BLAKE & SENDAK

Wikimedia Commons
For the Children: Gates of Paradise
Plate 11

I was surprised to learn that Maurice Sendak, the author of numerous children's picture books, was influenced by William Blake. Sendak knew that he could not comprehend the poetry of William Blake but he loved it anyway. His mind did not function like Blake's mind but below the surface of consciousness they shared a common willingness to explore the dark unknown which lay beneath.They both knew that the mind of the child was foundational to penetrating the subconscious which was key to understanding the way that the conscious mind organizes and expresses itself. It is more than coincidental that Sendak's companion of fifty years was the psychiatrist, Eugene Glynn.

Sendak's final book, My Brothers Book, was a tribute to his brother Jack who had died eighteen years previously. Several of the pictures in it are echos of Blake images including this one from the book Milton using a pose in which Blake portrayed himself and his deceased brother Robert in mirror images. Another illustration is reminiscent of the final image of The Four Zoas.

Sendak acknowledged that his work was not specifically directed toward children. He produced books that came from his imagination and they fell into the hands of those who could respond to them. Children responded enthusiastically making Where the Wild Things Are, beloved, although parents may have been unsettled.

Sendak's use of nudity in his illustrations, such as those for In The Night Kitchen, may have owed something to his appreciation of Blake's freedom to draw the human body without obscuring its outlines with garments. Sendak, like Blake, was an iconoclast: he refused to abide within the narrow restraints dictated by the majority culture.    

Songs of Innocence, Introduction, (E 7)
"Piping down the valleys wild
Piping songs of pleasant glee
On a cloud I saw a child.
And he laughing said to me.

Pipe a song about a Lamb;    
So I piped with merry chear,
Piper pipe that song again--
So I piped, he wept to hear.

Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
Sing thy songs of happy chear,        
So I sung the same again
While he wept with joy to hear

Piper sit thee down and write
In a book that all may read--
So he vanish'd from my sight.
And I pluck'd a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear"   

TWO WHEELS

Blake postulateed two wheels turning in opposite directions one in the direction of evil the other of good. We cannot deny an awareness of forces which are active in our world which embody evil or wickedness. We are aware simultaneously of the forces of goodness which are everywhere apparent. The dilemma of those who value all that is meant by good, is how can the strength of evil forces not be overwhelming when opposed by peacefulness, gentleness, and receptiveness. Jesus and Blake were not willing to be silent and allow the powerful to run roughshod over the little ones who were powerless; nor were they willing to advocate the use violence to oppose violence. Jesus suffered the punishment of crucifixion for exemplifying and preaching his opposition to the forces of the power of Rome and entrenched religion.

When we  look at deplorable conditions everywhere we may succumb to despair, or, on the contrary, we may rejoice in the improvements which have taken place through the efforts and sacrifice of many individuals devoted to living out the goodness in their own hearts and spirits. The third alternative is to attempt to alter the consciousness of those who by their lethargy allow the movement counter to the direction of good to continue. The wheel moving in the direction of evil may be slowed by what people like Jesus and Blake did; they spoke out in clear unequivocal language against cruelty and hate which act as the fuel to sustain the movement of the wheel moving against the current of creation. 

Four Zoas, Night 1, Page 3, (E 300)

[4 lines of Greek text; Ephesians 6: 12
Translated]
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places. (King James version)"

Ephesians 6
[12] For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
[13] Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
[14] Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
[15] And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
[16] Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
[17] And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:
[18] Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

British Museum

Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts 

Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 232)

 "I stood among my valleys of the south
And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went
From west to east against the current of
Creation and devourd all things in its loud                      
Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth
By it the Sun was rolld into an orb:
By it the Moon faded into a globe,
Travelling thro the night: for from its dire
And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up           
Into a little root a fathom long.
And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-One
Its Name? he answerd. It is the Wheel of Religion
I wept & said. Is this the law of Jesus
This terrible devouring sword turning every way    
He answerd; Jesus died because he strove
Against the current of this Wheel: its Name
Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death
Of sin, of sorrow, & of punishment;
Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion            
But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life
Creating Nature from this fiery Law,
By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin."

Genesis 50
[18] And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.
[19] And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?
[20] But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
[21] Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.
[22] And Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he, and his father's house: and Joseph lived an hundred and ten years.

Matthew 5
[39] But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. First Peter 8
[8] Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous:
[9] Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.
[10] For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:
[11] Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it.
[12] For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
[13] And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?

Romans 12
[21] Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

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BLAKE, JUNG & MELLON

A valuable resource for students of Blake is the Yale Center for British Art which houses the large collection of Blake's work which was amassed by Paul Mellon. The following passage by the Chief Curator of Art Collections at the Yale Center for British Art, Matthew Hargraves, demonstrates that Melon's interest in accumulating works by William Blake was influenced by his association with Carl Jung.

From Matthew Hargraves who is Chief Curator of Art Collections at the Yale Center for British Art:

"[I]t was the interest of his first wife, Mary Conover Mellon, whom he married in 1935, in thought and methods of Carl Jung that helped transform Paul Mellon into a major collector of Blake’s work.

Mary had introduced Paul Mellon to Jung’s ideas after they met in late 1933; even before marriage they had begun Jungian analysis in New York. In the early summer of 1938, Mr. and Mrs. Mellon journeyed to Switzerland and spent several weeks in Ascona above Lake Maggiore hoping the mountain air would relieve Mary’s chronic asthma. By coincidence Carl Jung was also in Ascona and the couple met the psychiatrist for the first time that summer. They returned the following year and saw Jung again before settling in Zurich in September 1939 to meet with Jung as patients several times a week. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 meant this Swiss idyll could not last. In the spring of 1940 Mr. Mellon took a walking holiday with Jung but the obvious threat from Nazi Germany could not be ignored. He and Mary returned hastily to the United States shortly before the occupation of Denmark, Norway and France in May. By June 1941, feeling compelled to take action, Paul had enlisted in the US army; December saw the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States enter the war.

