GREEK INFLUENCE

First posted April 2011

Most agree that the literary and spiritual source which had the most influence on Blake was the Bible - both the Old and New Testaments. Some wish to discount the Greek influence on Blake without acknowledging that the Bible itself was influenced by Greek thought. The language in which the New Testament was written was Greek. In all likelihood Jesus was conversant in Greek. The Jewish people of New Testament times were scattered through the Roman Empire and therefore exposed to Greek thought, Greek literature, Greek religion and the legacy of Greek culture which pervaded the Roman culture in whose empire they lived. The Greek culture had far more effect on Jewish culture than visa versa. The New Testament is a Jewish and Greek document.

An aspect of Greek culture with which many people in contemporary culture are familiar is their mythology. Myth making came to Blake not solely from the Greeks but they were one source. The Hebrews took history as the account of man's relationship with God but the Greeks took mythology to fill that role. Psychology as well as religion was understood by the Greeks as a dimension of mythology.

Jerusalem, Plate 54
Blake's Four Zoas
When Blake chose his method of communicating, it was myth which best suited his mental proclivities. The aspects of Blake's psychic struggles became not the Gods of the Greeks but the giant Zoas of his poetry. Fragments of the Greek tales appear as episodes in the Blake epics alongside characters and events from the Bible. Like most mythologists he wrote not to amuse or entertain but to explain the mysteries of life and death, of good and evil, of beginnings and endings.

In The Eternal Drama: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology, Edward F. Edinger states:
"The Greek myths are sacred scripture, no less than the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. Certainly the Greek myths and what was built on them - the science and philosophy and literature - form some of the basic roots of the Western unconscious. Myths are not simple tales of happenings in the remote past but eternal dramas that are living themselves out repeatedly in our own personal lives and in what we see all around us. To be aware of this adds a dimension to existence that is usually reserved for the poets. To the extent that we can cultivate awareness of this transpersonal dimension, life is enlarged and broadened. Just as Moses is eternally bringing down the law and Jesus is forever being crucified and resurrected, so Heracles is eternally performing his labors, Perseus is confronting Medusa, and Theseus is forever stalking the Minotaur. All these dramas are happening in us and around us constantly. They are eternal patterns of the way life happens below the surface, if only we can see it." (Page 3)

The 'Eternal Drama' was more real to Blake than was his earthly life: he lived it in his visions, he assimilated it from multiple sources, he expressed it through his imagination, and he urged his readers to learn to recognize it.

Letters, (E 727)
Felpham Jany 30--1803.
Dear Brother
...
"I go on Merrily with my Greek & Latin: am very sorry that I did not begin to learn languages early in life as I find it very Easy. am now learning my Hebrew I read Greek as fluently as an Oxford scholar & the Testament is my chief master."

AHANIA AS PERSEPHONE

 First posted May 2011

Gospel of John, Chapter 12

[20] And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast:
[21] The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus
[22] Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.
[23] And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.
[24] Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
[25] He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

Careful attention to the passages posted in Ahania Regenerate leads into the roots of some of Blake's symbols for regeneration including the above passage.

From Greek mythology Blake drew on the tale of Persephone which was the basis for the Eleusian mysteries reenacting the periods of the year when the goddess was bringing her life to the vegetative world and the time when she was hidden underground in the dark world of Hades. These corresponded to the periods when the crops were actively producing their fruits and those when the seed was buried in the ground awaiting the condition for growth. The periodic cycle of birth and death, of growth and rest, of activity and renewal was one of the phenomena represented by Urizen and Ahania in Blake's myth.

Four Zoas, Night ix, Page 122, (E 391)

"The spring. the summer to be thine then Sleep the wintry days
In silken garments spun by her own hands against her funeral
The winter thou shalt plow & lay thy stores into thy barns
Expecting to recieve Ahania in the spring with joy
Immortal thou. Regenerate She & all the lovely Sex
From her shall learn obedience & prepare for a wintry grave
That spring may see them rise in tenfold joy & sweet delight
Thus shall the male & female live the life of Eternity"

Blake's recurrent theme of weaving has an undercurrent to the cocooned being which is one phase in the life cycle of butterfly. The two periods of visible activity of the butterfly are first, the larval or caterpillar stage of devouring food, and second, the adult butterfly stage of mating and laying eggs. In the stages of the cocoon and egg, are the appearance of dormancy. Blake uses the garments woven by the emanations as 'bodies of death': clothing in the generative world of matter and death. The hidden activity of the world of generation, like that of the cocooned pupa, is transformation. The egg phase of the butterfly is likewise a period of transformation in which the egg acts as a womb leading to the birth of another outwardly active stage.

Four Zoas, Night ix, Page 125, (E 394)
"Then Urizen sits down to rest & all his wearied Sons
Take their repose on beds they drink they sing they view the flames
Of Orc in joy they view the human harvest springing up
A time they give to sweet repose till all the harvest is ripe"

The annual agricultural cycle demands periods of intense activity and periods of preparation and waiting. Urizen and his sons have completed a period of activity and they rest while they watch and wait. Ahania represented that period of restful watching and waiting in which Urizen relinquished his restless pursuit of making a world in his own image. With Ahania's return he could sit down and rest with his wearied sons.

The need for the mind to engage in varied activities is clarified in the characters of Urizen and Ahania. As the intellect or rational mind Urizen assumes that dominance is his due. But forces exist which are not controllable by rationality. Much of the mind is devoted to unconscious activities of which the reasoning mind is unaware. Ahania, as Persephone, has access to the underworld, or as psychology would call it, the unconscious. Urizen without Ahania could not rest nor could he listen to the inner, underlying motivations of his own actions.

