University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

William Blake'S Apocalypse: A Theo-Psychological Interpretation

(USC Thesis Other)

William Blake'S Apocalypse: A Theo-Psychological Interpretation

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content WILLIAM BLAKE'S APOCALYPSE: A THEO-PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION by Dennis Martin Welch A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (English) January 1972 INFORMATION TO USERS This dissertation was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation o f techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation. Silver prints of "photographs" may be ordered at additional charge by writing the Order Department, giving the catalog number, title, author and specific pages you wish reproduced. University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 A Xerox Education Company 72-21,710 WELCH, Dennis Martin, 1944- WILLIAM BLAKE'S APOCALYPSE: A THEO-PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION. University of Southern California, Ph.D., 1972 Language and Literature, general ( I University Microfilms, A XERQ\ Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan I © Copyright by DENNIS MARTIN WELCH 1972 : U N IVER SITY O F SO U TH ER N C A LIFO R N IA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES. CALIFORNIA S 0007 This dissertation, w ritten by .™iS.mm.WELCH.............. under the direction of h j& ... Dissertation Com mittee, and approved by a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by The G radu ate School, in p artia l fu lfillm en t of require ments of the degree of D O C T O R O F P H IL O S O P H Y 'Tri o Dean Z)a^...Dacembap-3r--19?l DISSERTATION COMMITTEE hatrman » PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company For Kathy, Shelly, and Karen 11 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II, |CHAPTER III. i CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. |CONCLUSION |BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 BASIC HISTORICAL VIEWS, DEFINITIONS, APOCALYPTIC TRADITION, AND WHERE BLAKE STANDS...................... 5 REVOLUTION, EROS, AND.DOUBTING BLAKE . M THE FOUR ZOAS; SPECTRE VERSUS EMAhAfltOto A*to THE APOCALYPSE.... 107 MILTON: A DOCTRINAL INTERLUDE .... 185 JERUSALEM: THE OLD VERSUS THE NEW COVENANT......................... 236 Jerusalem, chapter 1 (2A3); Jerusalem, chapter & (273); Jerusalem, chapter 3 (300); Jerusalem. Chapter 4 (313) ................. 337 ....................................................... 3 ^9 ill INTRODUCTION Side-stepping a definition of apocalypse, critics I like Northrop Frye, David Erdman, and Harold Bloom have called Blake an apocalyptic poet but have not sufficiently shown how he freed himself from history. Somehow through | imaginative vision an apotheosis of time's cycle into the ! Circle of Destiny is supposed to be an apocalypse. But t | what is an apotheosis of cycle? Even if the cycle of time ! ' I i were deified, it would still be a cycle, eternally alter nating growth and decay, activity and passivity, creativity and repression. The Circle of Destiny, which is supposed j | to be the ultimate for Blake, is, moreover, irredeemably bound to materiality: . . . the Circle of Destiny complete, Round roll'd the sea, Englobing in a wat'ry Globe, self-balanc'd.1 Finally, Imaginative vision, the means to that apotheosis, is always human, immanent, within time's cycle. Imagina tive vision alone, art alone, is not apocalyptic, however. Jerusalem must be reunited with Albion in love and forglve- 1William Blake, Blake: Complete Writings, ed. by Geoffrey Keynes (2nd ed.; London: &xf. ti. PrT, 1966), p. 266, 11. 87-88. Hereafter all quotations of Blake will be from this edition unless otherwise indicated. All ref erences will include page, line and, for the engraved poems, plate numbers in parentheses after each quotation. 1 ! 2 iness before there is the vision of eternal life. Blake in- jdicated very clearly in the third chapter of Jerusalem that iGolgonooza, the city of art and the Imagination, is just a jchiliastic dream, "continually building & continually de caying desolate" (p. 684, pi. 53* 1. 19). ! The intention of this work, then, is to show how jBlake sought to permanently escape history. As an overall | consideration, I first wish to distinguish between two I major views of history: cyclic and linear. This distinc tion is crucial because it helps us to discern Blake's view i |of history, which is essentially linear, from the critics' ! understanding of his view, which is cyclic. This distinc tion also indicates something about Blake as an apocalyptic I ! poet, for the linear view of history is Christian and ulti- i jmately transcendent, while the cyclic view is Platonic and ! immanent. Secondly, I wish to examine the tradition of apoca lyptic and utopian speculation and the poet's place in that tradition. My intention is not to draw direct parallels between the poet and the tradition. Hunting for the direct sources of Blake's ideas is a tenuous task since he was altogether individual in his eclecticism. Nevertheless, millennlallsm as a traditional mode of thought did have a twofold effect on his writings. First, reacting to jeighteenth-century rational progresslvism in his minor jprophecies, Blake fit into the tradition of immanent apoca- jlypticism. He saw history as a movement down to the "limit of contraction." Like many Old Testament and some Chris- Itian millenarists, he was, in the first half of his career j 1(1789-1801), immanently oriented— a socio-political revo- j jlutionary, prophesying the sudden, violent overturning of ! intellectual, political, and religious tyranny in his time. ! Unlike most of his apocalyptic predecessors, he considered I the repression of creative energy (especially sexuality) |the chief cause of tyranny to be overthrown by "an Improve- j |ment of sensual enjoyment" (p. 154, pi. 14). During the i first half of his career, however, Blake was suspicious of I ihis revolutionary hopes, ensconcing them in a contradictory j I pattern of cyclic imagery and myth. The pattern captures i !the essence of immanent millennialism; it is ironic and I futile. Blake's second and deeper reaction to millennial tra dition occurred in his later prophecies. During the latter half of his career, the poet mellowed in his rage over social and political conditions, realizing that history by itself is cyclic, unfree, and meaningless. As Nicolai Berdyaev has shown in The Beginning and the End, history and man must have an end if there is to be any meaning.2 Prom 1801 on Blake moved toward a deeply Christian vision. 2Nicolai Berdyaev, The Beginning and the End, trans. by R. M. French (New Yorkf Harp. R. , 1952)', p. 230. | 4 |His emphasis became less on sensual enjoyment and more on ! intersubjectivity and transcendence. The means to tran- I jscendence, to breaking through time's cycle, is love. The issue of love, its nature and efficacy, was primary in iBlake. Throughout his life he struggled between the ten- ] jsions of eros and agape. The former is possessive, objec tifying, and jealous. It bears the Insidious delusion of being the proper love of an artist. The latter is open, i |free, and transcendent. It is the real love of an artist, helping him to achieve imaginative union. The former causes tensions between men, man and himself, spectre and t emanation. The latter transcends time and space in a reve- 1 l jlation of oneself, the other, and the Transcendent. Tran- j Isoendent vision was for Blake the apocalypse by which man |come into Imaginative consort, by which Albion (man) enters the other, Christ, and eternity. Since Jesus plays a very important role in Blake's apocalypse, I will attempt to de fine the poet's understanding of him, using theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (S0ren Kierkegaard et al.) to support my belief that his views are essen tially Christian. And, finally, letting "the Philosopher always be the servant and scholar of inspiration" (p. 572), I will, at the risk of being anachronistic, refer to some modem depth psychologists and Interpersonal1st philoso phers (like C. G. Jung and Gabriel Marcel) to illuminate Blake's apocalyptic vision. CHAPTER I BASIC HISTORICAL VIEWS, DEFINITIONS, APOCALYPTIC TRADITION, AND WHERE BLAKE STANDS . . . all great genuine art resembles and oontlnues the revelation of St. John.— Boris Pasternak In his olasslo theological study, Christ and Time. Oscar Cullman distinguishes between two basic views of ! n history: the linear and the oyclic. The latter, as JMiroea Eliade points out In The Myth of the Eternal Return, Is as old as the periodicity of time, of day and i 2 night, and the seasonal birth and decay of nature. The Greeks, especially Plato, formulated most dearly the oyclio view of history; as the philosopher wrote in I Polltlous. Divinity himself sometimes oonducts this universe in its progression and oonvolves it: but at another | time he remits the reins of his government, when the ! periods of the universe have reoeived a convenient ! measure of time. But the world is again spontane ously led round to things oontrary. . . .3 ^scar Cullman, Christ and Time: The primitive Christian Conception o? Time and History, trans. by Floyd V. Pllson (London: d.C.M. Pr., 1962), p. ^3. 2Mlroea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return. trans. by Willard Trask (New York: Pantheon, 195**), p. 63. 3piato, Polltlous. in The Works of Plato. IV, trans. I by Floyer Sydenham and Thomas Taylor (London, 1804), 269. |The cyclic view of history accepts the world and time as i I eternal and Inescapable. Thus, as Cullman says, "For the Greeks, the idea that redemption is to take place through ; divine action in the course of events in time is impos- I . |slble. Contrary to Platonic cyclicism is the Judaeo- |Christian linear view of history: "According to both the I i Jewish and the Christian view, the history of the world is i i ! bounded by two unique and unrepeatable events: its begin- | _ ning (the Creation) and end (the Last Judgment)."5 Accord ing to the Bible's linear view, which Blake as a great stu dent of the Bible most certainly grasped, something is to be "fulfilled.According to that view, the end of time and the beginning of eternity is called the apocalypse. | In the tradition and studies of apocalypticism, there are no definitions distinguishing the words "apocalypse" and "millennium." The terms are used interchangeably. There is, however, an etymological difference in meaning. The word "apocalypse" comes from the Greek word dTroKaAu^ts , meaning revelation. Since this meaning was Important for Blake, it will be the one most often intended ^Cullman, p. 52. ^Milic Capek, "'Eternal Return,'" Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Paul Edward3 (New York: Macmillan, I95777TII, 61. ^Cullman, p. 53* when speaking of the poet’s apocalypse. The word "rail- ' lennium" is made up of two Latin words, raille and annus, meaning a "thousand years," referring, according to Norman j i ; Cohn, to "the belief held by some Christians on the author-j ity of Revelations XX, 4-6 that after His Second Coming ! Christ would establish a messianic kingdom on earth and j would reign over it for a thousand years before the Last jJudgment.This meaning has been abandoned, the word | ; "millennium" coming to signify "the final state of society I ; i in which all conflicts are resolved and all Injustices re- | ; I jmoved after a preliminary period of purging and transfor- jmation."® In general, the characteristics of the mlllen- : i jnium are as follows: (l) it is collective, that is, en- j Joyed by all believers; (2) it is terrestial, (3) imminent, j and (4) total in the sense that it completely transforms i life on earth; and (5) it is accomplished by agencies which jare supernatural.9 ! Another definitional distinction should be made here. | jpremillennialism is the belief that the Second Coming will i take place before the millennium. ‘ Such a movement is usually pessimistic about the efficacy of human agencies. ^Norman Cohn, "Medieval Millenarism: Its Bearing on the Comparative Study of Millenarian Movements," in Millen nial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study, ed. by Sylvia L. thrupp i t f ’ he Hague: Mouton, 1962), p. 3l. j ^George Shegperson, "The Comparative Study of Mille- jnarian Movements, in Millennial Dreams, p. 44. 9cohn, "Medieval Millenarism," p. 31. Postmillennialism "holds that the millennium will come ! first, usually as the fruit of the present Christian agen- | cles now at work in the world, and that the Second Coming j or the delivering agency will occur at the end of this process."10 With regard to the poet, I will rarely, if at i I all, use these terms since they have denominational affil- I lation, and Blake, though a profound Christian, was cer- j talnly no institutional one. A final definitional distinction should he made be- i | tween apocalypse or millennium and utopia. Whereas the j former is related in some degree to the supernatural, the I latter is a product of human effort alone. According to I A. L. Morton's study, English Utopia, the utopian mind is i jindependent, Pelagian, and chiliastic.11 It envisions no jbreak through time and space, no end to history, no apoca lyptic transformations. Utopianism is very much a part of English history, beginning most dramatically with Francis Bacon's intellectual elitism in the New Atlantis and con tinuing into the eighteenth century with its speculative historians. Utopianism substitutes history and man for the end of history and the God-man. It is completely anti thetical to Blake's later vision of man's destiny. 10Shepperson, pp. 44-45. 11A. L. Morton, English Utopia (London: Lawrence j& W., 1952), p. 3. 9 Perhaps the oldest form of millenarism about which much is known is the messianic hope of the Jews. Chap iter 7 of the Book of Daniel, composed about 165 B.C. at |the height of the Maccabean revolt, is a millenarian mani festo, foretelling Israel's conquest of the Greek empire and eternal dominion over the whole world. Such apoca lypticism was nationalistic, claiming that "after the final overthrow of the evil powers, the righteous nation would live in harmony and prosperity in a 'renovated' earth, which would center in the New Jerusalem.1 ' 12 A related jcharacteristic of Jewish (and some Christian) prophecies is that they were made when the millennial group was "con- ifronted by the threat or reality of oppression."13 The pattern of an apocalyptic movement went something like i this: I The world is dominated by an evil, tyrannous power. . . . The sufferings of its victims become more and more intolerable— until suddenly the hour will strike when the saints of God are able to rise up and overthrow It. Then the saints them selves in turn Inherit dominion over the whole earth. This will be the culmination of history. "14 • • • ' ^Ernest Lee Tuveson, Millennium and Utopia! A Study of the Background of the Idea of Progress CLos Angeles: if. of dal. Pr., 1^4$) J, p. 7. tfarris FranklIn Rail's Mod ern Premillenniallsm and the Christian Hope (New York: Abingdon, ), pp. 29-3b, also deaIs with the national istic zeal of Old Testament apocalypticism. ^Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London: jSecker and Warburg, l$f>?), p. 1. | 1^Cohn, Ibid. Blake's early apocalypticism, concerned with England's re pressive reactions to the wars of liberation In America and Prance, took this pattern, except that instead of the saints of God taking over the earth, creative men would. S A divergent path in Old Testament millennial tradi- t i !tion, the sense of which Blake followed in the latter half I of his career, is that the rule of Jehovah must come by a I spiritual transformation and that this will be the essence |of the new kingdom.*5 As Rudolph Bultmann indicates, this i |view of the apocalypse meant the breaking off of history land was the understanding of primitive Christian escha- jtology, whose apocalyptic concerns divided it from the Iworld: I The world is the sphere of uncleanness and sin. . . . | Therefore neither the Christian community nor indi- | viduals within it have any responsibility for the present. . . . Therefore no social programme can be developed, but only the negative ethics of abstinence i and sanctification.nl° Early Christian fathers like Papias, Iranaeus, and Lactantius anticipated in such a manner an imminent end to history. I hope to show somewhat later that, while Blake's final apocalyptic vision was spiritual, it did not deny cer tain values in the immanent realm of nature and human endeavor. j 15Rall, p. 36. ■^Rudolph Bultmann, History and Eschatology (Edinburgh: Edln. U. Pr., 1957)> pp. 28-2$, 37. 11 When It became evident after his resurrection that i Jesus was not coming as soon as early Christians had ex pected, anticipation and preparation for the apocalypse fell into an institutional "statutory moralism."17 As the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christianity eradi cated millenarian beliefs, the ideal becoming a linear pro gression of Christian civilization.^® In his City of God |Augustine, interpreting Revelation allegorically, saw the I millennium as having begun with Christ and being perfected j |by the Church. Such institutional arrogance, usurping the |powers of Divine Providence, sunk to the level of progres- isive natural religion in the eighteenth century and was i ivilified by Blake: j He never can be a Friend to the Human Race who is the Preacher of Natural Morality or Natural Religion,* he is a flatterer who means to betray, to perpetuate Tyrant Pride & the Laws of that Babylon which he Foresees shall shortly be destroyed, with the Spirit ual and not the Natural Sword, (pp. 681-82, pi. 52) After the Church's frustration of early apocalyptic fervor, the next major millennial movement was led by Joachim of Flora. Joachlmite millenarism divided history into three great epochs, the last, the age of love, in spired by the Holy Ghost, achieving perfection on earth in 17Ibid., p. 50. ■^Cohn, Pursuitj p. 33. Mlrcea Eliade's Myth and Reality (trans. *by Willard R. Trask [New York: Harp. &., 1963], p. 68) also treats established Christianity's frustration of early millennial hopes. the abolition of all institutions and the renewal of abso lute spiritual freedom. An important characteristic of jJoachim's ideas in reaction to the worldly, extravagant clergy of his time was asceticism. Joachimite faith has persisted down to the Reformation and even into the nine- J teenth century and the Third World movement on our campuses i today. Although asceticism was rejected by Blake (and other millenarists), Joachimism's emphasis on spiritual 'freedom is analogous to the poet's late apocalyptic con- !cept of Jerusalem as a symbol of love and "Christian |liberty." | Whereas for the Jpachimites perfect beings were lp3o facto ascetics, for the Adepts of the Free Spirit they were ipso facto moral anarchists. Toward the end of the four teenth century the Free Spirit tried to make the egali tarian state of primitive man an attainable goal. This provided for a new form of millenarism: "The millennium could be imagined as a re-creation of that lost Golden Age which had known nothing of social classes or private prop erty. ul9 At first glance Blake's assertion in A Vision of the Last Judgment that his work is "an Endeavour to Restore what the Ancients call'd the Golden Age" (p. 605) might seem in accord with the desires of the Free Spirit; but Blake's Golden Age is, as we shall see, more spiritual than socio-economic. i j -^cohn, Pursuit, p. 35. I x3 I j While there are vague similarities and differences jbetween Blake's apocalypse and that of the Old Testament i |Jews and the primitive, medieval, and Reformation Chris tians, differences and similarities become more pronounced i jin the English and European millennlalism more contemporary to the poet. Concerning possible antinomian sources in Blake, I am indebted to A. L. Morton's The Everlasting Gos- I pel for some of the following comparisons and contrasts.20 |In his preface to Richard Coppin's Divine Teachings (1649), jAbiezer Coppe, with words similar to Blake's, attacked i established Christianity for being Pharisaical and cor- | jrupt, the Antichrist preceding the millennium: i But the hour is coming, yea now is, That all this carnal, outward, formal Religion . . . and all this fleshly holiness, zeal and devotion shall be, and is, set upon the same account, as outward drunken- j ness, theft, murther, and adultery.21 ! Most antlnomians looked upon Christ as a revolutionary com ing to scatter the power and ill-gotten wealth of earthly institutions. But Morton errs in suggesting that Jerusa lem, an integral part of the poet's millennial vision, is an immanent "democratic republic" similar to Coppe's 2°A. L. Morton, The Everlasting Gospel: A Study in the Sources of William Blake Iliondons Lawrence & W., 1954J. Morton's book is interesting, but he often stretches his comparisons either by misinterpreting Blake's sense or by ignoring much of the poet's later work. 21Abiezer Coppe, Preface, Divine Teachings, quoted in Morton, Everlasting, p. 46. ! 14 ! |egalitarian New Jerusalem.22 Perhaps the most striking ! {contrast here is between the Spirituals' understanding |of apocalypse as the revelation of a new, spiritual, |living Christ and Blake's view of Jesus' part in the i apocalypse. Quoting a biographer of Henry Nicholas, a I jPamiliast who felt, like the Spirituals, "godded with God land . . . God . . . homlnified with him," Morton mis- ! {interprets Blake, suggesting that he believed like many jantlnomians that God had no other existence but in man.23 i fI hope to show in ray analysis of the apocalyptic vision of Jerusalem that Morton and other humanistic Blakeans I misunderstand the poet's view of man's relationship with | I Christ, especially in the apocalyptic moment when Jesus | I is revealed to man as a brother. In Jerusalem Jesus and jman come together in love and vision, but they do not i ! become one in the same being. Finally, like most anti- nomians, Blake did believe that Jesus would come to abro gate moral law, but he did not think he would come through the violent political fanaticism of sects like these.^ pp c Morton, Everlasting, p. 53. 23Ibid., p. 36. | 2^Melvin J. Lasky, in "The Metaphysics of Doomsday: John Rogers and Oliver Cromwell" (Encounter, January, 1969), pp. 36-47, examines a good example of self-righteous, po litically oriented millenarism. For the religious fanatics j With the rise of rationalism, science, and technology I |in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, religious mil- ! jlennlalism was secularized into theories of inevitable Iprogress and immanent utopianism. As E. L. Tuveson writes i ! in Millennium and Utopia, ! With the , . . emergence of the new science .... j the Western Christian world took the first step i away from the ideal of world transcendence toward ! that of world reform. The desire was not to escape | the world but to achieve a happier state here and ; a fuller realization of its hidden goods.25 Also responsible for this secularization was Soclnianlsm, ! ! the final state of Christian dogma, according to Paul jTilllch, before it dissolved completely into rationalistic ! nC [humanism.*0 The main tenets of this doctrine, ignoring i \ . . _ . _ . j ' ........." L - jof the Fifth Monarchy, led by John Rogers, the four evil kingdoms of this world (according to the Book of Daniel: Babylon, Assyria, Persia, and Rome) will be dissolved, and the fifth and final monarchy will be established. In Rogers' view the apocalypse is the coming of Christ "with great inundations, . • • divers tumults, seditions, battels, burning and bloodsheddings." Antipathetic to Blake's apocalypse through love and forgiveness, Rpgers preached an eye for an eye ("blood cryeth unto blood") and believed the millennium would be brought about by procliando (fighting): "The sword is Sharp, the arrows swift,/ £o destroy Baby lon." 25Tuveson, p. 112. Carl L. Becker's The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (tfew Haven: tfale tj. !pr., 1932) is one of the earliest and most enter taining books dealing with eighteenth-century millenni- alism. I did not use him directly because he deals pri marily with the French and is less factually informative than Tuveson. 2%aul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, ed. by Carl E. Braaten (New York: Harp. )R., T96BJ, p7 287. I |traditional apocalyptic thought, were as follows: (1) it i |was a rellglo ratlonalls, using reason as the criterion for !Judging the Bible; (2) God revealed himself through natural j meana as well as divine inspiration; (3) original sin was ! rejected for a doctrine of historical depravity; (4) Christ i jwas human,not divine; (5) the atonement was meaningless j |since sin and guilt are personal phenomena; and, finally, I i ( 6 ) eschatology is a fantastic myth.27 with regard to the i |final point, John Locke, Blake's b§te noire, completely |ignored the eschatological nature of Christ. According to |R. W. Harris' study, Reason and Nature in the Eighteenth i Century, Christ came in Locke's view to renew the divine jsanction behind natural law, to restore the necessary con nection between religion and reason.28 Methodism and Romanticism were reactions to Socinianlsm;29 its brand of i jmillennlallam was also anathema to Blake. English secular millenarism originated with the ideas of optimistic cyclical historians like Jean Bodln and George Hakewill.3° These men believed that traditional 27ibld., pp. 287-88. 2®r. w. Harris, Reason and Nature in the Eighteenth Century (London: BlanHford, ”T ^ r T p p . 77-7S: 29Tilllch, p. 292. 