David Erdman

David Erdman is our subject.

"Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of the History of His Own Times is a 1954 biographical book by David V. Erdman whose subject is the life and work of English poet and painter William Blake.^[1] Northrop Frye has described the book as a work full of knowledge of the meaning of Blake's Prophecies and the first to make a consistent use of the primary sources of historical scholarship.^[2] The book tries to re-tell the social history of England as seen through Blake's eyes starting with the peaceful years of the 1760s, which Blake regarded, in his childhood, as time of innocence. Then moving forward to all the major events such as the American Revolution, the Gordon riots, the French Revolution, the policies of the Pitt government and the famine in England. Erdman explains that Blake was far from being an abstract or vague poet, but one whose social environment helped shape both his most famous and obscure works.^{"
(from wikipedia}

Our knowledge and understanding of Blake stems from a great many scholars of his works.  One of the foremost of these is David Erdman. Less gifted perhaps than Kathleen Raine or Northrup Frye, he was first in commitment to Blake.

Robert Rix has given this comment on Erdman's place among them:

"One branch of Blake studies (originating with another great poet of the occult, W.B. Yeats, and reaching its apex in Kathleen Raine), sees Blake primarily as a researcher of mystical sources; whereas a line fathered by David Erdman glosses over the mystical influences in order to draw a picture of a political Blake, whose writings reflect directly on contemporary events in a straightforward manner."

Erdman published work included 

Blake, Prophet Against Empire

Blake's Visionary Forms Dramatic

William Blake's Designs for Edward Young's "Night Thoughts

Notebook of William Blake

Blake and his Bibles 

Terrible Blake in His Pride

And the BLAKE BOOK that is the Bible for all Blake scholars. It appears in several forms; here are two of them published electronically:

eE
another electronic one
But if you want hard copy it's here.

All the above are text based books, but for those who are visually oriented he published The Illuminated Blake.  With this Erdman may have gotten closer to the nitty-gritty William Blake than we can find anywhere else.


(You can find much the same material of course in The William Blake Archive)


David Erdman published many other works, almost all of them about Blake. He was anxious for us all to learn about Blake, much more than make a profit with his personal profit; he substantially put much of it in the public domain.  You could only call him our benefactor.

BARD IN MILTON

Blake's Watercolours for the Poems of Thomas Gray
The Bard. A Pindaric Ode
Design Number 63






Blake gives to the Bard a central role in Milton for it is he who inspires Milton to undertake his redemptive role through the 'underworld' of Beulah, Generation and Ulro after he has spent one hundred years in Eternity. Among the Eternals (including Milton) at eternal tables the Bard responds to the call to relate the cause of Milton's withdrawal form Eternity to reenter time.


Milton, Plate 2, (E 96)
Book the First

"Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poets Song
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro' your Realms"
...
"Say first! what mov'd Milton, who walkd about in Eternity
One hundred years, pondring the intricate mazes of Providence
Unhappy tho in heav'n, he obey'd, he murmur'd not. he was silent
Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter'd thro' the deep
In torment! To go into the deep her to redeem & himself perish?
What cause at length mov'd Milton to this unexampled deed[?]
A Bards prophetic Song! for sitting at eternal tables,
Terrific among the Sons of Albion in chorus solemn & loud
A Bard broke forth! all sat attentive to the awful man."

For the next fourteen plates the Bard sings his song of the three classes of men and how they interact in the characters of Palamabron, Rintrah and Satan. When the song ends there is some confusion and dissatisfaction about his song but the Bard claims inspiration for the source of his song. The turmoil over his song sends the Bard into the bosom of Milton who acts decisively to return to life in order to deal with his Selfhood which he identifies with Satan.

Milton, PLATE 13 [14], (E 107)
"The Bard ceas'd. All consider'd and a loud resounding murmur
Continu'd round the Halls; and much they question'd the immortal
Loud voicd Bard. and many condemn'd the high tone'd Song
Saying Pity and Love are too venerable for the imputation
Of Guilt. Others said. It it is true! if the acts have been perform'd
Let the Bard himself witness. Where hadst thou this terrible Song

The Bard replied. I am Inspired! I know it is Truth! for I Sing
PLATE 14 [15]
According to the inspiration of the Poetic Genius
Who is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity
To whom be Glory & Power & Dominion Evermore Amen

Then there was great murmuring in the Heavens of Albion
Concerning Generation & the Vegetative power & concerning
The Lamb the Saviour: Albion trembled to Italy Greece & Egypt
To Tartary & Hindostan & China & to Great America
Shaking the roots & fast foundations of the Earth in doubtfulness
The loud voic'd Bard terrify'd took refuge in Miltons bosom

Then Milton rose up from the heavens of Albion ardorous!
The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Miltons face
And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death & Ulro
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God

And Milton said, I go to Eternal Death!"

In the second half of Milton we follow as Milton in his travels is united with Blake and Los in exploring the dilemmas inherent in the the role of the prophet.

Blake's Jesus II

In Blake's Works Jesus appears many places with many meanings :

In MHH; (Erdman 43) he wrote this dialogue between a Devil
and an angel (The Devil of course was the 'good guy' and the Angel
the 'bad guy':

" A Memorable Fancy

Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire. who arose before an

Angel that sat on a cloud. and the Devil utterd these words.

The worship of God is. Honouring his gifts in other men

each according to his genius. and loving the greatest men

best, those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there

is no other God.

The Angel hearing this became almost blue but mastering

himself he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling, and then

replied,

Thou Idolater, is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus

Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of

ten commandments and are not all other men fools, sinners, &

nothings?