Four Zoas, Night ix, Page 125, (E 394)

"And Lo like the harvest Moon Ahania cast off her death clothes
She folded them up in care in silence & her brightning limbs
Bathd in the clear spring of the rock then from her darksom cave
Issud in majesty divine Urizen rose up from his couch
On wings of tenfold joy clapping his hands his feet his radiant wings
In the immense as when the Sun dances upon the mountains"



The moon is fully reflecting the light of the sun, the shroud has been carefully removed, the spiritual body has emerged from the clear waters of rebirth. The Eternal Ahania exits the cave of separation to the life of reunion.








"The Reunion of Soul and Body"
Illustration to Robert Blair's The Grave

UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS

First posted by Larry on March 7, 2011, his 85TH birthday.

Yale Center for British Art
Illustrations for Young's Night Thoughts

Perhaps Blake's greatest gift to any of us may be the Faculty of perceiving the realities around us in terms of the Universal Symbols:

For example the character Jane in Jane Eyre may serve as a Christ Symbol (or in Blake's lexicon as Eternity). Rochester represents Everyman; the flossie, to whom he was considering marriage, is the Way of the World, the purely material.

The half cousin who wanted Jane to marry him and go to Africa with him represents Conventional Religion; his sisters are the Blakean Redeemed.

Rochester's wife is the victim of his accumulated moral failings, which led to spiritual blindness.

The happy ending is echoed by the ending of most Detective Stories. The crime is solved, the detective enjoys real life, the harm remains, but it no longer affects him. In the Sacred Story every tear has been wiped away.

In this post I've expressed the reality of the story in terms of the Blakean universal symbols. That's only one of many ways you might find universal meaning is a work of art.

IMO it was Northrup Frye who introduced to the Blake community (in 1947) to an understanding of Blake's use of symbols, images, metaphor; armed with that knowledge understanding of his poetry, his myth, the import of his pictures proceeded apace. But that's appropriate for another post.

Four Zoas, Night IX, PAGE 121, (E 390) 
"Urizen wept in the dark deep anxious his Scaly form
To reassume the human & he wept in the dark deep

Saying O that I had never drank the wine nor eat the bread
Of dark mortality nor cast my view into futurity nor turnd  
My back darkning the present clouding with a cloud               
And building arches high & cities turrets & towers & domes  
Whose smoke destroyd the pleasant gardens & whose running Kennels
Chokd the bright rivers burdning with my Ships the angry deep
Thro Chaos seeking for delight & in spaces remote
Seeking the Eternal which is always present to the wise          
Seeking for pleasure which unsought falls round the infants path
And on the fleeces of mild flocks who neither care nor labour
But I the labourer of ages whose unwearied hands
Are thus deformd with hardness with the sword & with the spear
And with the Chisel & the mallet I whose labours vast            
Order the nations separating family by family
Alone enjoy not   I alone in misery supreme
Ungratified give all my joy unto this Luvah & Vala    
Then Go O dark futurity I will cast thee forth from these
Heavens of my brain nor will I look upon futurity more   
I cast futurity away & turn my back upon that void       
Which I have made for lo futurity is in this moment      
Let Orc consume let Tharmas rage let dark Urthona give
All strength to Los & Enitharmon & let Los self-cursd
Rend down this fabric as a wall ruind & family extinct           
Rage Orc Rage Tharmas Urizen no longer curbs your rage

So Urizen spoke he shook his snows from off his Shoulders & arose"

ENION & THARMAS

The title which Blake settled on for his first epic poem was The Four Zoas: The torments of Love and Jealousy in the Death and Judgement of Albion the Ancient Man. Blake began Night I with a quarrel between Tharmas and Enion his emanation. Tharmas is the Parent Power among the Zoas. The development of the psyche begins with him as the instinctual impule with which man is born. Tharmas, the Zoa represented by the human body and the senses, is the underlying cohesive force with which the mind begins the process of organizing the psyche. If the process is interrupted the functioning of individual aspects is disturbed.

The disturbance at the instinctual level of behavior quickly spread to the emanation. A quarrel ensued between Tharmas and Enion. Each detected sinfulness in the counterpart and felt victimized by the other. Enion's withdrawal led to her isolation and Tharmas' incessant pursuit of his lost emanation. Enion lamentrd the separation but would not turn back.

 

Original in British Library
Four Zoas
Page 6

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 6, (E 302)

"Nine days she labourd at her work. & nine dark sleepless nights
But on the tenth trembling morn the Circle of Destiny Complete
Round rolld the Sea Englobing in a watry Globe self balancd
A Frowning Continent appeard Where Enion in the Desart
Terrified in her own Creation      viewing her woven shadow
Sat in a dread intoxication of Repentance & Contrition 

There is from Great Eternity a mild & pleasant rest
Namd Beulah a Soft Moony Universe feminine lovely 
Pure mild & Gentle given in Mercy to those who sleep
Eternally. Created by the Lamb of God around
On all sides within & without the Universal Man
The Daughters of Beulah follow sleepers in all their Dreams
Creating Spaces lest they fall into Eternal Death                

The Circle of Destiny complete they gave to it a Space
And namd the Space Ulro & brooded over it in care & love
They said The Spectre is in every man insane & most
Deformd     Thro the three heavens descending in fury & fire
We meet it with our Songs & loving blandishments & give          
To it a form of vegetation But this Spectre of Tharmas
Is Eternal Death What shall we do O God pity & help  
So spoke they & closd the Gate of the Tongue in trembling fear 

