Blake List — Volume 1998 : Issue 48

Today's Topics:
	 Ackroyd review
	 history/eternity -Reply
	 Happy
	 How to Know Love From Deceit
	 John Sampson -Reply
	 RE: John Sampson -Reply
	 remove
	 RE: John Sampson -Reply
	 Re: John Sampson -Reply
	 Re:  return to Innocence
	 Mental Travel
	 Re: Mental Travel
	 remove

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Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 22:53:08 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Ackroyd review
Message-Id: <98081622530812@wc.stephens.edu>

Peter Ackroyd, the most recent biographer of Blake, has published
a review of two books on London, its history and representation
in literature.  (One is _History of London_ by Stephen Inwood, 
the other _Writing London_ by Julian Wolfreys.)  In his comments
on _Writing London_, Ackroyd indicates "Blake is one of the
spirits invoked by Julian Wolfreys in his account of the way
in which the cityhas robbed its narrators of their reason and
of their certainty.  . . . Only those great visionaries, 
William Blake and Charles Dickens, seem able to accept the
essential unknowability of the city.  In a very interesting
discussion of Blake, for example, Wolfreys notes how in the
poet's litany of streets and areas, "cartography" is transformed
into "cryptography" with a host of secret and sacred names 
testifying to the ineffability of urban existence.  "Dickens's
London", far from being some ascertainable, if mournful, period
of the city's past, is a continually shifting and radically
unstable place marked by "simulation and dissimulation . . .
undecidability and supplementarity".  In Dickens's novels, to
put it more perhaps more plainly, no one ever really knows
exactly who or where they are." (The [London] Times, Aug. 13,
1998).  
An interesting Blake sighting.
Tom Dillingham

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Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 10:29:18 +0200
From: P Van Schaik 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: history/eternity -Reply
Message-Id: 

Dear Jennifer, I think your exposition  is very clear and helpful.  Much of
Blake's vision concerns the casting off of what is dross, including the
fallen universe and any ideas embraced by mankind which perpetuate
`mental bondage'. 
Pam 

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Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 16:57:16 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Happy
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Thanks for the reply, Jennifer, both to my question about history being a
subset of eternity, and about "The Tyger".

Also thanks to Rob for his commentary on the "Tyger".

And to Pam for providing an inspiring view of Blake's importance to the
21st century in the context of that "Tyger" inquiry.

I am also happy to see Ralph Dumain helping Henriette.

Tom Devine, excellent suggestion of a reference book as well as facsimile
on _The Four Zoas_.

And a special thanks to Seth, our gracious host behind the posts.

Truly, we are more than the sum of our parts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship."
        ---from plate 8,
                "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"

////~~~~~~~>>>>>>=========)))))))))))))))***********

"If you Forgive one-another, so shall Jehovah Forgive You:"
        ---from plate 61,
                _Jerusalem_, Blake Trust Edition

%%%%<<<<<<<<<<\\\\\\\\\@@@@@ #######(((((((((((((((


----- Randall Albright

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Date: Tue, 18 Aug 98 16:52:39 +0100 ( + )
From: Paul Tarry 
To: Blake Group 
Subject: How to Know Love From Deceit
Message-Id: 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; X-MAPIextension=".TXT"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Love to faults is always blind
Always is to joy inclined
Lawless wingd & unconfind
And breaks all chains from every mind.

Deceit to secresy confind
Lawful cautious & refind
To every thing but interest blind
And forges fetters for the mind.

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Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 09:23:42 +0200
From: P Van Schaik 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: John Sampson -Reply
Message-Id: 

I was interested to see someone else endorse the circular nature of
Blake's vision in your account of Sampson's reading of Blake.  One of the
concepts one encounters in many critics which I always thought threw
matters out of kilter was the insistence on return to a higher Innocence. 
Perhaps the fallen return wiser re the importance of sustaining the divine
vision of love , but the spiritual realm to which they return is no different
from what it always was  - unity in bliss with a loving God.
Pam

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Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 09:34:05 -0700
From: "Steve Perry" 
To: 
Subject: RE: John Sampson -Reply
Message-Id: <000301bdcb8f$2f584dc0$02646464@perry1.perry>
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="iso-8859-1"
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Part of the cycles of generation is that it diverts from some sorts of Hindu
and Budhists precepts that the soul returns in a prgressive state of
spiritual enlightenment.  I think that the physical manifestation of Albion,
our worm like beings, do repeat the cylces of that Isak refers.  On a
grander scale, however, Albion, the overarching beinghood is in the process
of being waken from his slumber, through the good offices of those
individual worms who bring the greatest truth and vision to the whole.

Steve Perry


I was interested to see someone else endorse the circular nature of
Blake's vision in your account of Sampson's reading of Blake.  One of the
concepts one encounters in many critics which I always thought threw
matters out of kilter was the insistence on return to a higher Innocence.
Perhaps the fallen return wiser re the importance of sustaining the divine
vision of love , but the spiritual realm to which they return is no
different
from what it always was  - unity in bliss with a loving God.
Pam

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Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 15:53:20
From: SALVATORE SANTANGELO 
To: blake@albion.com
Cc: salsanta@tin.it
Subject: remove
Message-Id: <19980820155320.11163.qmail@www09.netaddress.usa.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Please remove me from this newsgroup.


____________________________________________________________________
Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1

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Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 12:20:55
From: Izak Bouwer 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: John Sampson -Reply
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980820122055.320f0a24@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

At 09:34 AM 8/19/98 -0700, Steve Perry wrote:
> I think that the physical manifestation of Albion,
>our worm like beings, do repeat the cylces of that 
>Isak refers. 

I do not think that the circular narrative of 
the _Mental Traveller_ should be perceived as
a repeating cycle, but simply as a complete
representation of the possible states in which 
humankind can find itself, as determined by the 
extent of spiritual awareness.  We "worm-like beings" 
are in it together, traversing these contiguous states,
and our communal time-and-spatial history is contained 
in only a part of the overall cycle.

Izak Bouwer

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Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 13:24:02
From: Izak Bouwer 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: John Sampson -Reply
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980820132402.320fa132@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

At 09:23 AM 8/19/98 +0200, Pam van Schaik wrote:
>One of the>concepts one encounters in >many critics which 
>I always thought threw>matters out of>kilter was the 
>insistence on return to a higher Innocence.

Thanks, Pam. Yes, I wonder where the idea of lower (unorganized?) 
and higher (organized?) Innocence had its origins - any thoughts? 
Blake himself said: "Unorganiz'd Innocence: An Impossibility."  
It seems a natural enough thought, for instance, as Steve Perry 
points out, when one considers the cycles of rebirth (to lower 
or higher levels) of Eastern religions. But, of course, in a 
cycle of spiritual states, as determined by the extent of spiritual 
awareness, there can be only one state (Eden) with no Natural 
component, and in this state the natural notions of time and space, 
and corresponding terms of relativity - such as "lower" and "higher" - 
do not apply. In Blake's mythology the post-Apocalyptic state of 
Eden is identical with the prelapsarian state of Eden. 
>From _VLJ_: "Many suppose that before the Creation All
was Solitude & Chaos. This is the most pernicious Idea that
can enter the Mind . . . Eternity Exists, and All things in
Eternity, Independent of Creation which was an act of Mercy."
  Izak

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Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 09:10:10 +0200
From: P Van Schaik 
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re:  return to Innocence
Message-Id: 

I completely agree with you , Izak, and to see the cyclical nature of
Blake's vision is immediately, too, to see how closely it follows th