The Devil answer'd; bray a fool in a morter with wheat. yet

shall not his folly be beaten out of him: if Jesus Christ is the

greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now

hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten

commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the

sabbaths God? murder those who were murderd because of him? turn

away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of

others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making

a defence before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples,

and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against

such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist

without breaking these ten commandments: Jesus was all virtue,

and acted from impulse: not from rules."

Here we have the age old conflict between the

conventional religionist and the creative individual.

*****************************************************

In MHH, Plate

16; Erdman 40: 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."

***********************************************************

In the Preface to Milton, immediately before the glorious

hymn, Jerusalem, he wrote: (Erdman 95)

"believe Christ & his Apostles that there is

A Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not

want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to

our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall

live for ever; in Jesus our Lord.

And did those feet in ancient time......"

 *************************************************************

In Plate 2 of Milton; (Erdman 92):
"Tell also of the False Tongue! vegetated
Beneath your land of shadows: of its sacrifices. and Its offerings;
even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God Became its prey;
a curec, an offering, and an atonement,
For Death Eternal in the heavens of Albion, & before the
Gates Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah"
***********************************************************************

In Plate 3 of Milton; (Erdman 96):

"Three Classes are Created by the Hammer of Los, & Woven

By Enitharmons Looms when Albion was slain upon his Mountains

And in his Tent, thro envy of Living Form, even of the Divine

Vision And of the sports of Wisdom in the Human Imagination

Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for ever."

**************************************************************************

The beginning of Jerusalem reads like this:

" Jerusalem

Chap: I

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:

Fibres of love from man to man thro Albions pleasant land.

In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey

A black water accumulates, return Albion! return! "

*******************************************************************

Read finally in Plate 3 of Jerusalem (Erdman 145):

.......................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:"

We could site many other occurrences of these thoughts, but

in the light especially found in the beginning of Jerusalem it

must be clear to anyone who can see that Blake had experienced

a rebirth at that point.

The vulgar understanding perceives rebirth as a one-time event, but a rebirth may occur more than once in a lifetime. Ideally every day is a rebirth if you can see the Sun the way Blake saw it:

"it will be Questiond When the Sun rises do you not see a round

Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea O no no I see an Innumerable

company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord

God Almighty I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any

more than I would Question a Window concerning a Sight I look

thro it & not with it."

(the end of Blake's Vision of the Last Judgment; E565-6)  

BLAKE'S BARD

Blake's Watercolours 
for the Poems of Thomas Gray 
Design Number 65
The Bard. a Pindaric Ode

Blake's Introduction to Songs of Experience invites us to attend to the voice of the Bard who announces the prospect of the dawning of a new day. 


Songs of Experience, Song 30, (E 17)
"Introduction.
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.

Calling the lapsed Soul
And weeping in the evening dew:
That might controll,
The starry pole;
And fallen fallen light renew!

O Earth O Earth return!
Arise from out the dewy grass;
Night is worn,
And the morn
Rises from the slumberous mass,

Turn away no more:
Why wilt thou turn away
The starry floor
The watry shore
Is giv'n thee till the break of day."

In the Voice of the Ancient Bard, the opening morn as an image of truth is offered by the Ancient Bard to the youth, but with a warning of the maze of darkness left by previous generations of misguided teachers.

Songs of Experience , Song 54, (E 31)
"The Voice of the Ancient Bard.

Youth of delight come hither:
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new born.
Doubt is fled & clouds of reason.
Dark disputes & artful teazing.
Folly is an endless maze,
Tangled roots perplex her ways,

How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones of the dead,
And feel they know not what but care
And wish to lead others, when they should be led."

The Bard in America takes on an even darker aspect as he speaks of the terrors of Eternal Death which he says have been long foretold.

America, Plate 2, (E 51)
"Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire;
Round the terrific loins he siez'd the panting struggling womb;
It joy'd: she put aside her clouds & smiled her first-born smile;
As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep.

Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin cry.

I know thee, I have found thee, & I will not let thee go;
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa;
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep:
I see a serpent in Canada, who courts me to his love;
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a Whale in the South-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb rending pains I feel. thy fire & my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by thy lightnings rent;
This is eternal death; and this the torment long foretold."

Lines which were removed in some copies of America record an enraged Bard ashamed of his own song. The Bard himself destroys his instrument and turns away to lament the vision about which he has sung.

"[ The stern Bard ceas'd, asham'd of his own song; enrag'd he swung
His harp aloft sounding, then dash'd its shining frame against
A ruin'd pillar in glittring fragments; silent he turn'd away,
And wander'd down the vales of Kent in sick & drear lamentings.]"

Blake's Bard bears a closer resemblance to the Old Testament prophets than to a medieval bard who sang the praises of his patron. The Bard fits the description of the visionary as proclaimed by Northrop Frye in Fearful Symmetry: "the business of the visionary [is] to proclaim the Word of God to a society under the domination of Satan; and ... the visionary's social position is typically that of an isolated voice crying in the wilderness against the injustice and hypocrisy of the society from which he sprung." (Page 336)

Blake's Jesus

Everyone at some point in their life has to deal with the identity of Jesus; it's usually the turning point in that person's life, whether they realize it or not.  Such it was for Blake. Look again at Song 52 of Songs of Innocence and Experience:

"The death of Jesus set me free"!  With 'me' I think Blake was talking about everyone (Albion, Everyman, you and me).  Just what did the 'death of Jesus' mean to him?  'Jesus died for our sins'; but in Blake's system there was no Sin, only Error!