What have I done! said Enion accursed wretch! What deed.       
Is this a deed of Love I know what I have done. I know
Too late now to repent. Love is changd to deadly Hate          
All life is blotted out & I alone remain possessd with Fears                                                
I see the Shadow of the dead within my Soul wandering 
In darkness & solitude forming Seas of Doubt & rocks of Repentance                                                 t
Already are my Eyes reverted. all that I behold                  
Within my Soul has lost its splendor & a brooding Fear
Shadows me oer & drives me outward to a world of woe
So waild she trembling before her own Created Phantasm

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 6 (E 303)

"She drew the Spectre forth from Tharmas in her shining loom
Of Vegetation weeping in wayward infancy & sullen youth
Listning to her soft lamentations soon his tongue began
To Lisp out words & soon in masculine strength augmenting he
Reard up a form of gold & stood upon the glittering rock
A shadowy human form winged & in his depths
The dazzlings as of gems shone clear, rapturous in fury
Glorying in his own eyes Exalted in terrific Pride
The Spectre thus spoke. Who art thou Diminutive husk & shell
If thou hast sinnd & art polluted know that I am pure 
And unpolluted & will bring to rigid strict account 
All thy past deeds [So] hear what I tell thee!
And unpolluted & will bring to rigid strict account
All thy past deeds [So] hear what I tell thee! mark it well! remember!
This world is Thine in which thou dwellest that within thy soul
That dark & dismal infinite where Thought roams up & down
Is Mine & there thou goest when with one Sting of my tongue
Envenomd thou rolist inwards to the place whence I emergd

She trembling answerd Wherefore was I born & what am I        
I thought to weave a Covering for my Sins from wrath of Tharmas

PAGE 7 (E 304)
I thought Tharmas a Sinner & I murderd his Emanations           
His secret loves & Graces Ah me wretched What have I done       
For now I find that all those Emanations were my Childrens Souls                                                      
And I have murderd them with Cruelty above atonement            
Those that remain have fled from my cruelty into the desarts     
And thou the delusive tempter to these deeds sittest before me  
In this thy world not mine tho dark I feel my world within      

Mingling his horrible brightness with her tender limbs then high she soard                                                  
Above the ocean; a bright wonder that Nature shudder'd at       
Half Woman & half Spectre, all his lovely changing colours mix  
With her fair crystal clearness; in her lips & cheeks his poisons rose                                                       
In blushes like the morning, and his scaly armour softening     
A monster lovely in the heavens or wandering on the earth,      

PAGE 8 (E 304)
Till with fierce pain she brought forth on the rocks her sorrow & woe
Behold two little Infants wept upon the desolate wind.          

The first state weeping they began & helpless as a wave
Beaten along its sightless way growing enormous in its motion to
Its utmost goal, till strength from Enion like richest summer shining                                                    
Raisd the bright boy & girl with glories from their heads out beaming                                                    
Drawing forth drooping mothers pity drooping mothers sorrow     

They sulk upon her breast her hair became like snow on mountains                                                  t
Weaker & weaker, weeping woful, wearier and wearier
Faded & her bright Eyes decayd melted with pity & love 

PAGE 9 (E 304)
And then they wanderd far away she sought for them in vain   
In weeping blindness stumbling she followd them oer rocks & mountains
Rehumanizing from the Spectre in pangs of maternal love
Ingrate they wanderd scorning her drawing her Spectrous Life    
Repelling her away & away by a dread repulsive power             
Into Non Entity revolving round in dark despair.
And drawing in the Spectrous life in pride and haughty joy      
Thus Enion gave them all her spectrous life

Then Eno a daughter of Beulah took a Moment of Time             
And drew it out to Seven thousand years with much care & affliction                                               
And many tears & in Every year made windows into Eden         
She also took an atom of space & opend its center
Into Infinitude & ornamented it with wondrous art
Astonishd sat her Sisters of Beulah to see her soft affections
To Enion & her children & they ponderd these things wondring     
And they Alternate kept watch over the Youthful terrors
They saw not yet the Hand Divine for it was not yet reveald

But they went on in Silent Hope & Feminine repose"   

It is not until the final Night of the Four Zoas that Tharmas and Enion are reunited:

---

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 130, (E 199)

[Vala the emanation of Luvah speaks]

"Enion let Tharmas kiss thy Cheek

Why dost thou turn thyself away from his sweet watry eyes
Tharmas henceforth in Valas bosom thou shalt find sweet peace
O bless the lovely eyes of Tharmas & the Eyes of Enion 
They rose they went out wandring sometimes together sometimes alone

Why weepest thou Tharmas Child of tears in the bright house of joy

Doth Enion avoid the sight of thy blue heavenly Eyes
And dost thou wander with my lambs & wet their innocent faces
With thy bright tears because the steps of Enion are in the gardens 
Arise sweet boy & let us follow the path of Enion

So saying they went down into the garden among the fruits
And Enion sang among the flowers that grew among the trees

And Vala said Go Tharmas weep not Go to Enion"

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 131,(E 399) 

"Chear up thy Countenance bright boy & go to Enion
Tell her that Vala waits her in the shadows of her garden

He went with timid steps & Enion like the ruddy morn 
When infant spring appears in swelling buds & opening flowers
Behind her Veil withdraws so Enion turnd her modest head

But Tharmas spoke Vala seeks thee sweet Enion in the shades
Follow the steps of Tharmas O thou brightness of the gardens
He took her hand reluctant she followd in infant doubts 
Thus in Eternal Childhood straying among Valas flocks
In infant sorrow & joy alternate Enion & Tharmas playd
Round Vala in the Gardens of Vala & by her rivers margin

They are the shadows of Tharmas & of Enion in Valas world"  

Four Zoas, Night IX, page 132, (E 401)

