William Blake and His Reader

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 36

First posted by Larry in Nov 2009

Inspired primarily by Blake's Sublime Allegory (Roger
Easson, p. 313) :

In 1800, when he was 33, Blake went to Felpham (on the
sea) under the sponsorship of a wealthy man who pretended
an interest in his welfare (Blake was well nigh starving
about that time).

In his Preface to Jerusalem he spoke of returning from the
sea. He was disillusioned because he had hoped for a
spiritual friend, but found a corporeal one.

"Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies" (in Milton,
4.26; E98 and again in Jerusalem, 44.10; E193)

Blake was disillusioned with the public; they had failed
to show him any interest or respect.

Easson tells us that in Jerusalem the disillusioned poet
attempted to promote a dialogue with his readers (that's
us). With a typical prophetic attitude he expected a
response-- . Prophets don't say things to please their
listeners but to arouse them, provoke them, above all
awaken them. Like Ezekiel Blake had "the desire of
raising other men to a perception of the Infinite"
(MHH13; Erdman 39).

In Jerusalem Blake is deliberately illusive (every Plate
might be thought of as a detective story or a crossword
puzzle). He means us to read it-- and consider! Like his
Vision of Christ in The Everlasting Gospel "he spoke in
parables to the blind".

Blake had been well received by a (very!) few from whom
their "love and friendship" was the highest reward. In
the preface he asks for our love and friendship; it can
only be reached through "the severe contentions of [true!]
friendship."

Blake took the freedom to contend with us, and whether or
to what degree we can respond creatively depends upon us.

Has anyone ever fully understood Blake? Ah! that's the
challenge.

SANITY

Wikipedia Commons

Frontispiece

Songs of Experience

Here is a section of An Interview Conducted with Kathleen Raine on July 12, 1993 by Donald E. Stanford:

interview 

"Stanford: One critic has said recently that Blake was not mad, but he understood and described the mental suffering of madness in a profound way. Do concepts of madness such as schizophrenia, hallucination, and so on have a useful place in Blake criticism and will you comment on the direct question, “was Blake mad?”

 

Raine: No, of course he wasn’t mad. He was a sane man in a mad world, roughly speaking. Great genius has a wider field of consciousness. That is what genius is: seeing rather more than other men do, perhaps being in advance of his time. Certainly the nature of genius is to not accept current opinion, and Blake certainly did not accept current opinion. I don’t think that words like “schizophrenia” and “paranoia” add much to human discussion of whatever these words mean. Blake himself says, “Plato says that poets do not know what they write and utter. In that case, why is a lesser kind to be called knowing?” In other words, a poet is an inspired man. Blake believed in inspiration. This must be especially remembered with Blake, but all poets have believed in inspiration, that in an inspired state there is a widening of the field of consciousness. Yeats describes genius as bringing together at certain moments the waking and the sleeping mind. The available knowledge is greater in states of inspiration. Blake certainly had this. 

 

There is much suffering, as your critic says, in the writings of Blake: the turmoil, the anguish of Jerusalem. But this was not a personal thing; he was talking about the nation. He was a spiritual patriot, and he was speaking of the suffering of the giant Albion, as he calls the English nation. He was a prophet in the sense of the Old Testament prophets in the Jewish Bible, who also were speaking for their nation. They were not speaking of their individual suffering; they were speaking of the national psyche, if you like, into which Blake had certainly a remarkably clear insight. He speaks of living. He says, 'in South Molton Street I see and hear' what is going on in the soul of Albion, which is, of course, the soul of England. In other words, here in South Moulton Street I both see and hear the sufferings of the military, or the war against France that broke out after the French Revolution, of the conscription of soldiers, and the suffering of child labor, the endless sufferings of his people at that time, the hangings of boys at Tyburn for the theft of a yard of cloth, the injustices, the national crimes against which Blake spoke out. You may say these were descriptions of deep, deep suffering, the psychological sufferings of various kinds of mental and physical and spiritual tyrannies in his nation at the time. I wonder what he would have been writing about had he lived now. Certainly many things would have been the same — perhaps not all — but when he writes of London and marking, 'in every face marks of weakness, marks of woe,' he felt the collective suffering: that was the nature of his inspiration. He was not a personal poet expressing himself. He was a national prophet, calling to his nation to awake from their 'deadly sleep,' which is unconsciousness of what is going on, and to awake to the truths of the imagination and to reform many things. This is not madness."

Laocoon, (E 274)

 "There are States in which all Visionary Men are accounted Mad 
   Men   such are Greece & Rome"

 Poetical Sketches, (E 415)

"   MAD SONG.
The wild winds weep,
  And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
  And my griefs infold:   
But lo! the morning peeps          
  Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling birds of dawn 
The earth do scorn.

