Blake List — Volume 1998 : Issue 8
Today's Topics:
Tai Chi and Holodecks...
Re: Context
Re: Tai Chi and Holodecks...
Re: Tai Chi and Holodecks...
More Context...
How to Read "Proverbs From Hell"...
Nobodaddy
Re: "Never seek" -Reply
Bye.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 14:14:37 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Tai Chi and Holodecks...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Bill:
Yeah, I've done some Tai Chi in my time, too. Only, for me, I remember it as:
Catch the bird to your left.
Catch the bird to your right.
And then:
Catch the bird (nothing), in front of you.
Very complicated, that Tai Chi!
I prefer to watch *others* do it, to tell you the truth!
Preferably in public parks...
or unused tennis courts...
Which perhaps ties in with Nathan Deeter's comparison of Blake's
"Nobodaddy" and... Dickinson's? I am not aware of Blake's influence on
Dickinson, although I do know a poem of her own that kind of... sticks in
my brain!
"I'm nobody. Who are you?
Are you-- Nobody-- too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd banish us-- you know!
"How dreary-- to be-- Somebody!
How public-- like a Frog--
To tell your name-- the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!"
I think Dickinson provides enough context, just with this poem, for me to
get at least an *evocative* message there, don't you?
I have heard, c/o Robert D. Richardson, Jr. (_Emerson, The Mind on Fire_,
1995), that Dickinson was an Emerson admirer. Talk about "Bye-bye,
dogma".........
I've been thinking of that title page to _Milton_ as I've been giving a
cursory look over a book called _Hamlet on the Holodeck, The Future of
Narrative in Cyberspace_ by Janet H. Murray (1997).
And, to me, it's...
it's like Blake is...
going into this Holodeck...
having the audacity to both BE "Milton" and
"himself"
as well as...
some really strange things are going on in that book, aren't there!
I mean...
characters with multiple personalities...
characters merging at times and then separating out again...
inhabiting different places, as disparate as...
heaven, Jerusalem, and... Blake's body?
And I've been smiling as I read Janet Murray's fascination and concern
about how boundaries... disintegrate... you can BECOME "Hamlet"... or maybe
have him do something *other* than what Shakespeare intended...
Because Blake was doing so much of this, 200 years ago! And neither he nor
I need the MIT Media Lab, which still hasn't gotten as far with
end-products as one can do with one's *imagination* and...
well...
I think I'll end this with a poem by William Blake that is a bit more...
something I can grapple with (?) than _Milton_ at times.
Let me begin this, in honor of an anonymous member of this list:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice
Such are the Gates of Paradise
Against the Accusers chief desire
Who walkd among the Stones of Fire
Jehovahs Finger Wrote the Law
Then Wept! then rose in Zeal & Awe
And the Dead Corpse from Sinais heat
Buried beneath his Mercy Seat!
O Christians Christians! tell me Why
You rear it on your Altars high"
---[Prologue], "For the Sexes, THE GATES OF PARADISE"
by William Blake
And then these adorable little black and white illustrations
in Erdman Complete (p. 260-267)!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I found him beneath a Tree"
Yes!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I want! I want!"
Did Saint-Exupery ever give credit for this picture in _The Little
Prince_?
(I don't have a copy, offhand)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Help! Help!"
I'll help you, Rose! (I'm Jack Dawson in Cameron's _Titanic_)
I'll help YOU, Jack! (I'm Rose in Cameron's _Titanic_)
I'll NEVER forget you, my Italian friend! (Jack's friend that also came)
"What the **** are you all doing! There are people DYING out there!"
---Molly Brown, in Cameron's _Titanic_
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Aged Ignorance"
People tried this to poor William James, even as he continued his fight
to SIMPLIFY his message! And to think he wasn't a little kid! He was...
in his 50s, being precocious?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Traveller hasteth in the Evening"
You better believe it! Pan comes out then, you know!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I have said to the Worm: Thou art my mother & my sister"
Compare with Pythagorus's "doctrine", as told by Ovid in
_Metamorphoses_.
Any similarities there?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S.S. READING
BY R.H. ALBRIGHT
This is the new U.S.S. Reading.
We are coming to your town.
We're wearing red, tye-die stockings.