When we perceive our Error (of treating Jesus lightly) a Last Judgment falls on us, Blake's equivalent to Freedom.

He began in grave error; he equated Freedom with License; (he proposed a concubine!) But he saw that License meant self indulgence; it meant Hatred, War.
In contrast Jesus meant Forgiveness.

So he turned, and experienced the Moment of Grace and became a New Man; the Vision, denied for the twenty years he had chosen Commerce over Art, returned and Visions began to pour forth from his enlightened mind.
(Having sold himself to Hayley, he relativized Hayley).

In the general case we all have forgiveness to do; but too often we are completely unaware of our lack and our need. If we die in that condition the Last Judgment comes with death.

"But when once I did descry,
The Immortal Man that cannot Die
Through Evening shades I hast away
To close the Labors of my Day"

When you perceive Immortality, and know it's for you, you no longer have any terror of physical death.

This is a small part of what Jesus meant to Blake.

PSYCHOLOGICAL STRUGGLE

America, Plate 7

This post follows Air, Water, Earth & Fire.






Here is another quote from William Blake's Circle of Destiny by Milton O Percival.

"The psychological struggle, set forth as a war of the elements for dominion over Albion, is Blake's war of the Gods. Its scale is commensurate. The Zoas are giant figures whose impulses and activities are reflected in every portion of the cosmos. Moreover their war, like the contention of the elements, is never-ending. As the psychological components of man in his struggle toward the light they know the frustration of ages; but, like man, they cannot be extinguished. Vanquished in the struggle, they die only to be born again for renewed cycles of searching and strife.

"It is in his presentation of the Zoas that much of the power of Blake's myth lies. They are not the bloodless abstractions common to allegory. Blake believed in them. They are in consequence, realities of the imagination, with power to terrify us as they terrified their creator. No other poet has given us so profound a sense of the helplessness of man before the primal forces of life; and no other poet, so passionate a denial of that helplessness. He fears these forces, because he see them as demonic, with power over him; but he takes hope from the fact that these forces are in him - that they are himself. When man shall have brought them again into harmony, they will become once more his willing servants." (Page 20)

Milton, PLATE 32 [35], (E 131)

"But the Divine Humanity & Mercy gave us a Human      [Hebrew text]

 Form                                                                                    as multitudes

Because we were combind in Freedom & holy             Vox Populi

 Brotherhood

While those combind by Satans Tyranny first in the blood of War
And Sacrifice &, next, in Chains of imprisonment: are Shapeless Rocks
Retaining only Satans Mathematic Holiness, Length: Bredth & Highth
Calling the Human Imagination: which is the Divine Vision & Fruition
In which Man liveth eternally: madness & blasphemy, against
Its own Qualities, which are Servants of Humanity, not Gods or Lords[.]
Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.
States Change: but Individual Identities never change nor cease:
You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die."

Four Zoas, Night ix, Page 126, (E 395)
"Luvah & Vala henceforth you are Servants obey & live
You shall forget your former state return O Love in peace
Into your place the place of seed not in the brain or heart
If Gods combine against Man Setting their Dominion above
The Human form Divine. Thrown down from their high Station
In the Eternal heavens of Human Imagination: buried beneath
In dark Oblivion with incessant pangs ages on ages
In Enmity & war first weakend then in stern repentance
They must renew their brightness & their disorganizd functions
Again reorganize till they resume the image of the human
Cooperating in the bliss of Man obeying his Will
Servants to the infinite & Eternal of the Human form"

RAHAB & TIRZAH

William Blake Poet and Mystic by Pierre Berger can be read online as a Google book. Berger has this advice to us as we seek to understand our 'mystic poet':

"As one reads his books, one sees his theories becoming gradually clearer and more complete. Different works explain each other. None of them is complete in itself: all must be known and borne in mind if any one is to be read properly. Even when he wrote the first, Blake had dimly in his mind the ideas which were to fill his latest books. His theories do not seem to have changed as he grew older. They undergo development: they are expressed in different terms; but at bottom they remain the same. Just as a seed contains all the germs from which the plant will receive its shape, the flowers their colours, and the fruit its flavour, so it is with Blake and with the development of his genius." (Page 65)

On Page 351 Berger provides these clues to discriminating between the characters Rahab and Tirzah in Jerusalem.

"True religion, which, as we have seen, meant for Blake universal love and the accomplishment of all man's desires, is, according to him, always in conflict with two great philosophical systems : on the one hand all the orthodox religions and moral codes which restrain desire, and write the " Thou shalt not " of the Decalogue ; and, on the other, the religions founded on science and reason, which deny revelation and concentrate all man's aspirations upon himself. Judaism is a type of the first, and Deism of the second ; and Blake represents the one by Rahab, the religion of the Law, of sin and punishment, and the other by Tirzah, the religion of nature and materialism. Jerusalem, therefore, treats principally of the growth of these two kinds of religion, after the fall of man, their final destruction, and man's regeneration through Liberty."

Two of the chapters in Jerusalem are addressed to the Jews and to the Deists. Blake developed the two characters Rahab and Tirzah as representative of the two types of error he addressed in these two chapters. Here are passages which clarify the symbolic meaning of Rehab, representative of the religion of moral virtue or a religion emphasising legalism; and Tirzah, representative of Deism or the natural religion of materiality without spirituality.

