SWINBURNE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the widowed Anne Gilchrist was left with the task of completing the biography on which her young husband had worked for years, aid came to her from various directions. Among those who provided assistance were Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti and Algenon Charles Swinburne. The finished product, Life of William Blake, Pictor Ignotus, left Swinburne with the desire to add his own perspective on Blake's character, life and work. Swinburne began with a review to supplement the portrait of Blake which the Gilchrist book provided but found he wanted to do more. Swinburne wrote that, "first slight study became little by little an elaborate essay." In his book William Blake: A Critical Essay (1868), which be dedicated to his friend William Michael Rossetti, Swinburne tended to shape Blake's character into one more resembling his own, at the same time praising and honoring Blake extravagantly. Swinburne included passages from Blake's work which he edited to make them more attractive to his Victorian audience. At the same time he expressed his admiration for Blake the iconoclast, finding in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell the characteristics he most wanted to promote.

Swinburne included illustrations reproduced from Blake's printed plates. Swinburne stated:
"[In justice to the fac-similist who has so faithfully copied the following designs from Blake’s works, the publisher would state they were made under somewhat difficult circumstances, the British Museum authorities not permitting tracing from the copies in their possession. In every case the exact peculiarities of the originals have been preserved. The colouring has been done by hand from the designs, tinted by the artist, and the three illustrations from “Jerusalem” have been reduced from the original in folio to octavo. The paper on which the fac-similes are given has been expressly made to resemble that used by Blake.]"

The Royal Academy website, commenting on the illustrations in William Blake: A critical Essay, gives this information:
"The frontispiece shows a plate from 'Jerusalem'; the added engraved title-plate incorporates motifs from three Blake poems. The remaining seven plates show plates from 'The Book Of Thel' (facing p.200), 'The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell' (facing pp. 204, 208, 224), 'Milton' (facing p.258) and 'Jerusalem' (facing pp. 276, 282)."

Image from Swinburne
Milton 
Plate 8

The timid Palamabron, the reticent Rintrah, and the impassioned Satan

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The coloring of the images in the Gutenberg digital book seems to deviate considerably from Blake's coloring of the plates. 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 7, (E 350

"Proverbs of Hell.              
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.                 

The cut worm forgives the plow.

Dip him in the river who loves water.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.             
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but of wisdom: no
     clock can measure.

All wholsom food is caught without a net or a trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.
No bird soars too high. if he soars with his own wings.       

A dead body. revenges not injuries.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise
Folly is the cloke of knavery.

Shame is Prides cloke." 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39) 

 "The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire
at the  end of six thousand years is true. as I have heard from
Hell.
   For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to 
leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole 
creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas
it now  appears finite & corrupt.
   This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.
   But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his
soul, is to  be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and
medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite which was hid.
   If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear  to man as it is: infinite.
   For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern."

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In a thesis by Mary McHale Riley is this statement from The Swinburne Letters, edited by Cecil Y Lang :

"He [Swinburne] asks Seymour Kirkup in a letter circa July 1864: Did you ever read his great prose-poem, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell? For profound humour and subtle imagination, not less than for lyrical splendour and fervour of thought, it seems to me the greatest work of its century. We all envy you the privilege of having known a man so great in so many ways."