While wartime service forced an end to the relationship with Jung, the year Paul Mellon enlisted was also the year he began to collect important works by Blake, an artist in whom Mr. Mellon found new interest through Jung’s exploration of the unconscious and his theories about collective archetypes. In 1941 he acquired some exceptional books. This included There is No Natural Religion (1794) [fig. 1], an “illuminated” book of eleven color-printed relief etchings with pithy text critiquing the reductive philosophical materialism of his day; a set of the engraved Illustrations to the Book of Job (1825) in its original binding; and a copy of Blake’s engravings illustrating Edward Young’s Night Thoughts (1797) , one of two copies believed to have been hand-colored by Blake himself.
...
At the same time that the Mellons were immersed in the worlds of Jung and Blake, Mary began to form a major collection of alchemical books and manuscripts inspired by Jung’s own collection of similar material. But the return to civilian life was soon clouded by tragedy. In October 1946 after Paul had been home only a year, Mary Mellon died suddenly from an asthma attack.
...
In the early 1950s Paul Mellon drifted away from Jungian influence and began almost a decade of Freudian analysis in Washington DC, a time he also got to know Anna Freud in London before becoming a significant supporter of her Foundation and what became the Anna Freud Centre for the psychiatric treatment of children. It was in 1953, as he was exploring Freudian psychology, that Paul Mellon bought his most important Blake book, Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion, a book that is at once Blake’s most difficult but also his greatest.

Yale Center for British Art
Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion
Title Page, Copy E

...
For Blake, Imagination was the world of real essences of which the visible world was merely a faint echo. He once argued that “This World of Imagination is the World of Eternity. . . . This World is Infinite & Eternal whereas the world of Generation or Vegetation is Finite & Temporal.” Paul Mellon’s interest in psychology is one reason why Blake held such a lifelong fascination given that Blake’s own life’s work was to free the Imaginative faculty from the forces of repression. Despite the incomprehension of his contemporaries and his poverty, Blake kept his devotion to spiritual and mental freedom alive until the day he died. This impulse has remained a vital force long after his death. And in his final months he explained to George Cumberland that his physical body might be 'feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit & Life, not in the Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever.'"

The extent of the Blake works in the Yale Center for British Art is revealed at this site.

BAPTISM OF CHRIST

[To] Mr [George] Cumberland, Bishopsgate,
Windsor Great Park
[From] Hercules Buildings, Lambeth. Augst 26. 1799
...
 As to Myself about whom you are so kindly Interested.  I
live by Miracle.  I am Painting small Pictures from the Bible.
For as to Engraving in which art I cannot reproach myself with
any neglect yet I am laid by in a corner as if I did not Exist &
Since my Youngs Night Thoughts have been publishd Even Johnson &
Fuseli have discarded my Graver.  But as I know that He who Works
& has his health cannot starve.  I laugh at Fortune & Go on &
on.  I think I foresee better Things than I have ever seen.  My
Work pleases my employer & I have an order for Fifty small
Pictures at One Guinea each which is Something better than mere
copying after another artist.  But above all I feel myself happy
& contented let what will come having passed now near twenty
years in ups & downs I am used to them & perhaps a little
practise in them may turn out to benefit.  It is now Exactly
Twenty years since I was upon the ocean of business & Tho I laugh
at Fortune I am perswaded that She Alone is the Governor of
Worldly Riches. & when it is Fit She will call on me till then I
wait with Patience in hopes that She is busied among my Friends.
     With Mine & My Wifes best compliments to Mr Cumberland
I remain
Yours sincerely
WILLm BLAKE 

Included in this post is information from William Blake: His Art and Times by David Bindman and from other sources.

The commission which Blake reported in his letter to his friend George Cumberland, according to Bindman, was his first from Thomas Butts. In the next year, 1799-1800, Blake painted fifty small (aproximately 10x15 inches) tempera pictures illustrating the bible for Butts. The medium which Blake used to paint the temperas did not prove to be as satisfactory as would have been desired. As a binder Blake used glue and gums, sometimes in layers, which created problems as the pictures aged. Although about thirty of the pictures are available in public and private collections, their appearance is far from the original intent. Cracking and darkening is the result of failure of the original technique and also subsequent attempts at restoration.  

Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art
The Baptism of Christ
1799-1800 Tempera

In this example from the tempera set of biblical illustrations we see that the gem-like colors which Blake intended to produce have been lost, along with much of the clear definition which he so valued.

Butts continued to purchase biblical illustrations from Blake but after the first fifty, the paintings were watercolors to which time has been much kinder. Below from the year 1803 is Blake's watercolor of the same subject.       

Ashmolean
The Baptism of Christ

c. 1803

Pen and Black Ink and Watercolour

Matthew 3
[11] I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
[12] Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
[13] Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.
[14] But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?
[15] And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.
[16] And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
[17] And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Mark 1
[1] The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
[2] As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
[3] The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
[4] John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
[5] And there went out unto him all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.
[6] And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;
[7] And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.
[8] I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
[9] And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
[10] And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
[11] And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
[12] And immediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness.

Luke 3
[21] Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
[22] And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.
 
John 1
[25] And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?
[26] John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not;
[27] He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.
[28] These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.
[29] The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
[30] This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.
[31] And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
[32] And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
[33] And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
[34] And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

BLAKE & DURER

Reposted from July 2012.


Blake was fond of mentioning Albrecht Durer along with Michelangelo and Raphael as artists whom he admired.

Descriptive Catalogue, (E 529)
"Colouring does not depend on where the Colours are put, but
on where the lights and darks are put, and all depends on Form or
Out-line.  On where that is put; where that is wrong, the Colouring
never can be right; and it is always wrong in Titian and
Correggio, Rubens and Rembrandt.  Till we get rid of Titian and
Correggio, Rubens and Rembrandt, We never shall equal Rafael and
Albert Durer, Michael Angelo, and Julio Romano."