Lo! to the vault
  Of paved heaven,              
With sorrow fraught
  My notes are driven:
They strike the ear of night,
  Make weep the eyes of day;
They make mad the roaring winds,      
  And with tempests play.

Like a fiend in a cloud
  With howling woe,
After night I do croud,
  And with night will go;         
I turn my back to the east,

From whence comforts have increas'd;
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain."

Annotations to Spurzheim's Observations on Insanity, (E 663) 

 "Cowper came to me & said. O that I
were insane always I will never rest.  Can you not make me truly
insane.  I will never rest till I am so. O that in the bosom of
God I was hid.  You retain health & yet are as mad as any of us
all--over us all--mad as a refuge from unbelief--from Bacon
Newton & Locke"

Letters, to Butts Jany 10 180(3), (E 724) 

"The Thing I
have most at Heart! more than life or all that seems to make life
comfortable without.  Is the Interest of True Religion & Science
& whenever any thing appears to affect that Interest. (Especially
if I myself omit any duty to my [self] <Station> as a
Soldier of Christ) It gives me the greatest of torments, I am not
ashamed afraid or averse to tell You what Ought to be Told.  That
I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven Daily &
Nightly but the nature of such things is not as some suppose.
without trouble or care.  Temptations are on the right hand &
left behind the sea of time & space roars & follows swiftly he
who keeps not right onward is lost & if our footsteps slide in
clay how can we do otherwise than fear & tremble. but I should
not have troubled You with this account of my spiritual state
unless it had been necessary in explaining the actual cause of my
uneasiness into which you are so kind as to Enquire for I never
obtrude such things on others unless questiond & then I never
disguise the truth--But if we fear to do the dictates of our
Angels & tremble at the Tasks set before us. if we refuse to do
Spiritual Acts. because of Natural Fears or Natural Desires!  Who
can describe the dismal torments of such a state!--I too well
remember the Threats I heard!--If you who are organized by Divine
Providence for Spiritual communion.  Refuse & bury your Talent in
the Earth even tho you should want Natural Bread. Sorrow & Desperation 
pursues you thro life! & after death shame & confusion of face to
eternity--Every one in Eternity will leave you aghast at the Man
who was crownd with glory & honour by his brethren & betrayd
their cause to their enemies.  You will be calld the base Judas
who betrayd his Friend!--Such words would make any Stout man
tremble & how then could I be at ease? But I am now no longer in
That State & now go on again with my Task Fearless. and tho my
path is difficult.  I have no fear of stumbling while I keep it" 

Letters, April 25: 1803, To Butts, (E 728)

"Now I may say to you what perhaps I should not dare to say
to any one else.  That I can alone carry on my visionary studies
in London unannoyd & that I may converse with my friends in
Eternity.  See Visions, Dream Dreams, & prophecy & speak Parables
unobserv'd & at liberty from the Doubts of other Mortals. perhaps
Doubts proceeding from Kindness. but Doubts are always pernicious
Especially when we Doubt our Friends Christ is very decided on
this Point.  'He who is Not With Me is Against Me' There is no
Medium or Middle state & if a Man is the Enemy of my Spiritual
Life while he pretends to be the Friend of my Corporeal. he is a
Real Enemy--but the Man may be the friend of my Spiritual Life
while he seems the Enemy of my Corporeal but Not Vice Versa" 

HOPE IS BANISHED

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 47

 

  Dylan's life is one of the strangest odysseys, the details of which are not known to me, and may never be told. Dylan has always been at one level a very private person. Nevertheless the outline of his spiritual journey (up to now) belongs to the public and is sufficiently clear to relate it to the Blakean circle of destiny which we have studied in this book. 

 

In Blake and in Dylan we see two men who "call no man father", who fundamentally reject all forms of outward authority. Each communes with his own spirit, and this communion leads to the same end, to the encounter with Christ the King. The passage of 200 years has obscured the drama in Blake's case, so much so that his secular students almost completely lost sight of it. But Dylan's conversion is too new to be anything less than a collective trauma. His secular fans were sheerly appalled, confronted with a reality which they had systematically ignored. But Dylan's Christian audience by and large have failed to note the significance of the event, largely through the minuteness of their vision. In the history of Christianity it bears comparison to the Damascus Road, or to the strange warming of John Wesley's heart. 