"Joy thrilld thro all the Furious form of Tharmas humanizing
Mild he Embracd her whom he sought he raisd her thro the heavens
Sounding his trumpet to awake the Dead on high he soard
Over the ruind worlds the smoking tomb of the Eternal Prophet

PAGE 133 

The Eternal Man arose he welcomd them to the Feast"  

THARMAS & URTHONA

The account of the fall of the Zoas is repeated from different perspectives in seven of the nine Nights of the Four Zoas. In Night I Blake gives us Enitharmon's version and a report by the Ambassadors of Beulah to the Council of Gods. Night II tells of Albion "Turning his Eyes outward to Self. losing the Divine Vision." Ahania, in Night III, recounts her Memory and her Vision of the events of the fall. In Night IV Tharmas and the Spectre of Urthona discuss their recollections in which it was Urizen and Luvah who initiated the fall. The fall deepens in Night V when Enitharmon gives birth to Orc and Urizen laments instigating the fall. Night VII has Orc recalling that he, as Luvah, confronted Urizen and brought about the fall.

"I well remember how I stole thy light & it became fire

Consuming. Thou Knowst me now O Urizen Prince of Light

And I know thee" Page 80 (E 356)

In Night IX is a reference to the rock on which Albion lies being forsaken when "Urizen gave the horses of Light into the hands of Luvah."

More detail of these accounts is given in Appendix B of Blake's Four Zoas: The design of a Dream by Brian Wilkie and Mary Lynn Johnson. 

Four Zoas, Night IV, Page 49, (E 333)

"The Spectre of Urthona seeing Enitharmon writhd 
His cloudy form in jealous fear & muttering thunders hoarse      
And casting round thick glooms. thus utterd his fierce pangs of heart 

 Tharmas I know thee. how are we alterd our beauty decayd
But still I know thee tho in this horrible ruin whelmd
Thou once the mildest son of heaven art now become a Rage
A terror to all living things. think not that I am ignorant
That thou art risen from the dead or that my power forgot

PAGE 50 (Page 333)
I slumber here in weak repose. I well remember the Day
The day of terror & abhorrence                            
When fleeing from the battle thou fleeting like the raven
Of dawn outstretching an expanse where neer expanse had been
Drewst all the Sons of Beulah into thy dread vortex following  
Thy Eddying spirit down the hills of Beulah. All my sons
Stood round me at the anvil where new heated the wedge
Of iron glowd furious prepard for spades & mattocks
Hearing the symphonies of war loud sounding   All my sons
Fled from my side then pangs smote me unknown before. I saw      
My loins begin to break forth into veiny pipes & writhe  
Before me in the wind englobing trembling with strong vibrations
The bloody mass began to animate. I bending over
Wept bitter tears incessant. Still beholding how the piteous form
Dividing & dividing from my loins a weak & piteous               
Soft cloud of snow a female pale & weak I soft embracd
My counter part & calld it Love   I named her Enitharmon
But found myself & her together issuing down the tide
Which now our rivers were become delving thro caverns huge
Of goary blood struggling to be deliverd from our bonds        
She strove in vain not so Urthona strove for breaking forth,
A shadow blue obscure & dismal from the breathing Nostrils

Of Enion I issued into the air divided from Enitharmon
I howld in sorrow   I beheld thee rotting upon the Rocks
I pitying hoverd over thee I protected thy ghastly corse         
From Vultures of the deep then wherefore shouldst thou rage
Against me who thee guarded in the night of death from harm

Tharmas replied. Art thou Urthona My friend my old companion,
With whom I livd in happiness before that deadly night
When Urizen gave the horses of Light into the hands of Luvah     
Thou knowest not what Tharmas knows. O I could tell thee tales
That would enrage thee as it has Enraged me even
From Death in wrath & fury. But now come bear back
Thy loved Enitharmon. For thou hast her here before thine Eyes
PAGE 51 (E 334)
But my sweet Enion is vanishd & I never more
Shall see her unless thou O Shadow. wilt protect this Son
Of Enion & him assist. to bind the fallen King
Lest he should rise again from death in all his dreary power   
Bind him, take Enitharmon for thy sweet reward while I           
In vain am driven on false hope. hope sister of despair

Groaning the terror rose & drave his solid rocks before        
Upon the tide till underneath the feet of Los a World
Dark dreadful rose & Enitharmon lay at Los's feet
The dolorous shadow joyd. weak hope appeard around his head      

Tharmas before Los stood & thus the Voice of Tharmas rolld

Now all comes into the power of Tharmas. Urizen is falln
And Luvah hidden in the Elemental forms of Life & Death
Urthona is My Son O Los thou art Urthona & Tharmas
Is God. The Eternal Man is seald never to be deliverd            
I roll my floods over his body my billows & waves pass over him
The Sea encompasses him & monsters of the deep are his companions
Dreamer of furious oceans cold sleeper of weeds & shells
Thy Eternal form shall never renew my uncertain prevails against thee
Yet tho I rage God over all. A portion of my Life                
That in Eternal fields in comfort wanderd with my flocks 
At noon & laid her head upon my wearied bosom at night
She is divided   She is vanishd even like Luvah & Vala     
O why did foul ambition sieze thee Urizen Prince of Light  
And thee O Luvah prince of Love till Tharmas was divided         
And I what can I now behold but an Eternal Death
Before my Eyes & an Eternal weary work to strive
Against the monstrous forms that breed among my silent waves
Is this to be A God far rather would I be a Man
To know sweet Science & to do with simple companions             
Sitting beneath a tent & viewing sheepfolds & soft pastures
Take thou the hammer of Urthona rebuild these furnaces
Dost thou refuse   mind I the sparks that issue from thy hair
PAGE 52 (E 335)
I will compell thee to rebuild by these my furious waves
Death choose or life thou strugglest in my waters, now choose life

