Blake's Bible

You might say that how you read the Bible is a key to
how you understand Blake. Blake honored the Bible, but
he considered bibliolatry to be anathema:

A young theologian asked his O.T. professor if he
believed God told the Israelites to exterminate
the Canaanites; "yes" was the reply, "because they
were totally depraved" (Ah!, the babies, too?)

Blake read it differently. Quoting Fearful
Symmetry, p. 109: "Jehovah often urges a ferocious
cruelty extremely repugnant to the civilized mind.
If one gives up the attempt to extract a unified
moral code out of the Bible, this becomes a
profoundly true vision of a false god..."

Plate 11 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:
" The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could percieve. And particularly they studied the genius of each city &country. placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood. Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had orderd such things. Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast."

And "Everything possible to be believ'd is an image of truth"
(MHH: Proverbs of Hell).

The Bible of course is about God; it portrays a
great many visions of God: those of primitive
savages and those of wise men like Abraham,
Moses, and Isaiah. They are the "Ancient Poets"
of MHH.

Until Jesus! he came into the picture when Blake
got to the N.T. Although Blake may not have
focused on it, the vision of the Loving Heavenly
Father should be more acceptable to the "civilized
mind."

Blake of course memorialized the moments when
Jesus "came into the picture"; look again at the
First Vision of God. There are many others.

For years Blake attempted to explicate what Jesus
meant to him. For years he worked on The Everlasting 
Gospel. But as we all know Jesus cannot be explicated; 
for me and perhaps for Blake that of God in everyone 
was about as close as you can get.

Blake's poetic gift was at the service of his Art and
his Religion (both very changeable throughout his
lifetime).

"Prayer is the Study of Art praise is the Practise of Art
Fasting &c. all relate to Art
The outward Ceremony is Antichrist
Without Unceasing Practise nothing can be done
Practise is Art If you leave off you are Lost
A Poet a Painter a Musician an Architect:
the Man Or Woman who is not one of these is not a Christian"
(The Lacoon; Erdman 274)

DARK URTHONA

Sea of Unconsciousness

The aspect of the psyche which is hidden, buried and unknown is spoken of as the unconscious. It is unknown but not unknowable. Although the gate is closed to enter the unconscious; the gate for unconscious content to come out is not entirely closed. Much of what Blake has written about in his poetry has come from his unconscious.

One of the Four Zoas is mentioned less frequently than the others - Urthona - and when he is mentioned his name is frequently prefixed by the word dark. He has a manifestation in the outer world who is named Los, but as an Eternal he seems to play a lessor role. He is dark for Blake because he is in the unconscious. As he enters consciousness his forms and activities become a part of the world of consciousness.

Jung called Reason and Feeling the rational functions; Sensation and Intuition were called irrational. Blake has Tharmas and Urthona working together to repel the advances of Urizen into Urthona's territory. I have spoken of Tharmas (Blake's image for the physical body or senses) functioning as the Id, Urthona can be seen as functioning as the Intuition. Both reside in man's unconscious.

Here is an account of Urizen's attempt to invade the territory of Urthona, Four Zoas : Night VI, Page 74, (E 350):

"And now he came into the Abhorred world of Dark Urthona
By Providence divine conducted not bent from his own will
Lest death Eternal should be the result for the Will cannot be
violated
Into the doleful vales where no tree grew nor river flowd
Nor man nor beast nor creeping thing nor sun nor cloud nor star
Still he with his globe of fire immense in his venturous hand
Bore on thro the Affrighted vales ascending & descending
Oerwearied or in cumbrous flight he venturd oer dark rifts
Or down dark precipices or climbd with pain and labour huge
Till he beheld the world of Los from the Peaked rock of Urthona
And heard the howling of red Orc distincter & distincter"

Urizen fails to occupy Urthona's territory. Later near the end of the Four Zoas, Urthona resumes his work which had been interrupted as he fell from Eternity with Urizen and Luvah. The association between Urthona and Tharmas continues.
___________
Four Zoas: Night IX, PAGE 138 (E 405)