3°Tuveson, p. vli. Victor Harris' All Coherence Gone (Chicago: U. of Chicago Pr., 1949)# PP. 75-77* indicates how in An Apologia . . . of the Power and Providence of God (1627) tiakewill disagreed with Godfrey Goodman's theories on universal entropy in The Pall of Man (1616). According 17 apooalyptloism underlay a dominant Renaissance concept, universal entropy, and that the propheoles of Daniel were I the basis for that idea. Thinking that men evolved from simple, lmperfeot states to ones of greater oomplexity, refinement, and order, these men urged abandonment of the i pesslmlstio interpretations of old propheoles. Aooording to Tuveson, the idea of oyolioal development "underlay Baoon's oall for a new soienoe."31 in his Wisdom of the Anolents Baoon desorlbed how, after kingdoms have flourished for a while, disruption, seditions, and wars |arise: . and then men return to the depraved oondl- I tions of their nature and desolation is seen in the fields and oltles." A period of barbarism sets in, until "aooord- | ing to the appointed violssitude of things, they fthe waters of Helloone] break out and issue forth again, per- |haps among other nations, and not in the plaoes where they !were before."32 Like Bodln, Baoon saw his civilization on |the upswing and the responsibility for its suooess or fail- i jure in man's own hands. Beoause of historians like Bodln and Hakewill, prophetlo books of the Bible were by the end to Hakewill, nothing is destroyed, "but some other thing is oonstantly made of it; so as in the total summe nothing is lost." 31Tuveson, p. 66. 32Pranois Baoon, Wisdom of the Anolents. in The Works of Francis Baoon. ed. by Barnes Speeding, Robert Leslie Hills, and Douglas Denon Heath (New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1869). XII, ^22. 18 of the eighteenth oentury reinterpreted to foretell man's upward movement. Thus, the advancement of mankind was not merely possible but inevitable sinoe it was a prophecy of God. Aooordlng to Jurgen Moltmann's recent study of Chris- j ! ' j tlan esohatology, deism supported the idea of inevitable |progress, relegating God to the heavens and the performance i of his providential tasks to man: «. . . 'history* was iturned delstioally into a substitute for God.”33 i I i ' ! One of the first English mlllenarlsts making Biblioal apooalyptloism the "guarantor” of seoular and religious progress was the Cambridge platonist, Joseph Mede. i jSoienoe's emphasis on matter and motion made the annihl- jlatlon of the earth unthinkable for Mede, who began a “scientific" interpretation of Revelation.3^ Henry More, ; * I another Cambridge Platonist, developed the scientific, pro- i jgresslvist ideas of Mede into a theory that the transfor mation of the earth would be a result of the operation of nature's laws. More saw as the method of man's salvation the progressive betterment of his nature through a series of ascending epochs in history. In this prooess man would not transoend his nature but would be perfected through a long oourse of spiritual and physloal evolution.35 33jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground l and Implications of Christian Esohatology. trans. by James jw. Leitch (New York: Harp. R., 1^67). p. 71. ! 3**'Tuveson, pp. 76, 8^-85. | 35TuveBOn# p# 9 3# 19 Going further than Mede and More, scientists like Robert Boyle and Isaao Newton considered the universe abso lute and eternal. Some scientists, especially Newton, read Biblical prophecies allegorically in the light of current i events. As David Erdman has shown, Blake also did this, |but he did not see soienoe and the physioal laws of nature as directing human progress. Like Newton, William Whiston j ( I read Scripture allegorioally, showing "that the Mosaio account was literally true in the sense that the new astronomy and the new physios were completely harmonious j •with it.1 '-^ The literalness of Whlston*s mind is indicated | : ■ ! |in one of the postulates of his New Theory of the Earth: |iiThe obvious or Literal sense of Sorlptures is the true and | jfieal one, where no evident Reason can be given to the con- j jtrary.M37 it is obvious that men like Mede, More, Newton, j 1 ' 1 and Whiston did muoh to integrate the conoept of Provi- j jdence with that of the natural law. They were the propo nents of what Blake viciously impugned as »Natural | iReligion." j I Perhaps the best known of these Immanent millen- nlalists, sometimes called the father of English deism, 36prank E. Manuel, Isaao Newton. Historian (Cam bridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Pr., 19&3). P. 128. 3?Whiston, New Theory of the Earth, quoted in Manuel, p. 144. I 38MarJorie Nioolson, Mountain Gloom. Mountain Glory: i The Development of the Aestheklos of ihe Infinite (Ithaca: icornell U. Pr.,”l959). PP. 238-39. i 20 was Bishop Thomas Burnet. Of all these Utopians he was the only one whom Blake may have been directly familiar with. j |George M. Harper suggests that the poet may have been aware I |of Burnet’s theory of the mundane egg.39 And Blake may j I have also come across some of his ideas while illustrating |Edward Young's Night Thoughts, which Burnet strongly influ- jenced. According to Marjorie Nicolson, Burnet's Sacred j Theory of the Earth attempted "to prove that science i joffered another Revelation compatible with Scriptural | !accounts, implied ... in the prophetic books as they were I interpreted by the Cambridge Platonists."^° Like Whiston j he read Genesis according to the scientific emphasis of his |day, and his analogy for the world, the mundane egg, pre sented a scientific globe, emerging from chaos by God's natural laws and developing into a "'smooth, regular and uniform'" kind of Eden.^ The progress of man is a cul tural development, the results of refinement in spiritual and mental faculties.^2 For Bishop Burnet, "reason . . . is central, and accordingly the contemplation of God's plan and of His method in the creation is of equal 39oeorge Mills Harper, The Neoplatonism of William Blake (Chapel Hill: U. of N.C. Pr., 19^1)* p. 131. ^°Nicolson, p. 188. ^Nicolson, p. 188. I j ^2Tuveson, p. viii. 21 o Importance with pure devotion."J Except for scientific readings of Scripture, the most reasonable kind, all else was suspect. It will become clearer that attitudes like Burnet's toward the Bible and human history were abhorrent to Blake, for whom "The Hebrew Bible & the Gospel of Jesus jare . . . Eternal Vision ..." (p. 604). I English mlllenarian thought from Burnet to Blake i |diverted little from the Bishop's ideas. Edmund Law's i j Considerations of the Theory of Religion saw God's plan as |one in which each man must raise himself up by hi3 own |efforts. The result of this kind of thinking, according to iTuveson, was a metaphysic of free competition^— a human j |invention which, in Blake's view, gave rise to envy and |turned the vicious cycle of history. Lord Monbaddo, a Neoplatonist who disliked Newton and Locke for their materialism, insisted that the millennium would come through the improvement of intellect. Like Henry More and Thomas Burnet, Monbaddo also believed that the millennial state would come about through the regular laws of nature, but that the physical would become a greater and greater nuisance to man as his reason developed "until the supra- historical change which would produce a new earth and a new species."^5 Monbaddo's mention of a transcendent event | ^Tuveson, p. 129. ^Tuveson, p. 147. | ^Tuveson, p. 191. 22 | bringing about the apocalypse, a position which is faintly j Blakean, is one of the few in eighteenth-century millennial| j i thought. i i i On the continent eighteenth- and nineteenth-century j millenarism was also Immanent and secular. Immanuel Kant j j believed in a secular eschatology wherein history is a spi- I : i ral progression toward rational perfection. In his Edu- | i cation of the Human Race Lessing secularized Joachim's j millennialism, elaborating a thesis on the progressive | enlightenment of man through education, culminating in a : ! I third age.HO Millenarian thought on the continent, espe- j j daily in Germany, tended to be moralistic and philosophi- I leal rather than scientific or cultural. For example, in his poem The Eleuslan Festival, Friedrich Schiller wrote of eighteenth-century man: "Only by his morals can he be free and mighty." For Schiller the relation between mind and body was one of opposites demanding a choice: I ("Between pleasure of sensuality and peace of soul/ There |is only the dangerous choice."^7 The philosopher believed |that only man's intellect could perfect humanity. i I **%arl Lowith, Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History (Chicago: U. of jChlcago ]Pr., I9^9)> p. 20b. j ^Schiller, The Eleuslan Festival, quoted in Bultmann, pp. 101, 102. T. 0. Fichte developed a dialectical view of history. Man's freedom can become more perfect "by generating its own opposite: so, by a logical necessity, there arises a second stage in which the freedom of the individual freely [limits itself by the creation of an authority over against |Itself. . . ."^8 This opposition is cancelled out by a [third stage, a revolutionary one, in which all authority is destroyed. Fichte did hot consider his age the third stage of revolution, but instead identified it with the re- i jpression of science. Science's antagonism between mind and [nature would be overcome in the rational freedom of the |third stage, "the freedom of art, where mind and nature jare reunited ... by way of sympathy and love."^9 | [Fichte's millennialism strongly resembles Blake's early [hope for throwing off tyranny through a purgation of the doors of perception and an imaginative union with all creation. Of all eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century speculative historians in Europe, the one to most con sciously and consistently secularize Christian eschatology was Hegel. According to Bultmann, Hegel's apocalypse occurs when man, "free from all external authority, has ^R. G. Colllngwood, The Idea of History (New York: Oxf. U. Pr., 1956), pp. 106-07. 49lbld., P. 108. gained his own relation to the Absolute Mind."50 For Hegel ; ! jail history is "the history of thought,"51 working in dia- ! lectical relationship. Though he denied that history is t cyclical and asserted that it moves in unrepeatable spi- jrals, his Inunanentism allows for no real liberation from the cycle of time. He dethroned the transcendent God and elevated finite man. As Eric C. Rust says, His is an lmmanentlsm, and he can celebrate joyfully the death of the transcendent deity as men move from the imaginative pictorial presentations of religion | to the rational dialectic of philosophical thought.52 In his abstraction Hegel ignored all lntersubjective and i transcendent concerns. | In the previous summary of Western millennial |thought, we have noted a number of similarities and differ- i ences between it and Blake's apocalypticism. But where i ! precisely doe3 Blake stand in the tradition? It is true, j as Thomas Altizer says, "no other . . . seer has so fully directed his vision to history" as Blake has done.53 And, as Ruthven Todd has written, it is equally true that 5°Bultmann, p. 68. 51Collingwood, p. 155. 52Eric C. Rust, Evolutionary Philosophies and Con- temgorary Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 19&9)» 53Thomas J. J. Altizer, The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake (n.p.. Mich. St. U. Pr., 1967), p. 154? Blake's "approach was that . . . of the eighteenth century | eclectic and Inquiring mind."54 After all, though he hated, any naturalistic allegorizing of Scripture, no one has j iwritten more and greater allegories of the Bible than hlm- jself. And again, as Milton Percival, Northrop Frye, David Erdman, and Harold Bloom have all agreed, it is true that Blake was an apocalyptic poet. But what kind of an apoca- | ! Ilypticist was he in relation to the tradition? Was there in Blake, as Mark Schorer writes, "the idea of pro- jgress . .. in which Improvement is a gradual rather than revolutionary event"?55 was he, according to A. L. Morton, ja utopian "from end to end"?56 A recent critic of Blake, J W. R. Hughes, sees him as an evolutionary progresslvist, ; though perhaps Christian: "Blake saw all history . .. as i a progression through a series of typical 'states' towards | the final freedom of Jesus and Jerusalem."^7 Regarding the poet's ideas of generation and regeneration as evolution ary, Hughes says that "the chain of physical births on i 5^Ruthven Todd, Tracks in the Snow: Studies in English Science and Art (New York: Scribner, 19^7)» p. 29. 55Mark Schorer, William Blake: The Politics of Vision (New York: Random, 1959)» P. 2b2. ^Morton, English, p. 157. 57william R. Hughes, William Blake's Jerusalem: A Simplified Version (London: George Alien and Unwin, 1954), P." 33. 26 earth was designed to give opportunity for the Divine Birth, the Incarnation."5® Another critic, Martha England, says that the poet, like John Wesley, believed In the per fectibility of man and his progress without error.59 And Northrop Frye, the Blakean par excellence upon whom many critics have relied* is, Indeed, not very clear about the nature of Blake's millennlallsm. The poet's apocalypse is, he says, the immanent process of "clearing . . . the human brain" through sensual enjoyment and imaginative vision.®0 Frye frequently links Blake's apocalypse to the ancient Atlantis revived.®1 The millennium will not be a "garden : but a civilized kingdom [ Jerusalem]). . . . This is where 58Ibld., p. I66v 59Martha Wlnbum England and John Sparrow, Hymns Unbidden: Donne, Herbert, Blake, Emily Dickenson, and the g5i5ompTiera^ W w T o W F T T Y T p T T 5 6 . " " i Tnougn Wesley reacted to Socinianism in favor of religious I fervor and enthusiasm, he, unlike Blake, came under the I influence of contemporary progressive thought. Frederick Rail (Modern Premillennialism, p. 247) quotes him as say ing: "No 'former time* since the apostles left the earth has been better than the present. . • . We are not born out of due time but in the day of his power, a day of glorious salvation." Though Blake may have admired some of the leaders of Methodism as he indicates in his preface |"To the Deists" (Jerusalem, p. 682, pi. 52), he could not have countenanced the persuasions of Burnet and Whiston on Wesley, making the latter explain the apocalypse in terms of natural phenomena, instead of divine intervention (Ernest Lee Tuveson, The Imagination as a Means to Grace: Locke and the Aesthetics of Romanticism fLos Angeles: ITr”of"Cal7T r J 7 " p . T6$).---------------* L ®°Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of I William Blake (Boston: Beacon £r., 1902), p. 3by. 6lIbld., p. 126. 27 j |the national tradition to be incorporated with the Bible jcomes in, and the reader will identify this kingdom with i jthe spiritual form of his own nation, which is Atlantis in i I the case of England."^2 Within this purely immanent struc ture Prye notes some uneasiness in Blake, but he is hard |put to account for it. For example, he observes that Blake became disillusioned over the political revolutions in I I !America and Prance and felt it necessary to reject "the Ore man as an apocalyptic agent" in favor of the artist.63 But |then, with regard to the joyous apocalyptic conclusion of i j The Four Zoas, Prye is not sure what the poet was doing: I j Has Blake's ode to joy any inner logic connecting i it with the rest of the work beyond a purely emotional requirement of an allegro finale? Certainly there is little connection between its opening and the ; close of the previous Night. The Last Judgment simply starts off with a bang, as an instinctive | shudder of self-preservation against a tyranny of intolerable menace. If so, then it is not really the work of Los [ the artist], though the opening action is ascribed to him: it is the old revo lutionary doctrine of the spontaneous reappearance of Ore. . . . The Four Zoas has given us an imagi natively coherent account of how we got from an original Golden Age to the world we are now in. It has not given us an imaginatively coherent ac count of how we can get from eighteenth-century Deism to^a Last Judgment through the power of Los, not Ore.64 Prye think3 there is finally a more honest and successful 62Ibid., p. 386. 63Ibid., pp. 216-17. 6^Ibid., pp. 308-09. japocalypse in Jerusalem, where Jesus appears; but, since Jesus is only the "finality" of human imagination,^ there j is no real break through history. Frye's view of Blake's I ! apocalypse is an immanent self-deification doomed to fall t ! |from time's cyclic pinnacle. His view makes out of Blake's! art a secular religion and that, in the words of another jcritic sympathetic to Frye but more straightforward, is "essentially a doctrine of pure Immanence." ; j Blake's millenniallsm changed radically over the j course of his career.^ The crux of the change was the ; ' i jpolitical turbulence of his time, especially the French j j Re volution. The following summary of his millennial I thought, according to the tradition, reflects that change. iThe central characteristics of Blake's development are from | immanence to transcendence and from Old Testament wrathful ! Iprophecy to Christian vision. I During the first half of his career (1789-1801), LBlake was a postmillennialist, optimistic about liberation and fulfillment on earth. As he wrote in his "Prologue" j j 65lbid., p. 323. ! ^%enneth M. Hamilton, "William Blake and the Reli- jgion of Art," Dalhousle Review, XXIX (Autumn, 1949), 169. | ^Milton 0. Percival, William Blake's Circle of Des- j tlny (New York: Columbia U. Pr., 1938), p. 12; Jacob Bronowski, William Blake: A Man Without a Mask (Trenton, jEngland: Wessex Pr., 1943), p. 105; Schorer, p. 220; 'Altizer, p. 148. All of these critics record a change in jthe poet's millenniallsm. 29 |to a projected play on King John, | j 0 yet may Albion smile again, and stretch her peaceful arms, and raise her golden head, exult- inglyl Her citizens shall throng about her gates, j her mariners shall sing upon the 3ea, and myriads | shall to her temples crowdI Her sons shall joy I as in the morning! Her daughters sing as the I rising year! (p. 34) | I In many of his early letters, the poet expressed similar i [hopefulness: I feel that Man may be happy in This World. (23 August 1799, P. 793) Away to Sweet Pelpham, for Heaven is there The Bread of sweet Thought & the Wine of Delight Feeds the Village of Felpham by day & by night. . . . I (14 September 1800, p. 800) jBlake's last epistolary effusion of immanent hope occurs as [late as October 19, 1801: "Dear Flaxman, "I rejoice to hear that your Great Work is accomplish'd. Peace £the Peace of Amiens begun in 1801J opens the way to greater still. The Kingdoms of this World are now become the King doms of God & his Christ, & we shall reign with him for ever & ever. The Reign of Literature & the Arts Commences. Blessed are those who are found studious of Literature & Humane & polite accomplishments. Such have their lamps burning & such shine as the stars." (p. 810) ! During the first half of his career, Blake was a rag ing millennlalist, prophesying a final, fiery revolution. As he wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, "The an- Icient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true . . ." (p. 154, pi. 14). The poet's apocalyptic visions were expressed in j 30 |terms of traditional Biblical eschatology, but they did not Jpredict even a temporary end to earthly life. Ore's fires, which in the early prophecies precede the New Age, are the |fires of revolution, war, rage, and bloodshed; but the new j |life is nothing more than a purified continuation of life j |as it is here and now. In the apocalyptic Ninth Night of I The Four Zoas, this is the scene which emerges when "Man i |walks forth from midst of the fires": | Stars I Of fire rise up nightly from the Ocean: & one Sun Each morning, like a New born Man, issues with song3 & joy Calling the Plowman to his Labour & the Shepherd to his rest. (p. 379* 11. 831-34) iBlake's prophecies during this period resemble the fanatic ! millennial visions of the German Anabaptists and the Eng- |lish Fifth Monarchy, though the poet himself deplored and i i I would never have participated in the wars concomitant with irevolution. Nor, as David Erdman has shown, was Blake's millenarism in any way nationalistic. His republican hope for universal brotherhood precluded any kind of chauvinism. Moreover, the poet's millenniallsm should not be con fused in any way with the moral progressivism of philoso phers of history like Schiller. For Blake there was no de mand for decision between mind and body, soul and sensu ality. In fact, It was his early belief that by the "im provement of sensual enjoyment" one could achieve apoca lyptic perception. Like the Adepts of the Free Spirit, but |for a somewhat different reason, Blake hoped for the termi- j ination of restrictive Church morality. Nor should his mil- |lennialism be in any way confused with the scientific, pro- igressivism of Newton or Thomas Burnet. Such progressive I thinking was most often for the power and benefit of the i bourgeoisie rather than the happiness and social justice of all men.6® And the scientific readings of Scripture used I I to defend such progressivlsm made for a natural religion beyond which Blake felt man must go. The deterministic ;quality of such utopianism was also foreign to the liber tarian poet. Critics like Ruthven Todd^9 and Mark Schorer I are in error to suggest that Blake was an evolutionary pro- jgresslvist, for the poet understood intuitively what Nico- |lai Berdyaev has stated directly, namely, that "The doc- ;trine of evolution is entirely under the control of deter- i jminism and causal relations. In evolution . . . newness i cannot make its appearance in the real sense, for there is no creative act."70 Finally, the abstraction and inevitability of Hegel’s ! idialecticism is not in any way Blakean. Though Thomas i Altizer suggests that the poet's apocalypticism "demands a new form of theological understanding" and that Hegel's j - - - - _ 6®Morton, English, p. 86. 69Todd, p. 30. 7°Berdyaev, p. l6o. |dialectic Is the framework for it, he is forced to confess j | that “Blake like Kierkegaard would have condemned a thinker |whose very method makes impossible the act of faith or ;vlsion."71 Blake understood well the objectifying, de- ihumanizing, atheistic quality of Hegelian rationality. He saw clearly the insidious nature of rational progressivlsm ; which "interpreted the passion for self-aggrandizement [eros] as an instrument of ulterior rational design for the jbetterment and welfare of mankind, . . ."72 as he wrote in ja letter during the latter half of his career (13 October 1804), I have entirely reduced that spectrous Fiend | [rationality] to his station, whose annoyance j has been the ruin of my labours for the last passed twenty years. . . . He is the enemy of conjugal love and is the Jupiter of the Greeks. . . . (pp. 851-52) |Hegel's amoral and impersonal God, the Absolute Mind, is also irreconcilable with Scripture as well as the poet.Lastly, "Hegel remains within the circle of Immanence. . . . With him there is no real transcend ence. . . ."7^ in his Descriptive Catalogue Blake 1 71Altizer, p. 173. 72George Edgar Shankel, God and Man in History: A Study in the Christian Understanding of History (NashvfTle: Southern fub., i$b7), p. b9. I 73j# Davies, The Theology of William Blake |(Oxford: Clarendon Pr., 1948), p. 100. 7^Berdyaev, p. 26. I 33 i |seemed to have bitterly condemned contemporary speculative i jhistorians for their Immanent millenniallsm, committing i |mankind to an endless round of social and political strug- jgle. Speaking of his picture, "The Ancient Britons," he jcommended himself for having painted with inspiration "and i not in that dull way that some Historians pretend, who I |. . . cannot see either miracle or prodigy; all is to them ja dull round of probabilities and possibilities; but the I !history of all times and places is nothing but improba bilities and impossibilities ..." (p. 378). i j Blake came to these sentiments in his disillusionment over the French Revolution. It seemed that a completely free, democratic world was too much to ask of frail human- | ity. As long as men are men, there will always be tyrants, I injustice, and oppressions "The Whole Creation Groans to I be deliver’d; there will always be as many Hypocrites born as Honest Men, and they will always have superior Power in Mortal Things" (p. 6l6). The doctrine of human perfecti bility and the whole tradition of inevitable progress, which lay behind the Revolution,had to give way. Emile Rldeau’s comments on the problems of Teilhard de Chardin's immanent progressivlsm summarize well what Blake must have realized: The concrete, material or social gaps that separate an ever-increasing mankind is a serious obstacle to ^Shankel, pp. 87-88. 34 Its communion. Moreover, without a supernatural eschatological intervention, the most advanced j human organization . . , still allows the passions ; that govern men’s minds and the tensions created | by their situations to persist, , , [Consonant with such an understanding Blake wrote in a let- ! iter to Thomas Butts (10 January 1802) that "if Great things |do not turn out, it is because such things depend on the |Spiritual [ the emotional and psychological]] & not on the i jNatural World . . ." (p. 812). i | Blake's reaction to his disillusionment tended toward i ja premillennialist, transcendent, Christian vision. By |"transcendent" I mean to refer to either the Transcendent |(God) and his eternal vision, which go beyond history, or I i ito those phenomenological events in human life, such as i jemptlness or love, which give witness to the Transcendent. jThus, the poet wrote midway in his career: i i ! This Earth breeds not our happiness, i Another Sun [ _ Son?]] feeds our life’s streams, We are not warmed with thy beams; Thou measurest not the Time to me, Nor yet the Space that I do see; My Mind is not with thy light array'd. Thy terrors shall not make me afraid. (22 November 1802; p. 8l8, 11. 