Page 54, (E 336)

Restless the immortal inchaind heaving dolorous
Anguished unbearable till a roof shaggy wild inclosd
In an orb his fountain of thought                                
In a horrible dreamful slumber like the linked chain
A vast spine writhd in torment upon the wind
Shooting paind. ribbs like a bending Cavern
And bones of solidness froze over all his nerves of joy
A first age passed. a state of dismal woe 

Page 55, (E 338)

At length in tears & cries imbodied
A female form trembling and pale Waves before his deathy face"

Four Zoas, Page 65, Night V, (E 344)

"Thy pure feet stepd on the steps divine. too pure for other feet
And thy fair locks shadowd thine eyes from the divine effulgence
Then thou didst keep with Strong Urthona the living gates of heaven
But now thou art bound down with him even to the gates of hell

Because thou gavest Urizen the wine of the Almighty             
For steeds of Light that they might run in thy golden chariot of pride
I gave to thee the Steeds   I pourd the stolen wine
And drunken with the immortal draught fell from my throne sublime

I will arise Explore these dens & find that deep pulsation
That shakes my caverns with strong shudders. perhaps this is the night
Of Prophecy & Luvah hath burst his way from Enitharmon
When Thought is closd in Caves. Then love shall shew its root in

deepest Hell

End of the Fifth Night"

Blake Archive
Original in British Library
Four Zoas Manuscript, Night V
Page 65

Night VI, (E345)

"may curse Tharmas their God & Los his adopted son
That they may curse & worship the obscure Demon of destruction   
That they may worship terrors & obey the violent
Go forth sons of my curse   Go forth daughters of my abhorrence"

Night VI, (E 346)

"For death to me is better far than life. death my desire
That I in vain in various paths have sought but still I live     
The Body of Man is given to me I seek in vain to destroy
For still it surges forth in fish & monsters of the deeps
And in these monstrous forms I Live in an Eternal woe
And thou O Urizen art falln never to be deliverd
Withhold thy light from me for ever & I will withhold            
From thee thy food so shall we cease to be & all our sorrows
End & the Eternal Man no more renew beneath our power" 

ROMANTIC POETRY

Victoria and Albert Museum

Fall of Man

The Visionary Company, Harold Bloom

Bloom began his book on English Romantic Poetry with a chapter on the background which formed its basis. The historic circumstances during which Romantic Poetry was written influenced the six men who are acknowledged as the major poets of the Romantic period: Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. This was the historic period dominated by the spirit of revolution including the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. 

During the Romantic period England was undergoing a change from a agrarian society to one dominated by an industrial working class. There was concern among our poets for the misery generated by economic and social disruption. However Bloom atributes religious dissent, a common characteric of the six poets, to be a more important aspect which they held in common.  Although each espressed his religious beliefs distinctively, they all were from the protestant nonconformist milieu. Each expressed in his poetry his "autonomous soul seeking its own salvation outside of and beyond the hierarchy of grace." (Page xviii)

Bloom points out that the Romantic interest in Creating and in Imagination are two of its distinguishing characteristics. Creating which had been associated primarily with the activity of God was extended to the activity of man in bringing forth means of expressing truth in poetry. The concept of the Imagination, which was routinely correlated with madness, became a means of trancending the restrictions of self-imposed constraints.

The Romantic period was innovative. It broke away from a time of tradition, orthodoxy, conformity. Its poetry was the expression of new ways of thinking, feeling, relating and believing. The diversity within the group of poets themselves was a clear indication that each perceived the world from the depths of his individual psyche.      

As Bloom states "the Romantic assertion is not just an assertion; it is a metaphysic, a theory of history, and much more important than either of these, it is what all the Romantics - but Blake in particular - called a vision, a way of seeing, and of living a more human life." Page xxiii

Blake's Comments on the Poetry of William Wordsworth

Miscellaneous Prose, (E 698)

[Blake's Autograph in the Album of William Upcott]

"WILLIAM BLAKE one who is very much delighted with being in good Company Born 28 Novr 1757 in London & has died several times since January 16 1826 The above was written & the drawing annexed by the desire of Mr Leigh how far it is an Autograph is a Question I do not think an Artist can write an Autograph especially one who has Studied in the Florentine & Roman Schools as such an one will Consider what he is doing but an Autograph as I understand it, is Writ helter skelter like a hog upon a rope or a Man who walks without Considering whether he shall run against a Post or a House or a Horse or a Man & I am apt to believe that what is done without meaning is very different from that which a Man Does with his Thought & Mind & ought not to be Calld by the Same Name. I consider the Autograph of Mr Cruikshank which very justly stands first in the Book & that Beautiful Specimen of Writing by Mr Comfield & my own; as standing [in] the same Predicament they are in some measure Works of Art & not of Nature or Chance Heaven born the Soul a Heavenward Course must hold For what delights the Sense is False & Weak Beyond the Visible World she soars to Seek Ideal Form, The Universal Mold Michael Angelo. Sonnet as Translated by Mr Wordsworth

Annotations to Wordsworth, PREFACE [PAGE viii] (E 665)

WORDSWORTH: "The powers requisite for the production of
poetry are, first, those of observation and description. . . .
whether the things depicted be actually present to the senses, or
have a place only in the memory. . . . 2dly, Sensibility, . . ."