"Then Dark Urthona took the Corn out of the Stores of Urizen'
He ground it in his rumbling Mills Terrible the distress
Of all the Nations of Earth ground in the Mills of Urthona
In his hand Tharmas takes the Storms. he turns the whirlwind
Loose
Upon the wheels the stormy seas howl at his dread command
And Eddying fierce rejoice in the fierce agitation of the wheels
Of Dark Urthona Thunders Earthquakes Fires Water floods
Rejoice to one another loud their voices shake the Abyss
Their dread forms tending the dire mills The grey hoar frost
was there
And his pale wife the aged Snow they watch over the fires
They build the Ovens of Urthona Nature in darkness groans
And Men are bound to sullen contemplations in the night
Restless they turn on beds of sorrow. in their inmost brain
Feeling the crushing Wheels they rise they write the bitter words
Of Stern Philosophy & knead the bread of knowledge with
tears & groans

Such are the works of Dark Urthona Tharmas sifted the corn
Urthona made the Bread of Ages & he placed it
In golden & in silver baskets in heavens of precious stone
And then took his repose in Winter in the night of Time"

As the Four Zoas ends it is Urthona who is the image of the restored and unified psyche. He is strong and undivided residing as always in man's 'inmost brain' after providing 'bread for the ages' from the 'distress of the nations.'

PAGE 139
"Urthona is arisen in his strength no longer now
Divided from Enitharmon no longer the Spectre Los
Where is the Spectre of Prophecy where the delusive Phantom
Departed & Urthona rises from the ruinous walls
In all his ancient strength to form the golden armour of science
For intellectual War The war of swords departed now
The dark Religions are departed & sweet Science reigns"

The Word within the Word

Northrup Frye was a very famous literary critic,
and a great deal can be found about him on the
web. A Canadian, Frye went to seminary and became
a parish minister; then he went to Oxford and got
an M.A. in English Literature. He wrote his
thesis on William Blake.

A great many books came from his pen; the first
one was Fearful Symmetry (1944). Frye opens the
door to a depth understanding of Blake's poetry (and
pictures). It took five readings of Fearful Symetry
(30 years ago) to open my mind to William Blake.

In the eighties, near the end of his life, Frye
published two monumental volumes of "The Bible as
Literature"; they speak directly to the depth
understanding of our poet.

Some of the statements in 'The Word with the Word'
(chapter five of Fearful Symmetry) may sound
enigmatic; just stay with them, and light will come.
This chapter is a lucid description of Frye's primary
gift to literature, to meaning and religion.

All words are metaphors; the meanings they convey
depend upon the author's mind - and frame of mind
when he writes them; and upon the reader's (or
hearer's) mind when he reads or hears them. (Most
of the purposeless arguments over virtually anything
stem from failure to understand this basic fact.)

For Western culture the Bible is the Great Code of
Art; it embodies the Universal Myth, basically
fourfold: Creation, The Fall, Redemption,
Apocalypse. Blake believed that it was the
guiding myth undergirding virtually all discourse.

"Blake's poetry is all related to a central myth...
and the primary basis of this myth is the Bible.
...
The Bible is therefore the archetype of Western
culture, and the Bible...provides the basis for most
of our major art" (Fearful Symmetry, p. 109).

The word of God was Jesus (cf John 1). Anything
that you say or write may be the Word of God-- the
Jesus in you (Paul).

In Plate 3 of Jerusalem (Erdman p. 145) we can read:
"I also hope the Reader will be with me, wholly One in
Jesus our Lord, who is the God [of Fire] and Lord [of
Love] to whom the Ancients look'd and saw his day afar off,
with trembling & amazement. The Spirit of Jesus is continual
forgiveness of sin"

This is the Word in Blake's consciousness.
Jerusalem, (Erdman p. 180):
"Saying. Albion! Our wars are wars of life, & wounds of love,
With intellectual spears, & long winged arrows of thought:
Mutual in one anothers love and wrath all renewing
We live as One Man; for contracting our infinite senses
We behold multitude; or expanding: we behold as one,
As One Man all the Universal Family; and that One Man
We call Jesus the Christ: and he in us, and we in him,
Live in perfect harmony in Eden the land of life,
Giving, receiving, and forgiving each others trespasses.
He is the Good shepherd, he is the Lord and master:
He is the Shepherd of Albion, he is all in all,
In Eden: in the garden of God: and in heavenly Jerusalem."

URIZEN & SHADOW

The character Urizen dominates much of Blake's writing. He appears and reappears from the First Book of Urizen to the end of the Four Zoas. Why was his configuration of characteristics so important in the mind of Blake?