Jerusalem, Plate 25, (E 171)
"Thus wept they in Beulah over the Four Regions of Albion
But many doubted & despaird & imputed Sin & Righteousness
To Individuals & not to States, and these Slept in Ulro."

Jerusalem, Plate 35 [39], (E 181)
"In the Fourth region of Humanity, Urthona namd[,]
Mortality begins to roll the billows of Eternal Death
Before the Gate of Los. Urthona here is named Los.
And here begins the System of Moral Virtue, named Rahab."

Milton, Plate 40 [46], (E 141)
"No sooner she had spoke but Rahab Babylon appeard
Eastward upon the Paved work across Europe & Asia
Glorious as the midday Sun in Satans bosom glowing:
A Female hidden in a Male, Religion hidden in War
Namd Moral Virtue; cruel two-fold Monster shining bright
A Dragon red & hidden Harlot which John in Patmos saw"

Jerusalem, Plate 69, (E 223)
"And now the Spectres of the Dead awake in Beulah: all
The Jealousies become Murderous: uniting together in Rahab
A Religion of Chastity, forming a Commerce to sell Loves
With Moral Law, an Equal Balance, not going down with decision
Therefore the Male severe & cruel filld with stern Revenge:
Mutual Hate returns & mutual Deceit & mutual Fear."   

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem
Plate 69

     

Songs of Experience, 52, (E 30)
"To Tirzah

Whate'er is Born of Mortal Birth,
Must be consumed with the Earth
To rise from Generation free;
Then what have I to do with thee?

The Sexes sprung from Shame & Pride
Blow'd in the morn: in evening died
But Mercy changd Death into Sleep;
The Sexes rose to work & weep.

Thou Mother of my Mortal part.
With cruelty didst mould my Heart.
And with false self-decieving tears,
Didst bind my Nostrils Eyes & Ears.

Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay
And me to Mortal Life betray:
The Death of Jesus set me free,
Then what have I to do with thee?

[text on illustration: It is Raised a Spiritual Body]"

Bacon, Newton, and Locke

These were three of Blake's pet peeves, one of his "Unholy Trinities". How come?

During Blake's life the British culture was in the throes of the Enlightenment, but his culture went way back before the Enlightenment into the Renaissance, and the Reformation, and the Middle Ages, and yet further and further before any of these passing scenes. People generally tend to feel that their culture is all there is or ever was-- very, very parochial. In contrast Blake was universal.

Bacon (1561–1626) was said to be the father of Empiricism, which meant in effect guided exclusively by sense-based thoughts. His attitude toward reason contributed largely to the advent of the Enlightenment, all of which Blake despised.

If Bacon inaugurated Empiricism, Newton (1642-1727) was an avid practitioner of it. Among other things he was a theologian , but his theology, with its naturalistic bent, had little to do with the theology of William Blake; one was natural; the other was divine. Under Newton's influence early 19th century English religion was dominantly Deism (God wound up the world like a clock and, losing interest in it, left it to unwind on its own).

Finally we have to look at John Locke, (1632-1704), widely known as the Father of Liberalism. Blake might well have endorsed many of Locke's liberal tendencies, but one thing about Locke completely antagonized him: the tabula rasa!

Somehow these three widely different men came to be associated in Blake's mind with what I've called an 'Unholy Trinity'. It appears many times in his writings:

Jerusalem Plate 15 (Erdman 158):

"O Divine Spirit sustain me on thy wings!That
I may awake Albion from His long & cold repose.
For Bacon & Newton sheathd in dismal steel, their terrors hang
Like iron scourges over Albion, Reasonings like vast Serpents
Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations
I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire
Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation; cruel Works
Of many Wheels I View, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other:"

********************************************************
Jerusalem Plate 54: (Erdman 203-4) (This is near the beginning to Chapter Three - To the Deists:
We see a diagram showing the four zoas in This World: Reason, then Luvah and Los, then Tharmas:

..............Reason

Pity....This World....Wrath

............ Desire

But the Spectre like a hoar frost & a Mildew rose over Albion
Saying, I am God O Sons of Men! I am your Rational Power!
Am I not Bacon & Newton & Locke who teach Humility to Man!
Who teach Doubt & Experiment & my two Wings Voltaire: Rousseau.
Where is that Friend of Sinners! that Rebel against my Laws!
Who teaches Belief to the Nations, & an unknown Eternal Life
Come hither into the Desart & turn these stones to bread.
Vain foolish Man! wilt thou believe without Experiment?"

*******************************************************

Plate 93 (Erdman 253-4):
"Will you suffer this Satan this Body of Doubt that Seems but Is
Not To occupy the very threshold of Eternal Life. if Bacon, Newton, Locke,
Deny a Conscience in Man & the Communion of Saints & Angels
Contemning the Divine Vision & Fruition, Worshiping the Deus
Of the Heathen, The God of This World, & the Goddess Nature
Mystery Babylon the Great, The Druid Dragon & hidden Harlot
Is it not that Signal of the Morning which was told us in the Beginning"

**********************************************************

But writing Plate 98 (Erdman 257) Blake had learned something of forgiveness:
"The Druid Spectre was Annihilate loud thundring rejoicing terrific vanishing
Fourfold Annihilation & at the clangor of the Arrows of Intellect
The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appeard in Heaven
And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakspear & Chaucer
A Sun of blood red wrath surrounding heaven on all sides around
Glorious incompreh[en]sible by Mortal Man & each Chariot was Sexual Threefold
And every Man stood Fourfold,"

***************************************

Milton Plate 40-41:

"That the Children of Jerusalem may be saved from slavery

There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary

The Negation must be destroyd to redeem the Contraries

The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man

This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal Spirit; a Selfhood, which must be put off & annihilated alway

To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination.