BLAKE: "One Power alone makes a Poet.-Imagination The Divine Vision" 

Annotations to Wordsworth, PREFACE, Page 43, (E 665) 

WORDSWORTH: To H. C. Six Years Old

BLAKE:  "This is all in the highest degree Imaginative & equal to any
Poet but not Superior   I cannot think that Real Poets have any
competition   None are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven it is so
in Poetry"  

Annotations to Wordsworth, PREFACE, Page 44, (E 665) 

 "Natural Objects always did & now do Weaken deaden &
obliterate Imagination in Me   Wordsworth must know that what he
Writes Valuable is Not to be found in Nature   Read Michael Angelos
Sonnet vol 2 p. 179 

Michaelangelo
"No mortal object did these eyes behold
When first they met the placid light of thine,And my Soul felt her destiny divine,And hope of endless peace in me grew bold:Heaven-born, the Soul a heavenward course must hold;Beyond the visible world she soars to seek(For what delights the sense is false and weak)Ideal Form, the universal mould.The wise man, I affirm, can find no restIn that which perishes: nor will he lendHis heart to aught which doth on time depend.'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love.That kills the soul: love betters what is best,Even here below, but more in heaven above."

Annotations to Wordsworth's  POEMS, Page 375, (E 666)

"It appears to me as if the last Paragraph beginning With "Is
it the result" Was writ by another hand & mind from the rest of
these Prefaces.  Perhaps they are the opinions of Sr G Beaumont a
Landscape Painter   Imagination is the Divine Vision not of The
World nor of Man nor from Man as he is a Natural Man but only as
he is a Spiritual Man  Imagination has nothing to do with Memory"

Textural Notes (BY David V. Erdman for Pages 659-666) (E 887)
Annotations to Volume 1 of Poems including Lyrical Ballads...By William Wordsworth
"PAGE 375 opinions of . . . a Landscape Painter] The
'Landscape Painter' comes out in Wordsworth's contempt for poetry
that 'does not contain a single new image of external nature' or
evidence 'that the eye of the Poet had been steadily fixed upon
his object' (paragraph 20) as well as in his faulting Macpherson
for using imagery inappropriate to the actual 'Morven before his
eyes' (p 364).  The Preface, from p I on, assumes 'memory' to be
the supplier of 'materials' for the production of poetry."

Life of Forgiveness

Yale Center for British Art

Edward Young's Night Thoughts

Night IV, page 12, Object 121

Larry Clayton's Blake Primer - God

iv

But the fourth feature of Jesus came into Blake's consciousness as a new experience. It came from Beyond. That is to say it was not an inward expression of Blake's psyche; it came like the Son of God who had joined the three friends in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. It wasn't something he thought of; it was something that happened to him.

It was the experience of forgiveness and self-annihilation, which are two sides of the same coin. No one forgives until he has found the grace to annihilate at least momentarily the law bound accusing spectre which is his Selfhood. And this is only possible as an act of the Imagination, which is eternal, which is Christ. Whenever you successfully annihilate your old self to the point of truly forgiving another, the eternal Christ is alive and at work in your soul. In fact it is he who does it. He is in you, and you are in him; that's eternal life.

Reduced to its barest essential that's what Jesus finally came to mean for Blake. The only unique thing about the man of Nazareth was that he taught forgiveness of one's enemies. In this sense he incarnated God. God is love, is forgiveness. "If Morality was Christianity, Socrates was the Saviour." Unlike Socrates Jesus was a man in whom God dwelt through his vision and his acts of forgiveness.

The significance of the resurrection lies in the coming to life of Forgiveness: Jesus, in you and me. In this way we defeat death.

The Everlasting Gospel, (E 874)

"Nine widely scattered entries in Blake's Notebook (in the British Library) and three sections in a separate scrap of paper (in the Rosenbach Foundation library) have long been recognized as parts of a single but unfinished (or perhaps only unedited) poem."

Textural notes for Everlasting Gospel; (E 875)

"There is not one Moral Virtue that Jesus Inculcated but Plato & Cicero did Inculcate before him what then did Christ Inculcate. Forgiveness of Sins This alone is the Gospel & this is the Life & Immortality brought to light by Jesus. Even the Covenant of Jehovah, which is This If you forgive one another your Trespasses so shall Jehovah forgive you That he himself may dwell among you but if you Avenge you Murder the Divine Image & he cannot dwell among you because you Murder him he arises Again & you deny that he is Arisen & are blind to Spirit PAGE 2 What can this Gospel of Jesus be What Life Immortality What was it that he brought to Light That Plato & Cicero did not write

The Heathen Deities wrote them all These Moral Virtues great & small What is the Accusation of Sin But Moral Virtues deadly Gin"

PAGE 3 It was when Jesus said to Me Thy Sins are all forgiven thee The Christian trumpets loud proclaim Thro all the World in Jesus name Mutual forgiveness of each Vice And oped the Gates of Paradise The Moral Virtues in Great fear Formed the Cross & Nails & Spear And the Accuser standing by Cried out Crucify Crucify Our Moral Virtues neer can be Nor Warlike pomp & Majesty For Moral Virtues all begin In the Accusations of Sin"

Auguries of Innocence, (E 495)

"God appears, and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night,
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day."

The Divine Vision represented the radiance of the spiritual realm in its ascendance over the material. In the Christian world its primary appearance, of course, is Jesus.

Blake's Search

First posted April 2019

Wikipedia Commons
Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts
 Page 75

This is an extract (2) from Chapter Five (GOD) of Ram Horn'd With Gold by Larry Clayton.