 

Any number of pages could be devoted to relating Blake and Dylan, but one significant point deserves special emphasis: both men spent their pre-Christian decade celebrating fallenness. Hopefully by now the reader will have some grasp of what I mean by Blake's celebration of fallenness. Examples of this motif in Dylan's work are too numerous to do more than sample. Speaking in general the celebration of fallenness is the acme of the prophet's function. He points out to us what's wrong with our society, and he does this with the kind of language designed to raise things forcibly into our consciousness. 

 

Ezekiel had told Blake that his bizarre pantomimes were aimed at "raising other men into a perception of the infinite". Blake became pretty bizarre in his language at times, and so did Dylan, both for the purpose stated by Ezekiel. A review of Dylan's 1965 album, "Highway 61, Revisited", indicates that the denizens of Desolation Row are about as fouled up as any of Blake's giant forms. 

Here's verse 8 of the song of that name:
"Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory ~
Where the heart attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row"

 

Jerusalem, Plate 47, (E 196)

[When Albion utterd his last words Hope is banishd from me]                                                   t
From Camberwell to Highgate where the mighty Thames shudders along,
Where Los's Furnaces stand, where Jerusalem & Vala howl:
Luvah tore forth from Albions Loins, in fibrous veins, in rivers
Of blood over Europe: a Vegetating Root in grinding pain.
Animating the Dragon Temples, soon to become that Holy Fiend
The Wicker Man of Scandinavia in which cruelly consumed
The Captives reard to heaven howl in flames among the stars
Loud the cries of War on the Rhine & Danube, with Albions Sons,
Away from Beulahs hills & vales break forth the Souls of the Dead,   
With cymbal, trumpet, clarion; & the scythed chariots of Britain.

And the Veil of Vala, is composed of the Spectres of the Dead

Hark! the mingling cries of Luvah with the Sons of Albion
Hark! & Record the terrible wonder! that the Punisher
Mingles with his Victims Spectre, enslaved and tormented         
To him whom he has murderd, bound in vengeance & enmity
Shudder not, but Write, & the hand of God will assist you!
Therefore I write Albions last words. Hope is banish'd from me."

MORAVIAN MOTHER 5

Wikipedia Commons
Joseph of Arimathea preaching to the inhabitants of Britain

 

 Luke 24 (Phillips Translation) 

45-47 - Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures, and added, "That is how it was written, and that is why it was inevitable that Christ should suffer, and rise from the dead on the third day. So must the change of heart which leads to the forgiveness of sins be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem."

---

Blake's mother was surely aware of the missionary activities of the Moravians who aimed to bring the Gospel to people in far flung locations. They experienced the joy and satisfaction of living in community under the guidance of the spirit and wanted to share it.

"They sent out the first missionaries when there were only 300 inhabitants in Herrnhut. Within 30 years, the church sent hundreds of Christian missionaries to many parts of the world, including the Caribbean, North and South America , the Arctic, Africa, and the Far East."

Arthur Freeman wrote this for the Center for Moravian Studies:

"A third mark of the Gemeine was mission. Christ had given his church a mission. Each one of the Gospels concludes with some equivalent of a commissioning of his disciples. In John Jesus sends his disciples as his Father had sent him (e.g. John 17:18). Both the life and activity of the Gemeine carry out this mission.Its life expresses the very relationship which Christ calls the church to facilitate for others and which gives those exploring the Gospel an experiential referent. In I John 1:3 others were invited into the fellowship with the Father and the Son which constitutes the life and fellowship of the community.

Hence for Moravians a crucial step in mission was always the planting of a Gemeine where the life with Christ was lived out and could be experienced by others. The mission as action was going where Christ would have the Gemeine go, keeping in mind that mission and evangelism was God’s business. One had to discern, follow, and participate in what God was doing. What then began as preaching excursions into areas surrounding Herrnhut, following the spiritual experience of 1727, in a few years brought Moravians to the West Indies and North America and then to many other parts of the world to “win souls for the Lamb.” Within ten years Moravians had gone also to Greenland, Surinam, South Africa, the Gold Coast, Algeria, Arctic Russia, and Ceylon."

---

From the beginning to the end of his career Blake saw that the nations of the world were one people joined by one spirit which spoke to all according to their various means of reception. Albion was Blake's symbol for undivided mankind. All nations were contained and expressed by Albion or by the 'Poetic Genius' as stated in Blake's earliest Illuminated Book. 

ALL RELIGIONS are ONE (E 1)

"PRINCIPLE. 5. The Religions of all Nations are derived from
each Nations different reception of the Poetic Genius which is
every where call'd the Spirit of Prophecy."

Blake's prophetic message was taken from the book of Numbers and quoted on the first plate of Milton. Damon tells us that prophets do not predict the future but reveal Eternal Truths. To spread such truth to all nations Blake accepted as his mission 'awaking to Eternal Life' all those who sleep in the 'land of shadows.'

