Today's Topics:
RE: "He whose face gives no light shall never become a star."
RE: BLAKE AND SARTRE?
Some thoughts
Opium?
Dillingham / criticisms.
Re: Some thoughts
Re: Some thoughts
Re: Opium?
long shadow of Jacob Bryant
RE: "He whose face gives no light shall never become a star."
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 10:11:37 -0700
From: Kerry McKeever
To: "'ndeeter@concentric.net'" ,
"blake@albion.com"
Subject: RE: "He whose face gives no light shall never become a star."
Message-Id: <01BDD338.875B9F80.mckeever@uidaho.edu>
-----Original Message-----
From: ndeeter [SMTP:ndeeter@concentric.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 1998 3:22 AM
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: "He whose face gives no light shall never become a star."
[Kerry McKeever] While I hardly believe neither Dillingham nor Dumain need
defending, I will post the rare note supporting their comments. The fact
that I enter the discussion at the juncture where Nathan commented is
really neither here nor there, but Nathan does make some comments that are
somewhat troubling.
After a prompt from Mr. Dillingham to read more and shut up, I conceded
out of respect, a little shamed but all the more willing to learn. In
light of all the bickering and name calling that has gone on, I feel I
must interject a small comment.
Though Blakeans are certainly a lively, well-opinioned bunch, we have
certainly fallen from the grace of Blake. I always try to read Blake
through the eyes of the innocent (those of a willing, accepting learner)
and not those of an aged pedant busily scratching away notes for an
upcoming lecture somewhere in a dark university office. Where that may
be the business practice for most of the Blakeans on this list, others
still are looking to learn Blake.
[Kerry McKeever] I do not know whether Blake wanted us to read as though
we were innocent or not, but I am convinced, and this is no great insight
of my own, that he did not believe that there really was a state of
innocence. Please, everyone out there correct me if I am wrong. Besides,
what would be the point? We are not innocent, Blake knew we were not
innocent. Drab, uninformed comments on my part at best, but I am not a
Blake scholar either.
I have an English degree from UAA. I studied intertextuality and
deconstructionism. I student taught (though I can more honestly say,
hand-fed) the basic principles of criticism to even wider-eyed
sophomores last year. I have read more works of literary criticism than
probably original texts. And I think it's safe to say that I trust only
the original texts one hundred percent. I don't know if one academic,
critical reading is good or bad, but it certainly seems a waste of our
intellectual energies if we're all so steeped in our own vision, we
can't see above all the muck to view another.
[Kerry McKeever] I am, however, a critical theorist with specialties in
poststructuralist theory and intertextuality in particular. If you teach
the basic principles of literary theory to students, then I would think
that you, like the rest of us, must take responsibility for the language
you employ when you teach. In light of this comment, I would suggest that
there is no such thing as "deconstructionism." Employment of the term in
this way is the result of the watering down and irresponsible desemmination
of Derrida, an example of how such casual language can have detrimental
effects on all of us. I use this as an example of why Tom and Ralph get so
irritated when we speculate without the reading and study that is the
responsibility of critic/scholars. Obviously, I am not addressing this to
those on the list who are not in academia. However, in a more general
fashion, the principles of good scholarship should not be confined to those
within academia; to the contrary, the principles help all of us to develop
sound arguments no matter what our interests or professions. If we really
do wish to learn, then we need to treat our subject matter professionally.
William Golding once commented that he became a professional "thinker"
when he discovered that there was too much at stake for him to remain a
mere "hobbyist." I would agree with him. Andre Morize best summarizes
for me the spirit of all inquiry, no matter how informal [Kerry McKeever]
: "A love of precision joined to aspirations toward general ideas; respect
for historical facts, and warm apprciation of beautiful writings,
minuteness in research, and breadth of view; finesse in analysis;
strictness in criticism, penetration in aesthetic judgments; lastly,
exacting loyalty toward oneself, toward facts, toward the ideas and the men
studies,--these are a few of the valuable qualities that, thoroughly
understood and thoroughly carried out, literary studies tend to develop
(Problems and Methods of Literary History [Boston, 1922, viii]) Rather
than embracing a Blakean two-fold, three-fold, or four-fold
vision, we seem to have chosen to bicker back and forth and go the way
of Browning's Grammarian.
