Today's Topics:
Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply
Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply
Re: Blake's outbursts
Re: Because it is irrational -Reply
RE: Blake's outbursts
Re: Blake's outbursts
Re: PSYCHO-SOCIAL REPRESSION AND THE MISSING CONVERSATION
-Reply
Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply
Re: OT: Beyond Words -Reply
reply to Paul Yoder
Robert Hunt
Blake sighting in the rading party...
introduction
Blake's outbursts -Reply
nouns and verbs
Re: Because it is irrational -Reply -Reply
Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply -Reply
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 98 10:57:55 -0700
From: Seth T. Ross
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply
Message-Id: <9809151757.AA03232@albion.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
Tim Linnell writes:
> ... these remarks are simply outbursts of impulsive anger or
> expressions of deeply rooted beliefs and prejudices. As such
> there is no essential difference between Blake's remarks and the
> discussions on this list, which was the point at issue.
I respectfully disagree, Tim. Not all flames are created equal. To paraphrase
"The Smile" ... there is a flame of hate, there is a flame of disdain, and
then there is a flame of flames. Blake's flaming verse is far richer than the
prosaic, pseudo-intellectual rants found in this cyberspace.
Contrast Blake's economical use of language with the flatulence found here.
It's easy to go on and on with dozens of posts, thousands of words sent out
_year_ after _year_. Much harder to hit your target with devastating
efficiency and move on.
Blake is flaming famous public figures like Rubens and Bacon rather than
obscure members of a far-flung community. It's cowardly to concentrate your
firepower on "soft" targets while the hardened bad guys get away.
Finally, the lines you quote contain elements of humor not found in our dour
postings: "Thou callst me Madman but I call thee Blockhead". No ... puerile
takes on someone's name aren't all that funny to anyone with an emotional age
> 10.
I don't have a problem with flaming. In fact, I'm working on a web site
dedicated to a flame-a-day. But power begets responsibility. I challenge those
with strongly held opinions to voice them with precision, efficiency, and
humor in the future.
Yours,
Seth
---
A\ Seth Ross "Create like a god,
A A\ Albion.com command like a king
A A\ 415.752.7666 & work like a slave."
--Guy Kawasaki
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 19:56:19 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply
Message-Id: <199809151856.TAA29651@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Tim typed:
>>As such there is no essential difference between Blake's remarks
>>and the discussions on this list, which was the point at issue.
>
>I think there is an essential difference, Blake's outbursts were private
>and for his eyes only.
I don't think you can call his Public Address private, nor the Descriptive
Catalogue, both of which contain fairly strident attacks on others, which in
the case of Stothard are hardly justified - Stothard was deeply hurt by
them. But if proof were needed of an externally impetuous and passionate
temperament is needed, one need look no further than at the incident with
Scofield, which had very little to do with showing another the gateway to
eternal bliss, and quite a lot to do with losing his rag big time.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 98 12:11:01 -0700
From: Seth T. Ross
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake's outbursts
Message-Id: <9809151911.AA03888@albion.com>
Content-Type: text/plain
Tom Dillingham notes:
> It is not at all clear, as Paul Tarry suggests, that Blakes
> vituperative comments were "private and for his eyes only." We
> know that he incorporte d materials from his notebooks into his
> "published" works and that some of his angry comments were written
> in letters to others. Under the circumstances, it is not at all
> clear that he would have confined his remarks to his private
> diaries and notebooks.
While there may not be a clear demarcation, many of Blake's harshest personal
attacks do appear in letters and notebooks. It's one thing to blow off some
stream in private correspondence and another to sully your own legacy in a
permanent and ubiquitous medium. It appears that Blake had at least a minimal
sense of _decorum_. This, despite his supposed insanity.
Sometimes I feel like the host of an out-of-control party. There are guests
in every room of the house. Some are talking to themselves in a corner; others
are ready to come to blows. Some people are reciting hymns and lighting
candles while others rant about the revolution. People are fighting over what
music to play, over the volume, and over whether music should played at all.
