Today's Topics:
Re: Re Metaphor and Symbol
Re: Metaphor...
Re: Metaphor
Re: Despair?
Re: Metaphor...
Re: Re Metaphor and Symbol
"Never seek"
Speaking to England (was Metaphor...)
Apologia
Re: "Never seek"
Re: Hello
Re: Despair?
Re: Speaking to England (was Metaphor...)
Re: "Never seek"
Swedenborg...
No Apology Needed
Re: Despair?
Re: Apologia
Re: Jah Wobble!
Context
Re: Jah Wobble!
Re: No Apology Needed
Re: "Never seek"
Re: "Never seek"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 17:46:14 -0800
From: David Rollison
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re Metaphor and Symbol
Message-Id: <34D7C865.10B7@marin.cc.ca.us>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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> Brooks and Warren in _Understanding Poetry_ do a pretty good job of
> explaining the difference. An excellent book on metaphor, though it gets a
> little theoretical, is _More than Cool Reason_ by George Lakoff and Mark
> Turner.
Also, there are a few WWW sites devoted to metaphor--one, at
http://www.metaphor.uoregon.edu, will lead to George Lakoff's Metaphor
project site at UCB and to other interesting locations as well. One
virtue to be gained in a scrutiny of these sites is the assurance that
although metaphor and symbol share some characteristics in common, they
are distinct in important ways.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 18:15:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Ralph Dumain
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor...
Message-Id: <2.2.16.19980203210929.369f10d4@pop.igc.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 11:31 AM 2/3/98 -0800, Linda Crespi wrote:
>---Ralph Dumain wrote:
> > Poetry that doesn't speak of concerns to everyone is
>> utterly useless.
>
>And in Blake's lifetime many laughed at his work and said, "That
>doesn't speak to me." Only after his death did the people of England
>LEARN how to let his poems speak to them.
"Concerns to everyone" is not a synonym for pandering, as is obvious from
all of my postings ever on issues of poetry.
>And maybe only after time had proved his prophecies did anyone realise
>that they spoke of "concerns to everyone".
Confirming my point. But countless creative people have faced this
situation. And how many of them have been recognized posthumously? Now
wasn't my point to have confidence in what you're doing and not to break
down crying that nobody understands you? That's also part of being rooted
in objectivity. Not always easy, but everybody's got to make do with
conditions they can't change. So why despair?
>And who said that poetry had to be useful? Can't it just be true? Or
>delightful? Or awe-inspiring?
Which are all the same thing. How else could poetry be useful but by being
one of the things you mention? Have I ever done anything but ridicule the
idea of art as propaganda? You're not a very attentive reader, are you?
Guess you won't understand me till after I'm dead.
I think I've reached the limit of what can be said in this forum. Thanks to
Nathan Deeter for his feedback on my poem and to others for refining the
distinctions concerning metaphor, symbol, etc., which I had neglected in my
earlier posts.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 1998 22:59:55
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980203225955.4277610e@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 10:42 AM 2/3/98 -0800, you wrote:
>
>> Maybe this is what metaphor is all about - a search for
>> the power which transfixes, gives energy. Maybe we are not
>> supposed to see individual metaphors cast in stone - that
>> would be urizenic. Maybe the energy is the message.
>>
>> Gloudina Bouwer
>
>Hello,
>
>I am wondering what does "urizenic" mean? What is its origin?
>>
>Thanx!
>>Christopher
I frankly should apologize for using the word
"Urizenic". I should have said: "that would be
the way the fallen Urizen acts." I think it is
important to remember that Urizen is a Zoa
that also appears in unfallen form.
However, it might be quite interesting to
discuss the wide usage of the term "urizenic"
among Blake scholars. Who coined the phrase
originally?
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 07:52:13 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Despair?
Message-Id: <199802040753.HAA08069@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> Subjective and Objective Unified field or isolated parts
>
>Just a couple of words.. Yin Yang Self Other
>
>Dispair can be opportunity. Difficult to see if emershed in it.
>
>Consider Dance, yes movement. If I live in my head the body can rebel.
>
>Where to begin? If this is a subjective place anywhere will do. If it is
>objective for you continue to try to understand. Be careful as words can
>harden the heart. One of may faveroite billy blake quotes can shine here.
>
>"I must create my own belief system or be inslaved by anothers."
>
> Why not create another?
>
> Bill who feared not the consequences but wrote.
Dere Bil
I fink U rite verry klevver stuf. Wow. Did it kum from a buk? I dont now wot
it means but it sounds grate.
