Today's Topics:
welcome to Guillermo
Re: Lambeth as Eden
"The Tyger"
just to say hello
Crabb bibliography
Re: Lambeth as Eden
Out of the Woodwork
Re: Lambeth as Eden
Re: Crabb bibliography
Re: just to say hello
just to say hello -Reply
Out of the Woodwork -Reply
Thanks
Greetings, Sera!
Re: Crabb bibliography
Greetings, Ellen!
"The Tyger"
Additional Woodwork Introduction
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Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 11:30:51 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Henriette Stavis
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: welcome to Guillermo
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Dear Guillermo,
Welcome to the list. I think it is a positive trend that people outside
of academia are interested in reading Blake. I believe that the
experience of reading a Blake poem such as 'the Tyger' is just as
important as the academic study of it. Many of us academics sometimes
lose touch with the pure enjoyment of literature, and that's a pity. I
believe that it is possible to read 'the Tyger' as a simple and beautiful
poem which touches something indescribable deep down inside one's gut. And
sometimes this indescribable response is best left undescribed. Of
course, it is also fascinating to study the poem as a contrast between
Los and Urizen, but I don't think that anyone of us can honestly claim
that that is all that it's about. So I guess, what I'm trying to say is
that your experience and enjoy of Blake's poetry is just as important as
our academic studies.
Sincerely,
Henriette
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Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 21:29:34 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Lambeth as Eden
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If Lambeth was Eden, but Los needed to call down the Eteral Milton, who
existed before Jesus and after we are dead... how much of that Milton is
Milton?
I am also puzzled by how much of Jesus is left once we forgive him is
mortal failings, at least as Blake perceived him. Jesus was the son of God,
who in Blake's mythology (at least in one point) becomes Jehovah and
overcomes his mortal failings after he dies. How much of Jesus is left in
Jesus, when you do that?
Finally, how much did Lambeth remain Eden before and after that Eternal
Milton's arrival?
~~~~~~~
Yes, Blake was prone to "rave", wasn't he? Or was it a "rage"? (One of my
dictionaries has a synonym that says "rave" can mean roar or rage.) I mean,
Blake had this... this Bible from Hell that he was going to give to the
world whether they liked it or not!? Some can talk about Nietzsche as a
"dangerous" philosopher who was really a poet, but at times Blake certainly
could appear as a dangerous artist/poet. Somehow I get the feeling that
between the revolutions and counter-revolutions that were going on in
France, he would have been burned as a heretic. And thanks to the crippled
monarchy that returned after his favorite poet, Milton, did some things
that were in ways precursors to the American Revolution (worked out a bit
more succesfully here, for a number of reasons. Could it have been people
like John Adams warning Sam to FORGIVE the Tories?)-- which helped Blake to
inherit a world of free speech that Voltaire, among others, envied, I
wonder, again, why... why was he so mean to... oh, say someone like John
Locke, who seems to have lit a fire under people like Rousseau? It was the
Enlightenment that protected the Romantics in England. Kind of... typical,
this irony-- as William F. Buckley smiles at all these lefties at Yale,
while the Endowment was built up by... righties?
---Randall Albright
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Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 21:29:51 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: "The Tyger"
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I, too, welcome Guillermo, although I think it unnecessarily constricts the
meaning of the Tyger poem to talk about in the context of the later works.
I think it stands very well in its own right, as a poem, as well as within
the _Songs of Innocence and Experience_ in which it was designed.
As my understanding of the larger work of Blake has grown, however, I would
say that the Tyger is something similar to what Pam says:
>...the attempts of the creator figure ( called Los in the Prophetic
>Works) to limit the damage caused by a prior creator (Urizen). But its
>central question is one which people in all generations probably ask.
>Pam
And... to further complicate the matter, if someone is u