Durer's Melencolia I  1514
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Blake thought so highly of Durer's engraving Melencolia I that he kept a print of it beside his workbench. Blake admired Durer's ability to use the defining line to delineate character in his designs. Blake's appreciation of Durer would not have been confined to his skill in producing engravings in which the lines were beautifully executed. That Durer produced symbolic pictures using a range of imagery which Blake incorporated in his poetry and graphic art, increased the value of Durer to Blake. 

Right click on picture and open in new window for detail.


Here is a quote from Jonathan Jones' 2002 article for the Guardian:
"The brightness of Dürer's sharp Renaissance drawing drags with it a melancholic medieval ghost. His eyes may be on the bright sights of Venice but his soul is in the northern woods. And it is in that realm of magic, the occult, apocalyptic fantasy and religious terror that Dürer finds images welling up into his brain. Melencolia is, for this artist, the condition of genius; it is what goes with thought and creativity. Only from long, lonely nights of febrile thinking - like Melencolia's - will anything new be created in the world. Out of his melancholy he brought forth miracles."

Annotations to Reynolds, page 71, (E 649)
" What does this mean "Would have been" one of the first
Painters of his Age" Albert Durer Is! Not would
have been! Besides. let them look at Gothic Figures & Gothic
Buildings, & not talk of Dark Ages or of Any Age! Ages are All
Equal.  But Genius is Always Above The Age"        

BLAKE'S CHAUCER: PROSPECTUSES, (E 567)
      "The Designer proposes to Engrave, in a correct and finished
Line manner of Engraving, similar to those original Copper Plates
of Albert Durer, Lucas, Hisben, Aldegrave and the old original
Engravers, who were great Masters in Painting and Designing,
whose method, alone, can delineate Character as it is in this
Picture, where all the Lineaments are distinct."       

Public Address, Page 62, (E 576)
     "I have heard many People say Give me the Ideas.  It is no
matter what Words you put them into & others say Give me the
Design it is no matter for the Execution.  These People know
Nothing Of Art.  Ideas cannot be Given
but in their minutely Appropriate Words nor Can a Design be made
without its minutely Appropriate Execution The unorganized
Blots & Blurs of Rubens & Titian are not Art nor can their Method
ever express Ideas or Imaginations any more than Popes
Metaphysical jargon of Rhyming Unappropriate Execution is the
Most nauseous affectation & foppery He who copies does
not Execute he only Imitates what is already Executed Execution
is only the result of Invention"

Blake saw in Durer an artist of genius who was open to inspiration. His ideas were original and penetrating and his images delineated the form which lay below the surface of precise execution.

BLAKE'S JOB 4

Dover Books

Durer

Drawings for the Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian

"Regarded as the greatest of the German Renaissance artists, Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) created a vast body of work that ranges from altarpieces to copper engravings and portraits. Painter, printer, draughtsman, and art theorist, he remains most famous for his woodcuts.
Dürer's primary patron from 1512 onward was the Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Germans, Maximilian I." from Dover Publications

In The Traveller in the Evening Morton Paley remarks that Blake may have moved to illustrate the borders of his engravings for Job by observing the Drawings for the Prayer-Book of Emperor Maximilian. These drawing had been executed by Durer whom Blake held in the highest regard. It is likely that Blake had the opportunity to study the facsimile edition of Albert Durer's Designs for the Prayer Book published in 1817 by Rudolph Ackermann. When the Blakes lived on Fountain Court they were just around the corner from Ackermann's print shop and showroom on The Strand.

Wikipedia Commons
Illustrations of the Book of Job
Plate 10

It seems that as Blake was working with Linnell to publish illustrations of the book of Job, he found that he could do more than engrave images with the new vitality stimulated by working with Linnell who was familiar with techniques which Blake was not accustomed to using. As he had done with his Illuminated Books, he could coordinate the images with the written word by quoting verses from the book of Job and other books of the Bible. In addition he could engrave images on the borders of the plates in a way that resembled Durer's illustrations to the Book of Common Prayer. As the project unfolded Blake drew together multiple influences as his imagination led him.   

---

Prayer Book of Emperor Maximilian I

Description

BLAKE'S JOB 3

Wikipedia Commons
Illustrations of the Book of Job
Plate 2

The Engravings of William Blake by Archibald G B Russell was published in in 1912. In the first two sentences of his book Russell states, "From his childhood Blake was in love with the engraver's art. It was his chief means of becoming acquainted with the old masters." The detailed commentary which Russell gives for many of Blake's engravings adds to one's appreciation for Blake's subject matter and skill in presenting it.

On page 48 Russell writes of Blake engraving illustrations for the Book of Job:

"The crowning labour of Blake's life, his engraved illustrations of the " Book of Job," had its origin in the last commission which he received from his old friend and patron, Thomas Butts, for whom, in or about 1820, the designs were first executed in a series of twenty-five water-colour drawings. In 1823 he began, at the instance of Linnell, to make a duplicate set of the designs with a view to engraving them. The work was published in 1826, the year before his death. Full particulars of the volume will be found in the Catalogue (No. 33). It is, taken as a whole, beyond question Blake's greatest achievement as an engraver. From early days he had been deeply moved by the history of the patriarch, which he would often parallel by the course of his own life. The subjects of two of his prints, the impressive line-engraving published in 1793 and the beautiful lithograph designed some fifteen years later, had already been drawn from it. But since those days his style as an engraver had undergone a considerable change. He had by this time entirely freed himself from the hard, mechanical manner which he had acquired from Basire. Much had in the meantime been learned by him from the great engravers whose works were represented in his own print collection. His attention, also, had lately been especially directed by Linnell to the works of the Italian engravers of the sixteenth century, with particular regard to Marc Antonio and Giulio Bonasone. With both of these he had of course been previously well acquainted. J. T. Smith recalls in his memoir how often he had "seen him admire and heard him expatiate upon the beauties of Marc Antonio," and in Blake's own writings this master is several times mentioned with enthusiasm. Linnell appears himself to have been the possessor of a number of Marc Antonio's prints, and he had also in his collection an example of Bonasone's large print of Michelangelo's "Last Judgment," which was doubtless an object of Blake's frequent study. The influence of these models is the predominant one in the development of Blake's latest style of engraving, which, however, none the less remains a strictly individual means of expression and shows no traces of any direct imitation. In the "Job" he further reveals a grandeur of invention and a concentration of expression beyond all his past attainment, and truly, as Ruskin claimed for him in this connection, "in expressing conditions of glaring and flickering light, Blake is" here "greater than Rembrandt."