Before Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads, he and Coleridge wrote a
simple advertisement of their "vision" of their art. It opens by stating
that "it is the honourable characteristic of Poetry that its materials
are to be found in every subject which can interest the human mind. The
evidence of this fact is to be sought, not in the writings of Critics,
but in those of Poets themselves. The majority of the following poems
are to be considered as experiments."
Does there have to be one determined, fixed answer? Or can it change
with time, with readership? What if in 50 years no scholar is reading
Blake? Many of these arguments now will be pointless to those who are
reading Blake. [Kerry McKeever] The words "critic" and "scholar" mean
different things, but you seemingly substitute them freely here. Comments
recently posted to the list deal primarily with lack of scholarship on the
part of critics. We might wish to remember Richard Altick's discussion of
the functions of these two in his The Art of Literary Research [Kerry
McKeever] . I will leave it to you to find and peruse this fine book.
I don't know what I'm suggesting. Maybe we should just try to stick to
what is pure about Blake. Pure in our hearts, pure in what we believe
was Blake's heart. [Kerry McKeever] If you do indeed study and teach
poststructuralizem, you might be wary of using a word such as "pure." As
well, I think Blake made it pretty difficult for us to say what was
"purely" his "heart." Thinking so purely about his purity, as his texts
attest, indicates how little we know about him rather than how much.
"Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not believed."
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 10:32:50 -0700
From: Kerry McKeever
To: "'blake@albion.com'"
Subject: RE: BLAKE AND SARTRE?
Message-Id: <01BDD338.8E7E19A0.mckeever@uidaho.edu>
-----Original Message-----
From: Ralph Dumain [SMTP:rdumain@igc.apc.org]
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 1998 7:52 AM
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: BLAKE AND SARTRE?
I think Blake would pretty much equate the universe of the Existentialists
with the land of Ulro, human existence reduced to its bare mechanical
essentials, a barren wasteland. But with regard to those Existentialists
with integrity, trying to forge a way through the wilderness, I think Blake
would show some respect. Camus, for example, wrestled with the question of
what is worth living for and how to act in an absurd universe, stoically
and
heroically hanging onto principle in a stripped-down cosmos.
There is a precedent here: Blake's reaction to Byron's CAIN. Byron's
universe in this work is essentially the existentialist universe. There is
no significant difference. Blake treats Byron as a genuine prophet, but
one
whose cardinal error is self-doubt. Where man is not, nature is barren.
Byron has accepted the fallen world as the natural order of things, and
faces it in its nakedness without illusion, without sanctifying it with
mystifying (Urizenic) ideology. Blake respects him for this, but finds it
a
limited view.
[Kerry McKeever] Ralph, do you think it possible that Blake recognized in
Byron and his Cain not so much a self doubt but a doubt in God, and such
doubt was understanable and, indeed, acceptable? I ponder this because of
Blake's specific illusion to Elijah and the telling part of Kings to which
Blake refers in his Address. I have written on this subject, but I would
much appreciate yours and anyone else's comments. As well, I would like
any comments on Blake's short play, "The Ghost of Abel" as well,
particularly in interpreting Adam and Eve's response to the death of Abel.
Does Blake write it as a corrective to Byron's harpy-like Eve, as a
corrective human forgiveness? Or are we fooled once more? Is Adam and
Eve's reaction too passive, too doctrinaire? Hmm.
I believe this answers the question.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 13:32:38 -0500
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Some thoughts
Message-Id: <98082913323854@wc.stephens.edu>
I doubt that this is worth the effort, but I would like to comment
on the direction of some recent posts to this list.
First, I would be very interested to see anyone offer some examples
of my having posted narrow, authoritarian, dogmatic, pedantic,
or singleminded "readings" or "interpretations" of any text--any
Blake text or any other text. I doubt it can be done because it
is not my style. I do not as a rule offer single "interpretations"
of any literary works, certainly not Blake's, because I don't believe
(contrary to Nathan's suggestions) that such are possible. I am
in fact open to and aware of a wide range of interpretations of many
texts, including Blake's, and I find many of the rewarding, stimulating,
even sometimes convincing within their boundaries. I am not, on the other
hand, willing to subject my approach to works I value to anyone else's
interpretations, even though I acknowledge and benefit from them.