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 07:37:58 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Metaphor...
Message-Id: <199802040738.HAA07433@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>And in Blake's lifetime many laughed at his work and said, "That
>doesn't speak to me." Only after his death did the people of England
>LEARN how to let his poems speak to them.
With the exception of Jerusalem (preface to Milton) which is viewed,
bizarrely, as a nationalist rallying call in a similar vein to 'Land of Hope
and Glory'; The Tyger, and one couplet from Auguries of Innocence (infinity
in a grain of sand etc), I think you would be hard pushed to find many
people of England who had learned anything of Blake and his work. Blake's
'greatness' is pretty much accepted on trust: the poets who 'speak' to the
English being of the ilk of Kipling ('If', frighteningly, won the title of
most popular poem here) and Betjeman. The people who have read any of the
prophetic works probably number in hundreds only out of a population of 60
million or so.
Tim Linnell
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 07:47:32 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Re Metaphor and Symbol
Message-Id: <199802040748.HAA07803@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Maybe I'm splitting hairs here, but I think it would be more accurate to say
>"Moby Dick as a SYMBOL is the unsurmountable obsession," etc.
As an amusing (at least to me) aside, the equivalent expression in French to
'splitting hairs' is 'to bugger a fly', which I think puts the idea over
rather well, although raises the question of whether the fly is more victim
than symbol I suppose
Tim Linnell
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 08:50:23 -0600
From: jmichael@sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: "Never seek"
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Nathan, the poem to which you refer is an interesting textual case, since
it was never published by Blake and exists only in his Notebook. The best
edition to consult (for this and other textual questions) is David Erdman's
_Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake_. It gives the first line of
the poem as "Never pain to tell thy love." Erdman notes that the first
four lines were deleted line by line by Blake in the notebook, but he adds,
"Editors are in agreement that the poem cannot stand without its first
stanza--as Blake would surely have discovered if he had chosen to transfer
it to copper." Obviously the editor of your edition did not agree.
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 14:08:45 -0800 (PST)
From: Linda Crespi
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Speaking to England (was Metaphor...)
Message-Id: <19980204220845.7142.rocketmail@send1a.yahoomail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Tim Linnell lectured me:
> I think you would be hard pushed to find many
> people of England who had learned anything of Blake and his work.
Blake's
> 'greatness' is pretty much accepted on trust... The people who have
read any of the
> prophetic works probably number in hundreds only out of a population
of 60
> million or so.
Well we all like to feel we belong to an elite, don't we darling? -
but in this case surely it just ain't so. Isn't the Selected Blake one
of Penguin's all-time best-sellers? Certainly among the literati of
Hampshire where I reside, an edition of Blake is an inevitable
presence on any educated bookshelf.
Maybe the number who've struggled through all the Prophetic Books
(plus notes and commentaries) is not huge - but the number who've
memorised at least a few of the Songs of Experience (probably without
meaning to memorise them, but just because those words in that order
stick indelibly to their brains - that number is immense - and ask
yourself - would Blake have thought that these were people to be
discounted or patronised?
Linda
Linda Crespi's Haiku Generator is at:
http://nildram.co.uk/~simmers/creshai.htm
_________________________________________________________
DO YOU YAHOO!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 18:49:47 -0500
From: Bill & Ingrid Wagner
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Apologia
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I was thinking that this list dealt with a way we could be using W Blake
for an example on finding a way to live. Blake is dead if we study what he
said in the context of 1800 England. I thought he was timeless and gave us
a unique chance for personal growth.
He is one of my mine heroes along with others. I sometimes feel that mispoken
words convey an intimacy that the formal words, well thought,can not get a
vison of life.
If you like Blake look at Ryokan, Andrew Bard Smookler, ah heck with it!
Look at your heart. Question Authority!!
Bil
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 1998 21:21:33 -0900
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: "Never seek"
Message-Id: <34D95A6D.260C@concentric.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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J. Michael wrote:
> Nathan, the poem to which you refer is an interesting textual case, since
> it was never published by Blake and exists only in his Notebook. The best
> edition to consult (for this and other textual questions) is David Erdman's
> _Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake_. It gives the first line of
> the poem as "Never pain to tell thy love." Erdman notes that the first
> four lines were deleted line by line by Blake in the notebook, but he adds,
> "Editors are in agreement that the poem cannot stand without its first
> stanza--as Blake would surely have discovered if he had chosen to transfer
> it to copper." Obviously the editor of your edition did not agree.
