MORAVIAN MOTHER

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Fitzwilliam Museum

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Plate 22, Spring

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William Blake's mother Catherine had been a Moravian during her first marriage. Her husband Thomas Armitage died of consumption in 1751 and she married James Blake in 1752. James and Catherine had four sons and a daughter born between 1753 and 1764. When Catherine married James she gave up membership in the Fetter Lane Society which was her Moravian connection because of the total commitment  they required. However the principles and practices of her Moravian community would have stayed with her.

Lets look at some ways in which the Moravian traditions may have continued to influence Catherine as she raised her children. Characteristic of Moravian worship was the use of song. They wrote their own hymns, committed them to memory and often based their whole worship service on singing. They were dependent on the Bible in public and private worship for instruction and inspiration. Work, learning and spiritual nurture were woven together in their daily lives. They engaged in missionary activities to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to far flung parts of the world. They developed a sensitivity to the Holy Spirit to bring them emotional and visionary experiences. Unity and Brotherhood were major themes in their activities. The sexual union of man and wife played a strong role in Moravian thought.

Now look at young William, a boy of exceptional intellectual and artistic talent, growing up with the nurture of such a mother. The accounts of Blake's childhood tell us he saw visions from a young age. The only formal schooling he had before his apprenticeship was at Pars School of Drawing. He reported that he was befriended by Old Testament prophets in childhood. His early attempts at writing poetry were published by friends in 1784. The fragments of a manuscript which goes by the name of Island in the Moon records singing among his circle of friends and includes preliminary poems of Songs of Innocence.

In Blake's major poetry we see the frequent but not explicit themes which can be traced back to the influence of his mother's Moravian background.  

 

Letters, (E 707)

"To My Dearest Friend John Flaxman these lines 

 

I bless thee O Father of Heaven & Earth that ever I saw Flaxmans face 

Angels stand round my Spirit in Heaven. the blessed of Heaven are my friends upon Earth 

When Flaxman was taken to Italy. Fuseli was giv'n to me for a season 

And now Flaxman hath given me Hayley his friend to be mine such my lot upon Earth 

Now my lot in the Heavens is this; Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face  

Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand 

Paracelsus & Behmen appeard to me. terrors appeard in the Heavens above 

And in Hell beneath & a mighty & awful change threatend the Earth 

The American War began All its dark horrors passed before my face Across the Atlantic to France. 

Then the French Revolution commencd in thick clouds 

And My Angels have told me. that seeing such visions I could not subsist on the Earth 

But by my conjunction with Flaxman who knows to forgive Nervous Fear 

I remain for Ever Yours 

WILLIAM BLAKE

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Ram Horn'd with Gold

By Larry Clayton 

Chapter Eight

Bible

Like Los Blake walks up and down the biblical scene
from Adam to John of Patmos. He takes what best serves his
purpose, or rather the biblical symbols rearrange themselves
kaleidoscopically into his visions of eternity. These together
add up to a cogent and provocative commentary on the Bible and on its child, the Christian faith. Out of this intuitive unconscious process arose the great themes of his faith, embodied in his art: the universal man, fallen and fractured, struggling, redeemed and returning in the fullness of time into the blessed unity from which he came. This is the essential story of the Bible for one who reads it whole and without the constraints and blinders of what I have called the black book.

It should be said however that Blake found inspiration for his myth from many other sources beside the Bible; the secular critics have pointed them out in great detail. He drew impartially on everything in his experience, but found the Bible his richest fountain. The other sources were secondary and for the most part commentaries on or elaborations of the biblical truths. 

Much as he loved the Bible, Blake ascribed paramount authority to his visions. The true man of God has visions which refine, bring up to date, and correct the earlier visions of the earlier prophets. This is where Blake departed from the orthodox attitude to the Bible, which he called reading it black. This is where he acted on the heritage of English dissent. 

This is how he saw the New Light and became a man of the New Age."   

 

To be Continued.