64-70) Not many years after Blake reached the zenith of his vision Jerusalem (c. 1820), one of the most daring and astute theologians of Protestantism, Sjtfren Kierkegaard, also re acted to the growing secularization of Christian hope. As | Rideau, The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin, jtrans. by Ren£ Hague (New York: Harp. R., 1957), p. 70. i 35 he wrote in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript* The Eternal happiness of the individual is decided in time through the relationship to something historical, which is furthermore of such a charac ter as to Include in its composition that which by virtue of its essence cannot become historical, and must become such by virtue of an absurdity.77 Like Kierkegaard modern liberal theologians, both Protes tant and Catholic, reject Christianity as an immanent evo- i |lutlonism. According to Ronald G. Smith's Secular i !Christianity, History cannot be identified with a clearly discern ible progress towards some . . . clearly discernible goal. The teleological hypothesis is not . . . ten able here, amid the relativities and unpredictabili ties of events. . . . Thef t philosophy of progress is not a Christian concept.7° |Furthermore, as Gregory Baum says in Man Becoming, "There :is nothing in divine revelation that proclaims the con tinuing evolution of man."79 | Thus, Blake's reactions to the Revolution were not only religiously predictable but also sociologically pre dictable. As David Aberle writes in an article on relative deprivation theory and millennial thought, "a sense of blockage— of the insignificancy of ordinary action— seems 77s0ren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Post script, trans. by David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie {Princetons Princeton U. Pr., 1944), p. 345. 7®Ronald Gregor Smith, Secular Christianity (London: jCollins, 1966), pp. 126-27. ------------------ 79Gregory Baum, Man Becoming: God in Secular Lan guage (New York: Herder, 1970), p. lib. I . . . the source of the more supernaturally based mille- inarlan."®0 Aberle also suggests that the deprivation of millennial fulfillment gives rise to the sense of a social order that cannot give satisfaction to one's hopes.®1 Norman Cohn hints at the movement toward transcendence in apocalyptic thought when he says that for some Old Testa ment prophets "the Messiah became more superhuman as the political situation became more hopeless."®2 Thus, during the latter half of his career Blake de nied the utopian notions of "Paine & Voltaire . . . [and] some of the ancient Greeks," namely, that we can live on ;this earth in "Paradise and Liberty." To such Atlantis seekers he wrote, "You may do so in the Spirit, but not in the Mortal Body as you pretend, till after the Last Judg- jment . . ." (pp. 615-16). We should not think, however, Ithat Blake became otherworldly in the latter half of his jcareer. For him there are two eternities, two Jerusalems: |one within and one beyond; and man, because of the Tran scendent, has the capacity to relate to the "Beyond." Yet, critics like E. D. Hirsch believe that for Blake "no extra terrestial agency is needed to perform the regeneration of " n — i-nrn-inn— i in .. i ®°David F. Aberle, "A Note on Relative Deprivation Theory as Applied to Millenarian and Other Cult Movements," jin Millennial Dreams, p. 212. : 8lIbid., p. 214. | ®2Cohn, Pursuit, p. 4. i ; man. The need of such an outside agency would destroy the iwhole concept of Immanent divinity."83 Like Percival, i Hirsch says that Blake shifted from the revolutionary mil- I lennialism of Ore to a perspective where both the beginning land end of life's cycle is in eternity.8* * But a cycle is i still a cycle and of itself cannot enter into eternity. As the poet wrote with consummate sarcasm in a late frag ment addressed "To God," the lord of rational theology, "if you have form'd a Circle to go into,/ Go into it yourself j & see how you would do" (p. 557). Only a merciful, tran- t :scendent God and man's ability to respond to him allow for a break through time and space and a participation in eter nity. As William Luijpen writes in his book, Existential iPhenomenology, The self-grounding project which man is and which is executed in his transcendence fails radically if | it is conceived exclusively as a project-in-the- ; world. The 'natural desire' which man is must be i understood as man's orientation to Transcendent | Being, an orientation which is essential to man. I Man does not have the desire to be God but to see ! God.85 To put this more simply, as Gregory Baum does, If God were not transcendent, man would be caught in the mess he has made of history, and that would | 83e . d . Hirsch, Jr., "The Two Blakes," Review of ! English Studies, XII (November, 1961), 389. I 8^Ibld.. p. 390. 85v/iiiiam A. Luijpen, Existential Phenomenology I (Pittsburgh: Duquesne,1963), p. 352. be bad news. If God were not transcendent, the mystery at work In human history . . . would simply be a dynamic principle built into life Itself. This would give rise to the naive be lief in an inevitable progress or to the depres sing belief that man is caught in a mechanical or organic process which will inevitably devour | him. Without divine transcendence, human life | cannot be free.86 i This radical Interdependence between man and the i |Transcendent accounts for the apocalyptic direction of I existence: "it is not possible to ask whether the Tran scendent is real, for without the reality of the Tran scendent man would not be the intentional dlrectedness which he is."87 Blake captured the essence of this inter dependence and therefore the nature of Christian apoca lypticism: "What is Above is Within, for everything in Eternity i3 translucent," shining across to man who is open to the Transcendent (p. 709> pl« 71* 1. 6). For Blake, "There is an Outside spread Without & an Outside spread Within,/ Beyond the Outline of Identity both ways, which meet in One . . ." (p. 640, pi. 18, 11. 2-3). That "One," as we shall see, is "the One Man," Jesus Christ, whose God-manhood has given man the greatest of all apocalyptic hopes. To quote Thomas Merton, Eschatology is the vision of a totally new and final reality. . . . That reality is, in effect, the total integration of God and man in Christ— 86Baum, p. 234. 87Luijpen, p. 329. 39 j That 13 to say, In aoncrete and communal Mankind | united not by politics but by mercy. Blake understood the sense of Merton's statement In the |Christianity of his later years; "Friendship cannot exist ! Iwithout Forgiveness of sins continually. . . . The Glory of ! Christianity Is To Conquer by Forgiveness" (p. 682-83, I Ipl. 52). j | The change in Blake's millenniallsm was not just an |ideological one. It was part of a total change In his emo- tional, mental, and artistic self. During the first half |of his career, he fashioned himself as the wrathful prophet ; ordained to verbally lash his audience into recognizing an 1 j immanent/imminent apocalypse. Such was the mask of a vi sionary artist frustrated in his natural desire for man. IThe change In the poet's concept of the apocalypse, then, matched a change in his attitude toward the relationship between himself and others. Like Gabriel Marcel, who sees the modern world "broken" by war and technocracy, a world "in which the preposition 'with' . . . seems more and more to be losing its m e a n i n g , Blake saw that the di visiveness in his world was in no way resolvable by ®®Thomas Merton, "Blake and the New Theology," review of The New Apocalypse, by Thomas J. J. Altizer, in the Sewanee Review. LxxVX (Autumn, 1968), 680-81. ®9oabrlel Marcel, The Mystery of Being. Vol. I; Reflection and Mystery, trans. by G. S. Eraser (Chicago: Henry kegnery, 1956), P* 28. ! 40 j ! self-aggrandizing rationalism, eros or his own outraged | claraorings for the "Improvement of sensual enjoyment." ! Something more is needed to break through the cycle of Ihistory. That need Marcel calls the "exigence of tran scendence" : I This exigence is exlstentlally experienced as a non-satisfaction [deprivation] but all non-satisfaction does not entail an aspiring i towards transcendence, for there are non-satisfactions which crave possession of a given power and which | disappear once this power is attained.90 The latter non-satisfaction, according to M. 0. D'Arcy's I The Mind and Heart of Love, is the mark of eros>91 and is ithe surest reason for not hoping in an immanent millen- i |nlum.92 The transcendent something needed, then, is the |"progress in love and in truth, the consolidation . . . of |an intelligible city which is . . . above all else a city 90Ibid., p. 42. 91M. C. D'Arcy, The Mind and Heart of Love: Lion and Unicorn. A Study in Eros and Agape 12nd. ed.. revised ; Ntew Yoric; fcr. toorla Eub.,' 195b). p. 71. 92Marcel, The Mystery of Being. Vol. II: Faith and Reality, trans. by ken& Hague (1951;, pp. 183-84, under stands the impossibility of an Immanent millennium: "It may well be that we are witnessing a deteriorl- zatlon of the human species and of the existential modalities that have characterized it in what are called civilized periods. This can be contested only if one endorses eighteenth-century optimism . . . and accepts as a principle that the movement of history can only be towards a sort of fulfill ment. But if that assertion is stripped of all strictly religious reference, it becomes no more than a completely arbitrary postulate. The simple fact that we have been able to witness the re-establishment of slavery, and that on a colossal scale . . . is sufficient to arouse the gravest doubts." 41 of souls" [a new Jerusalem],93 One critic, John E. Grant, seems to recognize the "way of love" as the means to Blake's apocalypse. 9^ But, like Norman 0. Brown, who feels his apocalypticism is par tially modelled after Blake's,95 Grant sees the poet's way iof love as merely the fulfillment of sensual enjoyment: "Blake forthrightly relates untrammelled love to apocalypse iIn The Marriage of Heaven and Hell where he explains that jail of creation will be burned up 'by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.'"^ The love Grant and Brown speak of i is, of course, eros, whose passion was a characteristic i i jaspect of Blake's early apocalypticism. But the same doubts expressed by Richard Noland concerning Brown's apoc alypse can be expressed with regard to Blake's early hope: ,". . .he [Brown] defines man's destiny as the changing of reality [objectified by rationalism and science] to conform I to the pleasure-principle [sensual enjoyment]. Is not this a kind of possession or mastery?"97 of course it is. Such 93ibld., pp. 182-83. j 94j0hn Grant, "Apocalypse in Blake's 'Auguries of IInnocence,'" Texas Studies in Language and Literature, V j (Winter, 1964)7'^'.---------- --------------- 95Norman 0. Brown, Life Against Death: The Psycho analytical Meaning of History (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan U. fcr., 19^9)> p. 3l. ! 9 6Grant^ 4 9 4. | 97Richard W. Noland, "The Apocalypse of Norman 0. Brown," The American Scholar, XXXVIII (Winter, 1968-69), 62. 42 j ! possessiveness Is transient and destructive—• the cause I of envy and possessiveness In others. In the mellower j |years of his career, Blake realized this and learned a different means to apocalypse— agape: I | I see the Saviour over me Spreading his beams of love & dictating the words of this mild song [Jerusalem] . 'Awake! awake 0 sleeper of the land of shadows, I wake! expand! 'I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine: •Fibres of love from man to man thro* Albion's pleasant land.' (p. 622, pi. 4, 11. 4-8) i |The love In these lines is In no way erotic or possessive I but is the epitome of Christian agape. It is at once i jintersubjective ("'Fibres of love from man to man'") and !transcendent ("'I am in you and you in me, mutual In I i |love divine'"). It is truly Christian in the modern |3ense, for, according to Bultmann, the eschatology of the New Testament is derivative of the extinct literary con ventions of the Old Testament and should be ignored in favor of existential eschatology; the only real last judg ment is each man's momentous relation with the Other. The approach for the remainder of this work will be to show that, while the early poet entertained immanent millennial hopes, he was always aware of the futility of such hopes. Blake's apocalypticism was always related to the issue of love, but he was hard put to understand the nature of apocalyptic love. It is my belief that the major 9%uitraann, p. 179. ! prophecies are like long closet dramas, recording through i |the actions and words of their mythical characters the con- jflicts between Blake’s various views of love, especially I eros and agape. I do not regard the poet’s characters (particularly the four Zoas) as mere allegorization3 of jman's perceptual faculties. Instead, I view them as both jsymbols of man's psychic make-up and characters undergoing |the 3ame Interior and social alienation that every man ex periences. Through the story of these characters, Blake i |traces human salvation history, himself reaching a pro- i jfoundly Christian vision of love and the destiny of man. 1 i i CHAPTER II I I I REVOLUTION, EROS, AND DOUBTING BLAKE i I ! . The endlessness of history . .. is a most j horrible absurdity. — Nicolai Berdyaev ! Critics since Milton 0. Perclval have charted a cir- i jcular path, "a Ring of Return," in Blake's millennialism: | "The Divine hand set a limit to the Pall and described jAlbion's path as circular."*- According to Percival, there jare in the pattern of return two or four stages, depending jon the depth of the Pall. The supernal stage (Eden) in- ! volves "a rise and fall, a constant interchange of con traries, a wheel of departure and return." The move from jEden to Beulah is a descent; and in Beulah, if one's error j I deepens, the circuit of return lengthens and deepens into i the worlds of Generation and Ulro: "... the punishment of error in Blake's system as in life itself lies in the bitter experience of error." Man is allowed to go down the path of experience so that he might renounce it and make his return: "The cycle, which descends from Beulah to Ulro and ascends from Ulro by way of Generation into Beulah where it Joins the supernal cycle, is the Circle of i - - _______________ - - - - - - ______ _____ I *-Percival, p. 11; see p. 6l also. 44 !Destiny."2 With somewhat less certainty, Northrop Frye jalso describes Blake's pattern of salvation as cyclical: i !"Every event in history . . . exists in relationship . . . to a universal form evolving out of history and proceeding toward a civilized eternal existence."3 Frye's view of the poet's millenniali3m is about as deterministic as eighteenth-century progressivism. Moreover, this view is I strictly immanent, "eternal existence" being a mere ex tension of "history." According to the critic's human istic understanding of Blake, the millennial agent is man i himself, his universal imagination represented by Los's Orc.^ Frye is fully aware of Ore's cyclic or perennial |nature,5 but he still insists on forcing Blake's vision !into a circular mold, even to the point of perverting the obviously linear design of Scripture itself: The Bible begins with a world of watery chaos and a pair of spiritual infants in a garden who grow up in a wilderness. But by the time we have reached the end we realize that the Bible . . . has started with the action fairly well advanced, and that the Book of Genesis needs a prelude, j Such a prelude, if we could be sufficiently in- j spired to compose one, would turn out to be very j similar to the conclusion of the existing Book of Revelations. . . . the total vision of life must have a circular form.® 2Percival, pp. 11-12. 3Frye, p. 264. ^Frye, p. 264. ^Frye, pp. 207, 216-19. ^Frye, p. 386. |Frye goes on to distinguish his understanding of the Bible i |from a "closed circle" which begins and ends In the same ! event, but the Immanent, Pelagian structure he Imposes on j Blake allows for. no viable agency by which man can perma nently escape history and live In eternity. Even more contemporary critics insist on a cyclical pattern in Blake's millennialism. According to A. L. : Morton, "Because Blake cannot think otherwise than dia- jlectically history can never come to a conclusion."? Reading the poet's vision according to the tradition of Neoplatonic thought, Kathleen Ralne sees "the Platonic jcyclic pattern" throughout his work.® In her comments on | the coming of Christ's vision as the "restitution of Adam to Paradise," she persists in asking the Platonic question: |"Does this initiate another cycle .. . or doe3 it repre sent a stepping beyond the cycle into an 'eternal' instead i | of a temporal world?"9 Raine suggests that Blake thought |man could step out of the cycle of history through imagi native vision, but the question asked by her and Hoxie N. Fairchild has never been sufficiently answered: ?Morton, Everlasting, p. 26. ®Kathleen Raine, Blake and Tradition (Princeton: Princeton U. Pr., 1968), 11, 3b. I ^Raine, I, 330. Oddly enough another Platonic reader ! of Blake, George M. Harper (The Neoplatonism of William I Blake, pp. 149-50), admits that in nis view o£ history the |poet was less Platonic and more Biblical. 47 i | " . . . does the wheel forever continue to revolve both in 1 the universal macrocosm and the human microcosm, or Is jthere some escape from It Into eternal unity and peace?"1* - * i | As seer and prophet Blake was always aware of the I jcycllclsm within history's ultimately linear design. As jearly as his Annotations to Swedenborg's Divine Love and j Divlne Wisdom (1788), he revealed such an awareness. To jSwedenborg's assertion that in all creation there is a cir cular movement "from first Principles to Ultimates, and ifrom Ultimates to first Principles," Blake added: "A going iforth & returning" (p. 95) • And as late as his Descriptive Catalogue (1809), he wrote: "Every age is a Canterbury Pilgrimage; we all pass on, each sustaining one or other of jthese characters . . . of Chaucer" (p. 570). In There is I no Natural Religion (1788) Blake revealed his awareness of the inevitable recurrence implied in immanent millennial thought: "If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic char acter the Philosophic & Experimental would soon . . . stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again" (p. 97). Conscious of the futility of inevi table recurrence,11 Blake continued: "The same dull round, 10Hoxle Neale Falrcbild, Religious Trends in English Poetry. Vol. Ill: 1780-1830. RgM' htl' g Fglffl CNgW --- Columbia U. Pr., 1949), p. 104. 11Karl Lowith (The Meaning of History, pp. 14-24) indicates how, in spite of his fascination with the doc trine of Eternal Recurrence, Friedrich Nietzsche realized ! 48 I |even of a universe, would soon become a mill with compli- Icated wheels" (p. 97). Blake's suspicions about utopian thought, especially i natural evolution, appeared as early as his comic satire, j An Island in the Moon (1784). David Erdman points out that I"Jack Tearguts," a comic character in the satire, was at first given the actual name of John Hunter, a surgeon and evolutionist of the late eighteenth century.12 The poet ! may have known Hunter since the latter was a friend of Blake's rival engraver, William Woolett. Evidence indi cates that he was at. least familiar with the anatomist's jideas. The cruelty of men like Hunter, who in the inter ests of science mutilated living bodies, obviously sick- iened Blake: "He'll plunge his knife up to the hilt in a I single drive, and thrust his fist in, and all in the space of a quarter of an hour. He does not mind their crying, tho' they cry ever so" (p. 50). | According to Carmen Krieter's article, "Evolution and William Blake," the "details of embryology, anatomy and the horrible sense of inevitability in that view of his tory. To him it became "the most frightful" conception and "the heaviest burden," for it conflicted with his will to future redemption. Nietzsche's great concern for the fu ture, the will, and creativity belie his doctrine of Eter nal Recurrence and show his secret desire to get outside its circle. | 12David V. Erdman, Blake, Prophet Against Empire: I A Poet's Interpretation of the History of his 6wn Times I (Princeton: Princeton U. Pr., 1954), pp. 92-93. I 49 jevolution utilized by Blake in Urlzen were derived from jJohn Hunter."13 Hunter was the first to match phases of I embryonic life to a series of forms in animal species. ! Miss Krieter suggests that Blake could very well have seen |these resemblances illustrated with specimens in Hunter's : museum.^ Thus, when the poet wrote in Urlzen (1794), Many forms of fish, bird & beast Brought forth an Infant form Where was a worm before (p. 232, pi. 19, 11. 34-36), ihe "intended to refer to the evolution of the human species ifrom lower animals. . . ."15 Krieter enumerates other as- Ipects of Urizen which show Blake's knowledge of the evolu- Itionary speculations of his time: I .. . (l) the embryological development of Urlzen in seven steps in Chapters III and IVb, (2) the initiation of Enitharmon's birth with a 'globe of blood' in Chapter V, and (3) various specialized anatomical terms that appear in connection with these two births, particularly the 'conglobing' heart in Chapter IVb, and the 'fibres of blood, milk and tears' in Chapter V.1& I The significance of all this is the brilliance of Blake's satire in describing Urizen's birth and division of the universe in terms of progressive evolutionary thought. •^carmen Krieter, "Evolution and Jfilliara Blake," Studies in Romanticism. IV (Winter, 1965)> 111-12. l4Ibid., 114. 15Ibid., in. l6Ibid., 112. Prom Tiriel (1789) through the minor prophecies, Blake's concerns with history were more social and politi- i • |cal than scientific. Suspicions of Immanent millennlalism i I |ranged along with hopes. As early as these works, Blake t j was also concerned with the nature and efficacy of love. 'Thus, Tiriel's life represents the cyclic pattern of his- |tory without transcendence. According to the poet's di- | rectional symbolism, Tiriel is a natural man, lord of the body, "'king of all the west'" (p. 101, pi. 2, 1. 18). j | The frailty of his kingship is immediately suggested by Har, who also calls him "'the king of rotten wood and of !the bones of death'" (p. 101, pi. 2, 1. 24). This lord of | the body can have no sensual enjoyment because he is a jtyrant. Tiriel's treatment of his family is a foreshadow- iing of Blake's vision of the cyclic pattern of repression | and rebellion within the family in "Infant Sorrow" and | I"The Mental Traveller." For example, just as Tiriel tyran- j nizes over his sons, so the father in "Infant Sorrow" "curses" his son’s sexual energy ("delight"), wishing to assume it for himself. The child revolts against his father's usurpation only to realize that the pattern of life's struggle is circular, that "the time of youth is | fled/ And grey hairs are on my head."1? Similarly Tiriel i i M W M M M HI 1*1 ^Manuscript version of "Infant Sorrow," quoted in The Poetry and Prose of William Blake. ed. by David V. I^rdman (!Mew York: Doubleday, 19bb), pp. 719-20. abuses his daughter. Hela, and vilifies his sons. The curse with which he threatens IJira (p. 104, pi. 4, |11. 13-14) is symbolic of history's cycle, for it returns | |on his own sons. It is "‘stern fate'1 1 like the turning of |Fortune’s Wheel: | '0 noble Ijim, thou hast brought our father to our eyes, ! 'That we may tremble & repent before thy j mighty knees. | '0! we are but slaves of Fortune, & that most cruel man [Tiriel] i 'Desires our deaths, 0 Ijim . . . '... if the eloquent voice of Tiriel 'Hath work'd our ruin, we submit nor strive against | stern fate.' (p. 105, pi. 4, 11. 75-80) !That Tiriel's way of life is bound up within time is indi- i | cated by an array of images. For example, 11'the cage of Har'" (p. 102, pi. 3, 1* 14) symbolizes the enclosed, finite nature of his destiny. And the chains of his brother, Zazel, symbolize the restriction he continually places on others. The most significant image in the poem is, of course, that of the serpent. Tiriel refers to his sons as "'Serpents, . . . worms of death, feasting upon'1 1 their "'aged parent's flesh!'" (p. 99, pi. 1, 11. 22-23); and, indeed, his sons are serpents, reacting to his abuse like biting snakes. The cycllclsm inherent in immanent existence is most brilliantly brought out in the old man's description of his sons' births: 'What, Mtyratana! [their mother] art thou dead? Look here, ye serpents, look! ! ’The serpents sprung from her own bowels have j drain'd her as dry as this. ! 'Curse on your ruthless heads. . . .' (p. 100, pi. 1, 11. 31-33) Tiriel is symbblically made responsible for the serpentine round of repression and rebellion when he turns his daugh ter into a Medusa: "’Let snakes rise from thy bedded |locks . . .!'/ He ceast; her dark hair upright stood, |while snakes unfolded round . . ." (p. 108, pi. 6, 11. 43-44). By the end of the poem, the old man realizes that his I l oppression and vengeance have led only to more of the same: "'Thy laws, 0 Har [natural man], & Tiriel's wisdom I |[revenge] end together in a curse'" (p. 109# pi. 8, 1. 8). |In his last speech Tiriel understands the destructiveness of experience alone: 'The child springs from the wombj the father ready stands to form 'The infant head . . . 