Milton, Plate 1, (E 95)

 "I will not cease from Mental Fight,
     Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
     Till we have built Jerusalem,                     
     In Englands green & pleasant Land.

Would to God that all the Lords people were Prophets.
                                        Numbers XI. ch 29 v."

Jerusalem, Plate 4, (E 146)
"Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.

This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev'ry morn
Awakes me at sun-rise, then I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the words of this mild song.  

Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!
I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:"

Blake is specific in naming nations to make it clear that Albion is inclusive and that his prophetic words are appropriate for everyone, everywhere.

Milton, Plate 31 [34],(E130)
"And all Nations wept in affliction Family by Family
Germany wept towards France & Italy: England wept & trembled
Towards America: India rose up from his golden bed:
As one awakend in the night: they saw the Lord coming            
In the Clouds of Ololon with Power & Great Glory!"

Jerusalem, Plate 24, (E 170)
"Thy Sons came to Jerusalem with gifts, she sent them away
With blessings on their hands & on their feet, blessings of gold,
And pearl & diamond: thy Daughters sang in her Courts:           
They came up to Jerusalem; they walked before Albion
In the Exchanges of London every Nation walkd
And London walkd in every Nation mutual in love & harmony
Albion coverd the whole Earth, England encompassd the Nations,
Mutual each within others bosom in Visions of Regeneration;      
Jerusalem coverd the Atlantic Mountains & the Erythrean,
From bright Japan & China to Hesperia France & England.
Mount Zion lifted his head in every Nation under heaven:
And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the whole Earth:
The footsteps of the Lamb of God were there: but now no more     
No more shall I behold him, he is closd in Luvahs Sepulcher."

Jerusalem, Plate 72, (E 227)
"These are the Land of Erin

All these Center in London & in Golgonooza. from whence
They are Created continually East & West & North & South
And from them are Created all the Nations of the Earth           
Europe & Asia & Africa & America, in fury Fourfold! 

[Legend on image] 

Continually Building. Continually Decaying because of
Love & Jealousy

And Thirty-two the Nations: to dwell in Jerusalems Gates
O Come ye Nations Come ye People Come up to Jerusalem
Return Jerusalem & dwell together as of old! Return
Return! O Albion let Jerusalem overspread all Nations            
As in the times of old! O Albion awake! Reuben wanders
The Nations wait for Jerusalem. they look up for the Bride

France Spain Italy Germany Poland Russia Sweden Turkey
Arabia Palestine Persia Hindostan China Tartary Siberia
Egypt Lybia Ethiopia Guinea Caffraria Negroland Morocco          
Congo Zaara Canada Greenland Carolina Mexico
Peru Patagonia Amazonia Brazil. Thirty-two Nations
And under these Thirty-two Classes of Islands in the Ocean
All the Nations Peoples & Tongues throughout all the Earth

And the Four Gates of Los surround the Universe Within and       
Without; & whatever is visible in the Vegetable Earth, the same
Is visible in the Mundane Shell; reversd in mountain & vale"

Jerusalem, Plate 97, (E 256)
"Awake! Awake Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion
Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient Time
For lo! the Night of Death is past and the Eternal Day
Appears upon our Hills: Awake Jerusalem, and come away

So spake the Vision of Albion & in him so spake in my hearing   
The Universal Father. Then Albion stretchd his hand into Infinitude."

Inscriptions, (E 671)                  
     "Albion rose from where he labourd at the Mill with Slaves
     Giving himself for the Nations he danc'd the dance of Eternal Death"

---

Revelation 22

[1] And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
[2] In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
[3] And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:
[4] And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads.
[5] And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

BLAKE IN 1820

Wikipedia Commons
Mrs Q
1820

Description from British Museum:

"Mrs.Q is probably the best known decorative print executed by William Blake, primarily due to the large number of facsimile reproduction impressions which were printed of this image in 1806. William Blake’s engraving is based upon a portrait by Francois Huet Villiers. The subject of Mrs.Q is Harriet Quentin, the wife of colonel Quentin and mistress to George IV when Prince Regent. The view in the background is thought to be the Thames at Eton, with the college chapel beyond. The miniature portraitist Villiers had died in 1813, thus this portrait must have had been drawn or painted at least seven years prior to the publication of this plate."

Blake was dependent on commercial engraving for earning a living. There was too little market for his output of creative books to sustain him economically. In 1821 he and Catherine moved to smaller and cheaper flat and he was forced to sell his collection of prints which he had been accumulating since his childhood.