The conversation
is interminably blue.
They say the voyage is the destination
on the new U.S.S. Reading.
We're watching weather patterns.
Hear the ocean crash as the bow carves
like a knife
through the information blues.
Guests are cleared for entry
by checking off the option
that we are all on one ship.
Would you like to take a ride
on the U.S.S. Reading?
They have incredible accomodations.
All your meals are taken care of, too.
You can wrap yourself up in a steamer chair.
You can listen to stories by Hans Castorp...
Hans Christian Anderson...
and others, too.
And you can make up some of your own.
Well now it's time to say good-bye
to the new U.S.S. Reading.
We should be coming in to port
very soon.
It was great to see you
in the shuffleboard lounge.
I had a great time on the Bridge, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------ Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 21:39:25 -0000
From: "Brian Charles"
To:
Subject: Re: Context
Message-Id: <199802062142.VAA16414@mail.enterprise.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
----------
Randall Allbright wrote
> 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?
>
> :->
>
Thanks Randall for many stimulating postings. I am glad that you
have not been deterred by the abuse they have attracted.
To back-project 20 century sensibilities onto Blake is, as I was reminded
recently, a mistake. Some understanding of context is
essential. To restrict him to the museum is, however, an even greater
error. The reason he continues to be read today is that many consider him
relevant to late twentieth century concerns. In many cases this may well
be anachronistic and even flaky. Which matters not a damn. I know
no-one who is not in some respect or other a fruitcake. And that is their
right. As it is mine.
I read Blake because he stimulates my imagination and challenges my
preconceptions. Most of all, he gives me pleasure. This is all done
because, somehow, he appears to address me directly. This is, of course,
all in my mind but there is no other place it could be. Academic
detachment and literary theory are both useful servants but should never
presume to govern. When they do they kill imagination and lead to a
belief that one's own mis- or partial understanding is the final word. It
is my lack of understanding that acts as a spur to further reading. If I
were ever to feel that I fully understood I would close the book and never
pick it up again.
The Blake I read tells me, above all else, that all authority is fallible -
especially when it claims otherwise:
"Rouze up , O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the
ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court & the
University, who would, if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong
Corporal War. Painters! on you I call. Sculptors! Architects! Suffer
not the fashionable Fools to depress your works by the prices they pretend
to give for contemptible works, or the expensive advertizing boasts that
they make of such works: believe Christ and his Apostles that there is a
Class of Men whose sole delight is in Destroying. We do not want either
Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to our own Imaginations,
those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever in Jesus our
Lord."
Brian Charles
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 1998 19:13:54 -0500
From: Bill & Ingrid Wagner
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Tai Chi and Holodecks...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Things are such as they are.
For those who do not belive this
Things remain are such as they are.
Never the less things remain such as they are.
Chinese philo from somewhere in the past.
Darn, I'm thinking about how the Image of Newton is a Metaphor and
>Yeah, I've done some Tai Chi in my time, too. Only, for me, I remember it as:
>Catch the bird to your left.
>Catch the bird to your right.
>And then:
>Catch the bird (nothing), in front of you.
>Very complicated, that Tai Chi!
Took me two years to learn the Yang Short Form. I was very lucky to find
Dat.
I did not koww much ach about TC but was attracted to it much like Blake.
>I prefer to watch *others* do it, to tell you the truth!
>Preferably in public parks...
>or unused tennis courts...
Enjoy
>Which perhaps ties in with Nathan Deeter's comparison of Blake's
>"Nobodaddy" and... Dickinson's? I am not aware of Blake's influence on
>Dickinson, although I do know a poem of her own that kind of... sticks in
>my brain!
"I'm nobody. Who are you?
Are you-- Nobody-- too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd banish us-- you know!
"How dreary-- to be-- Somebody!
How public-- like a Frog--
To tell your name-- the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!"
>I think Dickinson provides enough context, just with this poem, for me to
>get at least an *evocative* message there, don't you?
>I have heard, c/o Robert D. Richardson, Jr. (_Emerson, The Mind on Fire_,
>1995), that Dickinson was an Emerson admirer. Talk about "Bye-bye,
>dogma".........