Thank you Ms. Michael! Any ideas on why Blake might not have liked the
first stanza?
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 08:51:58 +0100 (MET)
From: luca barsotti
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Hello
Message-Id: <01IT7QXJU5E00001J4@CESIT1.UNIFI.IT>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 18.32 18/01/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>I'm a second year English undergraduate doing a dissertation on Blake and
>Metaphor. This disscusion group looked interesting so I
>thought i'd sign up. If anyone has any thoughts about Blake and metaphor
>i'd greatly appreciate hearing them.
>
>In the words of Arthur Symmons
>
>"For Blake the universe was the metaphor"
>
>
>Many thanks
>Harry Brenton
>
>I'm not an expert but i think that you can find useful ideas in
Swedenborg's works, expecially in his idea of correspondence. The
"Swedenborg Foundation" has pubblished an interesting book on Swedenborg and
Blake.
Luba Barsotti
lbarsotti@usa.net
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 17:44:15 -0500
From: Bill & Ingrid Wagner
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Despair?
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>> Bill who feared not the consequences but wrote.
>
>Dere Bil
>
>I fink U rite verry klevver stuf. Wow. Did it kum from a buk? I dont now wot
>it means but it sounds grate.
>
>Tim
Dear Tim
Look at the image of Newton. Also beware that the particulars can be
troublesome. To my short list of incoherent items add the idea of "Both".
Yea, I know we like it one way. I do. But it may be Both.
Yin--Yang = Both for the whole. You may have to live this thru movement to
understand. Understand implies humility and experience. I think that
physical changes due to idea's, that can be felt & lived, carry more weight.
How does Billy's quote that follows resonate with you?
"I turn my eyes to the schools & Univiversites of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire
Washed by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation. cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other."
Otherwise I wish you well.
Bil
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 08:35:05 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Speaking to England (was Metaphor...)
Message-Id: <199802050835.IAA29412@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Tim Linnell lectured me:
I wasn't trying to lecture you, really: my remarks were not meant in
opposition to anything you had said, but rather as a tangential comment. I'm
sorry if I gave the impression I was lecturing, nor would I want to
'discount or patronise' those of the English who have made the difficult
effort to go past the three Blake works I mentioned. The point is simply
that to the 'English people' in general, whether you like it or not, Blake
is a marginal figure. My experience has been that people know of him, and
perceive him to be great, but this is without actually knowing anything
about his life or work (which is interesting in itself, and this was really
why I posted my remarks).
Your comments on what you presumably regard as my desire to belong to an
elite (darling) swiftly followed by the remark 'Certainly among the literati
of Hampshire where I reside, an edition of Blake is an inevitable presence
on any educated bookshelf' is an interesting juxtaposition. It might be
worth pointing out though that far from wanting Blake and his work to remain
known only to either an academic elite (duckie), or indeed the fruitcakes
his work often attracts (of which prime examples can be seen on this list)
presumably on the basis of its superficially new age religious and prophetic
overtones, I would love his work to become more widely known, but I don't
think it is at all likely (outside Hampshire at least).
With regard to Penguin's Selected Works, well, it may very well be that this
has sold steadily over the years and has thereby become a good seller by
force of being there, but this doesn't mean that people actually read it.
You will find a great many Bibles and Shakespeare's collected works (for
example) on bookshelves, unread.
Meanwhile, Jerusalem is sung as a nationalist rallying call at football
matches and at the Last Night of the Proms with very few ironic eyebrows
raised. Not much evidence there of any general understanding of what Blake
was about is there?
Tim
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 09:25:52 -0600
From: jmichael@sewanee.edu (J. Michael)
To: ndeeter@concentric.net
Cc: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: "Never seek"
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> Any ideas on why Blake might not have liked the
>first stanza?
>
>Nathan Deeter
>ndeeter@concentric.net
No idea. Erdman does go on to say that in other cases Blake deleted
lines/stanzas in the manuscript and then included them when he engraved the
poems. I guess it's possible that Blake didn't dislike the stanza, but
wanted to see what the poem would be like without it. What do you think?
Jennifer Michael
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:18:26 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Swedenborg...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
There's also an extensive WebSite on him, run by the Swedenborg Foundation.
Try Yahoo at:
http://www.yahoo.com
to get some sense of what he was all about.
---Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:18:17 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: No Apology Needed
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Bill:
First of all, as I'm sure Blake would understand, there is no "we", just a
collection of "individuals" on this list. I happen to share much of what
you are saying, so...
Continue.