Public Address, Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims, (E 573)
"I hope this Print will redeem my Country from this Coxcomb
situation & shew that it is only some Englishmen [P 56] and not
All who are thus ridiculous in their Pretences Advertizements in
Newspapers are no proof of Popular approbation. but often the
Contrary A Man who Pretends to Improve Fine Art Does not know
what Fine Art is Ye English Engravers must come down from your
high flights ye must condescend to study Marc Antonio & Albert
Durer.  Ye must begin before you attempt to finish or improve &
when you have begun you will know better than to think of
improving what cannot be improvd"

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BLAKE'S JOB 2

Blake first met John Linnell through the son of his friend George Cumberland. The two men found that they could be helpful to one another. Linnell recognized that he could enjoy the company of an artistic and spiritual genius at the same time as he offered employment and economic support to a man of talent who had sunk into obscurity. The project of producing the book of Illustrations of the Book of Job was the outcome of the collaboration between Blake and Linnell.

As recorded on Page 169 of The Life of John Linnell, Volume 1 by Alfred Thomas Story the two men entered into an agreement to publish the book of illustrations based on the painting which Blake had created for Thomas Butts years before.

"The engravings were begun in 1823, and the agreement referred to by Gilchrist has reference to them alone. The agreement reads as follows:

'March 25, 1823.—Mem. of agreement between W. B. and J. L. W. B. to engrave the set of plates from his designs to "Job," in number 20, for J. L. J. L. to pay W. B. £5 per plate, part before, and remainder when plates are finished. Also, J. L. to pay Mr. B., £100 more out of the profits of the work as the receipts will admit of it. J. L. to find copper-plates.—(Signed) W. B., J. L.'

No profits accrued from the engravings, the sale of which barely covered the expenses. Linnell, however, seeing that the plates and the stock of engravings remained in his hands, treated Blake in a generous manner, and gave him an extra £50, which was disbursed to him from time to time, according to his needs, between March, 1823, and October, 1825. The sum which Blake thus received —in all £150—was the largest he had up to the latter date received for one commission."

Yale University
Media Library
Memorandum of agreement between William Blake and John Linnell

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BLAKE'S JOB 1

British Museum
Illustrations of the Book of Job
Engraved Copper for Plate 2

The culmination of William Blake's lifetime of creating art to give form to imagination was the production of his Illustrations of the Book of Job. Blake had experienced a renewal of his interest in life when a group of young men who cared about art and the spirit adopted him as a mentor and teacher. Principle among this group was John Linnell who conceived the idea that Blake could produce a book based on the illustrations for the book of Job which he had painted years earlier for Thomas Butts.

The copper plates from which Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job were printed are housed in the British Museum. Over the years the copper plates on which Blake made the images for his Illuminated Books were all lost or destroyed but the set of plates for Job are preserved. In contrast to Blake's technique for the Illuminated Books which was relief printing made through etching with acid the surfaces which were not coated with a resistant varnish, the Job technique is intaglio printing made through engraving or incising plates with metal tools. Although Blake often used both relief and intaglio on the same image, Laurence Binyon believes that in the Job illustrations Blake used the burin alone. 

This is the information which accompanies the plates for Job in the British Museum:

"All lettering on printing surface is in reverse; lettered within image with text integral to the design; lettered within image with production details, "W Blake inven & sculpt"; lettered below image with publication line, 
'London. Published as the Act directs March 8: 1825 by William Blake N 3 Fountain Court Strand'. Stamped on verso, partially legible, "[...]ntifex & C[...] / [...] Lisle Street / [...]oho London".

"Plate 2, numbered '1' on the plate; a central oak tree with a large family praying underneath, including Job and his wife, who are seated with books open on their laps; sheep all around; in the background, the sun is setting over a landscape with a large gothic church; a village to the r; borders engraved with pictures and text, the line under the design, "Thus did Job continually". 1826 Engraving and etching"

British Museum
Illustrations of the Book of Job
Print of Plate 2

Job.1

[1] There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
[2] And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.

UNHOLY BIBLE

Wikipedia Commons
Marriage of Heaven & Hell
Plate 3

Updated from August 2010.

June Singer, a Jungian psychologist, wrote several books on psychology but only one book on Blake. Her first book which developed from her thesis for her analysts diploma from the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, is titled The Unholy Bible: Blake, Jung and the Collective Unconscious. Although most of the book is a psychological analysis of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, she provides insight into the later prophetic writings as well. In this passage she explains The Four Zoas in terms of individuation. The quote from Blake represents the reassembling of the pieces after 'all things are changd'.