The younger set just wants help with homework assignments. There are boozers
complaining about the empty beer fridge even though the corner liquor store is
open. The vomitorium overfloweth. A significant number of folks want to leave
but they can't find the door. The party has gone on for years though its
tenuous purpose long ago expired.
Yours,
Seth
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 14:14:01 -0600 (MDT)
From: bigley@selway.umt.edu (Bruce Bigley)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Because it is irrational -Reply
Message-Id: <199809152014.OAA29811@selway.umt.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>I find your statement truly beautiful... enough to make the `kingly lion'
>gambol around `O'er the hallowed ground'.
> Pam
>
>
>
It's also Terullian, isn't it?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 15:31:59 -0500
From: RPYODER@ualr.edu
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: RE: Blake's outbursts
Message-Id: <980915153159.20c1f36f@ualr.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
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Hi folks,
I've been on this list for 4-5 years now, and I've always hated it when the
list stops being about Blake and becomes a list about itself. When I first
joined the list, I was outraged by a review Ralph was posting about of a book
by David Punter. Nevertheless, I stuck around, and much to my surprise I've
come to value Ralph as one of the most rigorous thinkers on the list, despite
his occasional lapses into name-calling. Of course, I have also made my
share of snide remarks and gaffs. Part of being on the list for so long is that
I can often tell whose posts I want to read and whose I don't. I simply delete
Randall Albright without opening them. I do check on what Pam has to say, but
she and I are definitely on different wave-lengths.
I guess I am writing in response to Seth's remark that the party has outlived
its purpose. I have to disagree, even if it is Seth's house we seem to have
taken over. Seth, I genuinely appreciate this forum, however chaotic it may
be at times. Hell, *because* of how chaotic it may be at times. I am often
frustrated at the level of discourse on the list -- not the name calling -- I
kind of enjoy that -- but the refusal of so many list members to engage Blake's
more ambitious work in any degree of particularity. I refuse to do undergrad
homework for the "younger set," and I simply am not interested in New Age
readings of Blake. What I want to know, for example, is what is this problem
that Los seems to have with women? In Chapter 1 of *Jerusalem* he sends his
Spectre to confront the Daughters of Albion because he himself is afraid that
he will be consumed by their beauty. Given his fear, what do we make of his
being captive in the camp of those daughters in Chapter 4? Part of the reason
I hesitate to even raise questions like this is that as often as not, Randall
or someone like him, uses it as opportunity to say that the big *J* doesn't
matter because Blake's later work is not as good as the *Marriage*, and then
somebody says, "oh, yeah?" and then somebody else says, "your mama." And then
the list becomes a list about itself. Again. Yuck.
Part of the problem, and this we learn from *Jerusalem*, is that the devil can
quote scripture (figuratively and literally), too. What makes Blake so
fascinating is not that he hates intolerance, but that he recognizes that his
intolerance of intolerance is the mirror image of the system he despises.
The devil may quote scripture, but -- and this we learn from the *Marriage* --
angels can also curse.
The hardest part in all this is not to rise to the bait, to get on with your
own work. People get on this list -- and stay on -- because we like to talk
about Blake, and it is hard to find people in "real life" with whom to discuss
the man and his work. If you have a real question, as I recently did about
a Blake picture, our list members are very willing to help. That purpose will
outlive us all. But we do -- often -- impose on each other. Blake says we
should forgive those impositions, but he does *not* say that we should, or even
can, stop imposing on each other. You talk. Somebody talks back.
Thanks, Seth.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Paul Yoder
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 16:43:08 -0400
From: Robert Anderson
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake's outbursts
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980915164307.00af6648@pop.oakland.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
While I agree that the personal insult-sloshing has gone way overboard, I
think it makes little sense to try and make a case according to our
suppositions of what Blake was really like. Personally, I find assertions
that Blake had a sense of decorum quite problematic--at least as
problematic as assertions that his insults were essentially the same as the
stuff here. It reminds me of the wonderful passage in "The Everlasting
Gospel":
The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy
Thine has a great hook nose like thine
Mine has a snub nose like to mine
I would beg all of you to keep your personal slams to yourself because I
don't have time to listen to the drivel. It has nearly driven me off the
list--but I enjoy too much the insights and exchange that takes place here.