To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human

I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration

To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour

To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration

To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albions
covering To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination

To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration"

AIR, WATER, EARTH & FIRE

Book of Urizen

Copy A, Plate 4

Blake names the Four Elements in the Book of Urizen but they are later personified as the Four Zoas with more familiar names:

Thiriel - Air - Urizen
Utha - Water - Tharmas
Gorda - Earth - Urthona
Fuzon - Fire - Luvah

Book of Urizen, Plate 23, (E 81)
"3. Most Urizen sicken'd to see
His eternal creations appear
Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains
Weeping! wailing! first Thiriel appear'd
Astonish'd at his own existence
Like a man from a cloud born, & Utha
From the waters emerging, laments!
Grodna rent the deep earth howling
Amaz'd! his heavens immense cracks
Like the ground parch'd with heat; then Fuzon
Flam'd out! first begotten, last born.
All his eternal sons in like manner
His daughters from green herbs & cattle
From monsters, & worms of the pit."

Damon in A Blake Dictionary writes that:
"Thus the Four Elements are the inexorable forces of matter in the unending strife of Nature...
Men in their power must 'War on, slaves to the eternal Elements' (SoL 3:14). Yet it is also stated that Los can renew the 'ruin'd souls of Men thro 'Earth, Sea, Air & Fire (FZ iv:30). For the Elements, when servants, have their valuable functions." (Page 117)

Percival in William Blake's Circle of Destiny tells us:
"It is because Blake conceives of the Zoas both as rebellious forces precipitating the fall and as the chief agencies for deliverance, that he supplements the human symbolism of head, heart, and loins by a natural symbolism of earth, air, fire and water. He identifies the Zoas, in their failure to cooperate in the well being of man, with the four elements to which man is subject. With the separation of the elements from Albion, he ceases to be their master and becomes their prey. The appearance of the four elements with the fall is traditional. In the beginning there was 'one only element'; it fell into division of four. So writes Jacob Boehme and with abundant authority. 'And that is the heavy fall of Adam,' and he says further, 'that his eyes and spirit entered into the outward, into the four elements, into the palpability, viz., into death, and there they are blind to the kingdom of God.' A prey to the elements which beset him - his own powers in a state of contention - Albion is, like Adam blind to the kingdom of God." (Page 19)

Milton, Plate 28 [30], (E 126)
"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
In Los's Halls continual labouring in the Furnaces of Golgonooza
Orc howls on the Atlantic: Enitharmon trembles: All Beulah weeps

Jerusalem trembled seeing her Children drivn by Los's Hammer
In the visions of the dreams of Beulah on the edge of Non-Entity
Hand stood between Reuben & Merlin, as the Reasoning Spectre
Stands between the Vegetative Man & his Immortal Imagination"

Jerusalem, Plate 32 [36], (E 178)
"And the Four Zoa's clouded rage East & West & North & South
They change their situations, in the Universal Man.
Albion groans, he sees the Elements divide before his face.
And England who is Brittannia divided into Jerusalem & Vala
And Urizen assumes the East, Luvah assumes the South
In his dark Spectre ravening from his open Sepulcher

And the Four Zoa's who are the Four Eternal Senses of Man
Became Four Elements separating from the Limbs of Albion
These are their names in the Vegetative Generation
[West Weighing East & North dividing Generation South
bounding]
And Accident & Chance were found hidden in Length Bredth & Highth
And they divided into Four ravening deathlike Forms
Fairies & Genii & Nymphs & Gnomes of the Elements.
These are States Permanently Fixed by the Divine Power"

The Elements are the externalized powers which within the psyche are represented as the Zoas.

Annotations to Berkeley's Siris

Although there are many of Blake's Annotations in the "Big Book" (Erdman  583-667) ,  they're likely to be neglected by the general reader or student; that's unfortunate! With his Annotations Blake gave us lots of direct looks at his values.

Of all the great men and others whose books Blake annotated The
 Annotations to Berkeley's Siris, may well represent the man whose values Blake resembled most.

George (Bishop) Berkeley  (1685-1753) was born in County Kilkenny and
educated at Kilkenny College and Trinity College in Dublin. His wife was a daughter of the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.  He had a large income in Dublin
, but in 1728 he went to America, landing at Newport Rhode Island; he
bought a plantation there; it was called Whitehall. After four years he
returned to the Old World and lived in London.  He promoted and
founded the Foundling Hospital in 1739.

In 1734 he had been appointed the Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland.
Read about Bishop Berkeley and you may be struck by the fact (like I was) that like Blake he was very much of an individual.  Both of them were 'their own man' (as you and l likely are). He moved around the world, as Blake, with the means, might well have done.  Blake of course had to do his traveling in his mind, with his reading. 

