Air, Fire & Water. And I agree. They are, in
one sense, precisely so. Even as, in one sense, I am the words you are
reading now. But they are NEVER reductively these things. In fact, they
CAN'T be; for, when they are so 'framed' or 'constituted,' they disappear.
In exactly the sense in which I disappear if you construe me to be this
combination of diction and syntax, either essentially or elementally. What
takes my place, in that case, is less, even, than my emanation. For, in the
sense that the radiant body is both its energy source AND its radiation, the
radiation is, at least, still connected to the energy source. But when you
decide that the radiation IS the source (or the emanation IS the the
essence), you cannot be content with what you have named until you
have dissected (divided) or de-constructed it. And at this point you are
dealing with the spectre (not MY spectre, but YOURS). For "The Negation
is the Spectre [,] the Reasoning Power in Man" [MILTON 40:34] (Erdman,
142). What I mean, is, to follow my example, when you have reduced
me to these words, you are asserting that the fingers typing them have
no ESSENTIAL part to play in what I AM; they are merely instrumental,
simply means to an end: communication of an idea. And, (not
surprisingly to the reasoning power), the idea is taken, self-evidently, to
be the "essence." What is even funnier (although tragic in its
consequences), this essence is supposed, by the reasoning power, to
be "eternal," the part of me that survives even my death! Of course that's
nonsense! As you so eloquently point out, 'readers have rights to their
own interpretation --and no one can prevent them (or you) from making
whatever they want of Blake's (or mine, or your) words and ideas! And
no one does. Though many seem, to you, to be trying to.
So here we have YOUR reasoning power re-constructing ME to fit its
needs or whims or principles or desires (yes, Urizen has desires). And the
better 'job' IT do of this, the less able are YOU (the real, essential, 4-fold
you!) to see me, hear me, touch me or feel me. (To make an allusion to
one of your favored realms of play.) In a word, one of the Zoas has
usurped its role and the Fall is happening again for the first time. And
notice the result: separation! Of YOU from ME and of YOUR SPECTRE from
YOU.
Now this "Reasoning Power" is not, in itself, bad, or sin --or the enemy; in
fact, W.B. even calls it "The Holy Reasoning Power" in Jerusalem [10:15]
(Erdman,152)! [And see, also, Jerusalem 53:25 & 54:7]. For one of the Four
Mighty Ones (Four Zoas 1:9; Erdman,300) is Urizen, also the reasoning
power --but, in this case, the reasoning power doesn't exist as an end in
itself, reducing all else to means, to its materials and instruments; instead it
depends on (that is 'reasons from') brotherhood (that's why Blake
footnotes this famous passage with John 1:14 & 17:21-23). Now
'brotherhood' is a concept that REQUIRES the other, not an abstraction or
a negation, but a UNIQUELY and MINUTELY PARTICULAR 'other.'
That's me. That minute particular. And that's you. And Jennifer. And Pam.
And Tom Dillingham. And Bert Stern.
And even, (I think) each of those ducklings (12 of them!) that I herded this
morning across a busy intersection. The mother was determined to head
east, towards the sun and I couldn't dissuade her. So. I --rather
self-consciously-- talked and walked her across the road, waving busy
traffic (of other minutely particular beings on their way to their minutely
particular business) to a halt.
The thing is, we live in a world that puts ideas ahead of people --and
ducks. It is not happy world, though everything necessary for happiness is
here --and given.
The Zoas have all their own weaknesses. As Urizen, for instance, is too
prone to hierarchy and separation and definition and abstraction and
power, so Tharmas is too prone to chaos and assimilation and
vagueness and inarticulateness and surrender. So we're in agreement
about the need for balance and building. As to the wonderful and
equally rewarding later works: we don't have to choose one or the
other. I want Beethoven as well as Chopin and I want Blake as well as
the Beatles. All are engaged openly in a "Mental pursuit for the Building
up of Jerusalem" [Jerusalem 77] (Erdman,232)
Thanks for listening to me (or my Spectre) riff.