Let us not cease from mental fight--but please let the fight count.
Rob Anderson
At 12:11 PM 9/15/1998 -0700, you wrote:
>Tom Dillingham notes:
>> It is not at all clear, as Paul Tarry suggests, that Blakes
>> vituperative comments were "private and for his eyes only." We
>> know that he incorporte d materials from his notebooks into his
>> "published" works and that some of his angry comments were written
>> in letters to others. Under the circumstances, it is not at all
>> clear that he would have confined his remarks to his private
>> diaries and notebooks.
>
>While there may not be a clear demarcation, many of Blake's harshest
personal
>attacks do appear in letters and notebooks. It's one thing to blow off some
>stream in private correspondence and another to sully your own legacy in a
>permanent and ubiquitous medium. It appears that Blake had at least a
minimal
>sense of _decorum_. This, despite his supposed insanity.
>
>Sometimes I feel like the host of an out-of-control party. There are guests
>in every room of the house. Some are talking to themselves in a corner;
others
>are ready to come to blows. Some people are reciting hymns and lighting
>candles while others rant about the revolution. People are fighting over
what
>music to play, over the volume, and over whether music should played at
all.
>The younger set just wants help with homework assignments. There are
boozers
>complaining about the empty beer fridge even though the corner liquor
store is
>open. The vomitorium overfloweth. A significant number of folks want to
leave
>but they can't find the door. The party has gone on for years though its
>tenuous purpose long ago expired.
>
>Yours,
>Seth
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>To leave the Blake List, send an email message to
>blake-request@albion.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the
>SUBJECT field. Please use the address blake-request@albion.com
>for all administrative queries.
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 16:51:22 -0400
From: Robert Anderson
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: PSYCHO-SOCIAL REPRESSION AND THE MISSING CONVERSATION
-Reply
Message-Id: <3.0.32.19980915165109.006f87fc@pop.oakland.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Which Blake would be counted among "religious people"? The Blake who had
Oothoon exclaim:
The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin
That pines for man; shall awaken her womb to enormous joys
In the secret shadows of her chamber; the youth shut up from
The lustful joy shall forget to generate. & and create an amorous image
In the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow.
Are not these the places of religion? the rewards of continence?
The self-enjoyings of self-denial? Why dost thou seek religion?
At 01:00 PM 9/15/1998 +0200, you wrote:
>
>
>Re : "he's in a better place now".
>
>Blake may have retorted:
>All is not Sin that Satan calls so: all the Loves & Graces of Eternity.
>(Laocoon)
>
>Ralph says:"Aside from my dislike of religious people, the real issue is
>religion in its social context. It's not just an abstraction. "
>
>You would have to include Blake among these, so why do you choose
>this particular forum for venting your anger at those who love Blake for
>his spiritual wisdom?
>
>
>If the mother believes, as Blake does, that the True Self is eternal, how
>can you be so discomfited by her that you regard her as a ` person so
>estranged from her own being' that she makes you feel sick?
>
>Blake set out to write poetry to uplift the soul:
> Spiritual War: ... is Art deliver'd from Nature and Imitation. (Laocoon)
>
>He also wrote a very moving letter to someone who had lost her son.
>
>There are very opposed views of what Blake 's vision of time and
>eternity are online. Now, I know that I, and many other readers of Blake
>am not blocking my mind to Blake's vision of the Eternal Man, so those
>who do so seem best to fit Ralph's description:. when he says:
>" The overt conversation one attempts to have is not a real
>conversation. The reason that communication is blocked is that the mind
>has numbed itself, retreating from the overwhelming reality that faces it
>but that it cannot face. The mind regresses into a rigid, primitive state,
>taking refuge in positions it cannot reasonably hold, in the face of its own
>experience even. You can't say anything that will get through under
>those circumstances."
>
>At the end of The Book of Urizen, Blake describes all the fallen children
>of Albion in very similar terms when, under Urizen's scaly eyes, they all
>forget their former divine existence
>He also laments lost Innocence in The Book of Los:
> O Times remote!