A welcome source of income was the commission in 1820 to engrave a painting which had been created by a popular court painter Francois Villers-Huet. The subject of the portrait was Mrs Q, Harriet Quentin, who had been mistress of George IV when he was Prince Regent. The painter had died seven years previously and George IV had ascended to the throne in 1820 on his father's death.

The publication and circulation of this print was part of the campaign of radical dissent focused on the new king because of his reputation for extravagance and dissolution.

From The Stranger from Paradise: A biography of William Blake By G. E. Bentley Jr:
"One of the ways to plague the Prince Regent was to publicize his infidelities. Another of his mistresses was Mrs Harriet Quentin, often referred to as 'Mrs Q'. The radical print-seller Isaac Barrow commissioned Blake to engrave a portrait by H Villiers of the pretty Mrs Q, and his print was published on 1 June 1820 at the height of the agitation concerning Caroline' attempts (vain, as it turned out) to attend the coronation and assume her title as Queen. Blake was on the fringe of the sensational event and acting as the agent of a notoriously radical print-seller." (Page 365)

In Blake, Politics, and History, edited by Jackie DiSalvo, G. A. Rosso, Christopher Z. Hobson we read:

"While Blake has often been pictured as mellowing as he grew older, the context of his Mrs Q plate suggests that the sixty-two year old artist was caught up, willy-nilly, in the latest phase of English radical activism." 

Jerusalem, Plate 9, (E 152) 
"His hammer of gold he siezd; and his anvil of adamant.

He siez'd the bars of condens'd thoughts, to forge them:
Into the sword of war: into the bow and arrow:                   
Into the thundering cannon and into the murdering gun
I saw the limbs form'd for exercise, contemn'd: & the beauty of
Eternity, look'd upon as deformity & loveliness as a dry tree:
I saw disease forming a Body of Death around the Lamb
Of God, to destroy Jerusalem, & to devour the body of Albion     
By war and stratagem to win the labour of the husbandman:
Awkwardness arm'd in steel: folly in a helmet of gold:
Weakness with horns & talons: ignorance with a rav'ning beak!
Every Emanative joy forbidden as a Crime:
And the Emanations buried alive in the earth with pomp of religion:          
Inspiration deny'd; Genius forbidden by laws of punishment:
I saw terrified; I took the sighs & tears, & bitter groans:
I lifted them into my Furnaces; to form the spiritual sword.
That lays open the hidden heart: I drew forth the pang
Of sorrow red hot: I workd it on my resolute anvil:              
I heated it in the flames of Hand, & Hyle, & Coban
Nine times; Gwendolen & Cambel & Gwineverra
Are melted into the gold, the silver, the liquid ruby,
The crysolite, the topaz, the jacinth, & every precious stone,
Loud roar my Furnaces and loud my hammer is heard:               
I labour day and night, I behold the soft affections
Condense beneath my hammer into forms of cruelty
But still I labour in hope, tho' still my tears flow down.
That he who will not defend Truth, may be compelld to defend
A Lie: that he may be snared and caught and snared and taken     
That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: arise Spectre arise!"

  

Isaiah in Blake

First posted May 2010.

In 1905 a man named John Sampson published The Poetical Works of William Blake, said to be the first complete edition. Blake commentary and criticism took off at that point.

In ca 1920 S. Foster Damon came forth with William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols, a rare book nowadays. On Page 316 he stated that Plate 2 of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was written in light of Isaiah 35. It echoes the 35th chapter of Isaiah. The "way of holiness" is what Blake called the perilous path. 

Here's Plate 2 of MHH. 

  " THE MARRIAGE of HEAVEN and HELL                   

PLATE 2

             The Argument.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep

Once meek, and in a perilous path,
The just man kept his course along 
The vale of death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow.
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.

Then the perilous path was planted:
And a river, and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth.

Till the villain left the paths of ease,
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.

Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility.
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.

Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burdend air;
Hungry clouds swag on the deep."

(E 33)  

This gave me a sudden enlightenment when I realized that Blake here was giving a critique of Isaiah 35 and following chapters. Immediately after the "way of holiness" Isaiah gives the ominous warning of Sennacherib, leading to King Hezekiah's famous verse: "not in my time, Lord." 

Isaiah 35

[1] The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.
[2] It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.
[3] Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.
[4] Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.
[5] Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
[6] Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.
[7] And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
[8] And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.
[9] No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:
[10] And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah 37
[31] And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward:
[32] For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of hosts shall do this.
[33] Therefore thus saith the LORD concerning the king of Assyria, He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it.
[34] By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the LORD.
[35] For I will defend this city to save it for mine own sake, and for my servant David's sake.
[36] Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
[37] So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.
[38] And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Armenia: and Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.