A Political God 

        "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Romans 2:24)
  
         From the beginning Blake realized the close and intimate relationship between a person's image of God and his political views. The authoritarian image in some form finds favor with establishment types, authority figures and all others who perceive their welfare as dependent upon the status quo. These people feel threatened by unrest in the social levels below their own; they look to God, their primary symbol of authority, to control it. They impose this vision of God upon society, and they use their power to control and discourage alternative visions.

       Liberal types in contrast more likely entertain an image of a benevolent God, a God of mercy whose basic activity is not to control the lower classes but to lift them up, nurture the needy, provide for the poor, and protect them from the rapacious powerful.

        Blake found both types of men among the authors of the Bible; they project the two basic images of God side by side. His simplified schema of interpretation assigned to the two types the designations of priest and prophet. The priest upholds the authority of the past, the authority of tradition. The prophet sees a burning bush and hears a new word which judges the authority and tradition of the priest and invokes a new scene, new ideas, new forms, new life.

        Rather obviously Jesus belonged to the prophetic type. He had as a fundamental aim raising our consciousness of the benevolence of God. He incarnated God, and he was supremely benevolent to all but the priestly party. They suppressed him in the flesh, and in his resurrected body they have always attempted to remake him in their image. As he warned, they have used his name to control, suppress, and even exterminate large numbers of people who would not do as they were told. Blake's real mission in life, both before and after his Moment of Grace, was to rescue the world's image of God from the preemption of the priestly party.

        The conventional understanding of God is that he will get you and put you in a dark hot place forever if you don't do exactly as you are told, by his priest of course. In 1741, sixteen years before Blake's birth, a New England divine named Jonathan Edwards wrote and delivered a sermon which he named, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"; historians tell us that it scared literally thousands of people into the Christian church. A similar vision of God has haunted multitudes before and after Blake even down to the present day. Besides the superstitious fear it has aroused, this understanding of God has contributed to oceans of blood shed by well meaning Christians through the ages.

        Relating this conventional understanding to one of Blake's earliest experiences, his brief career in school yields a distinctive image of God as a Transcendental Schoolmaster. As soon as Blake reached the age of reason, he rejected such a God as radically and uniquivocally as he had rejected the flesh and blood schoolmaster . He saw such an image of God standing at the apex of a pyramid of human unhappiness, of exploitation, oppression, misery and hatred. He saw the divine right of kings and all those who derive their authority from the Crown. He saw their lackey priests extorting tithes from the people, collected by the 18th century equivalent of the IRS, and often giving little in return.

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 36, (E 325)
"It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements 
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan 
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast 
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house 
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children 
While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers 
Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill 
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field 
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead 
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity 
Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!"

       He saw the emerging divine right of industrialists to work seven year old children fourteen hours a day at hard labor and reward them with a pittance. This image of God was most horrendously embodied in the judges and executioners who disposed of the child criminals. He saw the press gangs with royal authority to capture and drug anyone lacking upper class credentials; their poor victims woke up aboard ship in a state of virtual slavery, and following the brave Roman tradition they learned to fear their officers more than the enemy. Blake felt an intense mystic union with the suffering masses and even the suffering masters: he knew that a prison officer has to be just as sick as the men he guards.

       All these social programs were devised to teach poor devils to do what they were told, and behind them all stood the grim Transcendental Schoolmaster with the god sized birch rod. How could a self respecting person with any human sensitivity be other than an atheist! But Blake was never an atheist. Somehow he had to come to terms with God. If the above were a true representation of God, then he would rebel against God with his last breath. The young Blake identified with Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost: such a God is a sneaking serpent, and Blake would spend his life as the just man raging in the wilds. Schizophrenia might be the normal reaction to certain social conditions. 

         The August Schoolmaster exists to enforce good and to prohibit or punish evil. The trouble with good and evil is that in this fallen world they are always defined by the man with the biggest stick. He of course sees himself as the likeness of God, God's earthly representative. So the most oppressive tyrant, the most colossal mass murderer, the most authentic Caesar becomes the Son of Heaven. The list is long and gruesome, and Blake knew his history.

Visions of Daughters of Albion, Plate 4, (E 48)
"Then Oothoon waited silent all the day. and all the night,

Plate 5
But when the morn arose, her lamentation renewd,
The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, & eccho back her sighs. 

O Urizen! Creator of men! Mistaken Demon of heaven:
Thy joys are tears! thy labour vain, to form men to thine image.
How can one joy absorb another? are not different joys  

Holy, eternal, infinite! and each joy is a Love.  

Does not the great mouth laugh at a gift? & the narrow eyelids mock
At the labour that is above payment, and wilt thou take the ape
For thy councellor? or the dog, for a schoolmaster to thy children?
Does he who contemns poverty, and he who turns with abhorrence  
From usury: feel the same passion or are they moved alike?
How can the giver of gifts experience the delights of the merchant?
How the industrious citizen the pains of the husbandman.
How different far the fat fed hireling with hollow drum;
Who buys whole corn fields into wastes, and sings upon the heath:
How different their eye and ear! how different the world to them!"

        Although he wouldn't dream of worshiping such a deity, Blake had no hesitancy about calling him God; he simply refused to call him a good God. Wide reading in Oriental, Greek, and Norse mythology had led him to an acquaintance with any number of malevolent gods. In his poetry he used these pagan images to flesh out the God of Wrath whom he found in the Old Testament. For perhaps fifteen years Blake's creative energies were largely expended in a conscious and deliberate overt rebellion against the conventional image of the Old Testament God. During those years he subjected that image to a searching and unique psychological analysis; it fills the pages of the Blake reader.
.

REASON & EMOTION

For some reason this post from July 2010 has gotten more than a thousand hits in the past.