> When love & joy were adoration,
> And none impure were deem'd. ( Plate 3)
>
>Instead of perpetually accusing others of being impure, Ralph, in your
>own words "this is the real conversation we should all be having; it
>takes precedence over all other malfunctioning conversations. This is
>_the_ topic of discussion. It's not just a matter of constipated
>midwesterners; it's a universal problem. Where is that conversation that
>is not taking place but in the final analysis is really all there is to
discuss?
>'
>I am tired of being called names for trying to fill in the gaps that Mr Ralph
>and Mr Tom leave out of Blake. Wouldn't Walt Whitman be more the
>type of poet to discuss if you believe that Blake is interested only in this
>world? Or Wordsworth? Or, if you insist on your Blake, then do start an
>edition of him, as I suggested earlier, online, in which all can see what
>you most admire in the poet.... just excise all the spiritual bits that you
>don't like.
>Pam
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 22:23:25 +0100
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply
Message-Id: <199809152123.WAA00540@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>I respectfully disagree, Tim. Not all flames are created equal. To paraphrase
>"The Smile" ... there is a flame of hate, there is a flame of disdain, and
>then there is a flame of flames. Blake's flaming verse is far richer than the
>prosaic, pseudo-intellectual rants found in this cyberspace.
Admittedly, Blake's insults are far better (and much funnier) than the
rather embarrassing name calling of recent weeks, but then again his poetry
was also rather better than the poetic material posted here during the same
period, which my natural good manners prevent me from criticising in the
depth it merits.
I suppose my point was that neither side can claim him as their captain,
entirely: Blake was his own man, neither a benign smiling dali-lamaesque
mystic nor a fiery neo-marxist intellectual. The profound insight of Blake's
assertion that progression lies in the clash of contraries is to recognize
both sides of an argument have merit, that each mighty impact smashes out
great lumps of falsehood and self deception from the opposing stronghold. Of
course it all depends on people being willing to change their opinions,
which none of us, Blake included, are able to do completely. Ultimately
there is a part of our mind where the reptiles breed, that clings fast to
something whatever transpires, and I think this was Ralph's point. Whether
or not our 'something' is more or less valid than someone else's is a matter
for personal conviction and faith - of course we will all know for certain
in 100 years or so - but my mind is at least as open as most.
And so to bed. Sweet dreams, everyone.
Tim
PS: I have to say that if I were arguing against Ralph, I would be
considerably more concerned about his incisive insights, breadth of real
knowledge, and wonderful clarity of expression, than his calling me names.
But I suspect the irrascibility is part of the package, and frankly worth
the price. Can I also say, that while I reject as deeply flawed the evidence
by which Pam has apparently reached her own conclusions on the survival of
the spirit, I have in the past learned a great deal from her interpretations
of Blake and linkages to esoteric texts, and do greatly respect her
viewpoint and knowledge.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:36:59 +1000
From: hbri1@student.monash.edu.au
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: OT: Beyond Words -Reply
Message-Id: <88F0575A8B@MFS06.cc.monash.edu.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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To Pam Van Schaik,
Thanks for sharing your poem.
I was warmed by your mention of Australia - did we seem like that?
I live in Melbourne but have lived in most of the other states. Where
did you visit?
Hassanah Briedis (a quiet observer on this list)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:49:09 +1000
From: hbri1@student.monash.edu.au
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: reply to Paul Yoder
Message-Id: <8923DF6F66@MFS06.cc.monash.edu.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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Thanks for your posting Paul, and for taking the time to articulate
those ideas. It's messages like this, and like Pam's, that keep me
on the list.
Hassanah Briedis
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 23:07:08
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Robert Hunt
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980915230708.3e3f64de@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
At 12:15 PM 9/15/98 +0100, Tim Linnell quoted the=20
following epigram of Blake's, and indicated that=20
the "H" refers to Hayley:
>To H[ayley]
>You think Fuseli is not a Great Painter Im Glad=20
>This is one of the best compliments he ever had=20
However, in both the Keynes and Stevenson&Erdman=20
editions of Blake's work, the H is said to refer=20
to Robert Hunt (brother of Leigh Hunt),=20
who apparently decried Fuseli in 1806.