In MHH Blake is commenting on not just chapter 35, but Sennacherib, Hezekiah, etc. The perilous path, beautified by the just man, has been corrupted by the greedy, driving the just man back into the wilderness. That was Blake's take of this part of Isaiah, and a pretty good take on Blake's day and our day as well.

Of course if you've read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, you recall that Blake reported a vision in which he dined with and interviewed Isaiah and Ezekiel. Go to plates 12 and 13.
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BLAKE & DANIEL

Wikimedia Commons
Michelangelo
Sistine Chapel - Daniel

There are several dramatic stories in Book of Daniel with which Blake was thoroughly familiar. Blake's well known figure of Nebuchadnezzar is his representation of the powerful king who was reduced to the condition of a beast until he developed awareness. Daniel's accounts of the three prophets who were consigned to the furnace being accompanied by 'the son of man' influenced Blake's poignant accounts of characters being thrown into the furnaces of affliction to be made whole. The image of the man with legs of iron, loins of brass, breast of silver and head of gold was equally influential on Blake. But in his portrait of Daniel, Blake did not refer to these incidents but to the representation of Daniel among the prophets painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

British Museum
Daniel
Copy after Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling

To Blake, Daniel was a true prophet: a man who dreamed dreams and saw visions; a man who could discern truth which was hidden from others. Both Blake and Daniel conveyed the truth which was given to them according to their individual abilities, but always with the caveat that they could only reveal what their audience was able to receive.   

Daniel 7
[25] And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
[26] But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end.
[27] And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.
[28] Hitherto is the end of the matter. As for me Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, and my countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 543)
 "The antiquities of every Nation Under Heaven, is no less
sacred than that of the Jews.  They are the same thing as Jacob
Bryant, [P 44] and all antiquaries have proved.  How other
antiquities came to be neglected and disbelieved, while those of
the Jews are collected and arranged, is an enquiry, worthy of
both the Antiquarian and the Divine.  All had originally one
language, and one religion, this was the religion of Jesus, the
everlasting Gospel.  Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus.  The
reasoning historian, turner and twister of causes and
consequences, such as Hume, Gibbon and Voltaire; cannot with all
their artifice, turn or twist one fact or disarrange self evident
action and reality.  Reasons and opinions concerning acts, are not
history.  Acts themselves alone are history, and these are
neither the exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon nor Voltaire,
Echard, Rapin, Plutarch, nor Herodotus.  Tell me the Acts, O
historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away
with your reasoning and your rubbish.  All that is not action is
not [P 45] worth reading.  Tell me the What; I do not want you to
tell me the Why, and the How; I can find that out myself, as well
as you can, and I will not be fooled by you into opinions, that
you please to impose, to disbelieve what you think improbable or
impossible.  His opinions, who does not see spiritual agency, is
not worth any man's reading; he who rejects a fact because it is
improbable, must reject all History and retain doubts only."

CHARIOT OF FIRE

The familiar lines of Blake's best known poem continue to yield stimulation to our imaginations.

Milton Plate 1,(E 95)
     "Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
     Bring me my Arrows of desire:                     
     Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
     Bring me my Chariot of fire!

     I will not cease from Mental Fight,
     Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
     Till we have built Jerusalem,                     
     In Englands green & pleasant Land."

Focusing on 'my Chariot of fire' we can have a look at Blake's use of the term in another context.

Vision of the Last Judgment, (E 560)
 "If the Spectator could Enter into these Images in his
Imagination approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his
Contemplative Thought if he could Enter into Noahs Rainbow or
into his bosom or could make a Friend & Companion of one of these
Images of wonder which always intreats him to leave mortal things
as he must know then would he arise from his Grave then would he
meet the Lord in the Air & then he would be happy   General
Knowledge is Remote Knowledge it is in Particulars that Wisdom
consists & Happiness too.  Both in Art & in Life General Masses
are as Much Art as a Pasteboard Man is Human Every Man has Eyes
Nose & Mouth this Every Idiot knows but he who enters into &
discriminates most minutely the Manners & Intentions [P 83] the
[Expression] Characters in all their branches is the
alone Wise or Sensible Man & on this discrimination All Art is
founded.  I intreat then that the Spectator will attend to the
Hands & Feet to the Lineaments of the Countenances they are all 
descriptive of Character & not a line is drawn without intention
& that most discriminate & particular  much less an
Insignificant Blur or Mark> 
...
    By the side of Seth is Elijah he comprehends all the
Prophetic Characters he is seen on his fiery Chariot bowing
before the throne of the Saviour." 