"The long poem , The Four Zoas, describes the many aspects of man as they are differentiated from one another.The symbolism amazingly parallels the analytic process of differentiating the many unconscious contents from the other, and then gradually reintegrating them into a new and productive unity. The parallel is even more impressive when we consider that Blake uses the schema of nine nights of dreams, since dreams in analytical psychology provide the key to understanding the unconscious processes. It is with this key that Blake has unlocked 'the doors of perception' as he promised he would in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. At the end of the ninth night man beholds the infinite vision, and he sings the Ode to Joy (we recall the first two lines, first uttered by the enslaved wives and children of America): [Four Zoas, Page 138, (E 406)]

'The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning
And the mild moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night
And Man walks forth from midst of the fires the evil is all
consumd
His eyes behold the Angelic spheres arising night & day
The stars consumd like a lamp blown out & in their stead behold
The Expanding Eyes of Man behold the depths of wondrous worlds
One Earth one sea beneath nor Erring Globes wander but Stars
Of fire rise up nightly from the Ocean & one Sun
Each morning like a New born Man issues with songs & Joy
Calling the Plowman to his Labour & the Shepherd to his rest
He walks upon the Eternal Mountains raising his heavenly voice
Conversing with the Animal forms of wisdom night & day
That risen from the Sea of fire renewd walk oer the Earth

For Tharmas brought his flocks upon the hills & in the Vales
Around the Eternal Mans bright tent the little Children play
Among the wooly flocks The hammer of Urthona sounds
In the deep caves beneath his limbs renewd his Lions roar
Around the Furnaces & in Evening sport upon the plains
They raise their faces from the Earth conversing with the Man

How is it we have walkd thro fires & yet are not consumd
How is it that all things are changd even as in ancient times' " 

More from Singer (Page 214):
"It is as if though the writing of this book were a very private experience, like a dream that belonged to Blake alone. It was the working through of  the difficult union foretold in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. An inner marriage was taking place in the psyche which was more real than his conventional with Catherine. As masculine creative force, his energy spurted forth abundantly. As feminine receptive vessel, his anima aspect functioned in his work to contain and shape that stream. 
 

'The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.' It was a secret happening, a pregnancy, which could not be shown prematurely to the public. This is why, I believe,  Blake never engraved this book. Murry [John Middleton] states it well when he says, 'It is the travail of Blake's final rebirth.'"  

.

PROLIFIC

Wikipedia Commons
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Plate 16

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, PLATE 16, (E 40)
   "The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence
and  now seem to live in it in chains; are in truth. the causes
of its life & the sources of all activity, but the chains are,
the cunning of weak  and tame minds. which have power to resist
energy. according to the proverb, the weak in courage is strong
in cunning.
   Thus one portion of being, is the Prolific. the other, the
Devouring:  to the devourer it seems as if the producer was in
his chains, but it is not so, he only takes portions of existence
and fancies that the whole.
   But the Prolific would cease to be Prolific unless the
Devourer as a sea recieved the excess of his delights.
   Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I answer, God
only   Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.
   These two classes of men are always upon earth, & they should
be enemies; whoever tries [PL 17] to reconcile them seeks to
destroy existence.   
   Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.
   Note.  Jesus Christ did not wish to unite but to seperate
them, as in  the Parable of sheep and goats! & he says I came not
to send Peace  but a Sword.
   Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thought to be one of
the  Antediluvians who are our Energies."

Annotations to Reynolds, (E 656)
"Reynolds: The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon
exhausted, and will produce no crop, . . . 
Blake:The Mind that could have produced this Sentence must have
been Pitiful a Pitiable Imbecillity.  I always thought that the
Human Mind was the most Prolific of All Things & Inexhaustible  I
certainly do Thank God that I am not like Reynolds" 

June Singer, in The Unholy Bible, made this statement:

"What Blake seems to be saying here is that with the development of ego consciousness, a sense of identity as 'I,' man takes the place of the giant. Man differs from the giant in that the prolific and devouring aspects in man are separated, whereas in the giant they were combined as two portions of one being. The two aspects are expressed, according to Blake's thinking, in two types of men, in whom either one or the other of these aspects predominates." (Page 141)

Singer saw the Prolific as the poet, and the Devourer as the conventional or reasonable man. In the New Testament book of Matthew we see a division between two irreconcilable beings. There is final resolution in which the sheep are divided from the goats. It is the sheep who inherit and receive the Father's blessing while the goats are cast out. 

Matthew 25
[31] When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
[32] And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
[33] And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
[34] Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
...
[41] Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

Singer observed that Blake was involved in a lifelong struggle taking place in himself between his 'freely flowing energies' which welled up from his imagination, and the 'binding restraints' required by society. Singer asks us to consider if Blake may have done well to resolve these two sides of himself in order to make his productive side more acceptable to conventional norms. Apparently Blake found that a compromise he was unwilling to make.

ESTABLISH THE UNITY

Northrop Frye's first book was Fearful Symmetry, his study of William Blake's poetry in "a broad literary context." Frye presented Blake in Fearful Symmetry "as an illustration of the poetic process." On page 426 Frye states that the whole purpose of his book was "to establish Blake as a typical poet and his thinking as typically poetic thinking."

" Of course a poet may give many useful suggestions about his own work, but we read the poem not the poet, except by a figure of speech. Hence the primary activity of all communication with the poet is to establish the unity of his poem in our minds. We have quoted Blake as saying that every poem is necessarily a perfect unity. This unity has two aspects: a unity of words and a unity of images." (Page 113)

ON HOMERS POETRY, (E 269)
 "Every Poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity, but why Homers is
peculiarly so, I cannot tell: he has told the story of
Bellerophon & omitted the judgment of Paris which is not only a
part, but a principal part of Homers subject
  But when a Work has Unity it is as much in a Part as in the
Whole. the Torso is as much a Unity as the Laocoon
  As Unity is the cloke of folly so Goodness is the cloke of
knavery  Those who will have Unity exclusively in Homer come out
with a Moral like a sting in the tail: Aristotle says Characters
are either Good or Bad: now Goodness or Badness has nothing to do
with Character. an Apple tree a Pear tree a Horse a Lion, are
Characters but a Good Apple tree or a Bad, is an Apple tree
still: a Horse is not more a Lion for being a Bad Horse. that is
its Character; its Goodness or Badness is another consideration.
  It is the same with the Moral of a whole Poem as with the Moral Goodness 
of its parts Unity & Morality, are secondary considerations &
belong to Philosophy & not to Poetry, to Exception & not to Rule,
to Accident & not to Substance. the Ancients calld it eating of
the tree of good & evil.
  The Classics, it is the Classics! & not Goths nor Monks, that
Desolate Europe with Wars."