In the quote:
>The Sussex Men are Noted Fools=20
>And weak is their brain pan=20
>I wonder if H----the painter=A0=A0
>Is not a Sussex Man=20
the H refers to Samuel Haines (1778-1848), also an
engraver and painter. Work by Haines as well as Blake=20
is in Boydell's _Shakespeare_ (1802)
and Hayley's _Life of Romney_ (1809).
One of Blake's best quips is reserved for Hayley:
"Of H[ayley]'s birth this was the happy lot
His Mother on his Father him begot."
Izak Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 18:59:26 -0800
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake sighting in the rading party...
Message-Id: <35FF298E.9B3@concentric.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Speaking of the party going on too long and its music being too loud:
Newly released today in music stores...Bruce Dickinson, who sounds a lot
like Iron Maiden, released an album whose name escapes me right now.
There is a Blake print on the back of the album, but since I'm not as
familiar with Blake's pictorial art, I do not recognize it. It appears
to be Satan(?)--he's an angel with bat-like wings--pouring something
(water?, beer?) on top of an old, grizzled, half-naked man laying prone
on the ground. I suppose it's probably from Milton.
Plus, several of the songs appear to have been at least "inspired" by
Blake: "The Gates of Urizen," "Jerusalem," etc. Of course, given a quick
listen to, I couldn't glean any significant artistic connection.
As pleased as I was with Jah Wobble's "The Inspiration of William
Blake," I was nearly heart-broken by this pop-artist's stealing away
Blake's genius just to make his album more consumable to the
"death-rock" audience.
Nathan Deeter
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 00:17:44 -0400
From: Thora Brylowe
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: introduction
Message-Id: <35FF3BE7.EA5028BE@trincoll.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Hello. My name is Thora Brylowe & I'm a grad student at Trinity College
in Hartford, CT. I am currently engaged in an MA thesis that looks at
Blake's bookmaking, most particularly the *Songs of Innocence*, as it
was produced in a roman hand. I am looking at Blake's invention of
relief etching and the dialectic between individual creativity and
entrepreneurial spirit, both of which were valued in
late-eighteenth-century culture. I would like to link this with the
dialectical relationships we always hear about in Blake studies: book &
MS, picture & word, author & reader, as well as some thematic
dialectics, which I dare not mention at this juncture for fear of
alienating this grizzly lot of academics.
At the moment, I am beginning to look at the hand that Blake used to
write *Innocence,* and I would be interested to know anything about what
Blake would have known about formal hands & typefaces. I have recently
been in contact with Joe Viscomi, who suggested in his book that Blake
switched from roman to italic because of technical difficulties with
letter spacing & etching. My proposal, then, is that Blake's *initial*
conception for the process he invented was to make his printed MSS
appear more booklike. So to that end, I need all the information on
what Blake knew, read, &c., that I can muster.
Thanks--particularly to Tim, who dragged me here off the PRINTS-L list.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 08:37:44 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake's outbursts -Reply
Message-Id:
As for Ms. Van Schaik's
preposterous and pathetic efforts to extricate herself from her own
incessant self-contradictions,.....
Mr Dillingsham, please back up all the assertions you make in your
insulting response to mine. Quote my own words so I can recognize
where you are coming from.
one can only assume that she is trying
to provide an ongoing illustration of the fate of a mind trapped in
its own conflicting desires.
What conflicting desires, may I ask?
Her repetition of _tu quoque_ every
time her failures of logic, ......
Provide some examples please
and have you not noted your own incessant breaches of `common
courtesy' to others which includes pursuing them off the common group
of Blakeans with suggestions that they refrain from posting so often. -
One `endless round' I am getting tired of treading is talking to pig-headed
people who shove others away from the trough to fatten themselves.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 09:27:54 +0200
From: Huw Edwards
To: "'blake@albion.com'"
Subject: nouns and verbs
Message-Id: <71B7CE499BB9D111909A0060B03C49A115E5C3@netchevy.publicis.co.za>
Content-Type: text/plain
Paul
Thanks for letting me know, I'll keep it in mind. I think the statement
was more in reaction to the adjectival flotsam and jetsam that ebbed and
flowed through my own writing, rather than being a critique on Blake.