Blake has derived his image of the chariot of fire from the character of Elijah in the Old Testament. Blake considers Elijah to be the prophet who best represents the prophetic character. The prophets acted as intermediaries between God and man. Through their intuitive visionary connection, the word of God was perceived through contemplation. The imagination of Blake was inspired by the account in the book of Second Kings of Elijah ascending to heaven in the whirlwind riding his chariot of fire.

2nd Kings 2
[7] Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went, and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan.
[8] Then Eli'jah took his mantle, and rolled it up, and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground.
[9] When they had crossed, Eli'jah said to Eli'sha, "Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you." And Eli'sha said, "I pray you, let me inherit a double share of your spirit."
[10] And he said, "You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you; but if you do not see me, it shall not be so."
[11] And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Eli'jah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
[12] And Eli'sha saw it and he cried, "My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" And he saw him no more.Then he took hold of his own clothes and rent them in two pieces.
[13] And he took up the mantle of Eli'jah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan.
[14] Then he took the mantle of Eli'jah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, saying, "Where is the LORD, the God of Eli'jah?" And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other; and Eli'sha went over.

Transfiguration

Jesus, too, experienced Elijah as representative of the prophetic character when he was joined by Moses (who brought the law) and Elijah (the prophet) on the mount of transfiguration. The continuity of the prophetic function, of listening to the inner voice through which God speaks and delivering the message to those with ears to hear, is passed down through the generations. Blake accepted the function of a prophet and echoed the desire of Moses that 'all the Lord's people were Prophets'.

Milton, Plate 1, (E 96) 
"Would to God that all the Lords people were Prophets. Numbers XI. ch 29 v." 

Numbers 11 
[29] But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!"

Matthew 17
[1] And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain apart.
[2] And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became white as light.
[3] And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Eli'jah, talking with him.
[4] And Peter said to Jesus, "Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Eli'jah."
[5] He was still speaking, when lo, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him."
[6] When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces, and were filled with awe.   


Blake's appeal to the Lord was 'Bring me my Chariot of fire!'

THE PROPHET

Reposted from December 2, 2009.

Wikipedia
All Religions Are One
Plate One
"The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness"

The figure of the prophet is rooted in Old Testament literature. The priests were in charge of the religious activities of the Jews. They developed a religion based on law. The Ten Commandments of Moses multiplied until there were laws and rules for every facet of Jewish life. Following the law was supposed to please Jehovah and induce him to protect the Israelites. But the law was broken in letter and in spirit, and the nation of Israel endured many calamities which were often interpreted as punishment from Jehovah for sinfulness. Prophets arose outside of the established religious organization to lay before the people their failures and the predicted consequences. The prophets spoke as instruments of God, attempting to lead the people into more a just, merciful, and equitable society. The Old Testament prophets usually used threats as well as promises in trying to induce the Israelites to be obedient to God as they understood him.

With his sensitivity to injustice and his vision of the elevated role man should play in God's world, Blake felt affinity for the role of prophet. He knew how the world could be, should be, and would be if man would recognize and accept the role that God offers him.

God had endowed William with outstanding gifts. He had an unusual ability to see beyond the superficial appearances around him. He had an intellect that could absorb vast amounts of information and analyze and organize it. He had communication skills as a verbal and visual artist. Recognizing these talents as gifts from God, he wanted to use them in His service.

So it seems predictable that Blake should assume the role of prophet and attempt to lead the people into a better understanding of what had gone wrong with the plans God had for mankind, and how man might get back on the right track. The right track to him was not obedience to the law as it was for the prophets of old; the right track was the New Testament innovation of being led by the Holy Spirit.

Blake created the character Los as the Eternal Prophet and allowed him to enact many of the prophetic roles Blake played himself. Like the prophet Ezekiel, Blake and Los used demonstrations, not words alone, to project their message.

Jerusalem, Plate 5, (E 147)
"I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination"

Jerusalem Plate 12, (E 155)
"Giving a body to Falshood that it may be cast off for ever."

Jerusalem, Plate 88, (E 247)
"The blow of his Hammer is Justice. the swing of his Hammer:
Mercy.
The force of Los's Hammer is eternal Forgiveness"

Jerusalem, Plate 95, (E 255)
"Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble"

EXTREMISTS

In Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington:

There follows a quote from Martin Luther King's letter written from the jail in Birmingham, Alabama in April of 1963. King had been jailed for refusing to discontinue his protests against the abuse of justice in the segregated South. He took the opportunity of his imprisonment to make a statement of the foundations of the movement to non-violently enact 'extreme' measures to replace the passive acceptance of conditions which were an outrage to the conscience of just men.  

"I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
...
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."