For example, we could talk about any of the Songs, in what "group" they
finally ended up, MHH is always one of my faves, and... "To The Sexes: The
Gates of Paradise" is intriguing, I think...
Anything is up for grabs. This is a non-moderated group. I DO see it
sputtering around, going nowhere a great deal of the time, and when I get
nothing but flames or chop-outs of perhaps the worst of a commentary I
make, it's discouraging.
But you know something, Bill?
I've got GOD, as well as Blake On-Line, to talk about these things........
-----Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
====================
> I was thinking that this list dealt with a way we could be using W Blake
>for an example on finding a way to live. Blake is dead if we study what he
>said in the context of 1800 England. I thought he was timeless and gave us
>a unique chance for personal growth.
> He is one of my mine heroes along with others. I sometimes feel that mispoken
>words convey an intimacy that the formal words, well thought,can not get a
>vison of life.
>
>
> If you like Blake look at Ryokan, Andrew Bard Smookler, ah heck with it!
>Look at your heart. Question Authority!!
>
> Bil
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:18:34 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Despair?
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Don't worry, in that case, Bill. Whomever wrote those words, misspelled as
they were, was someone who knows deeply about Blake's message. I "got it"
(I *think*). Now... onto your new stuff...
>Look at the image of Newton.
It's rather complicated, isn't it! I mean, at first sight it looks like...
something. But then again, maybe it's not so much an indictment of myopia
as praise for yet another great but limited (as Blake himself also was)
man. Young, robust... writing on a scroll, maybe flexible to new ideas,
instead of etching in stone...
>Yin--Yang = Both for the whole.
And so, what may seem "insane" in the Laacoon (sp?) is actually...
something that ties in with... Buddhism... what Foucault calls false
dichotomies... etc.
>You may have to live this thru movement to
>understand.
I think many of Blake's nouns work better as verbs...
>Understand implies humility and experience.
Humility implies receptiveness, to me. The broken lines in the I Ching...
>I think that
>physical changes due to idea's, that can be felt & lived, carry more weight.
Can you explain this some more?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Blake quote, c/o Bill:
>"I turn my eyes to the schools & Univiversites of Europe
>And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire
>Washed by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth
>In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation. cruel Works
>Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
>Moving by compulsion each other."
I think it's beautiful. Where's it from? _Milton_?
---Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/blake.html
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 11:34:25 -0500 (EST)
From: DENISE MARIE VULTEE
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Apologia
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Question authority, certainly. Genius is not of an age but
for all time. That said, however, I must insist that when we ignore
Blake's historical context -- the common knowledge he could assume of his
contemporaries, much of which is lost to us -- we are missing part of
Blake's meaning in the bargain.
Denise Vultee
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 14:34:59 -0600 (CST)
From: "DR. JOSIE MCQUAIL"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Jah Wobble!
Message-Id: <01IT82V8O1XU8WWCQ1@tntech.edu>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Could someone please reiterate the Jah Wobble CD that features Blake.
It was discussed some time ago and I haven't been able to locate ANY Jah
Wobble in this small city in TN, but I could order it if I have a title.
Thanks!
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 16:08:44 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Context
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>Question authority, certainly. Genius is not of an age but
>for all time. That said, however, I must insist that when we ignore
>Blake's historical context -- the common knowledge he could assume of his
>contemporaries, much of which is lost to us -- we are missing part of
>Blake's meaning in the bargain.
>
>Denise Vultee
I agree with Denise that a view of Blake gets more expansive when you
understand what Priests meant in his time compared to... what
Psychoanalysts meant to people in the 1920s? And what must the American
Revolution felt like, from his perspective, or the French one? How did he
re-construct, from memory, what the failed English Revolution of Cromwell
and one of his favorite poets of all-time, Milton, meant.
He was very much influenced and reacting to current events, as well as
playing off of...
well, he claimed at one time it was mainly the Bible.
But at other times he does mention Aesop, Homer, and Ovid.
Visually, I see plays off of the "Don't Tread On Me" flag used early in the
American Revolution, Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", the Blake/Princeton
Trust sometimes has pictures of, say, a Greco-Roman sculpture that inspired
Michelangelo-- I'm thinking of one in which a man is wrestling with a giant
snake-- (it's identical to the one he uses in "The Laocoon").
Really, I'd be happy to hear what people are thinking about Blake,
be it.......
In time...........
Out of time............
It's usually in their minds..................
which includes, but is not limited to:
Intellect
Imagination
Mood
Love
But
What's up?
Why do you like him?
:->
---Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 17:37:37 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Jah Wobble!