'The father forms a whip . . . 'And scourges off all youthful fancies from the new-born man. 'Then walks the weak infant in sorrow, compell'd to number footsteps 'Upon the sand.' (p. 110, pi. 8, 11. 25-26, 30-33) Like the child in "Infant Sorrow," the old man sees this as the repression of his own father and realizes that he too rebelled: Such was Tiriel, 'Compell'd to pray repugnant & to humble the immortal spirit 'Till I am subtle as a serpent in a paradise, ! 53 i f ! ’Consuming all, . . . I 'And now my paradise is fall'n & a drear sandy plain i 'Returns my thirsty hissings in a curse on thee. ! 0 Har.' (p. 110, pi. 8, 11. 36-41) i The present tense of the last four lines indicates that i I idesplte his awareness, Tiriel, cursing Har, has really I jlearned nothing. Always concerned with order and rule, he |resembles Blake's serpentine vision of Voltaire, "immersed in matter," looking "like the Animal upon the Pythagorean's i i lap, always playing with its own tall" (pp. 45-46). The | Inevitability of history without transcendence is like pre- |destination, which Blake called in his Annotations to |Swedenborg1s Divine Providence, "Cursed Polly!" (p. 133). i ! The existence of Tiriel is viciously circular and appar- | jently inescapable. There is in his world no transcendence |because there is no freedom and no freedom because there iis no love. I It is no wonder, then, that Blake seemed to have had great hope in the liberty and fraternalism of the French Revolution. In fact, his poem on the Revolution written in 1791 was his most obviously republican work. Prye says it treats "the beginning of the end of the long nightmare of cruelty and injustice, which is human history. . . . The fall of the French monarchy . . . is significant only jas the sign of an approaching Messianic kingdom of lib- i jerty."*8 Erdman sees the poem as apocalyptic in a j l8Prye, p. 202. !"cosmic," immanent way} the ancient dawn to which the King t In the opening lines calls his minister Is "Eden* the para- dlse that 13 on the horizon again after ages of oppres- jslon."1^ And Bloom says that the atmosphere of the poem Is "akin to that of the closing chapters of Revelation, as Ibefits a vision of the time of troubles that shall precede ithe end of nature and its cycles."20 Only one critic, |John Beer, speaks with reservation (as did Blake) of the millennial hopes of the French Revolutions j Liberty, long cherished by the English as an ideal, ! now seemed to be spreading to other nations as a fact” Human nature, it seemed, was less irredeem able. . . . a renewal of humanity in England might I yet lead to the full establishment of liberty in I the country which had produced so many prophets I of freedom.21 | The chief revolutionary hopes articulated in the poem l |through the rhetorical questions of Orleans, a liberal, are |equality and fraternity: i ! 'Is the body [the nobility] diseas'd when the | members [the populace] are healthful? •And can Nobles be bound when the people are free, or God weep when his children are happy?' (p. 142, 11. 183, 186) Orleans exhorts the nobility more directly "'to consider 19Erdman, Blake. p. 151. 20Harold Bloom, "Commentary," in The Poetry and Prose of William Blake, p. 864. i | 21 John Beer, Blake's Humanism (New York: Barnes and iNoble, 1968), p. 38J italics mine. 55 all men as . . . equals,/ Thy brethren, and not as thy foot or thy hand • • .'" (p. 143* 11. 193-94). An ally of jOrleans, the Abb6 de Sley&s, exults In the revolutionary I Ihope for a new dawn: i ! 'Hear, 0 Heavens of Prance, the voice of the people arising from valley and hill, •O'erclouded with power. Hear the voice of vallles, the voice of meek cities, I 'Mourning oppressed in village and field, till the village and field is a waste. '• . . till the dawn of our peaceful morning 'Then the valleys of Prance shall cry to the soldier: | "Throw down thy sword and musket, | 'And run and embrace the meek peasant." Her Nobles shall hear and shall weep, and put off 'The red robe of terror, the crown of oppression, the shoes of contempt, and unbuckle 'The girdle of war from the desolate earth; then the Priest in his thund'rous cloud 'Shall weep, bend to earth, embracing the valleys, and putting his hand to the plow, | 'Shall say: "No more I curse thee; but now I will bless thee. . • •' (pp. 143-44, 11. 206-07, 216, 220-25) i The repeated use of the future tense in Sleyds's speech reveals a much les3 confident stance on the part of Blake than critics like Erdman suppose. Commenting on the above passage, Erdman ignores its tense, falsely asserting that for Blake "the 'dawn of our peaceful morning' has come at I .,09 jlast. . . . c Though only the first book of The French i Revolution has survived, Erdman's judgment is both pre mature and inconsistent with the text. 22Erdman, Blake. p. 158; italics mine. Moreover, the basis for Orleans and Sieyfes's hopeful rhetoric is thin at best. Sieyes sees his wishes fulfilled |if the King's "'warriors depart, nor around our peaceable |city/ Breathe fires, but ten miles from Paris let all be jpeace, nor a soldier be seen!1" (p. 145, 11. 239-40). Com- i „ imenting on Sieyes's demand for troop withdrawal, Erdman | jsays optimistically: 1 1 . . . heaven on earth will surely | |come if the rulers hearken to the people•s demand for l jpeace."23 But the simple momentary withdrawal of troops !ten miles from Paris, the precincts of government, will joffer no more hope for peace (not to mention the millen- 1 i jnium) than a withdrawal by Israel from captured Arab land. j iErdman Ignores Blake's suspicions about man's ability to | j bring on the millennium. For example, though the king seems to yield to the hopes of the liberals, "'Rise, Necker! the ancient dawn [of Eden] calls us/ To awake from slumbers of five thousand years'" (p. 134, 11. 7-8), he still thinks he will be able to exert sovereign power and is easily swayed by the war-mongering Duke of Burgundy. The process of action and reaction in history is subtly revealed in the drama of this poem. An announcement that Siey&s is coming from the republican Assembly to see the nobles meets with dramatic reactions: 23Ibld., pp. 158-59. I . Up rose awful In his majestic beams Bourbon's strong Duke; his proud sword from his thigh Drawn, he threw on the Earth! The Duke of Bretagne and the Earl of Borgogne Rose inflam'd, to and fro in the chamber, like thunder-olouds ready to burst. (p. 141, 11. 168-70) jThe Duke of Bourbon reacts so vociferously that he can be l ieasily compared to the Duke of Burgundy: 'Rise, Monarch of France! Command me and X will lead 'This army . . . that the ardor of noble souls, quenchless, •May yet burn in France, nor our shoulders be plow'd I with the furrows of pverty.1 | (p. 142, 11. 172-74) ; Political reaction is again suggested in the dramatic re dactions to Orleans's appearance. The conservative Arch- i 1 i f y jbishop, "changed as pale as lead,/ Would have risen but Jcould not; his voice issued harsh grating; instead of words j harsh hissings/Shook the chamber" (p. 142, 11. 176-78). Blake's suggestion of the serpentine nature of the Revo lution is pregnant with meaning. Instead of an atmosphere "akin to that of Revelation," as Bloom suggests, it is much more akin to the heavenly confrontations before the fall of Satan in Paradise Lost. The ghost of Henry IV, France's past peacemaking king, meets with cold disdain among the duke3 and is accused of attempting to dampen their warlike fires. Finally, when Sieyes demands that the king's troops be removed from Paris, winds "of contention" (p. 145 , 1. 241) whipped through the council; and the Duke of Bur gundy countermanded that those in the Bastile "'depart!'" 58 j(p. 145, 1. 249). The nature Imagery of this poem also reduces human |action to cyclic process. Ai'fcer Fayette reasserts the ; Assembly*s demand for troop withdrawal, he Is symbolically linked with the source of nature's cycliclsm: "The aged sun rises appall'd from dark mountains, and gleams a dusky beam/ On Fayette ..." (p. 146, 1. 270). The king of |France thinks his scepter will not "in cruelty bruise the I jraild flourishing mountains" (p. 134, 1. 5). But the words |of the bloody Burgundy "fall like purple autumn on the |sheaves," laying waste a seemingly apocalyptic harvest. The Duke Is closely related to Images of ripeness, but his |is a ripeness for war: ". • .an odor of war, like a ripe jvineyard, rose from his garments . . ." (p. 138, 1. 84). burgundy fits into the pattern of history as Blake under- i istood it; when revolution and apocalypse seem ripest, so is reaction. The Duke is a harvester of historical repression rather than millennial freedom: "'Shall . • • these mowers from the Atlantic mountains [embued with the spirit of American independence and Atlantean freedom]] mow down all this starry harvest of six thousand years?'" (p. 138, 11. 89-90). Blake's allusion to Atlantis is his way of saying that, with the presence of men like the Duke, hope for a new Atlantis is nothing more than a lgnus fatuus. Burgundy wants to retain the oligarchy of traditional French rule, and so, through his emboldening of the King, Necker, a liberal In the King's cabinet, Is exiled to | Geneva. Personified Into the forces of reaction and revolt j respectively, the images of clouds and fires21* collide with j chaotic turbulence, linking historical events to natural ; process. From the "angry bosom" of France's past king, a j ; - i "fire tore furious" against Louis XIV's "cold orb of dis dain," which has reduced free men to poverty and famine j (p. 143, 11. 199-200). The use of serpent Imagery in this poem is less than In Tiriel but Is Just as effective. In the Bastille a prophet fittingly has a "serpent coil'd round in his heart" (p. 135, 1. 28), since his utopian dreams only breed reaction. In another den of the Bastille, "nam'd Destiny," a blind man sits: "'. . , fancy t Igave him to see an image of despair in his den,/ Eternally rushing round like a man on his hand3 and knees, day and jnight without rest'" (p. 136, 11. 45-46). The blind man's ; figure of despair is an agonizing image of the futility of ! i I human endeavor, foreshadowing the figure of Ore's serpent 1 2^Melvin J. Lasky, in "The Prometheansx On the Imagery of Fire and Revolution," (Encounter, October, i960), pp. 22-32, traces anthropologically and historically the use of fire as an image of revolution and renewal: "In the great blaze of revolutionary imagery, full of ad venturous thoughts from heaven-defying minds, fire is the process of change and the pattern of hope and liberating struggle." In light of Lasky'a essay and the evidence of jBlake's doubts about immanent mlllennlallsm, it may be said jthat the poet's fire imagery is often ironic. j 60 i with its tail in its mouth. It is ironic that the king j |can describe this image and yet participate so dramatl- i cally in the circular pattern of history: The cold newt, and snake, and damp toad on the kingly foot crawl, or croak on the awful knee, Shedding their slime; in folds of the robe the crown'd adder builds and hisses. . . . (p. 147, 11. 298-99) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93) treats |Blake's attitude toward the French Revolution more sym- jbolically than the previous poem. In the "Argument" of i The Marriage, which introduces the apocalypse apparent in I France, Blake adapted, as Harold Bloom has shown,25 the t I conflict between Edom and Israel in Isaiah (Chapters 34, | |35> and 63) to the conflict between France and England. I iln 1790 Edom represents France where Blake prophesies "a j |great slaughter" because of impending counterrevolution j in England. Edom-France is, by allusion, the apocalyptic agent, for out of it comes the 3avior, a figure fore shadowing Ore, the revolutionary agent in America. But the situation here is Ironic. As Bloom has pointed out,2^ the apocalypse (the reappearance of the "just man," the New Adam) is ensconced in the imagery of natural process. By the end of the poem, the "just man" is nothing more than 25Harold Bloom, Blake' a Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument (Garden (Sity, ''New ¥ork: Anch. Doubleday, 19b5), P. 75. 2%loom, "Commentary," p. 809. 61 the recurring capacity of man’s psyche to rebel periodi cally against repression. To quote Blake’s profound sym- i holism, "The fiery limbs, the flaming hair [[of the Oroian i |savior], shot like the sinking sun into the western sky" (p. 159)* This imagery is also ironic because it works lagainst the sense of finality in Isaiah's prophecy. And, finally, the whole situation is ironic because Blake him- t |self appears to be somewhat hopeful of deliverance: "Now i j is the dominion of Edom, & the return of Adam into Para- jdlse" (p. 149, pi. 3). | History's pattern of revolution and counter revolution is signalled in "The Argument" through certain |implied and designated references to time. Since its first and last stanzas present the revolutionary situation con temporary to Blake, the time indicator "Now" is under stood: "Rintrah [the poet's wrathful, prophetic self] roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air" (p. 148, pi. 2, 11. 1, 21). The core stanzas of the poem begin respectively with the time words: "Once," "Then," "Till," and "Now." The pattern of these words resembles the inevi table pattern of history. "Once meek, and in a perilous path,/ The Just man kept his course . . ." (p. 148, pi. 2, 11. 3-4). That was "Once"; but contrary forces do not co-exist in this world. Thus, the "perilous path" that the Just man trod, planted with "Roses" and "thorns," yields jimmanently irreconcilable differences. “Then” refers back |to "Once” and the Just man; "on bleached bones" he was "Red 1 jclay brought forth" out of his land (p. 148, pi. 2, I 111. 12-13). "Red clay" is, as Bloom says, a reference to i |Adam, the new Adam rising to life in the organic cycle of |nature.27 "Till" signals a contrasting force; "the vll- jlain" which is England. As a force opposing energy and ifreedom, the villain drives the "Just man into barren climes" (p. 148, pi. 2, 1. 16), pushing downward time's I |Wheel of Fortune. The word "Now" indicates a crisis or i |cataclysmic situation. The villain, "the sneaking ser- ! jpent," is on the prowl while "the Just man rages in the wilds" (p. 149* pl. 2, 1. 19). Bloom suggests that here Blake was presenting England with a choice either to con tinue its reaction or to allow the growth of liberty pQ (Edom-France). But the poet was aware that any hope makes no difference because immanent vision is subject to a universal pattern. Blake must have realized that the hope for reconciling France and England summarized in the assertion, "Opposition is true Friendship" (p. 157, pl. 20), was a blind optimism, for that assertion was de leted "in six copies" of The Marriage.29 27Ibid., p. 810. 28Ibld., p. 809. | 2^Erdman, ed., The Poetry, p. 723. | Like "The Argument" the conclusion of The Marriage, "A Song of Liberty," presents Blake's doubts about imma nent millennialism, this time symbolized through Atlantean imagery. But as Frye interprets it, the "'Song of Liberty' i |. . . foresees that the power which has torn down the Bastille will go on to tear down Olympus and rebuild the Atlantic kingdom of the Golden Age."3° Such is not the case, however. At the time of Ore's birth, all of nature ,1s sick: "Albion's coast is sick silent; the American i meadows faint!" (p. 159). Then, suddenly, Ore rises like ja new Atlantis: "On those infinite mountains of light, now jbarr'd out by the atlantic Sea, the new born fire stood jbefore the starry king" (p. 159). According to the clrcu- | jlar pattern of youth and age, energy and repression, the Iking is "jealous" of Ore; in his confrontation with author- i |lty the youth is hurled down. Blake would like to have seen this confrontation as apocalyptic ("The fire, the fire is falling. .. . 0 Jew, leave counting gold!"; p. 159); but Ore simply drags the king down with him in endless historical struggle. The king "promulgates his ten com mands" while Ore " stamps the stony law to dust" (pp. 159-60), and nothing is accomplished. Rather than Frye's and Bloom's^1 assertions of Blake's 1 30prye, p. 216. i | 3lBloom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 99. ; hopefulness in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, It Is ! |fairer to say that if the poet was alluding to Isaiah he jmust also have been aware of Ezekiel (35*15 and 36:5), jwhere Idumea (Edom) was condemned by Jehovah to "desola- 1 jtion" ("barren climes"?) and where Israel (England) was i {restored to power. Blake was no utopian humanist. He was i ; deeply aware of man's weaknesses. Two or three years be- i fore The Marriage in his Annotations to Lavater's Apho- I risms on Man (1788), he summed up the strength and weak- | ness of man, calling him "the ark of God" and alluding to | Uzzah (2 Sam. 6:6-7)* who attempted to direct the ark {(man's special relationship with God) into Jerusalem by ! Ihuman strength alone. Uzzah was struck dead for his proud i ! efforts; and, in a sobering reminder of man's weakness with- 1 lout the Transcendent, Blake wrote: ". . .if thou seekest | by human policy to guide this ark, remember Uzzah, II Sam. vi ch." (p. 82). The eternal and the immanent are, Indeed, related for Blake: "Eternity is in love with the produc tions of time" (p. 151, pl. 7* 1. 10); but they are not one in the same. To think they are is an arrogant this-worldly optimism doomed to despair. Critics like Margaret Rudd, Harold Bloom, and John Beer believe that in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake eliminated the irony of the political situation through the apocalyptic agency of sensual enjoyment which would make 65 1 man's perceptions infinite and transform nature.32 Such an opinion ignores a great deal of contrary evidence, expres- ; ses little more than Blake's own wishful thinking, and 3hould be abandoned. First, the phrase "sensual enjoyment" was used only once by the poet throughout his entire career land is, therefore, grossly overemphasized as the basis of t his millennial hope. Next, In The Marriage sensuality Is not extolled as the ohlef means to apocalyptic reve- ! i latIon. Wisdom, the mind, "the head Sublime" are also ! I iextolled: ". . .of wisdom, no clock can measure" (p. 151, j jpl. 7, 1. 11); "One thought fills Immensity" (p. 151, pl. 8 , ; i 1. 16). Moreover, Blake advocated a refinement of sensual I I ; enjoyment, not simply Its freedom. Such a refinement in- | eludes commitment. As early a3 his Marginalia on Lavater's j Aphorisms, Blake seemed to have understood the value of j i i such commitment. For example, he affirmed as regenerative i ! ii ! Lavater's assertion, Whose will is bent on ONE, MUST re- i bounce the wishes for MANY things" (p. 66), The sensuality Blake spoke of is not self-gratification but a kind of 32Margaret Rudd, in Organiz'd Innocence: The Story of Blake's Prophetic Books lLondoni Routledge and Kegan Paul, ), p. 12, " says that "Blake's highest vision of human life cries out against the cruel and false chastity that is based on guilt and jealousy and fear, and sings praises to its opposite, incarnate love"; Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 06-87; Beer, pp. 23, 30-3^, 52, 6f, em phasizes that twofold vision (energy and desire) is prerequisite to fourfold or heavenly vision. bodily control in the pursuit of wisdom: 1 1 1 then asked Ezekiel why he eat dung, & lay so long on his right & left side? he answer'd, 'the desire of raising other men into a perception of the infinite: ... is he honest who resists ; ! I his genius or conscience only for the sake of present ease ; ■ | or gratification?'" (p. 154). Finally, the chief reason j • i for de-emphasizing sensual enjoyment as an apocalyptic i ; ' i agent is the ambiguity with which its primary representa- ! tive, Ore, is treated. The cautious language used in re- j lation to the new Adam, especially in "The Argument" and | |the "Song of Liberty," reveals the seriousness of Blake's j ; I : ! doubts about eros or sensual enjoyment. From the beginning, of his career, Blake toyed with j : I the idea of transcendence through sensuality. As he wrote j ! I I i 'in "Fresh from the dewy hill," a song in the Poetical j Sketches* i i ------- ! ... that sweet village, where my black-ey'd maid ; Closes her eyes in sleep beneath night's shade, Whene'er I enter, more than mortal fire Burns in my soul, and does my song inspire. (p. 10, 11. 17-20; italics mine) But humanist Blakeans like E. D. Hirsch Ignore too much evidence in saying that from 1790 to 1795 the poet ex pressed considerable confidence in Ore's millennial capac ities.^ Ore is little more than a representative of eros, 3%;. d . Hirsch, Jr., Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to William Blake itiew Haven: Yale \ J f . Pr., 1964), p. 301. 67 self-seeking and transient. Like eros, as Plato described it,34 he Is born of want and energy— the want of freedom and energy repressed. Resembling Platonic eros, he Is "full of courage, . . . audacity" and violence. Like eros, as Aristotle conceived it,35 he is a part of nature, at times latent and at others overwhelming. Ore bears many other similarities with eros, as Anders Nygren describes |it in his monumental work, Agape and Eros. Like eros, which is determined by outside forces, his energy is moti vated by political, sexual, and natural circumstances. Like eros, which is ultimately a desire to possess God,36 his Promethean mind seeks the divine through its own power. Finally, like eros, which dies away in the possession of its goals,37 Ore passes away in a cyclic pattern of desire and gratification. Intuitively aware of all this, Blake became more and more suspicious of sensual enjoyment. Con current with his suspicions was a growing interest in the nature and value of other forms of love. 34piato, Symposium, quoted in D*Arcy, p. 71. See also p. 84. 35Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, trans. by Philip Watson (London: S.P.C.K., 1953)* 1, 183-86. 36jbid., 177-78. It may seem that eros is transcen dent in £ts desire to become God, but its reliance on human powers alone confines it to the cycle of history, often converting man into a destructive self-proclaimed daemon. 3^See above, p. 40, n. 90. I 68 I Like the French Revolution, America's rebellion was j i > an extremely significant event, eliciting widespread mil- 1 I lennlal conjurlngs on the continent.3& it is no wonder, i i then, that Blake's poem, America (1793)* is looked upon by I critics as apocalyptic: "To Blake, as to Tom Paine and other liberals of the eighteenth century, the American Revolution appeared as the dawn of the millennium."39 j David Erdman sees Blake's opinion of the American Revolu- tlon "as a sort of mass resurrection or secular apocalypse I that would overthrow poverty and cruelty and establish a ! ' i New Eden in which the arts flourished and habitations were ! illuminated. . . . "^° Frye and Bloom both recognize cyclic | irony in the poemj^1 but, fearing the accusation of inten tional fallacy, neither ever says that Blake Intended the irony as an attack, perhaps a satire, on contemporary mil- ! i lennialists. To call a work a satire is, in a sense, to i iapproach intentional fallacy, for such a claim asserts that i ■ ' Ithe poet intended to produce a work that can be classified I in that genre, having some definite propagandistic aims. To say a work is ironic, as Frye and Bloom do, can be avoiding the issue, for irony can be a subconscious produc- 3yShepperson, p. 50. 39a . Edward Newton, Introduction, William Blake, 1757-1827? A Descriptive Catalogue (Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger, 1939)* p. ix. ^OErdman, Blake, p. 48. 4lprye, pp. 207* 216-19* Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 126. jtion of the artist. Frye, therefore, misses the point in I suggesting that Blake was genuinely disillusioned over his i 2 i p jmythical figure, Orc.He: Bloom also misses the point in jsaying there is only "a hint1 1 that Ore's liberation is !"condemned to be cyclical" and that "Blake is not willing i to assign the American Revolution, symbolically more essen tial to him than the French, merely to the organic world Iof cyclic energy's reaction to repression."^ To suggest jthat Ore is "unbound"^** is erroneous, for to Blake he is a |creature of natural and psychic determinism.^ i America is not a pessimistic poem, however. It is las hopeful as The French Revolution and The Marriage of ! | Heaven and HelJr-and also as fearful. In the following i ! analysis I will present republican Blake's political hopes I and then his doubts concerning America's thrust for inde pendence. As the poem's revolutionary force, Ore is con fident of an apocalypse; "'I am Ore, wreath'd round the accursed tree:/ The times are ended . . .'" (p. 198, pi. 8, 11. 1-2). It was Blake's hope that the American Revolution would lead to the destruction of the "'accursed tree'" of natural religion and rationalist politics, so that authori- 42Frye, p. 221. ^3eioom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 126, 132. * * 4Ibld., p. 136. ^See above, p. 67, nn. 3^> 35. 70 tarianism would be extirpated and men could live In freedom and p^ace. The means to this liberation Is the same as ex pressed In The Marriage, namely, sensuality. As the new Adam says In plate 8, . . the soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd'" (p. 199, pi. 8, 1. 14). In plate 10 Blake expressed the hope that Albion would not successfully react against the Just man's sensual/political revolt. After Ore has declared the end of repression, the destruc tion of Albion's "'stony law/" and the reign of "'sweet delight,'" Albion's angel sends out a military alarm which meets with no response: Thus wept the Angel voice, & as he wept, the terrible blasts Of trumpets blew a loud alarm across the Atlantic deep. No trumpets answer; no reply of clarions or of fifes: Silent the Colonies remain and refuse the loud alarm, (p. 200, pi. 10, 11. 