Reclining Urizen

Trying to recall Urizen to his former self and to union with the Botherhood, Albion speaks thus to Urizen in Four Zoas, Night IX, PAGE 120 (E 389):

"The Eternal Man sat on the Rocks & cried with awful voice

O Prince of Light where art thou I behold thee not as once
In those Eternal fields in clouds of morning stepping forth
With harps & songs where bright Ahania sang before thy face
And all thy sons & daughters gatherd round my ample table
See you not all this wracking furious confusion
Come forth from slumbers of thy cold abstraction come forth
Arise to Eternal births shake off thy cold repose
Schoolmaster of souls great opposer of change arise
That the Eternal worlds may see thy face in peace & joy
That thou dread form of Certainty maist sit in town & village
While little children play around thy feet in gentle awe
Fearing thy frown loving thy smile O Urizen Prince of light"

These are the characteristics which Albion sees as dividing Urizen from his Eternal form. He is cold, he deals in abstractions, he is asleep, and repetitive, and certain of his own correctness. Albion's hope is that he can return to a condition in which the Eternals as well as little children may enjoy his former demeanor.

During the unfolding of Blake's myth, Urizen's characteristics become expressed in the law. Urizen is portrayed as projecting his inner characteristics onto his outer experience; including his attitude as to how the world should function and the people in it should behave.

Blake himself outwardly rejects Urizen's attitudes of distance, rigidness, non-involvement, inflexibility, blindness, and fear of the unknown. But his poetry may reveal that he struggled internally against the very characteristics he objected to. His Shadow may have been expressed in Urizen.

LOS, LUVAH & URIZEN

Labor of Los

Quoting from A BLAKE DICTIONARY, S. Foster Damon, Introduction, Page XI:

"Every sect is self-limited, whereas Truth is Universal. Instead of any religion, Blake wanted the truth - the whole truth including all errors, life including death, the soul including the body, the world of mind including the world of matter, the profound discoveries of the mystics reconciled with the scoffing of the skeptics, heaven and hell married and working together, and in the ultimate heart, Man eternally in the arms of God."

The puzzle of the shift in relationship between Luvah and Urizen deserves careful consideration. Neither Urizen nor Luvah had an indisputable claim to the horses of light or the dominant position they represented; that should should have fallen to Urthona whose 'Vehicular Form' is Los. (Percival refers to Urthona as the 'essential' man.)

The struggle among Urizen, Luvah and Los occupies Blake's imagination. The conflict may be interpreted internally. In Blake's myth either reason or emotion is frequently firmly in control of the psyche. The balance between them shifts as they negotiate and seize power. Sometimes reason is recognized as the higher function and emotion is at the service of reason (or visa versa). Disasters ensue as each function tries to eliminate the other. The higher function, inspiration or Los, eventually succeeds in wresting power and reconstructing the psyche.

Often it is easier to observe the operation of the functions externally before we can recognize them internally. Blake's portrayal of the 4Zs may show us aspects of ourselves we do not already recognize. Likewise, we are more likely to identify another person under the domination of one aspect of the psyche (suppressing the expression of the others), before we can see the same thing in ourselves. But to have it brought to our attention either by reading Blake, or by observing associates consistently and unconsciously coming under the dominion of reason or emotion, may encourage us to deal with unconscious forces which are controlling us. (So too, these imbalances are visible in societal behaviors.)

In The Four Zoas, Night Four, Blake portrays a violent confrontation between Urizen and Los. Urizen is subdued but the cost to Los is high. Los has come under the dominion of his lower nature, expressing revenge, wrath and cruelty, and having taken on the characteristics of the entity whom he was trying to eliminate .

FZ4-53.11; (E335)
"The lovely female howld & Urizen beneath deep groand
Deadly between the hammers beating grateful to the Ears
Of Los. absorbd in dire revenge he drank with joy the cries
Of Enitharmon & the groans of Urizen fuel for his wrath
And for his pity secret feeding on thoughts of cruelty

The Spectre wept at his dire labours"

FZ4-53.21; E336
"And thus began the binding of Urizen day & night in fear
Circling round the dark Demon with howlings dismay & sharp
blightings
The Prophet of Eternity beat on his iron links & links of brass
And as he beat round the hurtling Demon. terrified at the Shapes
Enslavd humanity put on he became what he beheld"

Some scholars have suggested that the portrayal of this type of situation in The Four Zoas led to Blake's abandonment of the writing of the book. In Blake's later poetry, the solution to the problems between Los and Urizen comes through recognition of error, forgiveness, anniliation of the Selfhood, and restoration of Brotherhood.