In Frye's introduction to a subsequent book, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature, he makes a statement about teaching which may be applicable of the writer and reader of poetry as well:  
"The ideal of the scholar is to convey what he knows as clearly and fully as he can: he lays down his hand and remains dummy, so to speak, while the reader plays it. The teacher may do the work of the scholar on a popularizing level, retailing established information to less advanced students. This conception of teaching as secondhand scholarship is common among academics, but I regard it as inadequate.

The teacher, as had been recognized at least since Plato's Meno, is not primarily someone instructing someone who does not know. He is rather someone who attempts to re-create the subject in the student's mind, and his strategy in doing this is first to get the student to recognize what he already potentially knows, which includes breaking up the powers of repression in his mind that keeps him from knowing what he knows. That is why it is the teacher, rather than the student, who asks most of the questions. The teaching element in my own books has caused some resentment among my readers, a resentment often motivated by loyalty to different teachers. This is connected with a feeling of deliberate elusiveness on my part, prompted mainly by the fact that I am not dispensing with the quality of irony that all teachers since Socrates have found essential. Not all elusiveness, however is merely that. Even the parables of Jesus were ainoi, fables with a riddling quality. In other areas,such as Zen Buddhism, the teacher is a man who shows his qualifications to teach by refusing to answer questions, or by brushing  them off with a paradox...Unless something is kept in reserve, suggesting the possibility of better and fuller questions, the students mental advance is blocked."  (Page xv)

Wikipedia Commons
Watercolor Illustrations for Blair's The Grave
Object 5

VISIONARY HAND

Robert N. Essick edited a book of articles on William Blake's Art and Aesthetics, titled The Visionary Hand. Essick contributed the essay Blake and the Traditions of Reproduction Engraving which explores the development of Blake's use of his engraving techniques as an adjunct of his commitment to reconcile contraries. Following Blake's career from his apprenticeship as a reproductive engraver through the Illustrations of the Book of Job, produced near the end of his life, Essick gives visual evidence of the application of Blake's philosophy of Art to the meaning he conveyed in his poetic expression.

Since Blake earned his living through producing reproductions for commercial publications, he was compelled to engrave in the accepted style of reproductive engravers. The pictures used to illustrate books were copies of drawings or paintings which required shading to convey the image. The repetitive strokes created a net to convey light and shadow, dimension and form.    

Essick explains on page 499:

"The benefits derived from the eighteenth-century reproductive system are clear. The engraver could learn a repertoire of a dozen or so linear patterns, master their quick execution, and construct an economically advantageous and rational system whereby several workers, each proficient in one particular technique but all schooled in the same basic style, could work in assembly line fashion...All engravings so produced would be of uniform quality acceptable to a public which had come to believe in the validity of linear syntax as a truthful method of reproducing works of art."
...
[Blake's] revolt against this system manifests itself in three imaginative forms:
[1] separate plates and book illustrations designed and executed for aesthetic purposes beyond the commercial,
[2] relief etching,
[3] and prophetic narratives in which the abstracting process of reproductive engraving become basic metaphors of a myth of creation, fall and entrapment."   

Continuing on page 517:
"I have attempted to demonstrate here that the struggle between the commercial engraver and the visionary poet-painter must be included among these Blakean contraries where opposition is true friendship. I hope that I have indicated the broad outline of this dialectical structure and a few of the more important ways it influenced Blake's graphic art and the imagery of his poetry...It ends with the synthesis of discordant, styles of tradition and imaginative vision, that shapes the Job engravings."

Blake knew himself to be subject to the same limitations which prevailed in the culture in which he lived. Engraving engendered its own limitations including using a net of lines to give definition to form. Blake recognized that the net so formed obscured the identity which might be revealed in clear, defined outlines. As he developed he reached a point in his engraving ability where he used the traditional engraving techniques to convey the obscuring patterns of thought which contrasted with the clear well-defined truth of vision or imagination. In his art he had brought together paradoxical elements with which he struggled. "He liberat[ed] the artist from engraving by means of engraving."

Jerusalem, Plate 12, (E 155) 
Yet why despair! I saw the finger of God go forth 
Upon my Furnaces, from within the Wheels of Albions Sons: 
Fixing their Systems, permanent: by mathematic power 
Giving a body to Falshood that it may be cast off for ever. 
With Demonstrative Science piercing Apollyon with his own bow!"
To see minute detail, right click on image and open in a new window, click again for even more detail. Close window to return to post.

Book of Urizen, Plate 25, (E 82)

9. And all calld it, The Net of Religion
           Chap: IX
1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities:
Felt their Nerves change into Marrow
And hardening Bones began                                  
In swift diseases and torments,
In throbbings & shootings & grindings
Thro' all the coasts; till weaken'd
The Senses inward rush'd shrinking,
Beneath the dark net of infection. "                          
           
Jerusalem, Plate 38 [43], (E 185)

"But here the affectionate touch of the tongue is closd in by deadly teeth
And the soft smile of friendship & the open dawn of benevolence  
Become a net & a trap, & every energy renderd cruel,
Till the existence of friendship & benevolence is denied:
The wine of the Spirit & the vineyards of the Holy-One.
Here: turn into poisonous stupor & deadly intoxication:
That they may be condemnd by Law & the Lamb of God be slain!" 

Jerusalem, Plate 42, (E 190)
"And Los drew his Seven Furnaces around Albions Altars

And as Albion built his frozen Altars, Los built the Mundane Shell,
In the Four Regions of Humanity East & West & North & South

Till Norwood & Finchley & Blackheath & Hounslow, coverd the whole Earth.
This is the Net & Veil of Vala, among the Souls of the Dead."