1-4) The colonies are silent because of the apparent success of Ore's revolt, quelling any reactionary loyalists whom Al bion's Angel would like to incite. The kind of millennium Blake seemed to long for (after Ore's revolt) resembles the paradisal golden world of the ancients. It has none of the characteristics of the new Atlantis of rationalism or the new science: On those vast shady hills between America & Albion's shore, Now barr'd out by the Atlantic sea, call'd Atlantean hills, 71 Because from their bright summits you may pass to the Golden world, An ancient palace, archetype of mighty Emperies, Hears its immortal pinnacles, built in the forest of God By Ariston, the king of beauty, for his stolen bride, (p. 200, pi. 10, 11. 5-10) That Ore's sensual revolt seems to approach this kind of millennial world is suggested by the vibrant sexual diction in the following lines: . . . the fires of Ore . . . play around the golden roofs in wreaths of fieroe desire. Leaving the females naked and glowing with the lusts of youth. For the female spirits of the dead, pining in bonds of [natural] religion, Run from their fetters reddening, & in long drawn arches sitting, They feel the nerves of youth renew, and desires of ancient timesT . . . (p. 202, pi. 15, 11. 20-25; italics mine) The eroticism here is obvious; its transience is indicated in the cyclicism of words like "wreaths" and "renew" and in the double meaning of the word "Leaving," for eros abandons in satiation the goals it attains. But critics like S. Foster Damon, Northrop Frye, and Kathleen Raine look upon Blake's allusions to Atlantis as part of his genuine millennial aspirations. To quote Damon, "... the Lost Atlantis was to Blake a pathway to Eternity. . . ."^ Frye, who sees much irony in the poem, feels that for Blake the revolution in America signified "the dawn of a new age ^S. Foster Damon, William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols (1924; reprinted, Mew York: Peter Smith, 194?), PT3357 i 72 j I I In which Atlantia begins to appear above the waves.And | Rain©, In her discussion of Amerloa. recalls a referenoe In j The Marriage of Heaven and Hell to Atlantis as Ore's birth- j place. She defines the allusion as "paradise* and para- | ^ j dise, In the esoterio sense, is the body itself, the world j i • t ; I of the senses. ... we may understand the depth of meaning j 1 i of Blake's symbol ofr the birth of Oro into the land ac cursed, which, In the restoration of Christ's kingdom. Is to flower again in its original beauty.Raine misses, I ' j however, the less Atlantean and more ominous aspects of | : i Oro's birth spoken of in America: | ; ! Albion's Angel stood beside the Stone of night j and saw The terror [Oro] like a oomet, or more like the planet red That onoe enclos'd the terrible wandering oomets In its sphere. Then, Mars, thou wast our oenter, and the planets three flew round Thy crimson disk: so e'er the Sun was rent from thy red sphere, (pp. 197-98, pi. 5» 11. 1-5) jBlake's connecting Oro with Mars, the god of war, oannot in i any way be construed as optimlstio or hopeful, for the poet jfirmly believed that war and violence breed only more of the same. Moreover, Raine's relating oro to a new Atlantis does not confers to oro as the "'rebel form that rent the I . . . . anolent/ Heavens!•« (p. 199, pi. 9, 11, 1^-15). | Finally, the orltlos miss the negative elements ! ^7Frye, p. 126. | ^Ralne, I, 339-40. 1 within the poem's Atlantean passages. In America Atlantis jls a dubious achievement because of its one-sided materi ality. It is built "in the forests of God/ By Arlston | . . . for his stolen Bride." Prom "the forests of the i Inight" in The Tyger (c. 1794) to the horrible oak groves land trees of mystery in Jerusalem (c. 1820). Blake's im- r ,n .n r _ i jagery of forests has always been symbolic of hopelessly |entangled materiality, closed to light and vision. Both iRalne and Frye claim that Blake's Atlantis allusion came from his familiarity with Plato's Crltias, where Ariston is really Neptune, who settled Atlantis.^9 Raine adds that |in the golden world Neptune became enamored with a beauti ful woman, Cleito, and stole her by isolating her with his I |shores (just as Ore hopes to isolate America as an Atlan- jtis through his sexual assault). These critics also real- ilze that Blake's use of the name Ariston came from Herodo- I tus' history, wherein the warrior-king of Sparta, Ariston, stole a bride as Neptune did. But Frye and Raine have little explanation for Blake's allusion to Herodotus, not to mention his mixing it with a reference to Neptune in Critias. Frye says that it suggests a reversed form of the Menelaus story, expressing "Blake's belief in the deriva tive nature of Greek culture." And Raine, admitting com plete bewilderment over the reference, writes: "Why Blake ^Raine, I, 424, n. 19; Frye, pp. 126 and 440, n. 27. j 74 has changed the name of Neptune for that of Ariston it is I I |impossible to say. . . . the relevance of the story to the i myth of Atlantis passes my comprehension." Substituting j |Ariston's name for Neptunefs was, however, Blake's way of |connecting Atlantean sensualism (via Ore and the hidden ! allusion to Neptune) with the springs of endless political j |struggle (via the allusion to Ariston), for in Herodotus' | history Ariston's bride gave birth to a son, Demaratus, and jthe latter was denied his kingdom by Cleomenes, his rival, i |because he was mistakenly thought to be the son of the stolen bride's former husband, Agetus.50 Such machinations led to all the evils Blake detested, most of all to the corruption of religion by politics since Cleomenes bribed a prophetess of the Delphic Oracle to declare that Demara- i itus was not Ariston's son. Ore's sexual aggression in Amerloa resembles Ariston's desire to possess Agetus' wife, the most beautiful woman in Sparta, that she might bear him a son, because his other wives failed to do so. The king's passion was destructive, for, in gratifying it in order to keep Sparta's rule, as the story implies, in his own house hold, he discharged his latest wife, alienated his friend, Agetus, and began a series of conflicts and intrigues that upset Sparta for many months. Such are the results of 5°The History of Herodotus, trans. by A. D. Godley (1922; reprinted, London: William Heinemann, 1950), III, Bk. VI, 207-35. 75 relationships based on material possessiveness.Covert- j ly hidden in the beautiful Atlantean Imagery of America is i the fear of its potential for violence and instability. j j Thus, the hope expressed in Ore’s sexual revolt is i offset by the transient nature of eros. That Ore's love I |is, indeed, self-centered and erotic is implied in certain |key words connoting rapacity. For example, Ore "assay'd j 'his fierce embrace" of the shadowy daughter of Urthona, who i {represents nature or America's natural setting (p. 196, i pi. 1, 1. 10). His relations with the "Dark Virgin" of nature are violent and sadistic. Threatening to "lash" i |her, he, "Silent as despairing love, and strong as jeal- ■ ousy, . . . seiz'd the panting, struggling womb" (p. 196, |pl. 2, 11. 1-3). The confrontation here is analogous to i the action and reaction'of the current political struggle. Like Ore, nature responds with consuming possessiveness (p. 196, pi. 2, 1. 7)» referring to him with animal imagery illustrative of his rapacious nature: '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.' (p. 196, pi. 2, 11. 12-14) ^That Ariston is tied to material existence (and is fearful of the transcendent) is suggested in the following lines introducing The Song of Lob: "I will sing you a song of Los, the Eternal Prophet: He sung it to four harps at the tables of Eternity. In heart-formed Africa7~ * Urlzen faded! Ariston shudder*d!" (p.' 245, pl. 3, 11. 1-4) iOre and nature live in mutual destruction. As nature says !to him, "'0 what limb rending pains I feel! thy fire & my ;frost/ Mingle in howling pains.... This is eternal death . . .,M (p. 196, pi. 2, 11. 15-17). It might be said I 1 I that Blake’s rhetoric here is descriptive of nature’s pur gation through man’s newly liberated psyche. But we have jalready found that Ore's consuming fires are not purgative, j for the Atlantis they lead to is a highly questionable achievement. ! Blake's doubt3 about an Orcian millennium are also | jrevealed through a matrix of imagery reducing the revolu tion to time's cycle. At the age of "fourteen suns," Ore i I has reached sexual maturity but is half way through the |lunar cycle. Though there are hints of his Christlikeness i I(Ore is said to have "'fall'n'" in order to give "'life'" l I to nature; p. 196, pi. 2, 1. 9), the imagery of serpents, suns, and seasons reveals the transience of his renewal. For example, he declares that he is a "'serpent folding/ Around the pillars of Urthona'" (p. 196, pi. 1, 11. 15-16). He is also called the "'Eternal Viper1" (p. 199* pi. 9* 1. 15). Though he makes hopeful references to a new dawn, he brings no real dawn but only consuming energy, "heat but not light" (p. 197, pi. 4, 1. 11). Blake, moreover, reveals his doubts about the revo lution in the looming fear of a successful reaction. ! 77 I Immediately after his majestic lines on Atlantis, such |fearfulness appears: | Here on their magic seats the thirteen Angels ! sat pertur'b, For clouds [English forces] from the Atlantic hover o'er the solemn roof. (p. 200, pi. 10, 11. 11-12) |Washington describes the foreboding situation more di- !rectlys 'Friends of America! look over the Atlantic sea; ! 'A bended bow is lifted in heaven, & a heavy I iron chain 'Descends, link by link, from Albion's cliffs. . . .' I (p. 197, pi. 3, U. 6-8) i „ ;The danger of military invasion is constant, for "The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent:/ I Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America's shore |. . ." (p. 197, pi. 3» 11. 1-2). It is significant that j j images of fire, flames, and red meteors are also used to i refer to the forces that would repress Ore. Blake realized that rebellion and repression are merely the obverse of each other; he brilliantly summarized their reciprocal nature in the line: "Red rose the cloud3 from the Atlan tic in vast wheels of blood . . ." (p. 197, pi. 1. 6). The poet understood that fire cannot be fought with fire because, as Albion's Angel says ironically, ' . . . the harlot womb [of Ore's rape] , oft opened in vain, | 'Heaves in enormous circles: now the times are return'd upon thee, 'Devourer of thy parent, now thy unutterable torment renews.' (p. 199, pi. 9, 11. 18-20) jReminders of Tiriel and foreshadowings of "The Mental |Traveller" are unquestionably here. The fear of reaction Ialso looms heavily in plate 'c,' wherein the "fifty two | Iarmies" of Albion muster "around their Prince . . . In ! opposition dire . . . before the Demon . . ." (p. 205, ipl. 'c,' 11. 16-21). In the same plate Blake used the | I image of our "scale bound orb" to symbolize the action and 1 1 reaction rising and descending in humanly irresolvable con flict. Thus, even though the colonies' English governors i "grovel on the sand" before Washington and even though the i ["British soldiers . . . threw their swords & muskets to the jearth" (p. 201, pi. 13# 11. 4-7) because of America's apparently successful revolution, "... all Albion's Angels . . . Darken'd the Atlantic mountains . . . . , mustr'- lng [for retaliation] in the eastern sky" (p. 201, pi. 13, 11. 13-16). Albion gives commands, and "His plagues . . . flew forth out of their clouds,/ Palling upon America" (p. 201, pi. 14, 11. 4-5); such is the pattern of human events: . . . So The British Colonies beneath the woful Princes fade. And so the Princes fade from earth . . . But tho' obscur'd, this is the form of the Angelic land. (p. 206, fragment, 11. 3-6) Blake's hope for liberation through sensual enjoyment becomes even less convincing in Europe (1794). The Fairy's speech beginning the poem is about man's senses, especially ! 79 I that of touch (sexuality). But for its besotting by lovers i I of secrecy and deception, touch allows man to momentarily transcend time: • Thro' one [touch, man] himself pass[es] out what time he please; but he will not, 'For stolen joys are sweet & bread eaten in secret pleasant.1 (p. 237, pi. iii, 11. 5-6) Wary of rationalism's perversion of the material world, the speaker of this introductory plate (lii) asks if the physi- j cal world is dead. He is immediately Informed by the Fairy |of Blake's early escape from eighteenth-century scientism: 'I will write a book on leaves of flowers, | 'If you will feed me on love-thoughts & give me now and then 'A cup of sparkling poetic fancies; so, when I am tipsie, 'I'll sing to you . . . and shew you all alive 'The world, when every particle of dust breathes ! forth its joy.' (p. 237, pi. Hi, 11. 14-18) i |Through "'love thoughts'" and "'poetic fancies'" the ! |speaker is shown the world's real life. Taking the Fairy to his "warm bosom," he sees wild flowers "eternal" (p. 238, pi. iii, 1. 20). But, according to the rest of his narrative (the poem) and the Fairy's own admission, sensual enjoyment participates in eternity only temporar ily. The Fairy is comically aware of this, for, over the wild flowers he and the speaker have picked, he "laugh'd aloud to see them wimper . . ." (p. 238, pi. iii, 1. 21). Harold Bloom says that Ore's rebirth in Europe is ! 80 j ✓ I"part of a second coming of Jesus"}52 but, as with America, j I suggest that Ore is a conscious construction in irony iused to satirize immanent millennialism. For example, in j |the "Preludium," which Erdman calls "an oracle of the sec ond coming of Christ and of the Armaggedon of 1793*"^ all i j is reduced to cyclic process. Nature, the "nameless shad- i jowy female" for. whom Ore fell to give life in America. asks her mother (Enitharmon) not to bring forth other sons to |the pattern of life and death, energy and repression. !Pitying herself, she says: i ; 1 . . . first born & first consum'd! 'Consum'd and consuming! ? | 'Then why shouldst thou, accursed mother, bring | me into life?' (p. 238, pi. 1, 11. 9-11) I Nature's circular pattern is repeated in the political I realm among "'all devouring fiery kings,/ Devouring & de voured'" (p. 238, pi. 2, 11. 4-5). Realizing the doom des- j tined to apocalyptic hope once it is embodied in men or Institutions, nature asks Enitharmon not to stamp "'with solid form this vig'rous progeny of fires'" (Ore), for to do so would be to stamp him "'with a signet,'" with a seal of authority, converting apocalyptic revolution into re pression (p. 238, pi. 2, 11. 8, 10). Erdman is mistaken to see hope in nature's question, "And who shall bound the infinite [Ore] with an eternal band?*" (p. 239# pi. 2, | 52gloom, Blake'3 Apocalypse, p. 158. 53Erdman, Blake, p. 245. 81 ; \ i ;i. 13), for the question simply repeats her understanding I that apocalyptic hope ("‘the infinite1") cannot be bound to inature*3 round without destroying it. Nature's speech is I like the apostles' bittersweet realization that Jesus could not be a political Messiah or he would not be the true re- i ideemer. In the last line of her speech (p. 239> pi. 2, il. 10), nature despairs, afraid to face rebirth ("'I roll jinward1") and convinced that her warnings will go unheeded j(" 'my voice is past'"). i Upon Ore's birth, Urizen, having sublimated his eros I into a form of tyranny,^ bound the spirit of revolt down. 1 ICalled by Los to welcome Ore's birth, Urizen says with i 1 erotic rapacity: 'Seize all the spirits of life, and bind 'Their warbling joys to our loud strings! 'Bind all the nourishing sweets of earth 'To give us bliss. . . . ' (p. 239, pl. 4, 11. 17-20) Thinking that the original Orc-man is fully subdued, Eni tharmon sleeps for eighteen hundred years (the history of Europe); but his revolutionary spirit still recurs. Plate 9 sums up with incredible compression the alternation between revolt and repression in Blake's own time. The reference to "plagues" recalls plates 14 and 15 of America, where England's reaction to the American Revo- 5^D'Arcy, p. 220, says that eros can be rational as well as passionate. In fact, Urizen fits perfectly D'Arcy's description of rational eros: "The Eros, which exalts reason, turn3 into a tyrant." [ 82 j ■lution "recoil'd1 1 such that the revolutionary spirit of Ore affected England herself: Shadows of men in fleeting bands upon the winds | Divide the heavens of Europe Till Albion's Angel, smitten with his own plagues, fled with his bands. The cloud bears hard on Albion's shore, Pill'd with immortal demons of futurity: In council gather the smitten Angels of Albion; The cloud bears hard upon the council house, down rushing On the heads of Albion's Angels. One hour they lay buried beneath the ruins of that ! hall; But as the stars rise from the salt lake, they arise in pain, In troubled mists, o'erclouded by the terrors of strugling times, (p. 241, pi. 9> 11. 6-16) ! According to Blake's vision, bands of revolutionary and |reactionary forces are mustering throughout Europe. The cloud bearing down on Albion is the seed of the American jrebellion sown in England by "immortal demons of futurity" jlike Blake. For the first time we see hints of revenge and i similarities to reaction in Ore's revolt. The repeated clause, "The cloud bears hard," and the phrase, "down rush ing/ On the heads of Albion's Angels," make the revolt ap pear as wrathful as Jonah in the Old Testament. Blake has begun to detect the revengeful nature of revolution, for, as Albion's Angel screams "in flames of Ore" (p. 242, pi. 12, 1. 12), the latter avengingly "rejoic'd to hear" his "howling shadows" (p. 242, pi. 12, 1. 22). That Ore's |rebellion has become what it tried to destroy is symbolized |by the image of the "cloud" which before referred almost ! exclusively to the forces of Urizenic reaction. According ito the circular pattern of history, Albion's Angels "rise" I under the "terrors" of their one-time subjects. Responsible for all of this is the destruction of ’ man's union with man through erotic rationalism or what i ; Nicolai Berdyaev has called objectification.55 As Blake |put it, Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that | which pitieth I To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid i In forests of night: then all the eternal for- ; ests were divided Into earths rolling in circles of space . . . Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel, Heaven a mighty circle turning, God a tyrant crown'd, (p. 241, pi. 10, 11. 16-19, 21-23) Because of erotic rationalism, love has changed to consum ing rage, nature to a giant wheel, man to a righteous her mit, and religion and God to authoritarian forms keeping man from transcendent vision. Not until the poet fully developed his vision of love (agape) did religion (Chris tianity) and God (Jesus) resume their proper roles in the apocalypse. Europe appropriately ends with a balance of opposition which yields no progression; the beginnings of revolt in Prance are countered with a trumpet of reaction 55eerdyaev, pp. 11-26. 84 ■by Newton. Los's summons "to the strife of blood" (p. 245, pi. 15, 1. 11) and the brilliant reduction of Europe's political history to the Ineluctable cycle of a day leave jlittle hope for apocalyptic liberation. Blake's mytho logically allusive metaphor for history's circle of vio- | ■lence is brilliant: i The furious terror flew around On golden chariots raging with red wheels dropping with blood! (p. 245, pi. 15, 11. 4-5) i The poet's dissatisfaction with immanent vision con- i |tinued in For Children: The Oates of Paradise (1793), The I Book of Urizen (1794), and The Book of Ahania (1795)— each I work dealing with the cyclic nature of existence. For !Children: The Gates* of Paradise is Ironically titled be- !cause it is overshadowed with the imagery and pattern of I circular doom. The emblems or pictures that correspond respectively with each gnomic line also reflect that pat tern. Thus, the movement of life is from man's birth ("I found him beneath a Tree"; the emblem here is of an infant being pulled like a deadly mandrake from the earth.), to an immersion in matter ("Water," "Earth," "Air," "Fire"), to the child's potential for transcending mundane life ("At length for hatching ripe he breaks the shell"; the corresponding emblem shows a child with wings breaking out of a shell.), to infinite desire (the exclamations, "I want! X want!," correspond to a picture of a man trying |to climb to the moon.)* to nature's pull on man (the emblem |here shows a young man drowning in an ocean of matter,), to the ignorance of age (where a father in the respective em blem cuts off his son's wings), to man's complete enclosure land worldly concern, and finally to "Death's Door." The 'tragic pattern of life without transcendence is summed up I in the cocoon symbolism of the final emblem and its cor responding line: for an emblem showing a worm wrapped around the body of a woman, Blake wrote, "I have said to I the Worm: Thou art my mother & my sister" (p. 209* 1« 16). |The tragic dimension of the last line is embellished if its |original version (an adaptation from Job) is kept in mind: I have said to corruption thou art I my Father, to the worm thou art my mother and my sister.5° In The Book of Urizen Blake makes eighteenth-century I science responsible fora cyclic view of existence. Newton's jview of the cosmos as a giant machine whose wheels roll in perfect order is graphicly iraagistic of nature's cir cularity. Thus, in Urizen, the hero of which is modelled after Newton, words like "wheels," "revol'ving," "around," "round," "whirlwinds," and various forms of the word "roll" appear collectively thirty-five times. As in The Song of Los (1795)* where Ore's passions erupt "time after time" (p. 246, pi. 3* !• 20), so in this poem Urizen's mind i_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ' i ^Erdman, e c * . * The Poetry, p. 723. 86 rolls In "Eddies of wrath oeaseless round & round (p. 227, pi. 10, 1. 20). Uhaware of his laok of eschatologioal vision, Urizen simply looks to the future like a typioal eighteenth-century utopian*. * . . . Prom 'The eternal abode in my holiness, ‘Hidden, set apart, in my stern oounsels, ‘Reserve for the days of futurity, *1 have sought for a Joy without pain, •For a solid without fluctuation.1 (p. 224, pi. 4, 11. 6-10) Harold Bloom suggests that in these lines Urizen reveals his fear of futurity. But Urizen is really a satiric counterpart of utopian soienoe, thinking of future soolety only in terms of a physical design, a material millen- i nium to last forever, a "solid without fluctuation." Urizen's utopian vision is, of course, unrelated to eternity. Twice it is repeated that "Eternity roll'd wide apart" from his oreations (p. 225. pi. 5. 1# 5i p. 226, pi. 5. 1. *H). and twice it is written that Urizen in time is "rent from Eternity" (p. 226, pi. 6, 1. 9; p. 228, pi. 10, 1. 27). While the eternal prophet, Los, seeks in his own Book (1795) to destroy Urizen's material design, to smash "The black marble . . . into fragments" (p. 257. pl. 1* 22), he also fixes "the Human/ Into fi nite inflexible organs" (p. 258, pl. 4, 11. 44-45), The 57Bloom, Blake's Apooalvpse. p. 180. The very name Urizen is a satlrio chop at trie rational progresslvism of Blake's contemporaries! You're risin' with Your reason! irony ia obvious. As suggested by the words "endur'd" and I i"illusion " in the following lines, Los is not taken in by ! • I his inconsistency, however: ! .. . his [Los's] Furnaces endur'd The chain'd Orb in their infinite wombs. .... And Los smil'd with joy. He the vast Spine of Urizen seiz'd, And bound down to the glowing illusion. (p. 260, pl. 5, 11. 39-40, 45-47) I |As we shall see in The Four Zoas and Milton» the prophet jtries to fix everything into a physical form so that raater- |ial existence, seen in all its enormity, may be tran- jscended. In The Book of Ahanla Fuzon. rebelling against Uri- M M M i n - -I in. ir..--rr m n n. r |zen, is figuratively and mythically akin to Ore. At his |birth he rose Ore-like "on a chariot iron-wing'd" (p. 249; pl. 2, 11. 1-2). As a symbol of eros, he is likewise under j |Blake's suspicion. That his revolt will yield no better world than does Urizen's tyranny is suggested by his fight ing with an Instrument (a "Globe") similar to the "Disk" by which Urizen blocks man's vision. Blake summed up the evils of revolution in Fuzon's revengeful hope that Urizen is "slain" and in the irony of his God-like proclamations (p. 251* pl. 3* 11. 36-38). Urizen, of course, represses Fuzon, and the result is "Disease on disease, shape on 3hape/ Wing'd screaming in blood & torment" (p. 253* pl. 4, 11. 25-26). I Because of his distrust of science, politics, and |history, Blake experienced transcendent exigence in his | |early career. As early as the Poetical Sketches, he felt ithat man and nature could not be reconciled. As the i |speaker of "To Winter" says, "He [Winter] hears me not, but o'er the yawning deep/ Rides heavy ..." (p. 3, |11. 5-6). Prom the viewpoint of rationalism, nature is jman's enemy: "I dare not lift mine eyes,/ For he [Winter] hath rear'd his sceptre over the world" (p. 3* 11. 7-8). The only deliverance appears to be in heaven or the tran- Iscendent: i \ Poor little wretch! that deal'st With storms, till heaven smiles, and the monster Is driv'n yelling to his caves beneath Mount Hecla. (p. 3, 11. 