The unity of the psyche - allowing each function to play its ordained role is the goal toward which Blake directed his readers.

TWOFOLD

Blake has given us a treasure of insight, experience, and imagery. The cost to him of producing it was enormous. The reward was the satisfaction of using his innate gifts in expressing his imagination. That he produced a body of work that nourishes us two hundred years after his death, expresses the joy and gratitude with which he exercised his gifts. I like to think that in his case, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 7, (E36)

From George W. Digby, Symbol and Image in William Blake, Page 19:

"He had as it were two eyes, an eye for the verbal image as it is spoken and written, and an eye for the pictorial image. The inner truth that he apprehended was something other than either of these, not confined or explicit in either of them, but something which could be expressed or implied by their means. For truth, reality, is always beyond the formulation of both words and of pictorial images. Sometimes the pictorial symbol parallels or amplifies the written one; sometimes gives the contrasting aspect, or opposite and contrary point of view. But always this double mode of expression is focused on man's subtle and complex nature, his illusions, self-deceptions, conceits, and his contradictory and insatiable desires. This twofold artistic capacity, and his vision of the infinite which the coarseness and opaqueness of human nature unnecessarily obscures, makes the creative work of Blake in art and poetry such an incomparable source of wisdom."

As Blake wrote in The Four Zoas on Page 35 (E324):

"What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain"

NATIVITY IV

Chorus of Angels

Since the first image we form of ourselves is that of a body, we may formulate the idea that at some point the spirit enters the body and begins to express itself through the body. But as Blake explains here, it is the bodies which are made for the spirits which pre-exist.

As Albion represents the Universal Man, Jerusalem represents the Universal Woman: the 'vast family wondrous in beauty and love.' Albion is fourfold, Jerusalem is unified: the expression of the Divine Vision within the Universal Man.

In this passage, Blake presents the idea that redemption begins when 'the Lamb of God' becomes visible within the Unified Spiritual Body which is Jerusalem. The song of the angels, sung when the birth of Jesus was announced to the shepherds, is echoed in Blake's verses at this point.

GOSPEL OF LUKE
2:8-12 - "There were some shepherds living in the same part of the country, keeping guard throughout the night over their flocks in the open fields. Suddenly an angel of the Lord stood by their side, the splendour of the Lord blazed around them, and they were terror-stricken. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid! Listen, I bring you glorious news of great joy which is for all the people. This very day, in David's town, a Saviour has been born for you. He is Christ, the Lord. Let this prove it to you: you will find a baby, wrapped up and lying in a manger.'
2:13-14 - And in a flash there appeared with the angel a vast host of the armies of Heaven, praising God, saying, 'Glory to God in the highest Heaven! Peace upon earth among men of goodwill!'"

Four Zoas: Night the Eighth, Page 103 (E376):

"Enitharmon wove in tears Singing Songs of Lamentations
And pitying comfort as she sighd forth on the wind the spectres
And wove them bodies calling them her belovd sons and daughters
Employing the daughters in her looms & Los employd the Sons
In Golgonoozas Furnaces among the Anvils of time & space
Thus forming a Vast family wondrous in beauty & love
And they appeard a Universal female form created
From those who were dead in Ulro from the Spectres of the dead

PAGE 104 (FIRST PORTION)
And Enitharmon namd the Female Jerusa[le]m the holy
Wondring she saw the Lamb of God within Jerusalems Veil
The divine Vision seen within the inmost deep recess
Of fair Jerusalems bosom in a gently beaming fire

Then sang the Sons of Eden round the Lamb of God & said
Glory Glory Glory to the holy Lamb of God
Who now beginneth to put off the dark Satanic body
Now we behold redemption Now we know that life Eternal
Depends alone upon the Universal hand & not in us"

GOSPEL OF LUKE
2:25-32 - "In Jerusalem was a man by the name of Simeon. He was an upright man, devoted to the service of God, living in expectation of the 'salvation of Israel'. His heart was open to the Holy Spirit, and it had been revealed to him that he would not die before he saw the Lord's Christ. He had been led by the Spirit to go into the Temple, and when Jesus' parents brought the child in to have done to him what the Law required, he took him up in his arms, blessed God, and said - 'At last, Lord, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised! For with my own eyes I have seen your salvation which you have made ready for every people - a light to show truth to the Gentiles and bring glory to your people Israel.'"