I Found Self Reliance to be of value. BUT this was for ME Find your own
way. There is no test only options. Don't value others! Perhaps
appreciate what they do but but but beware oxymoron comming up
"The only vice there is is to want to know everything" Balzaz
I've been thinking of that title page to _Milton_ as I've been giving a
cursory look over a book called _Hamlet on the Holodeck, The Future of
Narrative in Cyberspace_ by Janet H. Murray (1997).
And, to me, it's...
it's like Blake is...
going into this Holodeck...
having the audacity to both BE "Milton" and
"himself"
as well as...
some really strange things are going on in that book, aren't there!
I mean...
characters with multiple personalities...
characters merging at times and then separating out again...
inhabiting different places, as disparate as...
heaven, Jerusalem, and... Blake's body?
And I've been smiling as I read Janet Murray's fascination and concern
about how boundaries... disintegrate... you can BECOME "Hamlet"... or maybe
have him do something *other* than what Shakespeare intended...
Because Blake was doing so much of this, 200 years ago! And neither he nor
I need the MIT Media Lab, which still hasn't gotten as far with
end-products as one can do with one's *imagination* and...
well...
I think I'll end this with a poem by William Blake that is a bit more...
something I can grapple with (?) than _Milton_ at times.
Let me begin this, in honor of an anonymous member of this list:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice
Such are the Gates of Paradise
Against the Accusers chief desire
Who walkd among the Stones of Fire
Jehovahs Finger Wrote the Law
Then Wept! then rose in Zeal & Awe
And the Dead Corpse from Sinais heat
Buried beneath his Mercy Seat!
O Christians Christians! tell me Why
You rear it on your Altars high"
---[Prologue], "For the Sexes, THE GATES OF PARADISE"
by William Blake
And then these adorable little black and white illustrations
in Erdman Complete (p. 260-267)!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I found him beneath a Tree"
Yes!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I want! I want!"
Did Saint-Exupery ever give credit for this picture in _The Little
Prince_?
(I don't have a copy, offhand)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Help! Help!"
I'll help you, Rose! (I'm Jack Dawson in Cameron's _Titanic_)
I'll help YOU, Jack! (I'm Rose in Cameron's _Titanic_)
I'll NEVER forget you, my Italian friend! (Jack's friend that also
came)
"What the **** are you all doing! There are people DYING out there!"
---Molly Brown, in Cameron's _Titanic_
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Aged Ignorance"
People tried this to poor William James, even as he continued his fight
to SIMPLIFY his message! And to think he wasn't a little kid! He was...
in his 50s, being precocious?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Traveller hasteth in the Evening"
You better believe it! Pan comes out then, you know!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I have said to the Worm: Thou art my mother & my sister"
Compare with Pythagorus's "doctrine", as told by Ovid in
_Metamorphoses_.
Any similarities there?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S.S. READING
BY R.H. ALBRIGHT
This is the new U.S.S. Reading.
We are coming to your town.
We're wearing red, tye-die stockings.
The conversation
is interminably blue.
They say the voyage is the destination
>>>Process is all ( Who the hell knows).
on the new U.S.S. Reading.
We're watching weather patterns.
Hear the ocean crash as the bow carves
like a knife
through the information blues.
Guests are cleared for entry
by checking off the option
that we are all on one ship.
Would you like to take a ride
on the U.S.S. Reading?
They have incredible accomodations.
All your meals are taken care of, too.
You can wrap yourself up in a steamer chair.
You can listen to stories by Hans Castorp...
Hans Christian Anderson...
and others, too.
And you can make up some of your own.
Well now it's time to say good-bye
to the new U.S.S. Reading.
We should be coming in to port
very soon.
It was great to see you
in the shuffleboard lounge.
I had a great time on the Bridge, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------ Randall Albright
Years ago folks said you have to lose it before you find it. This was
more then words to me. Nothing can be done. Yet when the chance occurs how
can we act otherwise. Media can tell us about a small vision. We can make
our own!
It may not function well in time at first but "the other may help".
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 13:49:35 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Tai Chi and Holodecks...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
And, really, when you consider how complicated Tai Chi is, it makes you
realize why it took S. Foster Damon over 450 pages to come up with "A Blake
Dictionary", don't you think? And each word, in each context, according to
Damon (and so many based on _Jerusalem_, one of his least read, least
accessible works............)