Berkeley like Blake was an idealist, not only philosophically, but in the vulgar sense as well: he found hospitals; in the interest of doing something for the poor slaves in Jamaica he moved to America, etc, etc. He lived an interesting life.
***********************************************************************
The Annotations that follow here are made up of quotations, preceded by a p number and followed by Blake's own word, preceded by the <!WB>:

<!WB>Annotations to Berkeley's Siris  

Dublin, 1744  

[P 203] God knoweth all things, as pure mind or intellect, but
nothing by sense, nor in nor through a sensory.  Therefore to
suppose a sensory of any kind, whether space or any other, in God
would be very wrong, and lead us into false conceptions of his
nature.
</!WB>magination or the Human Eternal Body in Every Man  

[P 204] But in respect of a perfect spirit, there is nothing
hard or impenetrable: there is no resistance to the deity.  Nor
hath he any Body: Nor is the supreme being united to the world,
as the soul of an animal is to its body, which necessarily
implieth defect, both as an instrument and as a constant weight
and impediment.
</!WB>    Imagination or the Divine Body in Every Man  

[P 205] Natural phaenomena are only natural appearances. . .
. They and the phantomes that result from those appearances,
the children: of imagination grafted upon sense, such
for example as pure space, are thought by many the very first in
existence and stability, and to embrace and comprehend all
beings.                                                                                                        

</!WB>  The All in Man The Divine Image or Imagination
     The Four Senses are the Four Faces of Man & the Four Rivers
of the Water of Life

[P 212] Plato and Aristotle considered God as abstracted or
distinct from the natural  world.  But the Aegyptians considered
God and nature as making one whole, or all things together as
making one universe.

</!WB> They also considerd God as abstracted or distinct from the
Imaginative World but Jesus as also Abraham & David considerd God
as a Man in the Spiritual or Imaginative Vision
     Jesus considerd Imagination to be the Real Man & says I will
not leave you Orphanned and I will manifest myself to you   he
says also the Spiritual Body or Angel as little Children always
behold the Face of the Heavenly Father  

[P 213] The perceptions of sense are gross: but even in the
senses there is a difference.   Though harmony and proportion are
not objects of sense, yet the eye and the ear are organs, which
offer to the mind such materials, by means whereof she may
apprehend both the one and the other.

</!WB> Harmony [&] Proportion are Qualities & Not Things The
Harmony & Proportion of a Horse are not the same with those of a
Bull Every Thing has its own Harmony & Proportion Two Inferior 

Qualities in 
it For its Reality is Its Imaginative Form  

[P 214] By experiments of sense we become acquainted with
the lower faculties of the soul; and from them, whether by a
gradual evolution or ascent, we arrive at the highest.  These
become subjects for fancy to work upon.  Reason considers and
judges of the imaginations.  And these acts of reason become new
objects to the understanding.

</!WB> Knowledge is not by deduction but Immediate by Perception or
Sense at once Christ addresses himself to the Man not to his
Reason   Plato did not bring Life & Immortality to Light Jesus
only did this  

[<P 215] There is according to Plato properly no knowledge,
but only opinion concerning things sensible and perishing, not
because they are naturally abstruse and involved in darkness: but
because their nature and existence is uncertain, ever fleeting
and changing.

</!WB> Jesus supposes every Thing to be Evident to the Child & to
the Poor & Unlearned Such is the Gospel 
     The Whole Bible is filld with Imaginations & Visions from
End to End & not with Moral virtues that is the baseness of Plato
& the Greeks & all Warriors  The Moral Virtues are continual
Accusers of Sin & promote Eternal Wars & Domineering over others  

[P 217] Aristotle maketh a threefold distinction of objects
according to the three speculative sciences.  Physics he
supposeth to be conversant about such things as have a principle
of motion in themselves, mathematics about things permanent but
not abstracted, and theology about being abstracted and
immoveable, which distinction may be seen in the ninth book of
his metaphysics.</!WB>
     God is not a Mathematical Diagram  

[P 218] It is a maxim of the Platonic philosophy, that the
soul of man was originally furnished with native inbred notions,
and stands in need of sensible occasions, not absolutely for
producing them, but only for awakening, rousing or exciting, into
act what was already preexistent, dormant, and latent in the
soul.

</!WB> The Natural Body is an Obstruction to the Soul or Spiritual
Body  

[P 219] . . . Whence, according to Themistius, . . . it may
be inferred that all beings are in the soul.  For, saith he, the
forms are the beings.  By the form every thing is what it is. 
And, he adds, it is the soul that imparteth forms to matter, . .
.
</!WB> This is my Opinion but Forms must be apprehended by Sense or
the Eye of Imagination 
     Man is All Imagination God is Man & exists in us & we in him 


PAGE 241  What Jesus came to Remove was the Heathen or Platonic
Philosophy which blinds the Eye of Imagination The Real Man 

**************************************************************** 

From all this and Berkeley's life and works I came to the opinion

that he certainly held many values sacred to our poet. 

4z 60

In this blog the Four Zoas is labeled 59 times.

1. Ezekiel 1:4-10
⁴And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
⁵Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
⁶And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.
⁷And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.
⁸And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides; and they four had their faces and their wings.
⁹Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.
¹⁰As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle."


2. Revelation 4:6-11:
"

• The heavenly throne with a rainbow around it, having the One seated in it, is revealed.
• Twenty-four surrounding thrones seated with twenty-four crowned elders appear.
• The four living creatures present themselves; each having six wings full of eyes, one having the face of a lion, another as a calf, the third as a man, and the last as an eagle.
• (From Wikipedia)

 These passages in the Bible must have made an enormous impression on the mind of the young William Blake, a Bible Soaked Protestant according to Northrup Frye.

A strong impulse to be an individual ('I must create a system') was fully present in his consciousness since the earliest days; he must do something like Homer had done, like Dante had done, especially what Milton had done; all three of them and many others were 'their own man'. Above all Blake was his own man.

His first large poem he would call Vala, but he soon replaced it with The Four Zoas ("the greatest unfinished masterpiece in British Literature" -Frye). It would be Nine Nights.