Huw
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 11:41:03 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Because it is irrational -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
I don't know Tertullus(?) sufficiently well to comment.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:36:22 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Belligerent Blakeans -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
To H[ayley]
You think Fuseli is not a Great Painter Im Glad
This is one of the best compliments he ever had
I don't find this `vicious' but an indication of a discerning mind - one
which likes to make fine distinctions based on minute particulars, rather
than generalise.
I mock thee not tho I by thee am Mocked
Thou callst me Madman but I call thee Blockhead
Hes a Blockhead who wants a proof of what he Can't Percieve
And he's a Fool who tries to make such a Blockhead believe
I don't see viciouslness here either. I see good advice from Blake here
which I haven't taken - it is foolish to try to persevere in trying to
convert those who don't want to believe in their eternal reality to do so,
as Blake knew.
A Petty sneaking Knave I knew
Mr Cr---- how do ye do
I'm sure we have all encountered such in our lives.
You must agree that Rubens was a Fool
And yet you make him master of Your School
And give more money for his Slobberings
Than you will give for Rafaels finest Things
Discerning judgement, rather than viciousness, is what I see in the above
lines, as well as those which you quote after them.. Even if we do not
agree with Blake's judgement, he would surely have seen himself as
engaged in the intellectual warfare in which the mind strenuously seeks
to puruse beauty and truth actively. As he says in Jerusalem , pl 38, in
Eternity in Innocence:
Our wars are wars of life, & wounds of love
With intellectual spears, & long winged arrows of thought
Mutual in one another's love and wrath all renewing
We live as One Man.
The Wrath side of this equation is there because not all Eternals agree in
their opinions of what constitutes truth or beauty, but Blake's solution to
that is to roll away in your personal thunders from what you find
distasteful in the vision of another -- that , at least, is how he describes
the encounters of the ETernals.
So where you see ` gratuitious insults' I see a man exercising his mind,
trained by being a practising artist, to discern and choose for himself
what he considers good art or thought.
To quote the remarks you do and then claim that they disprove my remark
that much of what Blake criticises is aimed at 'laying open the heart to
inward worlds', is falsely to shift the grounds of the playing field and the
goal posts , too. He does different things in different places, and I still
maintain that he never descends into viciousness. His tone usually rings
with the passionate conviction of one who loves the Divine Similitude in
all things, and with enthusiasm for his sublime themes.
I do not deny that Blake grew passionately angry at men like Skofield
who tried to betray him, nor that real anger in his works is directed at all
those whom he deems continually destroy Jerusalem, rather than build it
up so you can withdraw your false insinuations re my attempting to
deny that Blake is capable of anger. In my opinion, he would have been
roused by some of the interpretations of his work by critics of today to
great anger, and I can't see him dealing caressingly with the ilk of Mr
Ralph D and Mr Tom D who gratuitously insult others with manifest
viciousness. He may have been amused by the `allusion' in Dumain's
name to that of his hated `Hand ', one of the least likeable of Urizen's
fallen cohorts.
When you say :"I am rather afraid that in attempting to deny Blake's
angry passionate side ....etc..." I find your own tone mincing and
insincere, since you are delighted to find some suspected flaw in my
interpretation which you can attack.
Note your unself-reflexive tone in the following accusation:
you are guilty of reinventing Blake in a form in which you
wish him to be, ignoring or fudging the evidence to the contrary to suit
your thesis.
THis is nonsense, since I've proved my interpretation 's validity in two
full-length theses in which lines from Blake's poetry are continually
adduced and for which I gained distinction by notable Romantics
scholars in the USA.
Nobody , least of all, can deny Blake's `passion', but I don't see what you
call ` unreasoned anger'. Please provide specific examples of such so
that we can debate this point openly and fairly without further insult.
Pam
>Blake uses words as weapons to lay open the heart to inward worlds
>and those who hinder his using words, as Jesus used parables, are
>seen for who they are, but without his being guilty of inward
>viciousness. I find his compassion too strong to impute such to him.
>PAm
>
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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #66
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