14-16) IIn There is no Natural Religion (1788) Blake expressed the exigence of transcendence more directly: ! VI. If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be his eternal lot. VII. The desire of Man being Infinite, the pos session is Infinite & himself Infinite, (p. 97) The poet'3 phenomenological assertion of transcendence (the Infinite), which man needs ("desires") and is capable of reaching, is both brilliant and modern, for, as William Luijpen writes in Existential Phenomenology. "The 'natural desire' which man is . . . must be understood as man's ori entation to Transcendent Being."58 in their humanism most i ' * ' T ~ " " ~ 1 ^ ~ _ 1 ! 58See above, p. 37# n. 85. Blakeana say that man's ability to see "the Infinite" lies I f jin the imagination* which makes him God* But Blake was I j very clear in his distinctions concerning the Infinite, the jDivinity (God), and the means to transcendenoe• As he |wrote in his Annotations to Swedenborg's Divine Love, there |is only "one Omnipotent Uncreate and God"; but there is j jmore than "one infinite," for "if a thing loves it is in- ! finite" (p. 91). In "The Divine Image," one of the Songs of Innocence, man is the "human form divine," not God him- jself; and that only if he loves (p. 117)* This is not a hypostatic union but a dynamic, dialectical relationship ( involving both man's efforts and God's openness: Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. (p. 117, 11. 19-20) In his early career Blake's awareness of transcendent exi gence continued in the aspiring exclamations, "I want! I want!," of Por Children: The Gates of Paradise and In the Songs of Experience where the sunflower looking heavenward is a beautiful symbol of the transcendent dlrectedness of all creation. Harold Bloom reads 3exual irony into the second stanza of "The Sunflower,"59 which should be taken as an imperative to the reader to abandon rigid morality for the sake of transcendent desire. With a period follow ing the first stanza, as in Erdman's edition of the poem,6° 5%loom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 149. ^Erdman, ed., The Poetry, p. 25. 90 iand a reordering of the Imperative, everything becomes !clear: arise [[oh, reader] from the grave, where youth jpined away with desire, and the pale virgin is shrouded in isnow, and aspire where my sunflower wishes to go. For j Blake the means to existential transcendence was love. In i |response to Swedenborg’s assertion in Divine Love, "No one jknoweth what is the Life of Man, unless he knoweth that it is Love," the poet added boldly: "This is known to me & i thousands" (p. 89). I But the love young Blake considered most apocalyptic !was eros. As he wrote in response to Swedenborg's emphasis |on understanding through "spiritual light," "This Man can do while in the body" (p. 91). And, again, to Swedenborg's | jassertion that thought does not come from "natural sub- 1 stances," he retorted with implications of a far greater understanding in the body: "Many perversely understand him ([SwedenborgJ as if man, while in the body, was only conver sant with natural Substances ..." (p. 9^). Thus, for early Blake, existential exigence was experienced as sensu al desire— desire that can grow perverse. To quote Oothoon in The Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793): 'The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin •That pines for man shall awaken her womb to enormous Joys 'In secret shadows of her chamber: the youth shut up from 'The lustful Joy shall forget to generate & create an amorous image i 'In the shadows of his curtains and In the folds of his silent pillow. I 'Are not these the places of religion . . . ?' | (p. 194, pl. 7, 11. 3-8) i The poet's early attraction to sensual desire is \ |intellectually and emotionally understandable. Having |lived during the height of the new science, whose spirit |Gaston Bachelard has characterized as "mercilessly ! ascetic,"^I Blake was, for a time, the leader of what i i IAlfred North Whitehead has called the essence of the Ro- ! mantle reaction to rationalism, namely, the concern for ; concrete sensuousness and sensualism.^2 But, as I have tried to show concerning Ore's rebellion, Blake doubted very early that eros could liberate man. And the evidence |of his early suspicions is neither meager nor inconclusive. In "To Summer," one of the Poetical Sketches, he was con scious of the destructive potential of Orcian energy. Thus, he cautioned against its excess: "... curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat/ That flames from their large nostrils!" (p. 1, 11. 2-3)• In this poem Orcian passion is linked to Apollo's chariot, the sun, its periodicity and consuming power. Early in his career Blake was crucially aware of the transience of erotic energy: "Soon, full ^Gaston Bacheiard, La Formation de 1'Esprit sclen- tifique (Paris: J. Vrln, I£47j, pp. 2*>0-5I.~ ^2Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Cambridge, England: Cambridge ti. £r., ppT33-ll8. ! 92 |soon,/ Dost thou withdraw" (p. 3* 11. 10-11); it "doth pass [away" continuously (p. 7, 1. 18). In "How sweet I roamed," another song in the Sketches, sensual love is not only i ! jperiodic but also unfree; it entraps the speaker and de- j jprives him of his "liberty." In "My silks and fine array" lit is deceptive: | His face is fair as heav'n | When springing buds unfold; i 0 why to him was't given, Whose heart is wintry cold? (p. 6, 11. 7-10) [Finally, in the Poetical Sketches eros is exposed as re vengeful: "0 should she e'er prove false, his limbs I'd j [tear,/ And throw all pity in the burning air . . ." (p. 10, [11. 17-18). An important Biblical allusion in "To Spring," ["scatter thy pearls/ Upon our love-sick land" (p. 1, 11. 11-12), suggests that to hope for a sensual millennium |is a waste like scattering pearls before swine. i Another example of Blake's doubts about erotic love, more contemporary to the minor prophecies, is the Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Oothoon, the poem's heroine, represents certain attributes of love which the poet learned to forsake and certain of which he never abandoned. In this poem Blake seemed to have thought that sensual de light, Oothoon1s love, is eternal. Using words similar to Ore's, a golden nymph of Leutha's vale says to Oothoon: "' . . . the soul of sweet delight/ Can never pass away'" ;(p. 189, pl, l, 11, 9-10). Similar sentiments are ex pressed by the Daughters of Albion, witnesses to Oothoon's plight: 1. . . must she drag the chain j 'Of life in weary lust? must chilling, murderous | thoughts obscure I 'The clear heaven of her eternal spring , , . ! (p. 193, pl. 5, 11. 22-24) j As the past tense of Oothoon's "Argument" indicates, j |however, her love is not really enduring, certainly not i |eternal. In fact, like eros, it is bound to time and the whim of events. It is simply a more refined form of erotic love than that represented by Bromion, who rapes Oothoon. jBound back to back with her after his assault, Bromion j I epitomizes eros, which when fulfilled turns away in satia tion. Oothoon's erotic nature is implied in the poem's diction, especially in words like "pluck": The Golden nymph replied [to the heroine] : 'Pluck thou my flower, Oothoon the mildI 'Another flower shall spring, because the soul of sweet delight 'Can never pass away. . . .' Then Oothoon pluck'd the flower, saying: 'I pluck thee from thy bed, 'Sweet flower, and put thee here to glow between my breasts, 'And thus I turn my face to where my whole soul seeks.' (p. 189, pl. 1, 11. 8-11) The la3t word, "'seeks,'" suggests a love, a pursuit, that is not other-directed. A form of the same word is appro priately used in Oothoon's praise of childhood sensual love: ! 94 | I 'Infancy! fearless, lustful, happy, nestling for S delight I 'In the laps of pleasure: Innocence! honest, { open, seeking 'The vigorous joys of morning light. . . .' j (p. 193, pi. 6, 11. 4-6) I jThe use of the word "'take *" by Albion's Daughters, who j ! echo Oothoon's woes, has definitely erotic Implications: | "'Take thy bliss, 0 Man!/ And sweet shall be thy taste, sweet thy infant joys renew!'" (p. 193, pi. 6, 11. 2-3). |The quickness with which Oothoon's love degenerates into i masochism also suggests its eroticism: "... she can howl |Incessant writhing her soft snowy limbs,/ And calling jTheotormon's Eagles to prey upon her flesh" (p. 190, pi. 2, | 11. 12-13). To Oothoon, "each joy is Love"— each joy pos sessed, that is. She fails to realize that the"'wheel of false desire'" (p. 193, pi. 5, 1. 27), which organized re ligion turns, is the pattern of her own desire— onoe imper vious and passionate but, as "The Argument" indicates, eventually destroyed by time and events. Finally, Oothoon's talk about a beautiful garden par adise is not, as Bloom assumes,^3 the liberation of nature through her perception but the sublimation of eros in the desire for all that is beautiful: 'But Oothoon is ... a virgin fill'd with virgin fancies, 'Open to joy and to delight where ever beauty appears; ^^Bloora, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 120. ! 95 I ; 'If in the morning sun I find it, there my eyes fix'd 'In happy copulation. . . .' (p. 194, pi. 6, 1. 21-pl. 7, 1. 1) Bloom sees the Visions of the Daughters of Albion as some- iwhat hopeful of a sensual apocalypse;64 but in the poem j • ! there is little value placed in eros, nor is there anyone jwho really approaches a perceptual renewal through sensual j enjoyment. Theotormon's association with the poem's Atlantis allusions also stifles hope because his concept of Atlantis resembles that of the eighteenth-century rationalists who I jprophecied the coming of an immanent, prosperous, moral idomain. It is significant that he thinks of paradisal joys ;in terms of a physical place. In his analysis of the poem, i Bloom seems to recognize that a sensual millennium is ulti mately futile but he blames Bromion,65 forgetting that the I !eros of Theotormon's mind and Oothoon's passion would pre- j jvent it from ever occurring. Though the heroine ends the poem in naive hope, distanced by her own future tense, "Theotormon sits/ Upon the margin'd ocean conversing with shadows dire" (p. 195, pi. 8, 11. 11-12). The openness of Oothoon's love is its most attractive ^aspect, however (p. 189, “The Argument," 11. 1-2). As i 64Ibid., p. 110. 65lbid., p. 110. ! 96 I early as The Book of Thel (1789)# Blake began to explore I other kinds of love less egotistical and more altruistic i than eros. Thus, the Cloud in Thel asserts that 1 1 'Every i !thing that lives/ Lives not alone nor for itself'" (p. 129, pi. 3# 11. 26-27); and the Clod of Clay agrees: "'. . .we I jlive not for ourselves. . . . My bosom of Itself is cold, land of itself is dark . . .'" (p. 129, pi. 4, 11. 10, 12). I The means to salvation in this poem is not sexuality, as 'Margaret Rudd suggests,66 but a love that approaches the I agape of Blake’s later vision. Alluding to Mary’s gener- i josity in anointing Jesus' head with oil (Mark 14:3; I John 12:3)# the Clod of Clay sees an enduring quality in jsuch love: i i 'But he, that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon ! my head, 'And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast, | 'And says: "Thou mother of my children, I have j loved thee, ! 'And I have given thee a crown that none can take away."' (p. 129, pi. 5# 11. 1-4) In The French Revolution Blake analyzed republican fraternalism, realizing its essential inadequacy. The ideals of Orleans and Sieyes are mere liberal dreams with out any viable agency to put them into effect. The spirit of fraternity in America. the "rushing of . . . inhabitants ^Margaret Rudd, Divided Image: A Study of William Blake and William Butler Yeats (London: Routledge and Kegan ’ Paul, 1953), p. 9 3 " .----- itogether" (p. 201, pi. 14, 1. 12), is not an authentic love of one man for another but a practical union of men out of fierce need to overthrow the tyrant, Albion: ! Then America had been lost, overwhelm'd by the Atlantic, And Earth had lost another portion of the infinite, | But all rush together in the night in wrath and I raging fire. | (p. 202, pi. 14, 11. 17-18) Blake may have hoped that the spirit of rebellion in Amer- j :ica would spread to England, but red Ore'3 revolution is not of apocalyptic strength since Urizen, the spirit of | jreaction, hides "the Demon red with clouds & cold mists [from the earth" (p. 203, pi. 16, 1. 13). In "The Little i |Vagabond," a song of experience, the poet also satirized |republican benevolence, especially on the part of authori- |tarian institutions like the church. In the minor prophecies and "The Human Abstract," moreover, Blake began to evaluate the nature of pity as it is Influenced by reason, "the Human Brain." Urizen's con tinual weeping (particularly in the conclusions of America and The Song of Los) is more self-pity than sympathy. His tears "before the stern Americans" are to elicit sympathy for himself and to cool the fires of rebellion. In The Book of Urizen when Los, seeing the plight of Urizen, pities him, his pity "divides the soul" (p. 230, pi. 14, 1. 53). Into what it divides the soul and why, Blake was not clear. Bloom suggests that the poet allied pity "to jthe fear and selfish possessiveness of the natural heart" i and that it is the "satiric equivalent to Christian agape, ■ the charity of God that led to the creation of Adam and Eve."^7 But Blake's view of pity is not only allied to I fear and possessiveness but also to rationalism's form of eros. It condescends to and objectifies that which it is I supposed to commiserate with. The opening couplet of his satire, "The Human Abstract," is Blake’s best summary of i pity's reductive nature: Pity would be no more If we did not make somebody Poor. (p. 217* 11. 1-2) | The Mandevilllan ethic behind such pity "divides the soul" ! from that which is pitied, the other. On the intersub- ;Jectlve level it divides man from man; and so the very |"first female form now separate" in Urizen's "creation" of |the physical world was called "Pity" (p. 230, pi. 18, | jl. 15). The enormity of pity's divisive nature is cosmi- jcally symbolized by Urizen's web which divides the very heavens. Los and Enitharmon are separate notbecause of God's creation but because of Urizen's "creative" fall. That fall elicited pity from all creatures and further di vided them. Pity, therefore, is not Just a satiric equiv alent to agape; it is the direct antithesis of agape, which gives freely and completely to the other so that the other may be freely and fully himself. ! ^TBloom, "Commentary," p. 820. ; In the Songs of Experience (1794) Blake further ex plored the nature of love. As in the Visions of the Daugh ters of Albion, the openness that love should be is emblem- jatized in "The Lilly," which "in Love delights." In "A i - Poison Tree" Blake urged that love be honest; it cannot I resemble old-fashioned Christian forbearance by which the poem was first titled.^® Thus, the maiden in "The Angel" I becomes a sterile, greyhaired spinster because she hides |her love; j / ... I wept both day and night, And hid from him my heart's delight. Soon my Angel comes again: 1 I was armed, he came in vain. . . . (p. 214, 11. 7-8, 13-14) j In his concern for open, honest love, Blake began to move away from eros in the direction of agape, both of which he treated, but with an obvious preference for the latter, in "The Clod and the Pebble": i . •Love seeketh not Itself to please, 'Nor for Itself hath any care, 'But for another gives its ease, 'And builds a Heaven in Hell's despite.' So sang a little Clod of Clay Trodden with the cattle's feet, But a Pebble of the brook Warbled out these metres meet: 'Love seeketh only Self to please, 'To bind another to Its delight, 'Joys in another's loss of ease, 'And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.' j (p. 211, 11. 1-12) ^Erdman, ed., The Poetry, p. 721. 100 ;M. C. D'Arcy, citing the last stanza of this poem, sub stitutes "’Lust11 1 for "’Love,*" thereby depriving himself I of a wonderfully apt quotation to support his agape versus Ieros theory. The love described in the first stanza is, in fact, agape. In summarizing Anders Nygren's comments |on the main characteristics of that love, it should be em- |phasized that agape is above all self-giving, never seeking its own gain. It lives by God's life and, therefore, dares i j to lose its own. It also bestows Itself on what is quite I unworthy, creates the value, and is sovereign.^9 Respond- i ling to Lavater's exhortation to "Judge with lenity," Blake partly realized this in his quotation of John: "'Whoso i |dwelleth in love dwelleth in God & God in him . . .'" |(p. 87). Again, in the same Annotations, Blake altered the |verb "hates" to "loves" in order to provide a definition of I "true worship": "He who loves the wisest and best of men, loves the Father of men; for where is the Father of men to ^Nygren, pp. 75-81. Like Nygren, D'Arcy recognizes essential differences between eros and agape. But the lat ter balks at Nygren's insistence on man's absolute depend ence on God for agape and also on the need to completely abolish the self in order to love agapically. In the first case, says D'Arcy, man's free will is ruled otot, and, with out free will, man can never really love. Secondly, to abolish the self is to do the impossible; man can only sub ordinate himself to the other if he is to love the other as. perfectly as possible (pp. 80-84, 103). In this debate over the opposition between eros and agape, Blake would seem to stand in the middle. In his emphasis on liberty, self-annihilation, individuality, and contraries (notions which I will discuss in detail in my later chapters), he demands freedom, love, and self-subordination but not self- oblivion. [ 101 I be seen but in the most perfect of his children?" (p. 87) . I Eros, on the other hand, seeks happiness ("'ease'") for S !Itself. It is egocentric, "motivated by the beauty and j lvalue of the object . . ."; yet, in the fulfillment of a :desire, it turns away in satiation, always building "*a |Hell in Heaven's despite.'" Eros can also be the most de- !signing of rationality. Blake touched upon this quality 1 ;in "A Little Boy Lost," where a young man makes assertions |of self-love as the only possible human love and is ironl- 1 i cally killed by the Church of "Mystery": 'Nought loves another as itself 'Nor venerates another so, 'Nor is it possible to Thought 'A greater than Itself to know.' (p. 218, 11. 1-4) That the boy's love is erotic is suggested by the very i janalogy he makes to it, namely, a bird picking up "crumbs" lout of want. The terrible irony of the poem is that the I Church accepts the epistemology of mystery (in reality the boy's assertion, "'Nor is it possible to Thought/ A greater than itself to know.'"), yet hypocritically commands the love of God and neighbor, having the gall to kill the boy for denying that possibility. In the Songs of Experience Blake even began to deal with the issue of forgiveness, which became central to his later apocalypticism. A manuscript draft of "The Ply" has I for its second stanza: | 102 The cut worm Forgives the plow j And dies in peace j And so do thou.70 The word "forgive" here gives new meaning to the word |"thought" repeated twice in stanza four of the final ver- ! sion of the poem. If "thoughtless"ness murdered the fly ((stanza I), then "thought"fulness is "life/ And strength & I breath/ And the want/ Of thought is death" (p. 213 , | 11. 13-16). Accompanied with an illustration of the risen, I spiritual body, "To Tirzah" represents an oblique expres- jsion of Blake's early ideas about mercy and Jesus as the (means "To rise from Generation [or the cycle of nature] jfree" (p. 220, 1. 3). Because Tirzah symbolizes man's (bondage to nature, Blake denied her as his mother and found deliverance in Jesus: "The Death of Jesus set me free:/ Then what have I to do with thee [Tirzah] ?" (p. 220, 11. 15-16). Explaining the last two verses, Bloom falls into his usual, humanistic rut: Nature [Tirzah] restricts the heart and four sensesj she cannot bind or close the fifth sense, the specifi cally sexual sense of touch. The Atonement set Blake free, not only from the orthodox notion of original sin, but from the deceits of natural religion. Blake understood the Atonement as the triumph of the imagi native body over the natural body, a triumph through touch, an Improvement of sensual enjoyment.71 7°Erdman, e(jt# The Poetry, p. 716. 7lBloom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 155-56. i 103 | In response to Bloom's assertions, it should be mentioned j !that Blake did not accept the concept of atonement because jit makes Jesus': love a commodity of the marketplace, his |redemptive act the fulfillment of a debt. The notion of i atonement Is also antithetical to mercy. As Los (Blake's jpoetic mask) realizes in Jerusalem, "'does Mercy endure Atonement?/ Noi It is Moral Severity & destroys Mercy in |its Victim'" (p. 666, pi. 39» 11. 25-26). Moreover, in I"To Tirzah" Blake was not talking abbut an "imaginative |body" but instead the spiritually risen, the resurrected body, a distinctly Christian concept I hope to discuss jlater on. Finally, it is not sensual enjoyment that frees iman from the cycle of birth and death but "Mercy." While |the poet's understanding of mercy here is not as profound |as it becomes in his later poetry, it at least suspends "Death," bringing about a temporary respite for man. Blake's interest In mercy and Jesus marked a new direction in his apocalyptic thought. Critics like Schorer and Frye consider the "Introduction" to the Songs of Experience a wish for an immanent m i l l e n n i u m , ^ but the agency for that millennium Is by no means immanent. It is the poet "Whose ears have heard/ The Holy Word" of Jesus. In fact, the 72Schorer, pp. 214-15; Frye, "Blake's 'Introduction' to Experience," in Blake: A Collection of Critical Essays. ed. by Northrop Frye, (Englewood Cliffs, New j'ersey: Fhh7, 1965), P. 63. I 104 | isyntax of the first six lines is ambiguous enough to make j"the Holy Word" itself that which calls the "lapsed soul" jof man to renewal: 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. . .. (p. 210, 11. 1*6) Blake's early vision of Christian mercy was feeble, 1 however. For example, forgiveness, as Hela sees it in j iTlriel, seems to contribute to the cyclic oattern of action j iand reaction. Speaking to her father, she says: I 'To Har & Heva I will lead thee: then would that ! they would curse! 'Then would they curse as thou hast cursed! But they are not like thee! •0! they are holy & forgiving, fill'd with loving mercy, •Forgetting the offences of their most rebellious | children, 'Or else thou wouldest not have liv'd to curse thy helpless children.' (pp. 107-08, 11. 24-28) The rage and severity of Hela was part of Blake's early I prophetic self. Annoyed by Lavater's assertion, "Who be gins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly in falsehood," he wrote Irately: "Severity of judgment is a great virtue" (p. 67). And to Lavater's question, "Can he love truth who can take a knave to his bosom?" (p. 68), he replied with a vehement "No!," opposing the spirit of forgiveness. Lavater's Christianity far exceeded Blake's 105 early humanism. In response to the aphorism that "to love jyour enemy consists in never losing sight of Man in him: !. . . the most inhuman man still remains a man," Blake wrote? "None can see the man in the ! enemy. ... I cannot love my enemy, for my enemy is not man, but beast or devil. ' . . .1 can love him as a beast 8s wish to beat him" (p. 72). Such was the stance of a burgeoning prophet, a ; young man of deep conviction, unwilling to forget the hypocrisy of his times (p. 75)•> unwilling to forgive more than once (p. 85), and never without sincere repentance ; (p• 77). Blake's early doubts about forgiveness were di rectly antithetical to his late vision. With considerable irritation he claimed not to understand Lavater's aphorisms that "There is a manner of forgiving 30 divine, that you I are ready to embrace the offender for having called it |forth" (p. 76), and that "He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sub lime enjoyment of love" (p. 80). The first half of Blake's career was a time of hope and doubt, of blind wishing and severe skepticism. The poet had serious reservations about Orclan energy as a liberator of man. At times he seethed with revolutionary pragmatism against simplistic hope as in "The Chimney Sweeper" (#l); at others he displayed a deeply Christian trust in God as in "Another's Sorrow." While he questioned 106 |eros as a means to the apocalypse and while he began to ; explore other avenues to that goal, he still hoped for a jrevolutionary transformation of the world. The fantastic resurrection imagery at the close of The Song of Los reaf firmed his dogged desires Forth from the dead dust, rattling bones, to bones i Join; shaking convuls'd, the shiv'ring clay breathes, And all flesh naked stands: Fathers and Friends, Mothers & Infants, Kings & Warriors. The Grave shrieks with delight & shakes Her hollow womb & clasps the solid stem: Her bosom swells with wild de3lre, And milk & Blood & glandous wine In rivers rush & shout & dance, On mountain, dale and plain. (p. 248, pi. 7, 11. 31-40) !The resurrection here is also a birth, which is part of a icycle, however. Moreover, its erotic quality testifies to the agony Blake always experienced over the transience of |his early hope. CHAPTER III I THE FOUR ZOAS: SPECTRE VERSUS EMANATION AND THE APOCALYPSE j ... In this world all love Is subject to the process of objectification.