He hit upon The Four Zoas at an early age (How old was Jung when he came up with his Four Functions?)

It became his Notebook; he kept adding stuff to it until it became enormous. He hallowed it; it was his Kingdom. Day by day he added his daily bread to it. Something came to him; he added it; perhaps forgot it, and it reappeared in another form.

Time came when he realized that it wouldn't do (maybe after his Moment of Grace). He wrote Milton (full of his New Mind); then he started on his magnum opus and called it Jerusalem. The Preface to Milton was the beginning; the four zoas became the four chapters. In these later days he used the same procedures he had used in the un-regenerate times, but the structure was determined from the beginning: one chapter for each of the four levels of spiritual consciousness as he understood them.

In his early development Blake had been dominated by Urizen; he came to hate it and preferred Luvah. He made Jesus another name for Luvah: always suffering. After his awakening Luvah and Jesus became prominent as Forgiveness.

THIS FOOLISH BODY

William Blake died on August 12, 1827 at the age of 70. A few months earlier he had written to his friend George Cumberland.

Letters, Number 91, (E 783)

[To] George Cumberland Esqre, Culver Street, Bristol

N 3 Fountain Court Strand 12 April 1827
Dear Cumberland
I have been very near the Gates of Death & have returned
very weak & an Old Man feeble & tottering, but not in Spirit &
Life not in The Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever.
In that I am stronger & stronger as this Foolish Body decays. I
thank you for the Pains you have taken with Poor Job. I know too
well that a great majority of Englishmen are fond of The
Indefinite which they Measure by Newtons Doctrine of the Fluxions
of an Atom. A Thing that does not Exist. These are Politicians
& think that Republican Art is Inimical to their Atom. For a
Line or Lineament is not formed by Chance a Line is a Line in its
Minutest Subdivision[s] Strait or Crooked It is Itself & Not
Intermeasurable with or by any Thing Else Such is Job but since
the French Revolution Englishmen are all Intermeasurable One by
Another Certainly a happy state of Agreement to which I for One
do not Agree. God keep me from the Divinity of Yes & No too The
Yea Nay Creeping Jesus from supposing Up & Down to be the same
Thing as all Experimentalists must suppose
You are desirous I know to dispose of some of my Works & to
make Pleasin[g], I am obliged to you & to all who do so
But having none remaining of all that I had Printed I cannot
Print more Except at a great loss for at the time I printed those
things I had a whole House to range in now I am shut up in a
Corner therefore am forced to ask a Price for them that I
scarce expect to get from a Stranger. I am now Printing a Set of
the Songs of Innocence & Experience for a Friend at Ten Guineas
which I cannot do under Six Months consistent with my other Work,
so that I have little hope of doing any more of such things. the
Last Work I produced is a Poem Entitled Jerusalem the Emanation
of the Giant Albion, but find that to Print it will Cost my Time
the amount of Twenty Guineas One I have Finishd It contains 100
Plates but it is not likely that I shall get a Customer for it
As you wish me to send you a list with the Prices of these
things they are as follows

...............L s d
America 6. 6. 0
Europe 6. 6. 0
Visions &c 5. 5. 0
Thel 3. 3. 0
Songs of Inn. & Exp. 10. 10. 0
Urizen 6. 6. 0

The Little Card I will do as soon as Possible but when you
Consider that I have been reduced to a Skeleton from which I am
slowly recovering you will I hope have Patience with me.
Flaxman is Gone & we must All soon follow every one to his
Own Eternal House Leaving the Delusive Goddess Nature & her Laws
to get into Freedom from all Law of the Members into The Mind in
which every one is King & Priest in his own House God Send it so
on Earth as it is in Heaven
I am Dear Sir Yours Affectionately
WILLIAM


Blake captures numerous motifs from his art and poetry in this summation of life's cycle in the little calling card for Cumberland which became his final engraving.

The Illuminated Mind

Reading from Plate 35 of Milton (Erdman 136):

"There is a Moment in each day that Satan cannot find.
Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, but the Industrious find
This Moment & it multiply. & when it once is found
It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed"

Goodness knows, that's the desideratum every Blakean wants to achieve. Our Daily Bread is to remember the visions that came to us after the magical Moment and to record and communicate them to those we love.

Love's Body is a little book with pointers to Norman Brown's visions. It invites us to record our visions as they occur and as time allows to communicate them to whomever God may have sent to hear, see, or experience them.

A young person has the Energy to do this. He may do it during his most creative years. As we all know, energy flags with age; as the years go by, we find the Energy of the active baby that we all longed for is steadily and unfortunately more and more rare. Would that I had the energy I had at twenty. Blake's Minute gives us a chance to make the most of what our aging body allows.

Conservation of Energy! (it goes somewhere); as Blakeans and Christians we can direct it to the most important place.

"Follow your bliss", said Joseph Campbell. 'Redeem the time' says the New Testament, and John Wesley, and William Blake. In Jerusalem Plate 47, introducing Chapter Four, To the Christians, we read:

" We are told to abstain from fleshly desires that we may lose no
time from the Work of the Lord. Every moment lost, is a moment
that cannot be redeemed every pleasure that intermingles with the
duty of our station is a folly unredeemable & is planted like the
seed of a wild flower among our wheat."
That Moment may spread to the limit of your energy level. Be thankful for it.

Expansion and Contraction:
Satan is the Limit of Contraction. It's the most he (it) can do to enslave you to the God of this World (pure materiality!)