William Blake could be added to the list of men who were willing to advocate extreme measures to effect the changes which would reverse oppression. He spoke through his poetry especially through the prophetic voice of Los and in the following poem.

Yale Center for British Art

America, A Prophecy

Frontispiece

Songs and Ballads, (E 489)
          The Grey Monk                    
"I die I die the Mother said
My Children die for lack of Bread          
What more has the merciless Tyrant said
The Monk sat down on the Stony Bed         

The blood red ran from the Grey Monks side 
His hands & feet were wounded wide
His Body bent his arms & knees
Like to the roots of ancient trees

His eye was dry no tear could flow
A hollow groan first spoke his woe 
He trembled & shudderd upon the Bed        
At length with a feeble cry he said

When God commanded this hand to write
In the studious hours of deep midnight
He told me the writing I wrote should prove
The Bane of all that on Earth I lovd       

My Brother starvd between two Walls
His Childrens Cry my Soul appalls
I mockd at the wrack & griding chain    
My bent body mocks their torturing pain 

Thy Father drew his sword in the North
With his thousands strong he marched forth
Thy Brother has armd himself in Steel     
To avenge the wrongs thy Children feel    

But vain the Sword & vain the Bow 
They never can work Wars overthrow
The Hermits Prayer & the Widows tear
Alone can free the World from fear

For a Tear is an Intellectual Thing        
And a Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King 
And the bitter groan of the Martyrs woe    
Is an Arrow from the Almighties Bow

The hand of Vengeance found the Bed 
To which the Purple Tyrant fled
The iron hand crushd the Tyrants head 
And became a Tyrant in his stead" 

DEATH & LIFE

Northrup Frye, writing in Fearful Symmetry, clarifies our understanding of the development of the prophet through man's enhancing his ability to perceive. Frye finds that for Blake imagination, perception, art and prophecy are interrelated in the fully developed, visionary man:

Wikimedia
Illustrations to the poems of Thomas Gray

"Man has within himself the principle of life and the principle of death; one is the imagination, the other the natural man. In the natural world the natural principle will win out eventually and the man will die. As an individual ego reflecting on his sensations of an outer space-world while existing in time, the natural man is a dying man; and like most chronic invalids the ego is fretful, irascible, cruel, bothered by trifles, jealous and inordinately vain. Its only freedom is in domineering over or hindering others; its only happiness is in solitary possession; and in everything it seeks, like Cleopatra, for a painless from of suicide.
The only cure for the original sin of this Selfhood of the natural man is vision, the revelation that this world is fallen therefore not ultimate. 
...
The destruction of the appearance of this world must precede the vision of the same world purified, and, subject and object being inseparable, the Selfhood must be annihilated before the true self can appear.
Now all the kindly and honest people who act as though  they believed evil to be neither necessary or desirable are on the right side. But an honest man is not quite the  noblest work of God until the faith by which the just live develops in to full imaginative vision. The fully imaginative man is therefore a visionary whose imaginative activity is prophecy and whose perception produces art. These two are the same thing, perception being an act.
...
The 'seer' has insight, not second sight: he is not a charlatan but the contrary of one, an honest man with a sharper perception and a clearer perspective than other honest men possess. The imagination in seeing a bird sees through it an 'immense world of delight';  the imagination in looking at society not only sees its hypocrisies but sees through them, and sees an infinitely better world. The prophet can see an infinite and eternal reality, but nobody sees an indefinite future, except conditionally:

 'Prophets in the modern sense of the word have never existed
Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense for his prophecy of
Nineveh failed   Every honest man is a Prophet he utters his
opinion both of private & public matters/Thus/If you go on So/the
result is So/He never says such a thing shall happen let you do
what you will. a Prophet is a Seer not an Arbitrary Dictator.' 
[Annotations to Watson, (E 617)]

It is the superior clarity and accuracy of the prophet's vision that makes him an artist, and that makes the great artist prophetic." (Page 58-59) 

Milton, Plate 24 [26], (E 121) 
"Los is by mortals nam'd Time Enitharmon is nam'd Space
But they depict him bald & aged who is in eternal youth
All powerful and his locks flourish like the brows of morning    
He is the Spirit of Prophecy the ever apparent Elias
Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Times swiftness
Which is the swiftest of all things: all were eternal torment:
All the Gods of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los's Halls.
Every one is a fallen Son of the Spirit of Prophecy             
He is the Fourth Zoa, that stood arou[n]d the Throne Divine."

Jerusalem, Plate 39 [44], (E 186)
"they with one accord delegated Los
Conjuring him by the Highest that he should Watch over them
Till Jesus shall appear: & they gave their power to Los       
Naming him the Spirit of Prophecy, calling him Elijah"