So I sometimes feel like Andy Warhol and stick with the Songs and MHH. Andy
wrote a book once, called _From A to B and Back Again_. I mean, with Blake,
how can we EVER get over learning our "A, B, Cs..."!?!?!?! There's so much
to them!
> Things are such as they are.
Well... we might as well accept them as such.
> For those who do not belive this
Live something that corresponds to your world and *experience*, instead.
> Things remain are such as they are.
Until someone comes along and says, "I have a dream..."
What is now proved was once only imagined, you know. Many of Swedenborg's
ideas in science were a mere century or two ahead of their time before he
moved on to mysticism...
> Never the less things remain such as they are.
Wherever you go, there they are.
Don't give in to the Dark Side of the Force, Luke.
> Chinese philo from somewhere in the past.
And I think Blake got it through... the angels or something.
> Darn, I'm thinking about how the Image of Newton is a Metaphor and
He's a trope now, isn't he? I mean, I still like the word "metaphor" as
well as Frank Gehry but...
(laughing)
About Bill's Tai Chi training:
> Took me two years to learn the Yang Short Form. I was very lucky to find
>Dat.
I don't doubt it. Nor do I doubt that an anonymous member of this group
plays Chopin like skating on ice, as if it were *easy*, but... it isn't!
>I did not koww much ach about TC but was attracted to it much like Blake.
The way the parts all make up the whole? Kind of like, after you do Tai
Chi, you feel great, rejuvenated, a Glad Day Person?
Emerson:
> I Found Self Reliance to be of value.
To each their own.
>beware oxymoron comming up
Absolutely. Beware people who talk about some vague Coming Imperium that
they can't define, too!
> "The only vice there is is to want to know everything" Balzaz
I love that! Everyone wants to KNOW, to pin down. There's a great line from
Bowie: "Tell you who you are if you nail me to my car!" -- Joe the Lion,
that relates to this Balzac for me. Let me come up with a Blake... (you're
never too far away, with him):
"One thought, fills immensity."
And so who cares about the others that aren't being considered at the same
time? Don't THINK too much!
Bill again:
>>>>Process is all ( Who the hell knows).
> Years ago folks said you have to lose it before you find it. This was
>more then words to me. Nothing can be done. Yet when the chance occurs how
>can we act otherwise. Media can tell us about a small vision. We can make
>our own!
>It may not function well in time at first but "the other may help".
Let me see if I can say something on this. When I was a kid, I took comfort
in stories I heard about. Jesus, Siddhartha, other things that... I made
up. But when I read in _The Essential Kabbalah_ by Daniel C. Matt (1996,
HarperCollins) that "The Prodigal Son" was NOT an original story, it didn't
surprise me. I mean, I'd already known that Joni Mitchell song, "Big Yellow
Taxi"-- don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Then you fight harder to
make sure they don't bulldoze another gorgeous Bath of Caracalla (Madison
Square Garden) in the future..........
And sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose.
But Bob Marley also said something that I thought was wise. It was
something like:
"He who does not win today
lives to fight another day."
And again, I say, "Luke, just don't EVER give in to the dark side of the
force." And maybe Luke will have to see that he could become his father,
Darth Vadar, before he realizes that the darkness is WITHIN.
-----Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
"When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to observe what is done on
earth, I recognized that man is unable to find out all God's work that is
done under the sun, even though neither by day nor by night do his eyes
find rest in sleep. However much man toils in searching, he does not find
it out; and even if the wise man says that he knows, he is unable to find
out."
---Ecclesiastes, 8, 16-17
(_New American Bible_, St. Joseph Edition, 1971)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 13:49:44 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: More Context...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi Brian Charles!
>To back-project 20 century sensibilities onto Blake is, as I was reminded
>recently, a mistake.
Not *entirely*, but-- yes, you lose a great deal of the original puns if
you don't have context...
>To restrict him to the museum is, however, an even greater error.
Yes.
>The reason he continues to be read today is that many consider him
>relevant to late twentieth century concerns. In many cases this may well
>be anachronistic and even flaky. Which matters not a damn. I know
>no-one who is not in some respect or other a fruitcake. And that is their
>right. As it is mine.
Beautifully put!