Blake Archive

Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Plate 5

Erdman, in The Illuminated Blake
says: "Phaeton-like, down hurdle a naked man and sword and a horse with saddle cloth and broken chariot wheel...The man's spread hands are braced to hit the ground, but it is already in flames. Reason must have forgotten to let the horse do the pulling; a sword is not a bridle. But Energy must have restraint. Between them they have let the sun fall, connoting universal ruin."

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was written in 1791 when Blake was a young man; he might be called an angry young man.

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 5, (E 34)
"Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs
is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or
reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.
And being restraind it by degrees becomes passive
till it is only the shadow of desire.
The history of this is written in Paradise Lost. & the
Governor or Reason is call'd Messiah.
And the original Archangel or possessor of the com-
mand of the heavenly host, is calld the Devil or Satan
and his children are call'd Sin & Death
But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd
Satan. For this history has been adopted by both parties
It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was
cast out. but the Devils account is, that the Messiah
fell. & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss
This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the
Father to send the comforter or Desire that Reason
may have Ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible
being no other than he, who dwells in flaming fire.
Know that after Christs death, he became Jehovah.
But in Milton; the Father is Destiny, the Son, a
Ratio of the five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!
Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when
he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of
Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and
of the Devils party without knowing it"

Blake was continually striving to free his imagination from constraints. The internal constraints of which he was most aware (excluding the selfhood) were misguided reason and emotion. In Plate 5 of Marriage of Heaven and Hell he expressed the concern that reason would succeed in restraining the emotions to the point that the imagination was bound. Emotion or desire is the source of energy which is required for the creative process.

As a poet, Blake identified with Milton whose Paradise Lost was of consuming interest to Blake. In this Plate Blake dealt with the poet's work (his own and Milton's), Biblical characters who becomes fictional characters for both the poets, and the abstract ideas of reason and emotion.

Blake became so interested in correcting the misconceptions of his friend (his spiritual, intellectual but not corporeal friend), that he addressed the issue in his poem Milton. Since Milton died 83 years before Blake was born, this was a friendship on the level of Eternity; time was not of the essence.

The crux of Milton's error in Blake's system is stated concisely as:
"But in Milton; the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the
five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!"

In Blake the Father is the Divine Humanity, in whose Image man is created; the Son is the Divine Vision, God in Man, the Incarnation; and the Holy Spirit is the Divine Body, the Human Imagination, the activity of expressing the Divine.

Or other terms used by Blake:
Father = Urizen = reason
Son = Luvah = emotions
Holy Spirit = Los = intuition or imagination
Unified man = Tharmas = body

THE GRAVE 1

First posted Dec 2017 

In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

John 14:2

Henry Fuseli and William Blake were both 'corporeal' friends and spiritual friends: they enjoyed each others company and shared interests, but they also related with each other through the bond of a common spiritual sensitivity. Fuseli recognized in Blake's watercolor illustrations for Blair's The Grave the implications of what he was trying to communicate of everyman's spiritual journey. To enhance the message that Blake incorporated in his illustrations, Fuseli arranged the pictures in the order appropriate to carry Blake's message.

Fuseli:
"By the arrangement here made, the regular progression
of Man, from his first descent into the Vale of
Death, to his last admission into Life eternal, is
exhibited. These Designs, detached from the
Work they embellish, form of themselves a most
interesting Poem."

I. THE DESCENT OF CHRIST INTO THE GRAVE.
II. THE DESCENT OF MAN INTO THE VALE OF DEATH.
III. DEATH'S DOOR
IV. THE STRONG AND WICKED MAN DYING.
V. THE GOOD OLD MAN DYING.
VI. THE SOUL HOVERING OVER THE BODY.
VII. THE SOUL EXPLORING THE RECESSES OF THE GRAVE.
VIII. THE COUNSELLOR, KING, WARRIOR, MOTHER, AND CHILD.
IX. THE SKELETON RE-ANIMATED.
X. THE RE-UNION OF SOUL
XI. A FAMILY MEETING IN HEAVEN.
XII. THE LAST JUDGMENT.

To Blake the Door of Death marked entry into earthly life. Christ and Man alike enter the door of death to gain experience by living in a physical, mortal body. A man takes on an identity on earth suited to the tasks assigned to him. Although the man may experience himself as a body separated from his soul this is a misapprehension. The soul remains a presence which can be accessed whenever the body is prepared to receive it. In the Vale of Death are many mansions which the man may have occasion to explore as he seeks the truth which will remain when error is annihilated. When the trumpet sounds for a man he receives the transcending vision and his body of flesh is exchanged for a spiritual body suited for Eternity. Man is not alone in the Eternal Realm but reunited with the company of the redeemed in the fellowship of love. Error is annihilated and truth reigns when the Last Judgment separates the Eternal from the transient, the Infinite from restraints of space.

Cromek, the publisher, did not follow the order suggested by Fuseli but used a completely different order in the published book:

1 Title Page - The Grave - A Poem 
2 Christ Descending
3 The Meeting of a Family in Heaven
4 The Counselor, King, Warrior, Mother and Child in the Tomb
5 Death of the Strong Wicked Man
6 The Soul Hovering Over the Body reluctantly parting with Life
7 The Death of The Good Old Man
8 The Descent of Man into the Vale of Death
9 The Day of Judgment
10 The Soul Exploring the Recesses of the Grave
11 Death's Door
12 The Reunion of the Soul & the Body

The arrangement by Cromak follows the more common understanding of Death as the end of Life when the evil man is subject to punishment and the good man is rewarded in heaven by being rejoined by his soul from whom he was alienated on earth.

British Museum

Page 1

Cromak's arrangement

Schiavonetti's Engraving  

Fuseli's arrangement

Blake watercolor