(The truth is that my students are far more likely to be frustrated
by my refusal to offer "the definitive answer" on any text, since
they therefore have trouble figuring out what I might "want" on
an exam. Another truth is that this is a public e-list, not a
classroom, and no one pays me to teach here--when I see an example
of nonsense or blatant error, it is not my responsibility to indulge
in an elaborate process of socratic anamnesis on this list. And
by they way, the formal lecture is as nearly a dead form of pedagogy
at my small college as anything could be--somewhat to my regret, but
we adapt to the needs of the environment.)
Second, I suggest that the problem is not, contrary to what a couple of
people would like to assert, that I impose a narrow or dogmatic view
of Blake, but precisely that I am fiercely opposed to such views. I
am opposed to the people (fans and cultists) who come to Blake with
a preconceived belief system (whether it is a literary theory,
a religious faith, a fascination with Jungian archetypes or the
Tarot or Druidism or Kabbalah or any of the other panoply of
"systems") and who cut, trim, twist and distort Blake's texts to
force him to conform to their own systems. It is not that there is
nothing to learn from efforts to understand what Blake might have
known about any or all of these, nor is there no value whatever
in suggesting parallels between Blake's views (or poetic or artistic)
practices and those of other traditions, other cultures. It is that
the confident assertions that Blake *is x* or "believes x* or
*must have known x* are offensive when they are not supported by
evidence and careful argumentation. And I find it very interesting
that when I point out that such assertions are unsupported or
deviate from what is known about Blake or can be seen in his
texts, I am accused of "narrow interpretation." The narrowness i
s in the effort to shoehorn Blake into views he cannot be shown to
have held or known and the responses of the fanatics who try to
do this to efforts to show they are mistaken are certainly better
evidence of their commitment to preconceived notions than of my
"dogmatism."
Third, I do think it is wrong to insert a phrase (such as "and
Buddhist" into a text by Blake without openly acknowledging and
explaining the point of doing it and justifying it with argument.
In fact, of course, the argument with reference to "All Religions
Are One" might be made, with not too much difficulty, though it would
be hard to sustain when questions about which Buddhism was meant and
what texts (the Sutras are not really the same as Torah, Tanakh, or
Testaments) were to be offered (especially since Blake surely never
saw any of them). And I do think that there are problems involved
in selective quotation--problems of potential distortion, problems
of misrepresentation. We all know that the devil can quote scripture
and make it sound plausible; I am sure that I have been every bit as
guilty (especially with the Proverbs of Hell which are *so convenient*
to illustrate points, even though properly understood they seldom
mean what one wants them to mean) of quoting Blake and others out of
context. But most writers and speakers are aware that such
selective quotation is rhetorically very dangerous, leaving the
speaker open to embarrassing challenges and even reversals if the
opponent is alert enough to see the distortion.
There is a difference between dismissing certain kinds of readings
and interpretations as self-serving or hermetically sealed within
a private revelation, on the one hand, and trying to impose a
single approach to the works of Blake. In spite of the general
view that "everyone is entitled to express an opinion," there is
no corollary that says "every opinion, no matter how absurd or
confused, is immune from criticism" (or if there is a rule like
that, I haven't encountered it). I have dismissed; I have never
imposed.
And by the way, Ralph Dumain and I are friends and occasional
collaborators, but we are not the same guy. Ralph knows a whole
lot of stuff that I can never hope to catch up with, for one
thing. But I have noticed an odd tendency to equate or confuse
us with each other, which might well be avoided.
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 14:40:07 -0500
From: "J. Michael"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Opium?
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> If you take the opium out of the Blake what
>are you left with ?
Are you speaking metaphorically, or have you come across evidence that
Blake actually used opium? I've always assumed that people who made such
comments were either confusing Blake with Coleridge, or couldn't believe
anyone could have the visions he had without artificial help. But I'm
willing to be corrected/enlightened.
Jennifer Michael
jmichael@sewanee.edu
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 16:59:50 -0400
From: "c. c. carpenter II"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Dillingham / criticisms.
Message-Id: <35E86BC6.D73F7811@brysonweb.com>
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Let us not forget that any criticism of any of Blake's (or anyone else's)
works only lead us further from the truth of his experience. In fact, the
'interpretation' of texts merely add another layer of verbage to sort through
in order to reach the underlying truths that shaped his artistry.