— Nicolai Berdyaev Chapter II touched on Intersubjectivity as the poet's means to authentic existence. This chapter attempts to show Blake's continuation of that theme as it relates to the Pall and redemptive thrust of the mythic characters of I The Pour Zoas. Like Berdyaev, Blake did not think the Pall was merely a result of man's loss of noumenal perception but of his loss of love and his "enslavement to the exter nal objective world.Therefore, the apocalypse and sal ivation of man must Involve a renewal of love and freedom I between men and not Just the heightening of perception. The method of my analysis of The Four Zoas will be similar I to Harold Bloom's2--to trace the above-mentioned theme i |throughout the somewhat confusing plot of the poem. I Before we get into this pivotal poem, Blake's terms, |spectre and emanation, Integral to the issue of intersub- •^Berdyaev, p. 214. %loom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 203-311- 107 108 jjectivity, must be defined. Perhaps the best way to reveal |his understanding of these terms Is to briefly analyze "Hy j jSpectre Around Me," a poem written during the peak years of ! |the Zoas1 construction. Major Blakeans have offered a va- i jriety of definitions for these terms. In general, Milton jPercival understands spectre and emanation as contraries of |a duality of intellect and will, of male and female. In | the relationship between spectre and emanation, says Per- cival, "The man must rule the woman, if only that the woman jmay not rule the man." Individually, Percival defines j spectre as "negation," "the Holy Reasoning Power," and ema- |nation as "the fine flowering of life, the 'loves and |graces' of Albion."3 Following the more specific definitions of Percival and his own epistemological preoccupations, Northrop Frye defines spectre as reasoning that divides subject from ob ject and emanation as "the total form of all the things a man loves and creates." In addition to the perceptual understanding he and Percival have of these terms, Frye also considers them symbolically. As he says with con siderable evidence from the poet, "The word 'emanation' . . . means the object world. . . Thus, Enltharmon, Los's emanation, is referred to occasionally as space. 3pereival, pp. 90-91, 9^-95, 97-98. ^Frye, pp. 73, 127. 109 Frye seems to think of the emanation as merely material grist for the creative mind.5 The Imagination, separated from Its material or emanation, becomes a selfhood or spec tre which deals only In vague reflections and abstract |Ideas.^ Like Frye, Peter Fisher In The Valley of Vision jdefines Blake's terms perceptually. For example, he says Ithat the spectre is a man's selfhood and that as a spectre, i "As a Selfhood man Is merely a 'natural organ subject to isense.' . . ."7 Finally, Harold Bloom takes an esthetic view of these termss | The spectre . • . keeps others from the Self. . . . The function of the Emanation Is to become what Shelley called 'a soul out of my soul,' a creative achievement, the form of what a man loves through creation.0 In the views of the above-mentioned critics, there is a crucial double meaning for Blake's terms. For example, not only does the emanation represent the realization of one's creative powers but also "objective projections" as In the separation of male and female in Beulah. Correla tive to the latter meaning is the masculine-feminine evo lution Into time and space respectively (Jerusalem; p. 730, ^Frye, p. 281. 6Frye, pp. 179, 264-65, 73. 7peter F. Fisher, The Valley of Vision: Blake as Prophet and Revolutionary, ed. by Northrop Frye (Torontoi I f f •of Toronto Pr., I9bl), p. 42. ®Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 312-13. 110 !pl. 85, 11. 7-9) • Therefore, not only do the terms have a ipsychological dimension but also symbolic and perceptual ! dimensions. While the latter are valid and defensible from j Blake’s text, it is the former meaning with which I am most concerned. Spectre and emanation are the poet's terms for opposing tensions within all men, tensions that radically affect man by himself and are resolved only in his rela tionships with others. Thus, in a letter to William Hay- ;ley (October 23> 1804), Blake called the "spectrous Fiend" I within the "enemy of conjugal love," saying that it had up set his creative endeavor for the "last . . . twenty years" but that he overcame it, finally setting his and his I"wife's feet . . . free from fetters" (pp. 851-52). ! Spectre and emanation are like C. G. Jung's concepts I of the persona and anima/animus or more precisely like 1 I Jacques Marltain's notions of the ego-self and the creative 1 |self. The spectre, to use Jung's definition of the per sona, is "exclusively concerned with the relation to the object."9 The persona operates in the realm of thought or rationality, adapting the inner self to the outside world. It is comprised of man's masks and sometimes becomes con fused, making it difficult for people "to face up to their 9c. G. Jung, Psychological Types. quoted in Jolande Jacobi, The Psychology of1 cl G. Jung: An Introduction with Illustrations, trans. by Ralph Manhelm (6th ed., revised: Rew Raven: Yale U. Pr., 1962), p. 27. I inner truth, to enter into a genuine relationship, to do I any really vital work. . . ."10 The spectre, to paraphrase jMaritain's definition of the ego-self, is the inauthentic ! i Iwish for a potency as if it were actual. For example, a I jmiddleolass man might consider himself a Casanova and try !to act accordingly, falsely asserting himself as such. I Within man's psyche the spectre vies for supremacy with the |emanation which, if estranged, may become aloof and de structive like a witch.11 Ideally, however, the emanation I Is, to summarize Marltaln's understanding of the creative i I self, that essential part of man which responds to reality, |to things in their very existence, by a direct, intuitive, i non-conceptual or preconoeptual act of knowledge. To I quote Maritaln, it accepts one's person "as person . . . j I not .. . as material individual or as self-centered | jego."12 The emanation, to quote Emma Jung on the anima, can be "a higher source of guidance or inspiration, a 1°Jacobi, p. 109. ■^Jacobi, pp. 112-13. See Maud Bodkin's Archetypal Patterns in Poetry; Psychological Studies of the Imagi nation (to'ndon: 6xf. tt. tv., I§63)* PP. I'53-"f>4, lbB-8l, for discussions of the female counterpart as both destruc tive and creative and as capable of being transformed from the former to the latter. 12Jacques Maritain, Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (New York: Pantheon. 1953). pp. ill-12, Il4-l5. PET it, like the creative self and the anima, must be liberated ; ! in knowledge and love. As M. C. D'Arcy says of the anima, | ! i it "stands . . . for the soul with boundless desires . . . ; moved to its proper delight by heavenly Agape.1 1 ^ Thus, i ! jwhile not referring to man's interpersonal relationships j directly, spectre and emanation can only be reconciled, can only be creatively liberated, by authentic intersub- j | | jectivity. Even Northrop Frye, in spite of his epistemo- j i | I logical bent, gives the impression of a personal and ! | j I 1^Emma Jung, "Ein Beitrag zum Problem des Animus," j quoted in Jacobi, p. 112. To cite another Junglan on the ! | importance of the persona (the ego-self) and the anima (the creative self) both within man and in his relationships jwith others, Erich Neumann, in Art and the Creative Uncon scious (trans. by Ralph Manheim £Wew York: Pantheon, ;^95SQ )$ PP. 165-66, writes: "The creative principle . . . i seizes upon and transforms consciousness as well as the un-j !conscious, the ego-self relation as well as the ego-thou | |relation." ! ■^D'Arcy, p. 196. ■^"Reconciled" may not be the right word. Perhaps !the phrase, "brought into creative contention," should be [used since, for Blake, eternity is a great mental "War," forever expanding and creative. At any rate, the poet did not exclude man's spectrous nature from eternity. As he |suggests in the Invocation of Milton, the creative power of I the Muses (emanations), epitomized in Christ, the God-man, j can revive spectres to eternal life: "... by your ministry [Muses^ ! The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise, And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms In likeness of himself." (p. 48l, pi. 2, 11. 8-10) Elsewhere in Milton Albion is called to awake and "reclaim" his "Reasoning Spectre" through love and mercy. In a sense, j there are two kinds of spectres for Blake— one which is |Satanic and forever unredeemable (I will say more about j this in my chapter on Milton) and one which is in every man jand must be reclaimed. Interpersonal meaning to Blake's terms. As he says In his discussion of Jerusalem. "The Sons of Albion are Spectres, and must therefore have emanations or female i [principles which as long as they are Spectres will remain I aloof from them and domineer over them by means of that aloofness. . . . ppyetg reference to spectre and ema nation as male and female counterparts is not interpersonal in intent. The emanation is feminine, for creativity is i |naturally associated with woman. Nevertheless, when Prye |is being most eplstemologlcal in his treatment of these I terms, there are still traces of personalist psychology: Whether we think of the natural [ s p e c t r a l ] m a n a s a seed in the soil ... or an unborn chicken in the egg,. . . in any event he is 1 self-centered,1 | or egocentric. . . . everything he regards as real he also regards as outside himself. His senses | are all turned outward towards this reality, and everything he takes 'in' immediately becomes un real or 'spectral.1 Socially and morally, he tries i to be an armored crustacean alert only for attack or defense: the price of selfishness is eternal vigilance.1? Contrary to the spectre, the emanation is, according to Pisher, something akin to man's creative self. Speaking of Albion's relationship with his emanation; the critic adds: "In his fallen condition, he is . . . separated from the complete realization of his powers, represented by his 'emanation' whose name is the name of a Christian's vision l6Prye, p. 379. iTPrye, pp. 348-49. ! of the eternal city— Jerusalem.The apocalyptic and I transcendent content here is obvious. Even after he has jdescribed spectrous selfhood as being a 1 1 'natural organ |subject to sense,1" Fisher recognizes that there is an- ! other psychological dimension to such selfhood: "Every- | |thing which is negative, deadening and false in man, his ! selfishness, his vices and his inability to see beyond his i Spresent state are the characteristics of the Selfhood." i I jWhen talking about Blake's spectre as selfhood, he also j suggests that the poet derived the latter term from Sweden- jborg's True Christian Religion, where it is used exclu- i isively in an interpersonal and ethical way. Fisher, like i jmost critics, cannot avoid speaking of the spectre-emanation jrelationship in an interpersonal context. As he says with regard to Albion's fall, i Having turned away from the true source of the unity of his affections, Albion becomes involved with 3elf-love and infatuation. . . . Separated from Jerusalem, he turns to Vala, or rather Rahab, and begins to confuse love with possession in a di vided allegiance to the persons and objects of his dream. Though in somewhat different terms, the critic does, in deed, intimate that the emanation is man's creative self: "Each man's emanation is what he can directly understand i . and express; this is Jerusalem in every man, and she is the ^Fisher, p. 222. | real basis of oomraunioatlon.rtl9 The last comment Is impor tant, but It should be slightly restated: the emanation Is not only the "what" of direct knowledge but also the force within each man that liberates his creative understanding and expression. It is not only the creative anima but also that which should be loved and fostered most in man. i i j According to Frye and Fisher, as well as the other i (critics and psychologists cited abpve, there are both posi tive and negative features to spectre and emanation, such features depending upon the psychic relationships within man and man's relationships with others. In Blake's "My Spectre Around Me " we see spectre and emanation radically divided and, therefore, mutually destructive. The speaker of the poem is torn between these psychic forces— his spec tre, which Is aggressive, defensive, and concerned with ex ternals, and his emanation, which is passive, smug, and concerned with Internals. The speaker exposes the proud aloofness of the emanation in some additional lines to the poem: O'er my Sins Thou sit & moan: Hast thou no sins of thy own? O'er my Sins thou sit & weep, And lull thy own Sins fast asleep. (p. 417, 11. 1-4) The emanation can be a domineering accuser of sin like the witch in Coleridge's Christabel: as the speaker repeats, i ^Fisher, pp. 42, 232, 223. "When my Love did first begin,/ Thou didst call that Love j ja Sin ..." (p. 415, 1119-20). The estranged emanation jdlsturbs man's interior being as well as his relationships I with others: I Dost thou not in Pride & scorn ! Pill with tempests all my morn, And with Jealousies & fears Pill my pleasant nights with tears? (p. 416, 11. 31-34) ! jln the divided psyche the spectre is false, egotistical,and I i juncreative. The emanation rejects him, and her rejection jmakes him aggressive, constantly pursuing her. The spec- i itre's overreaction is, as Bloom says, like a "protective 'shadow, for it keeps others from the Self." The recon- j jdilation of the speaker's spectre and emanation depends, I |as Bloom also suggests, on the speaker's relationships with |others, especially his beloved: "The speaker strives desperately to dissociate himself from his Spectre, urging his beloved to return, so as to liberate his Emanation, but this quarrel of lovers is too deadly to be so easily recon ciled."20 Thus, the speaker's beloved will have him only on her own terms. While she scorns his passionate love, she remains possessive of him, heedless of his exhortations to forgive and return to him: 'Never, Never I return: 'Still for Victory I bum. 'Living, thee alone I'll have 1And when dead I'11 be thy Grave.' (p. 416, 11. 51-54) 20Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 312-13. i 117 jln response to this stubbornness, the speaker rejects self- j llsh "Female Love." His rejection involves annihilating I such selfishness and creating "another form" of love in its i |stead. At first his resolution seems to be a form of re- ! ivenge, of getting even, but his desire to have his beloved i ("subservient" to his "Fate" is not at all as Percival sees it. It is the highest form of love, love that freely sub- I ordinates the self to the destiny of another; it is oblivi- ! ous to external qualities, accepting both good and bad, for I |"The Woman that does not love your Frowns/ Will never en dure your smiles" (p. 417* 11. 15-16). The highest expres- i jsion of such love is forgiveness; it offers the greatest (communion among men, transcending all of time: i .. . Throughout all Eternity | I forgive you, you forgive me. j As our dear Redeemer said: I ’This the Wine & this the Bread.' | (p. 417, 11. 71-74) I In "My Spectre Around Me" Blake moved tentatively toward his final vision of love and forgiveness; but, be fore we get into The Four Zoas, a little more must be said about his psychological apparatus. The problem of creative love, which Blake presented in the internal dichotomy of spectre and emanation, goes ultimately back to Socrates and Plato, for whom love in time was a struggle between opposites, the masculine and feminine, which have been divided and seek to be one.21 The division among men, 21D'Arcy, p. 222. 118 | i ! jreflooted within each man's psyohe, Is the result of self- j jishness, whioh, aooordlng to Jaoob Boehme (whom Blake i ! ■ 1 read), oaused man's fall. To quote H. H. Brin ton on Boehme's belief: "It [selfishness] . . , denies union with! |the will of God and sets selfhood In Its plaoe, so that it | goes out from unity into a desire for self."22 j ' i ’ ' jSelf-oenteredness, a characteristic attributable to both spectre and emanation, was for William Law— another rell- j i : gious whom Blake read— the oause of all sorrow in life: All the Disorder and corruption and Malady of our own nature lies in a certain Fixedness of our own | Will, Imagination and Desire, wherein we live to our selves, are our own Centre and Ciroumferenoe, aot wholly from ourselves, aooordlng to our own Will, Imagination and Desire, There is not the smallest Degree of Evil in us but what arises from this ! Selfishness, beoause we are thus All in All to ourselves.23 1 Selfishness, whioh, aooordlng to Law, "murders the Divine |Life within," was oonsidered by Blake the root oause of all i ; evil and the ohlef oharaoteristio of the speotre: 1 ' [it is] A Murderer of its own Body, but also a murderer Of every Divine Member: it is the Reasoning power, An abstraot objeoting power that negatives every | thing, (p. 629.'pi.. 10, 11. 12-1*0 j 22h . h. Brin ton. The Mystic Will: Based on a Study | of the Philosophy of Jacob Boehme (New York: Maomlllan, 11930), pp. 21^-15. 23w 1111am Law. The Grounds and Seasons of Christian Regeneration, in The collected works of William Law, ed. by 6. boreton, v (London, Ib^z), ioo. 1 ' I 119 |The connection between the spectre and objectifying reason [makes Blake’s symbol comparable to Jung's persona, Mari- j |tain's ego-self, and the ego of reason as Herbert Marcuse [describes it: "an essentially aggressive, offensive sub- IJect, whose thoughts and actions were designed for master ing objects. The ego of reason, viewing all of life as a restraint to be overcome, seek3 to dominate everything. ■Paraphrasing Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, Marcuse says ,the ego becomes "conscious of Itself only through satisfy ing Itself in and by an 'other.'" Such satisfaction In volves the "'negation'" of the other, for the ego has to t [prove itself by "'being-for-itself'" against all "'other ness.'" Thus, in The Four Zoas the Eternal Man exclaims to Urizen, Blake's chief symbol of the rational ego, | '0 how couldst thou deform those beautiful proportions 'Of life & person, for as the Person, so is I his life proportion'd.' | (p. 360, 11. 140-41) The ego's desire for freedom depends on being "'acknowl edged'" as master, and such recognition can only be ten dered by another ego since the material world is indiffer ent to subjectivity.25 To quote Hegel directly, "The rela tion of both self-consciousnesses is in this way so con- 2^Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization; A Philo sophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon Pr., 196b), p. 109. ' 25Ibid., pp. 113-14. 120 stituted that they prove themselves and each other through 1 o< |a life-and-death struggle. . . . i i | The point of this digression is that the selfishness i |of spectre and emanation, as well as the rational ego, is |erotic.According to Nygren's Agape and Eros, two cen- jtral characteristics of eros are self-love and rational- i jity.2® Like Blake’s spectre and emanation, the selfishness i that Boehme and Law cautioned against, and the rational |ego, eros seeks to dominate everything. In the drama of I The Pour Zoas, Blake makes domineering egotism responsible I for the Pall and dehumanization of mankind. The Pall was i i |not merely a loss of perception. It involved the whole |man. Therefore, the apocalypse and redemption necessitate | a total transformation of man; this is not only an immanent, j perceptual matter but also a transcendent, spiritual one. As the Eternal Man says near the end of the poem, 2%he Philosophy of Hegel, ed. by Carl J. Priedrick (New York: Modern Lib., l§!j>3), p. 402. 2?It should be mentioned that Marcuse values eros over the rational mind, though he is somewhat unaware of the tradition of eros as a concept. As Nygren points out, but in somewhat different terms, eros has a3 much to do with the reality-princlple and the assertiveness of human consciousness as it does with the pleasure-principle. Ultimately, Blake opted for neither the erotic mind nor erotic passion. 2®Nygren, pp. 315-16 “ “ ' “ ; ' ' ” “ ~ 121 ‘Thus shall the male & female live the life of Eternity, 'Because the Lamb of God Creates himself a bride & wife 'That we his Children evermore may live In Jerusalem 'Which now descendeth out of heaven, a City, yet a Woman, ; 'Mother of myriads redeem'd & born in her ! spiritual palaces, I ' By a New Spiritual birth Regenerated from Death.' (p. 362-63, il. 210-24; italics mine) ! Still oscillating between hopes and doubts about Immanent |deliverance, Blake did not reach an ultimate spiritual vi- i ision In the zoas. The prophecy of the Eternal man is never i — — |fulfilled in the poem. The seemingly apocalyptic ninth j jNight is an immanent failure— 'the lees of Blake's final disillusionment over the French Revolution. i i | The very subtitle of The Four Zoas. The torments of j j Love & Jealousy in the Death and Judgement of Albion the | Ancient Man, points to the psychological struggle in the poem. Because of his emphasis on the poem's historical dimension, Erdman says that the introductory quotation from Ephesians, "For our contention is not with the blood and the flesh, but with dominion, with authority . . • ," re veals the poet's revolutionary aims,29 But, in fact, Blake's reference to Ephesians reveals his growing spirit ual concern, for, as the passage from Scripture continues, it is the spiritual "armour of God" (5:13) that is to be 29Erdraan, Blake, p. 273. ; 122 ! | used in transforming society. According to its invocation, the poem is to deal with i the fall of Los "into Division & his Resurrection into i Unity1 * (p. 264, 1. 21). Aware of parental influence upon | the development of each man, however, Blake began his poem | with a treatment of Los's father, Tharmas. Spiritual and : psychic concerns are Immediately observable when Tharmas j pities the fallen Enitharmon. His hateful and dehumaniziiTg I pity has disturbed the union between himself and his own creative form, Enion. As his emanation says, "'Love is I ! chang'd to deadly Hate,/ A life is blotted out, & I alone j | remain, possess'd with Pears'" (p. 267, 11. 111-12). The | I disunion within Tharmas is also revealed by his secret de- | sire to possess Enion: 'Lost! Lost! Lost! are my Emanations! Enion, ; 0 Enion, 'We are become a Victim to the Living. We hide in secret. 'I have hidden [thee, Enion, in Jealous despair del.] Jerusalem in silent Contrition, 0 Pity Me.* (p. 264, 11. 25-27) The ambiguous reference in the phrase, "in jealous despair," is important, for not only is Tharmas envious of his emanation but she is also envious of his dubious rela tionship with Enitharmon. The disunion within clearly de pends on the inadequacy of Tharmas' relationships with others. Moreover, the last line, including the deletion, i suggests that concurrent with his loss of Enion is the loss I 123 i I of freedom ("'Jerusalem'"), which is the true province of I love. Enion responds accordingly to his question, "'Why hast thou taken sweet Jerusalem from my Inmost Soul?1" | (p. 265, 1. 29): •All Love is lost: Terror succeeds, & Hatred instead of Love, ; 'And stern demands of Right & Duty instead of Liberty.' (p. 265, 11. 36-37) For Blake love and freedom cannot exist separately. | Enion's jealousy is not only divisive but also ! self-destructive. As she says in response to Tharmas' jassoclation with Enitharmon, "'. . .1 love thee in thy |terror till/ I am almost Extinct . . .'" (p. 265, | ill. 39-40). A few lines later she again laments the hell ] of isolation symbolized by the inward direction of her vi sion: "'Already are my Eyes reverted; all that I behold/ Within my soul has lost its splendor . . .'" (p. 267, 11. 115-16). Her predicament poses the problem that all of Blake's poetry began to formulate. As she says, "'. . . I am almost extinct & soon shall be a shadow in Oblivion/ Unless some way can be found that I may look upon thee [Tharmas] & love'" (p. 265* 11. 40-41; Italics mine). The contrast between the hell of "'Eyes reverted'" and the life of interior union (looking "'upon thee'") foreshadows the course Blake's mlllennlallsm began to take. But, until Enion realizes the "'way'" to love her counterpart, her ; 124 j isearch in his soul will remain dehumanizing: | 'I have look'd Into the secret soul of him I lov'd i 'And In the Dark recesses found Sin & cannot | return.' (p. 265, 11. 44-45) The Inadequacy of Tharmas' relationships throws his crea tive self or emanation out of kilter. Her search negates his worth, reducing him to the status of an object. Thus, I he questions pleadingly, I 'Why wilt thou Examine every little fibre of my soul, 'Spreading them out before the sun like stalks of flax to dry?' (p. 265, 11. 47-48) Tharmas senses the increasing dissolution of his identity: . . .1 am like an atom,/ A Nothing, left in darkness j . • •| ! l (p« 265, 11. 61-62). Yet his response to Enion is equally dehumanizing: "'. . . thou art thyself a root i growing in hell,/ Tho' thus heavenly beautiful to draw me j to destruction'" (p. 265, 11. 57-58). I Beulah-in-time, Blake's symbol of Eden-like sensual ity, offers only temporary respite from such tension. For that reason the poet deleted the word "Eternity" and sub stituted "Beulah" in a line referring to the gates of Enitharmon's bosom. The Four Zoas is not merely a "nos talgic description of the Edenlc pastoral civilization,"3° for as Tharmas says: | | 30Qeorge Mills Harper, "Apocalyptic Vision and Pastoral Dream in Blake's Four Zoas." South Atlantic Quarterly, LXIV (Winter, 1$6$J, 114. 125 I ! 'The Infant joy Is beautiful, hut its anatomy j 'Horrible, Ghast & Deadly; nought shalt thou ! find in it ! 'But Death, Despair & Everlasting brooding | Melancholy.' (p. 265, 11. 