Sex as Symbol 3

 Summary

       After all this detail We can begin our summary of Blake's theory of sex with Jesus' reply to the Sadducee's mocking question about the woman married to seven husbands: "for when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels which are in heaven."

       Blake begins here, with the assumption that sexual division relates to this world, but not to Eternity. Sex appears in Beulah, a moony rest from the arduous creative activity of Eden. The "Female Will" condemns Man to the loss of Eternity, which Blake calls "the Sleep of Ulro".

Sex signifies fallenness, and the jealous and proudly chaste female symbolizes the active principle of evil, also identified with a materialistic viewpoint whose values are coercion and love of power.

Blake's vision of Jesus humanized his theory of sex. He began to use the biblical image of Jerusalem as the bride of Christ, named his last and greatest epic Jerusalem, and ultimately was able to rationalize the heterodox doctrine of sex with the glorified female as the emanation of the Eternal Man. Blake's female thus joined all the rest of his personal images in traveling the Circle of Destiny, materializing in the Fall and etherealizing in the Return.

Through all his journey Blake had a characteristically liberal and enlightened view of womankind, an entirely different matter from the sexual symbolism that filled his pages. His true and abiding feelings about the relation between men and women appear early in his works in his "Annotations to Lavater": "Let the men do their duty and the women will be such wonders; the female life lives from the light of the male: see a man's female dependants, you know the man." Admittedly short of the high standards of present day feminism, Blake's vision of womanhood considerably surpassed that of most of his contemporaries-- and perhaps most of ours.

End of Chapter

 

Perhaps Blake's attitude toward sex as a symbol is best represented by this image from Milton. The pairing of the male and female could represent the couple Milton and Ololon, any Zoa and his emanation, Los and Enitharmon, William and Catherine, or any couple who have reached the status of inspiration by being joined in body, mind and spirit.

 

In of the book Jerusalem Blake is at liberty to acknowledge the union of Jesus or the Lamb of God, and Jerusalem, his spiritual manifestation in the physical world.  

Milton, Plate 25 [27], (E 122)

"Wait till the Judgement is past, till the Creation is consumed
And then rush forward with me into the glorious spiritual    
Vegetation; the Supper of the Lamb & his Bride; and the
Awaking of Albion our friend and ancient companion.

So Los spoke." 

Jerusalem, Plate 20, (E 165) 

"Jerusalem answer'd ... 

I redounded from Albions bosom in my virgin loveliness.
The Lamb of God reciev'd me in his arms he smil'd upon us:
He made me his Bride & Wife: he gave thee to Albion."    

Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 171)

  "Her Little-ones ran on the fields                             
The Lamb of God among them seen
  And fair Jerusalem his Bride:
Among the little meadows green."

Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 172)

  "She walks upon our meadows green:
The Lamb of God walks by her side:
  And every English Child is seen,
Children of Jesus & his Bride,"                
 

New York Public Liberty

Milton 

Plate 28, Copy C