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
It's called _The Inspiration of William Blake_
and it's available on
Thirsty Ear
CD.
---Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 1998 17:38:24 -0500
From: Bill & Ingrid Wagner
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: No Apology Needed
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>I've got GOD, as well as Blake On-Line, to talk about these things........
>
>-----Randall Albright
Randall
And I saw god and he was driving a fifty seven chevy.
Thanks for the kind words.
I love Blake because he enables thinking. I'm clueless so often with him!
No Dogma! Who can ask for more?
I intend to carry on with the Blake list.
I'll respond in time to your note to the list.
>I think that
>physical changes due to idea's, that can be felt & lived, carry more weight.
Can you explain this some more?
Part 1
Stand in a relaxed position with your feet shoulder wide apart. Start
at 15 seconds a day. Work up to your limit. The pain will cause you to
correct your
posture. Slow and steady (patience) helps.
This is called standing like a tree ( Chinese Exercise ).
Part 2.
Week 1
Stand with your heels touching and your feet forming a V. Sink you weight.
Then shift your weight to the right.
Step to left but do not put weight down. Do 20 times a day for a week.
Week 2 Shift weight to left look in direction of right foot. No weight on
right foot.
Week 3 Turn right foot center with weight on both feet. Like standing like
a tree.
There you have Yang Style Tai Chi essense. If you can work up to ~15
miniutes a day. Yin & Yang will mean alot different things then they may
now. Some folks only do Part 1 which can be called standing meditation.
Of course there is more. But somefolks say this is enough.
Warning ---It can be very boring.
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 05 Feb 1998 14:15:16 -0900
From: ndeeter
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: "Never seek"
Message-Id: <34DA4804.2372@concentric.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
J. Michael wrote:
>
> > Any ideas on why Blake might not have liked the
> >first stanza?
> >
> >Nathan Deeter
> >ndeeter@concentric.net
>
> No idea. Erdman does go on to say that in other cases Blake deleted
> lines/stanzas in the manuscript and then included them when he engraved the
> poems. I guess it's possible that Blake didn't dislike the stanza, but
> wanted to see what the poem would be like without it. What do you think?
>
> Jennifer Michael
No idea. The only guess I can hazard--and there is a direct hazard in
making unfounded guesses about history--is that the "Never pain" stanza
doesn't "fit"--and I use the word loosely--with the other two stanzas.
That stanza seems to be more discourse and the message, while the other
two carry the image and the story. Although the stanza fits musically
and in fact informs the other two, it simply has a different rhetorical
goal.
It also bothers me that I've been reading this stanza as "Never SEEK"
and I wonder where I read that. How it could've possibly gone from
"pain" to "seek"...certainly changes the meaning of the poem.
Drastically.
Flipping the page... Another question I have: Nobodaddy. Does anyone
know where Blake may have gotten this term from? And did Dickinson
borrow it from Blake? And if so, is it safe to say that Blake was a
primary influence on Dickinson, even though we are told she was
virtually cut off from society. I often here the same music, the same
forever reaching for the angels, the same, dare I say, Divinity?,
seeping from the cracks of Dickinson's poems.
Nathan Deeter
ndeeter@concentric.net
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Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 10:30:00 -0500
From: jonj@interlog.com (Jon James)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: "Never seek"
Message-Id: <199802061527.KAA12003@gold.interlog.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>> Any ideas on why Blake might not have liked the
>
>I guess it's possible that Blake didn't dislike the stanza, but
>wanted to see what the poem would be like without it. What do you think?
>
I like Blake because I feel he thought of his poetry as living breathing
things. It helped me to go back into my drawer and re-edit some of the
*abstruser musings* I had been hiding away for so many years and
demonstrated the necessity of placing some of them under a log in the fire
place.
There is a great personal confort for me when I think of Blake beginning a
new volume of *Songs* and perhaps changing a word here and there.
When I first rediscovered *The Tyger* after my intitial contact many years
ago in school, I was delighted to find it printed side by side with an
earlier draft of the poem. This satisfied by love of the humanity of
history, in addition to leading me to this forum.
I like to think that Beethoven might have changed couple of notes in the 9th
Symphony had he been able to hear it. (how's that for blasphemy?)
The Tyger sticks in my head for another reason.
In the early 60's Mad Magazine printed a parody which ended:
Tigers Tigers burning bright
in the ballparks of the night
some day the fans will get their fill
and ship the team to Louisville.
Does anyone remember the rest?
Jon
Jon James
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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #7
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