Adam is the Limit of Expansion. (Larry's vision; not Blake's)

In Plate 42 of Jerusalem Los) was speaking to whom?
To Albion "in deepest night of Ulro":

"Thou wast the Image of God surrounded by the Four Zoa's
Three thou hast slain! I am the Fourth: thou canst not destroy me.
Thou art in Error; trouble me not with thy righteousness.   
I have innocence to defend and ignorance to instruct:
I have no time for seeming; and little arts of compliment,
In morality and virtue: in self-glorying and pride.
There is a limit of Opakeness, and a limit of Contraction;
In every Individual Man, and the limit of Opakeness,          
Is named Satan: and the limit of Contraction is named Adam.
But when Man sleeps in Beulah, the Saviour in mercy takes
Contractions Limit, and of the Limit he forms Woman: That
Himself may in process of time be born Man to redeem
But there is no Limit of Expansion! there is no Limit of Translucence
In the bosom of Man for ever from eternity to eternity.
Therefore I break thy bonds of righteousness; I crush thy messengers!
That they may not crush me and mine: do thou be righteous,
And I will return it; otherwise I defy thy worst revenge"
(Erdman 189)

Blake scholars learned the minute particulars- one by one, until Blake's
poetry became a code.

A Blake Group might begin with two and add another as she/he appears.
To share our visions is the most fascinating, creative activity we may
imagine.

TO THE CHRISTIANS

                  Jerusalem 

                   Plate 76

Albion  Jesus

In the fourth of the full page illustrations (from the British Museum - notice the names Albion and Jesus on this copy) used as chapter heads for Blake's Jerusalem, he pictured Jesus crucified on the tree of mystery above the worshiping Albion. The image may be taken as a picture of Albion achieving recognition of the love and sacrifice of Jesus who as the Breath Divine stirred Albion back to life. However the image also reminds us of the traditional representation of the crucified Christ of organized religion. The Jesus Blake recognized was within his heart and mind, the 'bright Preacher of Life' not the 'dark Preacher of Death'. Blake did not think well of organized religion, including organized Christianity. He practiced the religion of Jesus, a religion which directly connects man to the Eternal Reality, the indwelling word,Christ or the Holy Spirit. Such religion requires no buildings, moral codes, ceremonies, priests or judges. Blake's argument was that the self-appointed authorities, the 'priests', had assumed leadership of Jesus' legacy of spiritual experience and teaching and had made it into a worldly, material institution. The loss of the initial revelation which had come through Jesus was accompanied by the equally damaging development of a religion of chastity, accusation of sin, and projection of the deity onto an entity distant in time and space.

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 cast 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.

Go therefore, cast out devils in Christs name
Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease           
Pity the evil, for thou art not sent
To smite with terror & with punishments
Those that are sick, like the Pharisees
Crucifying &,encompassing sea & land
For proselytes to tyranny & wrath,                
But to the Publicans & Harlots go!
Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse
Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace
For Hell is opend to heaven; thine eyes beheld
The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free." 

 Luke 4 

[16] And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 

[17] And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 

[18] The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 

[19] To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 

[20] And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.

 [21] And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. 

Matthew 10 

[8] Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. 

 Three other posts have also highlighted full page illustration at beginnings of the chapters of Jerusalem:  

TO THE PUBLIC 

TO THE JEWS 

TO THE DEISTS.

Gates of Eden, Paradise, and Heaven

The three subjects may well be considered synonyms; Blake was deeply concerned with all three entities, as is the Bible.

Eden is a common name for The Garden where the first man and woman lived in innocent bliss; but they preferred consciousness (in terms of the knowledge of Good and Evil) and were cast out of Eden. Look at Genesis 3.

Re 3:24 (3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life) , this comment is useful:
"The flaming sword keeps the way of the tree of life. William Blake had an idea going beyond what the writer of Genesis could say:

"For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt." (Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14)

We might also cite some passages in Revelation (near the end) where the 'tree of life' reappears. Both Blake and the writer of Revelation were speaking of the Parousia."`

Ezekiel's Covering Cherub (Ezekiel 28:1-19) might well be seen as the contrary of Heaven. Blake identified it with the angel with the flaming sword at the Gate to Paradise. Somewhere in Fearful Symmetry Northrup Frye described the human desire for fulfilment like this: you have only to jump through the ring of fire. (Frye mentioned the Cherub often in his classic.)

*************************************************
A reader of "Final Lesson" made this comment:
" is Heavens gate meant to lead IN to Jerusalem through the wall, or OUT of Jerusalem through the wall?

When I think of the actual gates in the walls around Jerusalem, they go both ways... in and out of the city...

But "heavens gate" sounds like a gate into heaven.

Do you see my confusion...? "

My response:
First of all "heavens gate" is a gate into heaven!
Most of us hope to go in; Jesus and John Milton came out!

So what is "Jerusalem's wall"? Well what is Jerusalem? A symbol (it means many
things to many people!) Jerusalem, the emanation of Albion may symbolize 'that of God in you'; Jerusalem is the bride of Christ. Jerusalem is Imagination. Jerusalem of course is a city in Palestine. The New Jerusalem IMO is subtantially equivalent to Heaven.

Blake's two versions of The Gates of Paradise are well worth looking at. In this context we may see the Gates represent steps along our mortal journey into Eternity or immortality.

Blake's system and myth included four walls and four gates, one in each direction. For example the Western Gate (Tharmas) is sense based, material, and hence only mortal.

Note: Computers vary widely with their output; people's acuity of sight also varies widely. to read comfortable older people need bigger type; when a post is projected on the wall, a large type face is desirable.