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 29, (E 319)
"The threads are spun & the cords twisted & drawn out; then the weak   
Begin their work; & many a net is netted; many a net
PAGE 30
Spread & many a Spirit caught, innumerable the nets
Innumerable the gins & traps; & many a soothing flute
Is form'd & many a corded lyre, outspread over the immense
In cruel delight they trap the listeners, & in cruel delight
Bind them, condensing the strong energies into little compass" 

Descriptive Catalog, PAGE 39, (E 575)
    " I do not condemn Rubens Rembrant or Titian because they did
not understand Drawing but because they did not Understand
Colouring how long shall I be forced to beat this into Mens Ears
I do not condemn Bartolozzi Strange or Woolett
because they did not understand Drawing but because they did not
understand Graving I do not condemn Pope or Dryden because they
did not understand Imagination but because they did not
understand Verse. Their Colouring Graving & Verse can never be
applied to Art     That is not either colouring Graving or Verse
which is Unappropriate to the Subject     He who makes a Design must
know the Effect & Colouring Proper to be put to that Design &
will never take that of Rubens Rembrandt or Titian to
turn that which is Soul & Life into a Mill or Machine" 

Descriptive Catalog, PAGE 62, (E 576)
     "I have heard many People say Give me the Ideas.  It is no
matter what Words you put them into & others say Give me the
Design it is no matter for the Execution.  These People know
Enough of Artifice but Nothing Of Art.  Ideas cannot be Given
but in their minutely Appropriate Words nor Can a Design be made
without its minutely Appropriate Execution. The unorganized
Blots & Blurs of Rubens & Titian are not Art nor can their Method
ever express Ideas or Imaginations any more than Popes
Metaphysical jargon of Rhyming. Unappropriate Execution is the
Most nauseous affectation & foppery   He who copies does
not Execute he only Imitates what is already Executed Execution
is only the result of Invention"
 .

SENSE VS REASON

Wikipedia Commons

Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

On page 384 of The Visionary Hand, edited by Robert N. Essick, we read of Blake's approach to illustrating Young's Night Thoughts:
"When Young wrote Night Thoughts in the middle of the eighteenth century, he considered he was offering 'plain truths' with which his readers would agree. But when Blake illustrated the Night Thoughts at the end of the century, he found ideas with which he was in confirmed opposition.
...
The immediate basis for Blake's picture [122] is the lines, 'Where Sense runs Savage, broke from Reason's chain,/ And sings false Peace, till smother'd by the Pall.'
...
Blake's girl personifying Sense is not 'running savage,' but does wear the manacle of Reason's chain, appears to be singing, and is about to be smothered by the pall of Death.
...
[Seen in the context of Young's poetry] Blake's picture seems to embody a conception of literature. Sense now represents the aesthetic pleasure of those poets whose creative or imaginative energy Young rejects. Young hopes to restrain imaginative energy with Reason's chain, but a central theme of all Blake's work celebrates the liberation of Imagination from domineering reason. Young is suspicious of Apollo, but Blake asserts that 'One power alone makes a Poet: Imagination, the Divine Vision.'"  

Annotations to Wordsworth's Poems, (E 465)
"PREFACE  [PAGE viii] 
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"  

.

CONTENTIONS

British Museum              Illustrations to Young's Night Thought

Matthew 10
[26] Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.
[27] What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.
[28] And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
[29] Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.
[30] But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
[31] Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.
[32] Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.
[33] But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
[34] Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
[35] For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
[36] And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
[37] He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
[38] And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
[39] He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

It seems that Blake discerned that true friendship involved contention. Differences needed to be exposed and have their validity recognized. If uniformity were the goal there need be no interaction. Variety results not from cloning existing individuals but from combining disparate individuals.

Think of the elements which you became aware of in Chemistry class. Although there are a limited number of elements, when they interact they produce the complexity which comprises the material world of our acquaintance. When elements have opposite characteristics they combine to produce compounds which are unlike either of the originals.

Marriage of Heaven& Hell, Plate 21, (E 43)  
"When he had so spoken: I beheld the Angel who stretched out

his arms embracing the flame of fire & he was consumed and arose
as Elijah.
  Note.  This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my
particular friend: we often read the Bible together in its
infernal or diabolical sense which the world shall have if they
behave well  
  I have also: The Bible of Hell: which the world shall have
whether they will or no.

  One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression"

Milton, Plate 30 [33], (E129)
               "MILTON: BOOK THE  SECOND
There is a place where Contrarieties are equally True
This place is called Beulah, It is a pleasant lovely Shadow
Where no dispute can come. Because of those who Sleep.
Into this place the Sons & Daughters of Ololon descended
With solemn mourning into Beulahs moony shades & hills           
Weeping for Milton: mute wonder held the Daughters of Beulah
Enrapturd with affection sweet and mild benevolence" 

Milton, Plate 41 [50], (E 143)
"Then trembled the Virgin Ololon & replyd in clouds of despair

Is this our Feminine Portion the Six-fold Miltonic Female      
Terribly this Portion trembles before thee O awful Man
Altho' our Human Power can sustain the severe contentions
Of Friendship, our Sexual cannot: but flies into the Ulro.
Hence arose all our terrors in Eternity! & now remembrance
Returns upon us! are we Contraries O Milton, Thou & I            
O Immortal! how were we led to War the Wars of Death
Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enterd into
PLATE 42 [49]    
Becomes a Womb? & is this the Death Couch of Albion
Thou goest to Eternal Death & all must go with thee"

Jerusalem, Plate 38 [43],(E 185)
"And the two Sources of Life in Eternity[,] Hunting and War,
Are become the Sources of dark & bitter Death & of corroding Hell:
The open heart is shut up in integuments of frozen silence
That the spear that lights it forth may shatter the ribs & bosom
A pretence of Art, to destroy Art: a pretence of Liberty      
To destroy Liberty. a pretence of Religion to destroy Religion
Oshea and Caleb fight: they contend in the valleys of Peor
In the terrible Family Contentions of those who love each other:
The Armies of Balaam weep---no women come to the field
Dead corses lay before them, & not as in Wars of old.        
For the Soldier who fights for Truth, calls his enemy his brother:
They fight & contend for life, & not for eternal death!
But here the Soldier strikes, & a dead corse falls at his feet
Nor Daughter nor Sister nor Mother come forth to embosom the Slain!
But Death! Eternal Death! remains in the Valleys of Peor."   