By no means am I discounting any of the common frames of reference (i.e.
author, text, reader, historical, bio-historical, etc.); I embrace them all. I
must, however, stress that Blake's philosophies were best defined as he
originally recorded them, whether literally or metaphorically. Blake's life
and philosophies were works in progress, and must be viewed with the fluidity
in which they were written. It is dangerous to accept any philosophical
position 'interpreted' from a metaphorical text as anything but a tertiary
critical source.
By encapsulating, and categorizing these works, we are guilty of the same
worldly 'compartmentalization' Blake seems to rage against. The rapture, or
first impression of his works are of utmost importance, if we ARE to truly
embrace Blake's position.
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Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 22:08:31 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Some thoughts
Message-Id: <199808292108.WAA09305@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Well (but strongly) put, Tom.
Just to chuck a grenade into the discussion on the links between the study
of Blake's work and other disciplines, can I recommend Frieslander's
excellent thesis 'Blake, Milton and Madness (which is available on the web,
one of the search engines will surely find it)? In this work, Frieslander (a
doctor with an English minor) very convincingly diagnoses Blake as a
schizophrenic, identifying many parallels to his work and imagery in the
utterances of patients he is familiar with. It is very well argued, and well
worth a read.
I for one share his conclusions (one of which incidentally is that the
diagnosis does not diminish Blake's genius). Of course it won't go down well
with everyone...
Tim Linnell
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 18:54:13 -0400
From: "c. c. carpenter II"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Some thoughts
Message-Id: <35E88695.C08A835F@brysonweb.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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was that a grenade, or napalm?
Schizophrenic? daggone.
Tim Linnell wrote:
> Well (but strongly) put, Tom.
>
> Just to chuck a grenade into the discussion on the links between the study
> of Blake's work and other disciplines, can I recommend Frieslander's
> excellent thesis 'Blake, Milton and Madness (which is available on the web,
> one of the search engines will surely find it)? In this work, Frieslander (a
> doctor with an English minor) very convincingly diagnoses Blake as a
> schizophrenic, identifying many parallels to his work and imagery in the
> utterances of patients he is familiar with. It is very well argued, and well
> worth a read.
>
> I for one share his conclusions (one of which incidentally is that the
> diagnosis does not diminish Blake's genius). Of course it won't go down well
> with everyone...
>
> Tim Linnell
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 20:14:53 -0400
From: Paul Hume
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Opium?
Message-Id: <35E8997D.56D4@lan2wan.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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> > If you take the opium out of the Blake what
> >are you left with ?
>
> Are you speaking metaphorically, or have you come across evidence that
> Blake actually used opium?
Given that the discussion involved Marxist readings of Blake, I assumed
the reference was to the dictum from the Communist Manifesto (or was it
Lenin?) that "religion is the opium of the masses."
Paul
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 22:49:53
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: long shadow of Jacob Bryant
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980829224953.2e377ad2@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
"I then asked Ezekiel. why he eat dung, & lay so
long on his right & left side? he answerd. the desire
of raising other men into a perception of the infinite
this the North American tribes practise." [_MHH_13]
At 02:44 PM 8/25/98 -0500, Tom Dillingham wrote:
>(the>remarks about color and hair [of Buddhist statues]
>are oddly reminiscent>of similar>speculations about
the racial character of the great Olmec >sculptured heads
of Mesoamerica.)
Hungerford, in the chapter on "Speculative Mythology" in
his book _Shores of Darkness_, says: "The American Indian,
by virtue of his separation from the other peoples of the
earth, constituted a problem of particular fascination . . .
Delafield's declaration that the question of the common
descent of all men from a single stock had been 'forever
settled by the researches of Bryant, Faber, and Sir
William Jones,' certifies his obligation, and we may regard
his argument that the American Indians were of 'Cuthite'
origin [i.e. descendants of Ham, or the 'gentile' family]
as a ripple from the great stone which Jacob Bryant had
dropped into the pool of scholarship."
For Blake it must have been exciting, early in his
apprenticeship to the engraver Basire, to design and work
on plates for Jacob Bryant's most well-known work:
_A New System, or, An Analysis of Ancient Mythology_(1774).
He held Bryant in high regard, and, in 1809, wrote in
his _Descriptive Catalogue_:
"The antiquities of every Nation under Heaven, is no less
sacred than that of the Jews. They are the same thing,
as Jacob Bryant and all antiquaries have proved . . .