In fact, the whole rest of your post is... great. Sometimes I don't even
respond to someone as eloquent as you or... others... because they speak
for themselves!
As far as Blake himself...
>"....believe Christ and his Apostles
I reply, "Believe yourself, and listen to... as much as Blake was REALLY
listening to" (I think he got around more than he admitted...)
And getting the sand out of my own eyes is pretty hard.........
>"...We do not want either Greek or Roman Models..."
He's either truly not realizing what he was doing with his own art, here,
isn't he? Blake was a propagandist extraordinaire, and I think he bluffed
himself out a great deal of the time. He used "Greek and Roman models" a
great deal of the time. Who is "Urizen" on the Frontispiece of "Europe" but
a Zeus-makeover? He thought Pythagorus was a total jerk or something? I
thought the cut worm forgave the plow, but...
>if we are but just & true to our own Imaginations,
Now THIS is pure truth.
>those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever in Jesus our
>Lord."
Again-- I have to accept that I'm listening to a Christian. Therefore, I
see him, in _Jerusalem_, addressing these various audiences, and yet
basically saying to ALL of them, "accept Jesus and it will be OK", which
could be interpreted as imperialistic, but I don't think he meant it that
way. It was simply *his* belief...
-----Randall Albright
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Because first the tyger's body gets made,
and THEN he gets further hammered into shape,
and...
" ....Things are 'with' one another in many ways, but nothing includes
everything, or dominates over everything. The word 'and' trails along after
every sentence. Something always escapes. 'Ever not quite' has to be said
of the best attempts made anywhere in the universe at attaining
all-inclusiveness...."
---William James, from _A Pluralistic Universe_
http://world.std.com/~albright/
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 16:54:45 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: How to Read "Proverbs From Hell"...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Really, it's quite simple. There are these things in a mathematical theory
which I've forgotten that are called "places", and then to get to another
you have to use a "transition". So it's place, transition, place,
transition... etcetera. And then when you come back to, perhaps, the
original "place", you find that it's changed. Or that you can see it
differently now.
For example, I have sometimes thought that it is absolutely ludicrous of
Blake to bring up this Jesus distinction between sheep and goats, and
somehow to merge them into the devouring and prolific plate. As I've said
to this group before, how can you become something before you ate something
else, first? It... just doesn't make sense!
However, there IS another way to view it.
You could use, say _An Illustrated Encylcopaedia of Traditional Symbols_ by
J.C. Cooper, which someone in this group once recommended to me and I'm
really really sorry that I've forgotten your name-- but-- anyway-- you
could look up "goat" and see that it's this Pan-like creative thing, versus
the Sheep mentality, which is passive. And, really it's Yin Yang, or... I
Ching. These are the extremities. At one point Blake declares that man
should wear the fell of the lion and woman gets to wear a sheep's skin. To
which, I've said in the past, and I'll say it again:
Let whomever wear whatever they want to wear at that particular time! I
mean, come off it! These are false dichotomies! But...
Perhaps this is why Freddie (Nietzsche) thought there were people who could
become SuperSomething and others who were just going to stay part of the
"herd", and why I tend to notice that in these discussion groups that out
of... oh, say, 1-300 people, only about 5-10 are regular talkers. Now does
that mean that the other are "sheep"? No! Who am *I* to judge? I don't know
what they're doing! They're... listening in. Maybe cutting and pasting.
Maybe just enjoying the entertainment that others provide. Maybe they're...
dolphins, like me!
One time I told someone how to make the copyright symbol in HTML. It's:
©
And s/he wrote back to me the funniest response. S/he said, "OK. Now. How
do I do that on every single post that I send to Blake On-Line?" Really, it
was so refreshing after another Day in the Satanic Mills of Software,
telling people how to use... oh... you don't want to know, it's so banal!
But it reminded me of a Neil Young song:
"We were right.
We were giving.
That's why we kept
what we gave away."
And what's wrong with a curve ball, every once in a while, anyway? Blake,
in "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell", warns that any man of mere mechanical
talents could reproduce, say, the works of Shakespeare, but that all they
would come up with, in comparison, would be like a mere candle compared to
the Sun!