Jerusalem, Plate 91 (E 251)
"I have tried to make friends by corporeal gifts but have only    
Made enemies: I never made friends but by spiritual gifts;
By severe contentions of friendship & the burning fire of thought.
He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children
One first, in friendship & love; then a Divine Family, & in the midst
Jesus will appear; so he who wishes to see a Vision; a perfect Whole        
Must see it in its Minute Particulars; Organized & not as thou
O Fiend of Righteousness pretendest; thine is a Disorganized
And snowy cloud: brooder of tempests & destructive War"

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 554)
     "The Last Judgment when all those are Cast away who trouble
Religion with Questions concerning Good & Evil or Eating of the
Tree of those Knowledges or Reasonings which hinder the Vision of
God turning all into a Consuming fire When Imaginative Art &
Science & all Intellectual Gifts all the Gifts of the Holy Ghost
are [despisd] lookd upon as of no use & only Contention
remains to Man then the Last Judgment begins & its Vision is seen
by the [Imaginative Eye] of Every one according to the
situation he holds"

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 20, (E 42)
 So the Angel said: thy phantasy has imposed upon me & thou oughtest to be ashamed.
  I answerd: we impose on one another, & it is but lost time
to converse with you whose works are only Analytics.

                 Opposition is true Friendship."

Milton, Plate 31 [34], (E 130]
"And all the Living Creatures of the Four Elements, wail'd
With bitter wailing: these in the aggregate are named Satan
And Rahab: they know not of Regeneration, but only of Generation
The Fairies, Nymphs, Gnomes & Genii of the Four Elements         
Unforgiving & unalterable: these cannot be Regenerated
But must be Created, for they know only of Generation
These are the Gods of the Kingdoms of the Earth: in contrarious
And cruel opposition: Element against Element, opposed in War
Not Mental, as the Wars of Eternity, but a Corporeal Strife"  

Milton, Plate 49, (E 199)
"Learn therefore O Sisters to distinguish the Eternal Human
That walks about among the stones of fire in bliss & woe
Alternate! from those States or Worlds in which the Spirit travels:
This is the only means to Forgiveness of Enemies              
Therefore remove from Albion these terrible Surfaces
And let wild seas & rocks close up Jerusalem away from
PLATE 50
The Atlantic Mountains where Giants dwelt in Intellect;
Now given to stony Druids, and Allegoric Generation
To the Twelve Gods of Asia, the Spectres of those who Sleep:
Sway'd by a Providence oppos'd to the Divine Lord Jesus:
A murderous Providence! A Creation that groans, living on Death. 
Where Fish & Bird & Beast & Man & Tree & Metal & Stone
Live by Devouring, going into Eternal Death continually:
Albion is now possess'd by the War of Blood! the Sacrifice
Of envy Albion is become, and his Emanation cast out:
Come Lord Jesus, Lamb of God descend! for if; O Lord!"            

Jerusalem, Plate 74, (E 229)
I walk up and down in Six Thousand Years: their Events are present before me
To tell how Los in grief & anger, whirling round his Hammer on high  
Drave the Sons & Daughters of Albion from their ancient mountains
They became the Twelve Gods of Asia Opposing the Divine Vision

The Sons of Albion are Twelve: the Sons of Jerusalem Sixteen
I tell how Albions Sons by Harmonies of Concords & Discords
Opposed to Melody, and by Lights & Shades, opposed to Outline    
And by Abstraction opposed to the Visions of Imagination 
By cruel Laws divided Sixteen into Twelve Divisions
How Hyle roofd Los in Albions Cliffs by the Affections rent
Asunder & opposed to Thought, to draw Jerusalems Sons
Into the Vortex of his Wheels. therefore Hyle is called Gog      
Age after age drawing them away towards Babylon
Babylon, the Rational Morality deluding to death the little ones

Vision of Last Judgment, (E 565)
    "Forgiveness of Sin is only at the Judgment Seat of Jesus the
Saviour where the Accuser is cast out. not because he Sins but
because he torments the Just & makes them do what he condemns as
Sin & what he knows is opposite to their own Identity 
     It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that
makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from
one another but from God only"

Your time will be well spent in reading this Thesis presented to the Department of English at McGill University by Donna Lynn George: The Severe Contentions of Friendship: Blake's System of Contraries and Negations in Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Milton, and Jerusalem.

Quotes:

"It is interesting that Blake uses the term "friendship" to describe the ideal relationship between men and women for it implies a degree of equality which few men can admit for it goes far beyond the male ego level of development." (Page 72)
...

"Blake's system of contraries and negations is never conveniently summarized by Blake in one concise model. The complexity of the system must be experienced by the reader in the minute particulars of the entire canon. That this Herculean task is Most probably never completed ironically demonstrates the manner in which Blake's non-system operates. Blake-Los is continually "Striving with Systems to deliver Individuals from those Systems" (Jerusalem Plate 11, 5, p. 630). The entelechy of any system is an abstract, olympianized, logical, operator; however, Blake never reached that heretical point because the bare bones of his message cannot be abstracted from the flesh they informed. It is always tempting to abstract a complete model of the doctrine of contraries but to do so is to discover the reasoning negation: "God forbid that Truth should be Confined to Mathematical Demonstration"·: (Annotations ~ Reynolds, p. 474). There is no state in Blake's system which transcends the "severe contentions/Of Friendship" (Milton Plate 41, 32-33, pp. 533-534) consisting in the dialectical relationship of an identity and his emanation, the ultimate contraries. (Page 77)