All had originally one language, and one religion, this
was the religion of Jesus, the everlasting Gospel.
Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus." [_DC_ E534]
Izak Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 23:16:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: ,
Subject: RE: "He whose face gives no light shall never become a star."
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980830021042.3c8751e8@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
"One basis for science and another for life is a priori a lie." -- Karl Marx
At 10:11 AM 8/29/98 -0700, Kerry McKeever wrote:
>[Kerry McKeever] I do not know whether Blake wanted us to read as though
>we were innocent or not, but I am convinced, and this is no great insight
>of my own, that he did not believe that there really was a state of
>innocence. Please, everyone out there correct me if I am wrong. Besides,
>what would be the point? We are not innocent, Blake knew we were not
>innocent.
Well, if innocence and experience are the contrary states of the human soul,
presumably we have the germs of innocence within us, though they must
constantly get themselves organized. I don't recall whether anyone has
tried to found a conception of literary criticism upon the notions of
innocence and experience, but it's worth thinking about. We are presented
with certain dichotomies, such as the "innocent" reader vs. the intellectual
reader, the spontaneous reader vs. the disciplined and organized reader, the
amateur vs. the professional, etc. Deeter is not scatterbrained in the
manner of Allblight indulging in infantile randomness, and though I think
the picture Deeter paints is not entirely a plausible one, I am sympathetic
to the problem he addresses. Faced with these dichotomies, is it possible
that the question raised by them cannot be addressed within the terms in
which it is stated? By a happy coincidence, it may turn out that the
dialectic of innocence and experience will be more relevant to the question
than anyone could have guessed.
But this would not be news to me, for I have been thinking about it for
decades. One cannot begin to do justice to the profundity and the brilliance
of Blake in juxtaposing these two contrary states. Who else in the history
of philosophy and literature has accomplished this? But why he did it is
not a mystery to me. It's intuitively obvious to me, but one requires a
means of communicating one's intuitions to other people, and this is one
essential intrinsic reason for the existence of criticism in the first place.
> I would suggest that
>there is no such thing as "deconstructionism." Employment of the term in
>this way is the result of the watering down and irresponsible desemmination
>of Derrida, an example of how such casual language can have detrimental
>effects on all of us. I use this as an example of why Tom and Ralph get so
>irritated when we speculate without the reading and study that is the
>responsibility of critic/scholars. Obviously, I am not addressing this to
>those on the list who are not in academia.
Then you should have left me out of the discussion. Whether one is an
"innocent", amateur, or professional reader, one is working within some
framework of understanding and interpretation, whether it was arrived at
haphazardly in the daily grind of existence or through disciplined formal
education, or some combination of the two. So there is a question of
integrity at stake no matter who you are, because how you interpret the
stimuli presented to you says who you are and what you are capable of
perceiving.
>However, in a more general
>fashion, the principles of good scholarship should not be confined to those
>within academia; to the contrary, the principles help all of us to develop
>sound arguments no matter what our interests or professions.....
Not only develop sound arguments, but develop our capacity to understand our
world, to develop ourselves.
>If you do indeed study and teach
>poststructuralizem, you might be wary of using a word such as "pure." As
>well, I think Blake made it pretty difficult for us to say what was
>"purely" his "heart." Thinking so purely about his purity, as his texts
>attest, indicates how little we know about him rather than how much.
Well, the purity alluded to is unorganized innocence, an impossibility. It
is also true that Blake's discourse is so protean, you often don't know
whether any view his characters espouse is his own. However, Blake was
concerned that we not get lost in the complexity of experience, that we
forget who we are, and allow ourselves to be reduced to the social networks
which we inhabit by circumstance. For you academics, it means that you must
beware of reducing yourselves to footnote-whores. Know what you stand for,
who, where, and why you are. In this respect, Blake's meaning is unmistakable:
THE VOICE OF THE ANCIENT BARD
(from 'Songs Of Innocence', 1789)
Youth of delight, come hither.
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new born.
Doubt is fled, & clouds of reason,
Dark disputes & artful teazing.
Folly is an endless maze,
Tangled roots perplex her ways.
How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones of the dead,
And feel they know not what but care,
And wish to lead others, when they should be led.
--------------------------------
End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #53
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