So there's yet another person who's studying Blip Dee Blop to see how s/he
wrote. S/he wants to learn the "technique". And I have been smiling,
because, really, that artist, like Blake, is a one-of-a-kind and... I mean,
I guess sometimes people can trace a reproduction of Botticelli's "Birth of
Venus" and call it "Jerusalem", but... they don't fool me! Put it in your
own vocabulary, and... hey... if others had not been so foolish, we
wouldn't be where we are today, would we?
Another member of this group at one time said that a particular version of
the Frontispiece to "Europe" ("Urizen Creating the Universe") *scared*
him/her. Well, first of all, I said I found it rather comforting, myself!
Then we realized that we were looking at different versions of the
hand-painted etching. (I have three around the house, and s/he has yet
another.) And then to see that, behind the Big Bad Wizard of Oz, "Urizen",
is... well... I knew it all along... just that cute little guy, Los,
holding the same tongs (tongue?), compass, or whatever you want to call
them-- on the final plate of _Jerusalem_....
It's adorable, isn't it?
---Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/blake.html
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 1998 21:29:58
From: Izak Bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Nobodaddy
Message-Id: <3.0.1.16.19980208212958.305739ce@igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
The word "Nobodaddy" appears in Blake only in three poems.
In two consecutive poems from the Notebook (60,61 - K 185, 186,
187) he is obviously trying to find a home for the rather
scurrilous phrase "... old Nobodaddy aloft
Farted and Belch'd & Coughed."
(It is interesting to note that only in these two poems is
the word "fart" or its derivatives ever used by Blake.)
In the third poem ( K 171) the word appears in the title and is
seemingly addressed to the "Father of Jealousy," the God of the
Garden where Adam and Eve were tempted and brought to a fall.
The fairly infrequent use of the term Nobodaddy does not in
my opinion warrant the profuse use that is being made of the term
in modern Blake criticism. I suspect that Northrop Frye started
the trend by making fairly frequent use of it as a shorthand for
a variety of things. Significant to me is the equation he makes
right at the end of "Fearful Symmetry" in a "General Note: Blake's
Mysticism." He says the following:
"From this point of view, Blake's "art" becomes a
spiritual discipline like the Eastern "yoga," which
liberates man by uniting him with God. The true God
for such visionaries is not the orthodox Creator, the
Jehovah or Isvara or Nobodaddy who must always be
involved with either an eternal substance or an eternal
nothingness, depending on the taste of the theologian,
but an unattached creative Word who is free from both."
The name "Nobodaddy" is accepted by Foster Damon as
"Nobody's Daddy," so suggested by John Sampson in 1905.
I think I am more partial to Erdman's explanation of the
phrase: "old daddy Nobody" (in "Prophet Against Empire.")
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 10:37:28 +0200
From: P Van Schaik
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: "Never seek" -Reply
Message-Id:
I find this poem particularly poignant because, on one level, it seems to
reflect the reality of experience ... perhaps with the woman Blake loved
before Catherine , his wife ... but it speaks for lovers throughout the
world who have discovered that there are dangers to fully opening one's
heart and revealing one's deepest needs and yearnings for completness
to another, and worse, to attempting to speak of a love deeper than that
which the physical world can offer. I always relate the first stanza to
other of Blake's poems on love ... the last 2 stanzas of `William Bond'
seem particularly relevant:
I thought Love liv'd in the hot sun shine
But O, he lives in the Moonly light!..... etc
Even these two lines , for me, resonate with allusions to Love in
Innocence in Eden where souls commingled essences in the glories of
`love, free as the wind'. By contrast, the `silent, invisible' loves of this
world are like those of the `invisible worm that flies in the night' and
which destroy, rather than nourich and cherish, and which are phallic
merely, rather than filled with divine abundance and pity for another's
woe.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 10:39:21 +0000
From: timli@controls.eurotherm.co.uk (Tim Linnell)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Bye.
Message-Id: <199802091040.KAA06773@merlot.controls.eurotherm.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Sadly this list now has precious little to do with Blake and so I am
following in Tom's and buggering off for good.
Sincere thanks to those on the list who have helped me tiptoe towards a
better understanding of Blake and his work. You know who you are, and I
shall miss you.
Tim Linnell
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End of blake-d Digest V1998 Issue #8
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