Jim Watt, Indianapolis, USA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 11:53:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: "C. S. Beauvais"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake's work somewhere online ?
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Thu, 15 May 1997 DOMESI@aol.com wrote:
> I'm new to Blake, in fact I only signed on because I had read
> something many years ago from Blake's work which interested me
> very much. I vowed to check him out someday, and here is where
> I started. Can I find any of Blake's work on the internet ? Thanks.
>
> Don
>
>
Try
http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccacad/english/blake/timeline.html
.chip
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-4-|---p---p-|---------|-p-p-p---|---------|---p---p-|----------|-p-p---p-|---
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.chip
URL's
HOMEPAGE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/csbea/
BLAKE>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccacad/english/blake/timeline.html
ARTS & TECH>http://camel.conncoll.edu/ccother/north/at201/test.html
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 19:10:23 -0700
From: Hugh Walthall
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Query for Blake group
Message-Id: <337D138F.3FA9@erols.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Patricia Neill wrote:
>
> Morris Eaves asked me to send this along to the Blake list:
>
> From: IN%"Morris.Eaves@btinternet.COM" "Morris Eaves" 11-MAY-1997 12:57:00.71
> To: IN%"pnpj@db1.cc.rochester.edu" "Patricia Neill"
> CC: IN%"finneran@utk.EDU" "Richard J. Finneran"
> Subj: Query for Blake group
>
> > Believe it or not, I have another Blake query for _The Yeats Reader_
> which
> > I previously overlooked. In _The Words upon the Window-pane_ (1934), a
> > character says:
> >
> > The poet Blake said that he never knew a bad man that had not something
> > very good about him.
> >
>
> Can anyone identify the Blakean source here for Richard Finneran?
>
> Thanks--Morris Eaves
I don't think this is a real quote from Blake. It is the sly
knucklehead Yeats mis-remembering Blake, whether intentionally or
otherwise. (The character speaking is Dr. Trench, after all, President
of the Dublin spook chasing Society, and from his name, he presumably
has one foot in the grave, not Dr. Trenchant.) The closest I find in
Blake, and the passage I think he misquotes is the prose piece On
Homer's Poetry. Keynes p.778. The passage is: Aristotle says
characters are either good or bad; now goodness or badness has nothing
to do with character....a good apple tree or a bad is an apple tree
still....
Hugh Walthall hugwal@erols.com
p.s. Yeats was a poet and not a scholar. He didn't give a fig if his
quotes were accurate. And he gave even less for the accuracy of
quotation of a character in a play!
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 23:45:14 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Elohim
Message-Id: <97051623451441@wc.stephens.edu>
I suspect I have somehow missed some messages from the list, since there
are references to materials I have not seen--I say this in order to
apologize if I am repeating something already mentioned in this thread.
Specifically, there is a very good and informative discussion of the
OT uses of the terms YWH and Elohim in Harold Bloom's _The Book of J_.
While it has its share of controversial and bizarre hypotheses, as befits
a Bloom book, that particular section seems to me to be solidly argued
and provides a good background at least for the OT issues. Of course
Blake's knowledge of Hebrew is still a matter of conjecture (but see
Sheila Spector's publications on the subject.
Again, I apologize if this merely repeats information already offered.
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 17 May 1997 13:14:45 -0500 (CDT)
From: Voice of the Devil
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Was ist los ?
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
By chance, someone that knew German saw my webpage and made the
comment "Was ist los ?" it means what is wrong, or what's the matter ?
Now instantly I made a connection between that and Blake's Los and his
Milton work where he explores what is wrong with man as he sees it.
So my questions are. Would Blake have known any German or has this ever
been mentioned before in an article somewhere. The connection seems too
over simplistic, but I thought I could use it somewhere in my thesis.
Thanks,
David
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #57
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