DELETIONS

 

 

If you look at the above Plate 3 of Jerusalem it reads:

"After my three years slumber on the banks of the Ocean, I again display my Giant forms to the Public: My former Giants &

Fairies having reciev'd the highest reward possible: the 

____ and __________ of those with whom to be connected, is to be ________: I cannot doubt that this more consolidated & extended Work, will be as kindly recieved The Enthusiasm of the following Poem, the Author hopes

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

________________________________________________ 

________________________________________________ 

_______________ I also hope the Reader will

be with me, wholly One in Jesus our Lord, who is the God __
____ and Lord ____ to whom the Ancients
look'd and saw his day afar off, with trembling & amazement.
     The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of Sin: he who
waits to be righteous before he enters into the Saviours kingdom,
the Divine Body; will never enter there.  I am perhaps the most
sinful of men! I pretend not to holiness! yet I pretend to love,
to see, to converse with daily, as man with man, & the more to
have an interest in the Friend of Sinners.  Therefore
____ Reader, ________ what you do not
approve, & ____ me for this energetic exertion of my
talent. 

     Reader! _____ of books! _____ of
     heaven,
     And of that God from whom ___________________"

The blank lines and words were stripped from the copper plate by Blake before the plate was printed. Something had so angered Blake that he was moved to remove from the plate specific references.

 

With the deletions restored we read on Page 145 of Erdman's Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake:

"After my three years slumber on the banks of the Ocean, I
again display my Giant forms to the Public: My former Giants &
Fairies having reciev'd the highest reward possible: the
[love] and [friendship] of those with whom to
be connected, is to be [blessed]: I cannot doubt that
this more consolidated & extended Work, will be as kindly
recieved
     The Enthusiasm of the following Poem, the Author hopes
[no Reader will think presumptuousness or arroganc[e] when he
is reminded that the Ancients acknowledge their love to their
Deities, to the full as Enthusiastically as I have who
Acknowledge mine for my Saviour and Lord, for they were wholly
absorb'd in their Gods.] I also hope the Reader will
be with me, wholly One in Jesus our Lord, who is the God [of
Fire] and Lord [of Love] to whom the Ancients
look'd and saw his day afar off, with trembling & amazement.
     The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of Sin: he who
waits to be righteous before he enters into the Saviours kingdom,
the Divine Body; will never enter there.  I am perhaps the most
sinful of men! I pretend not to holiness! yet I pretend to love,
to see, to converse with daily, as man with man, & the more to
have an interest in the Friend of Sinners.  Therefore
[Dear] Reader, [forgive] what you do not
approve, & [love] me for this energetic exertion of my
talent.

    Reader! [lover] of books! [lover] of
    heaven,
    And of that God from whom [all books are given,]"  

The first chapter of Jerusalem, which begins on page 3, is addressed "To The Public." In The Stranger from Paradise G.E Bentley presents the idea that the poor reception and criticism of his Exhibition and the Descriptive Catalogue of the exhibition turned Blake against the public for whom Jerusalem was being written. Blake's extravagant language and references to visionary experiences made his work unacceptable to conventional readers.

 

Especially damaging to Blake's reputation was the critique in The Examiner of Blake's Exhibition of 1809 and the catalogue which accompanied it. In it Robert Hunt savaged the Exhibition and repeatedly accused Blake of insanity. Although Blake had support from his friends, his hopes of gaining public support were shattered. Not until after 1818, states Bentley, had Blake "committed himself to publishing and public engraving once more."  

 

David V Erdman in his volume The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake provides the following Textural Note (E 789). Erdman was able to appreciate 'the energetic exertion of [Blake's] talent. 

 

Textual Notes, BY DAVID V. ERDMAN

 "Etching, however, did establish a text that was definitive in
the sense of fixed.  Once he had applied words to copper and
etched surrounding surfaces away, Blake could not alter a letter
except by laborious mending; he could scratch away words and even
lines but could not easily add new ones.  He called his plates
"stereotypes" because on each he had made a piece of copper text
and illustration into a single solid for printing (and subsequent
coloring).
     Blake was understandably reluctant to cancel whole plates,
but that does not mean he regarded the making of a set of plates
as the definitive completion of his poem; few of his "canonical"
works lack indications of the addition or removal of one or more
plates.  With a more ductile medium he might well have forged a
more perfect and more truly definitive canon.  Yet he managed to
make a virtue of the patchwork effects of his patching: a gallery
of plates does not trap the observer as might a serpentine closed
circle of 'fair copy'.  Windows are left for the imagination,
which may also leap from words to illustrations and back as one
series supplements the other."