49-51) iThe temporary joys of fallen Beulah are always at the ex- jpense of the other; in her state females retire to their iown self-comminglings while men pursue the dissolution of |those females: In [Beulah del. ] Eden, Females sleep the winter in soft silken veils j Woven by their own hands to hide them in the ! darksom grave; But Males immortal live renew'd by female deaths; in soft Delight they die, & they revive in spring with music & songs, (p. 266, 11. 64-67) I (The obvious double meaning of "die" and "deaths" lends 1 |something positive to the above passage; but words like j"hide" and "grave," suggesting secrecy and death in Beulah, | |and words like "winter" and "spring," suggesting the peri- i jodiclty of its joys, seem to negate some of its positive 1 qualities. Periodicity is symbolized more directly in the image of the "Circle of Destiny," which Tharmas turns only to have Enion return "'when the day of Clouds is o'er'" (p. 266, 1. 75). Admittedly, "the day of Clouds" could refer to the apocalypse when Jesus "cometh with clouds" Revelation* 1:7) and when all shall behold "a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sitting like unto the Son of Man" (14:4); but the Circle of Destiny is hopelessly ensconced in materiality and is linked to the process of objectifl- I cation by Enion, who weaves a woof out of Tharmas1 body: i I Nine days she labour'd at her work, & nine dark ! sleepless nights; | But on the tenth trembling morn, the Circle of Destiny complete, j Round roll'd the sea, Englobing in a wat'ry Globe. | self-balanced, (p. 266, 11. 86-88) !Blake, moreover, was not distinguishing between Tharmas' j I existence and the apocalypse because in the same passage jTharmas is described as groaning and bending from "Clouds" |(p. 266, 11. 71-72). With the season and circle imagery jhere, "the day of Clouds" could easily refer to winter, i ‘ which ends the joyous harvests of autumn. Lines 64-67 may ! jpresent a state of eternity from the point of view of Thar- 1 jmas and Enion, who are not yet ready for it. Because of !the uncreative nature of their opposition (Tharmas thinks I |of his emanation as a harlot.) and because they have not developed into creative contraries, which find rest and re newal in the repose of Beulah lying around eternity, Thar mas and Enion are not able to benefit from the rejuvenative process of Beulah's garden paradise. Though he claims to await her return, Tharmas groans and weeps possessively for Enion, his spectre issuing from his' feet, which spurn her. The division within Tharmas is complete, for Enion "hides" from him, weaving forms destructive of his creative self: Wond'ring she saw her woof [his body] begin to animate, & not As Garments woven subservient to her hands, but having a will Of its own, perverse & wayward, (p. 266, 11. 83-85) ! 127 After Tharmas spurns Enion for her part in his disso lution (a separated emanation can be most destructive.)# the !daughters of Beulah confine the circle of time to physical i I reality by creating Ulro, whose chief characteristic is isolation. In their haste they overreact to Tharmas, fear- jlng that he brings perpetual death. Shutting the gate of ;Tharmas, of taste or touch, they prevent that power from !reaching paradise. Enion feels guilty for Tharmas' plight I while he, proud of his physical charm, threatens reprisal. jShe realizes that her search for sin in his soul (described !sardonically with allusions to the Resurrection) was itself isinful, destructive of his creative emanations. Yet she is |not to be drawn out of her selfhood ("'tho' dark I feel my world within*"; p. 268, 1. 172); and 30 Tharmas responds with warnings of jealous possession: i I 'And now thou dark*nest in my presence; never from my sight 'Shalt thou depart to weep in secret. In my jealous wings 'I evermore will hold thee. . . .' (p. 269, 11. 175-77) After Enion and Tharmas had given birth to Los, the prophet, and his emanation, Enitharmon, Enion was for a time re-humanized through "maternal love" (p. 270, 1. 216). Because of the domineering nature of her love, however, Los and Enitharmon repel her into "Non-Entity" (p. 270, 1. 219). The relationship here between parent and child (between creator and created) is one of antagonism instead ! 128 i |of love. Referring to her parents, Enitharmon says to Loss I j ' . . . let them weary their immortal powers •While we draw in their sweet delights, while we return them scorn i ’On scorn to feed our discontent. . . (p. 271, 11. 254-56) Repeating the universal pattern of infant Joy3 leading to iaged sorrow, Los and Enitharmon have their youthful romp "in the Moony spaces of Eno" (p. 270, 1. 232). Unfortu nately, there is something missing in Eno’s Beulah-like Iworlds They saw not yet the Hand Divine, for it was not j yet reveal'd, But they went on in silent Hope & Feminine repose. (p. 270, 11. 230-31) |The experiences of Los and Enitharmon in the spaces of Eno I ! iare only temporary, their moods as cyclic as nature, alter nating "Love & Hate . . . Scorn & Jealousy" (p. 270, 1. 237). i | Like their parents Los and Enitharmon engage in I ^'•stern debate1" (p. 272, 1. 292). She sings a song of death wherein the eternal forms (Albion, Urizen, and Luvah) are fallen in the Circle of Destiny. Losing control of himself, the prophet smites her, declaring their immortal nature and the eternal mission they must prepare for: "'. . .we, immortal in our strength, survive by stern de bate/ Till we have drawn the Lamb of God into a mortal form1" (p. 272, 11. 292-93). The mortal form mentioned here is the Individual person. Los and his emanation live 129 I |In mutual antagonism until* Christlike, they live in mutual i [love, and the creative self is renewed. The prophet's ! statement foreshadows the hope of a paradise within ex- i |pressed in Blake's next great epic, Milton. Deliverance |from present existence will not, of course, involve the I rational mind: 'Tho' in the Brain of Man we live & in his circling Nerves, 'Tho' this bright world of all our joy is in the ; Human Brain •Where Urizen & all hl3 Hosts hang their immortal lamps, 1 'Thou ne'er shalt leave this cold expanse where wat'ry Tharmas mourns.' (p. 272, 11. 302-05) Offended by Los, Enitharmon calls on Urizen, spec- trous rationality, to destroy human nature with "War & Princedom" (p. 272, 1. 311). Urizen descends in wrath, declaring himself "'God from Eternity to Eternity'" (p. 273# 1. 319)5 and Los, forgetting the nature of his mission, plots "Revenge": "'Art thou one of those who when most complacent/Mean mischief most? If you are such, Lo! I am also such'" (p. 273# 11. 331-32). Urizen's reply clearly distinguishes between the Christian mission from which Los deviates and spectrous selfhood: 'Art thou a visionary of Jesus, the soft delusion of Eternity? •Lo I am God, the terrible destroyer, & not the Saviour. 'Why should the Divine Vision compell the sons of Eden 'To forego each his own delight, to war against his spectre? 'The Spectre is the Man. The rest is only delusion & fancy.' (p. 273# 11. 337-41) lUrizen's self-deification and defense of the rational ego j are despicably erotic. According to the Aristotelian con- i Icept of eros, Urizen seeks to be a nous theos. a being "no 'longer . . . confined by anything other than itself . . j The ascending curve of becoming is bent in the circle which moves in Itself; past, present and future are enclosed in the ring. According to j Aristotle, this mode of being is reserved to the I god; and the movement of thought, pure thinking, is its sole 'empirical' approximation. . • .31 ! Apparently frightened by Urizen, Los repents his manhandling of Enitharmon. His sorrow is not only erotic |but also temporary. After he throws his arms "around her iloins/ To heal the wound of his smiting" (p. 274, ill. 353-54), they sit at their marriage feast in "discon- I tent & scorn" (p. 274, 1. 374). Antithetical to the whole ! spirit of marriage, their feast is an abomination of all |that is humans "'. . . the Human Form is no more'" I |(p. 275# 1* 409). Even the prophet cannot escape history's j Iterrible round, for conflict begins between hi3 ego-self, ]the Spectre of Urthona, and Luvah-0rc,32 the child of ^Marcuse, p. 112. Marcuse sees Hegel's rationalism as offering a nous theos for the self-deification of nineteenth-century man. 32in order to fully understand my treatment of these characters, further definition may be necessary. I agree with Bloom, who in Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 221, 249* 264, calls the Spectre o£ Urthona Los's selfish ego or Enitharmon* Like all earthly conflicts this one will yield nothing: •Distracted Luvah, •Bursting forth from the loins of Enitharmon, Thou fierce Terror, •Go howl in vain! Smite, smite his fetterB! smite, o wintry hammers! ; selfhood. Frye, in Fearful Symmetry, p. 292, describes the Spectre from a psychological viewpoint as "the will" and from a symbolic viewpoint as "linear time." Neither of Frye*s Interpretations is inconsistent with mine, for the spectrous will he describes is aB assertive and objectify ing as the ego-self; and, since clock (or what the critic calls "linear") time is always limiting and, in a sense, objectifying, it is a perfect symbol for the ;un-transcendent rational ego. The following words by Frye imake our views even more compatible: "The prophet [the would-be creative self] who j wants to see immediate and dramatic results of his visionary power is being oppressed by the spirit of the Spectre of Urthona, the passing time that will soon tick his seventy years away. But there are no short cuts to vision through violence or unreflecting energy: 'The will must not be bended,' Blake says, 'but in ! the day of Divine Power.' A society's index of civilization is not in a high proportion of murderers who get hanged, but in a low propor- i tlon of murders; and while it takes less time | to hang a murderer than to organize society so as to reduce the motives for murder, there is | no imaginative progress in the former. Pro gress comes only from 'the forgiveness of sins' | ...” (pp. 297-98). Blake's understanding of Luvah-Orc is as manifold as his concept of Los's ego-self. Being a child, a creation, of Enitharmon, Luvah is the mythic character specifically representing the spirit of eternal and divine love in man. After Albion's fall Luvah is perverted by the spectre-emanation conflict into the recurring erotic pas- jsion of Ore. Luvah is the capacity in all men making them most responsive to Jesus. Thus, he is depicted as Christ was, buried in the sepulchre of earthly existence, awaiting an apocalyptic resurrection. Luvah and Jesus are like cor responding forces within the history and psychology of man's salvation. ! 132 i | 'Smite, Spectre of Urthona! mock the fiend who drew us down j 'Prom heavens of Joy into this deep. Now rage. but rage in vain.’ (p. 276, 11. 429-33) Viewing the tragedy of her children's marriage feast, Enion t Iasks "Why?" Her question is consummately ironic since she I i land Tharmas helped initiate the Circle of Destiny, its ‘"Summers & winters round revolving in the frightful deep" i . j(p. 276, 1. 443). At the end of Night the Pirst, some mes sengers of Beulah describe the hellish state of fallen iexistence. Ordering Luvah about like a martinet, Urizen declares his rule: "'I . . . Will lay my sceptre on Jeru salem ... & on thy sons, 0 Luvah . . .'" (p. 278, ill. 497-99). Luvah-Orc, of course, threatens retaliation; land so, as the round of life continues, "'Discord began j . . .'" (p. 278, 1. 518). Like her mother Enitharmon is |dead to authentic life. Urthona becomes "'a raging ser- ■ pent'" (p. 279, 1. 532). And "'Jerusalem ... is become a ruin . . .'" (p. 279> 1. 545). The messengers end their description with an appeal directly to God for deliverance. But the Divine Family will wait "'Till the time of the End,'" till the Seventh Eye of God, Jesus, comes to redeem man (Albion), who has lost the vision of eternity. The theme of the Pall as a process of self-division continues in Night the Second: Rising upon his Couch of death Albion beheld his Sons. Turning his Eyes outward to Self, losing the Divine Vision, ! Albion call'd Urizen. . . . (p. 280, 11. 1-3) 133 r j These lines can be interpreted in two ways: first, that |Albion sees his self as an object, a thing among other i | things--a result of the domination of the rational ego; i !secondly, that, with the loss of his creative self in the i |Pall, he turned to his outward mask or ego-self, living jaccording to spectrous rationality. The distortion of the i ' jinner self is further symbolized in Blake's immediate ref- i jerences to Reuben, the natural man, and Levi, the corrup- jter of religion. As the poem reads, "Their eyes, their |ears, nostrils & tongues roll outward, they behold/ What ! is within now seen without . . (. 281, 11. 54-55). If i ithe loss of divine vision is linked with the dominion of I the persona, that is, the establishment of the self as an jentity apart from one's individuality and personhood, then i ione can assume that authentic selfhood, the renewal of in- iward being, is conducive to divine vision. Blake's concern is not just perceptual but psychological and spiritual. The Second Night of The Pour Zoas dramatizes the reasons for Luvah's fall. In a tremendously ironic speech Luvah tells us how he loved Vala, nurturing her with great care. It was not love that he had for Vala, however. With words of condescension ("'nurtur'd,"'little weeping In fant,'" "'lamb'"), he speaks of her as though she had been j a pet rather than his beloved. The possessiveness of his jlove was clearly erotic: | 134 ! 'I hid her in soft gardens & in secret bowers of | summer, 'Weaving mazes of delight along the sunny paradise, j 'Inextricable labyrinths.' (p. 282,'11. 95-97) jLuvah's love has "'blotted out/ That Human delusion to de- i . |liver all the sons of God/ From bondage of the Human form'" (pp. 282-83, 11. 106-08). The tragic irony is that while he thinks he has lovingly cared for Vala, freeing her from 1 I human bondage, he has in fact reduced her to the cycle of 1 ! nature, evolving from an "Earth-worm" to a "Serpent," to a |"Dragon," and then back to infancy again. The parallels ! I between this section of the Zoas and "The Mental Travel- ler," written about 1803* are patent. It Is no wonder that Luvah's treatment of Vala has evoked hatreds . . . in vain his love Brought him in various forms before her, still | she knew him not, Still she despis'd him, calling on his name & knowing him not, Still hating, still professing love, still labour ing in the smoke, (p. 286, 11. 232-35) Luvah is tragically wrong to assert that love is one of the "'Discordant principles'" that has led to "'Eternal Death,"1 for his manner of love is but a selfish "Reasoning from the loins" (p. 283, 1. 112), a form of eros. The final image of Vala pitied by Luvah is ghastly and inhuman: "... last she fell, a heap of Ashes/ Beneath the fur naces, a woeful heap of living death" (p. 283, 11. 115-16). It Is significant that, after the perverse relation ship between Luvah and Vala is dramatized, fallen nature is j 135 i ! desoribed in all Its enormity. Under the order of Urizen, j I < who is a kind of millennial Simon Legree, there is no har- i \ jmony between eternity and nature, between man and his I ! |world, nor even between men though they rub shoulders in | the routine of daily labor, unlike the apocalypse when I "Heaven, Earth & Hell henoeforth shall live in harmony'1 (p. 621, pi. 3, 1. 10), all is now "severe • . • labour; |female slaves the mortar trod oppressed" (p. 284, 1. 272). j ; And beoause of the oyolio nature of existence, those en- | ; i islaved become enslavers; j ! ! 'The times are now return'd upon us; we have given ourselves | 'To soorn, and now are soomed by the slaves i of our enemies.' (p. 286, 11. 223-24) i That Blake despised all of this is indioated by | | j |Luvah's degeneration into a revengeful Oro "with robes of I I blood." Subjected by Urizen to time's "Fumaoes of affllo- I tion," Luvah beoomes the repressed energy of Oro, whioh periodically bursts forth. Bloom suggests that Urizen»s subjection of Luvah indicates "the neoessity for rethinking the oonoeptual basis for man's emotional life."33 But Instead of rethinking, Blake was, at this time, interested in renewing the emotional basis of men's lives. For a moment it seems that a revolutionary oa- tharsis is the only means to rejuvenating the Interpersonal dimensions of human life: ". . , & the Divine Vision/ 33Bloom, "Commentary," p. 869. ! 136 j Walked In robes of blood till he who slept should awake" i |(p. 287, 11. 264-65). At any rate, Blake was certain about (the Inadequacy of Urizenic millenniallsm. In fact, given Ithe responsibility for preserving the generative world after Albion's abdication, Urizen, the measurer and orderer of fallen existence, ironically pales before futurity. Whatever utopian dreams the new science may have had Blake jmocked, for when Urizen takes up his job as the "great work-master," "The Atlantic Mountains trembled" (p. 28l, 1. 41). Blake's dislike for Urizen's taskmastering is I clear from his allusion to Francis Bacon, one of his b&tes noires. who referred to God as "that great work-master."^ jAnyone aware of Blake's contempt for the ordering, measur- i |lng mentality of the new science satirized in The Book of j i Urlzen will surely catch the bitterness of his description i ~ ~ ' jOf Urizen's millennial building in The Four Zoas: | Then rose the Builders. First the Architect divine | his plan I Unfolds. The wondrous scaffold rear'd all round the infinite, Quadrangular the building rose, the heavens squared by a line, Trigons & cubes divide the elements in finite bonds. Multitudes without number work incessant: the hewn stone Is plac'd in beds of mortar mingled with the ashes of Vala. Severe the labour; female slaves the mortar trod oppressed, (p. 284, 11. 166-71) ! S^Francis Bacon, The Proficience and Advancement of Learning. Works. VI, Bk. 11, ' d j o . I 137 Urizen1a taskmasterlng is not only dehumanizing but also |murderous: "Of terrible workmanship the Altar . . . , One i ithousand Men of wondrous power spent their lives in its ! [formation" (p. 285# 11. 197-98). Finally, Urizen's utopi anism i3 as impermanent as the seasons, with which it is linked: Thus were the 3tars of heaven created like a golden chain | To bind the Body of Man to heaven from falling I into the Abyss. ! Each took his station & his course began with | sorrow & care. i j In sevens & tens & fifties, hundreds, thousands, number'd all [the stars] According to their various powers, subordinate | to Urizen And to his sons in their degrees & to his | beauteous daughters, | Travelling in silent majesty along in their i order'd ways j In fiery pyramid, or Cube, or unornamented pillar square Of fire, far shining, travelling along even to its [Man's Body's] destin'd end; Then falling down a terrible space, recovering in winter dire Its wasted strength, it back returns upon a nether course, Till fir'd with ardour fresh recruited in its humble [spring del.] season, It rises up on high all summer, till its wearied course Turns into autumn. Such the period of many worlds, (p. 287, 11. 266-72, 275-81; italics mine) In this passage Blake subtly linked the Impermanence of Urizen's efforts with his tyrannical ego, which subordi nates the heavens to his order and rule. f ’ ~ ”...... ~.138 ; In Night the Third Los and Enitharmon continue to vie for supremacy, he as poet-prophet and she as his estranged emanation. Los's desire is erotic, vain, and delusive: 1 1 'I grasp thy vest in my strong hand in vain, like water springs/ In the bright sands of Los evading my embrace . . (p. 288, 11. 304-05). He pursues his creative self jtoo aggressively and, as a result, is something of an I artiste manqul. alienated from his true creative potential. i |Responding to his erotic nature (to his "'false love'"; p. | 288, 1. 317), Enitharmon reveals her possessiveness and den ! |ceit: "'I deceiv'd thee & will still deceive. . . . thou |art mine/ Created for my will, my slave . . (p. 288, 11. 328, 331-32). She can admit her possessiveness but does not see how it depends on her relationship with the rational ego, Urizen, who lurks destructively in every psyche: "'. . . tho' I am dissolv'd in the bright God [Urizen]/ My spirit still pursues thy false love over rocks & valleys'" (p. 288, 11. 316-17). In response to her blan dishments with Urizen, Los wishes revenge on Enitharmon, their tlt-for-tat relationship resembling the cyclic nature of revolution and reaction. After her brief t&te a t§te with Urizen, she returns to Los, proclaiming as he sleeps her own erotic desire: 'The joy of woman is the death of her most best beloved 'Who dies for Love of her 'In torments of fierce jealousy & pangs of adoration.' (p. 289, 11. 349-51) ! Once revived, Los seizes her "in his arms" (p. 290, 1. 380) land then takes revenge on Enion, his mother, driving her i I"into the deathful infinite" (p. 290, 1. 383). Significant i • Iis Night Ill's conclusion with a speech by the latter, who i • admits the terror of false love which she bore on earth: j " • I have planted a false oath in the earth; it has brought forth a poison tree'" (p. 290, 1. 388). The poison tree, ias in Blake's song of experience, is secretive, possessive | love. i In Night III Blake described through Ahanla the fall i I jof Albion. What is again Important is how false love, in- jstead of pride, led to the Fall. According to Ahanla, Albion was estranged from Los and Enitharmon, unable to see them, "for Luvah hid them in shadow [s] " of possessive love (p. 292, 1. 47). Fallen into the cycle of Ore, Luvah is, as Albion suggests, a "delusion," "absorbing" man Instead of freeing him as love should. Unfortunately, Albion suc cumbed before Luvah, becoming "'Idolatrous to his own Shadow'" and mortal in spectrous self-love: "'0 I am nothing when I enter into Judgment with thee./ If thou withdraw thy breath I die . . (p. 293# 11. 59-60). Albion's realization of the terrible consequences of his submission to Luvah comes with a scream: •0 love & life & light! 'Prophetic dreads urge me to speak: futurity is before me 'Like a dark lamp. Eternal death haunts all my expectation. ! 140 i 'Rent from Eternal Brotherhood we die & are no more. ' • • • .... .... ... •. . . 0 dark deceit! Can Love seek for dominion?' (p. 293. XI. 73-76, 78) I Striving against the dominion of Luvah, Alhion mistakenly I |equates pity with love as the force absorbing his individu ality. By retelling this story Ahania hopes to maintain her relationship with Urizen; but in his pride he casts her aside (p. 294, 11. 105# 111). Pearful of the creative, transcendent potential of his emanation, Urizen succumbs 1 I to the worst kind of eros— total self-love. Like Ahania, |Urizen has fallen. The whole world (once held together in the body of Tharmas) becomes a chaos of mutual antagonism: j | So Tharmas bellow'd o'er the ocean, thund'rlng, sobbing, bursting. .. . & hatred now began j Instead of love to Enion. (p. 296, 11. 176-78) jEnion, pleading not to be destroyed, receives only tearful pity— the minimum of humanity in a world where "'Love and Hope are ended'" (p. 297» 1. 204). i In Night the Fourth Tharmas' motive for commissioning Los and Enitharmon to rebuild the universe is both self-centered and misdirected since it ignores the inter personal level of authentic regeneration; ' ... My Son, Glorious in brightness, comforter of Tharmas, I 'Go forth, Rebuild this Universe beneath my indignant power, 'A Universe of Death. Let Enitharmon's hands | 141 | * Weave soft delusive forma of Man above my wat'ry world; ‘Renew these ruin'd souls of Men thro1 Earth, Sea, Air & Pire, 'To waste in endless corruption, renew these I will destroy.' (p. 298, 11. 26-31) The last line seems to indicate some awareness by Tharmas concerning the futility of physical renewal alone. For a moment he seems to realize that the restoration of his cre ative self can be his only solace: "'Ah, Enion! Ah, j jEnion! Ah, lovely, lovely Enion!/ How is this? All my Ihope is gone! for ever fled!'" (p. 297# 11. 8-9). Ironi- ically, Los and Enitharmon reject his commission only to ! proclaim Urizen as their god. Tharmas divides Los from | Enitharmon and then commissions Urthona's Spectre to re unite them but not on a Urlzenlc basis. As the rational, i I self-centered ego of Los, the Spectre completely separates : him from his emanation. Tharmas understands Urthona, ask- i lng him to help Los "'bind the fallen King1" [Urizen]. His reward— erotic selfhood: "'Bind him; take Enitharmon for thy sweet reward'" (p. 300, 1. 122). Although Tharmas does not accept Urizen as the god of this world, he falls back into the pattern of renewing the earth (utopianism) before the soul. His order that Los rebuild the "'furnaces of Urizen'" is a desire to reinstate an erotic Eden where "'all the Elements shall serve thee [Los] to their soothing flutes'" (p. 301, 1. 153). ! 142 ! Out of "dire revenge" Los accepts Tharmas1 order, | , | blaspheming his commander while enslaving Enitharmon and Urizen. With tragic Irony but harsh psychological realism, Los's actions are revealed as self-destructive: | The Prophet of Eternity beat on his Iron links & ! links of brass; ! And as he beat round the hurtling Demon, | terrified at the Shapes ! Enslav'd humanity put on, he became what he beheld. (p. 302, 11. 201-03) In The Book of Urizen Blake had seen Los's binding of Uri- zan as necessary; but here the prophet's motives are | I questionable. Los appears to be no better than Urizen I ihimself: i I Pale terror seiz'd the Eyes of Los as he beat round The hurtling demon; terrified at the shapes Enslav'd humanity put on, he became what he beheld: He became what he was doing: he was himself transform'd. Ip. 305» H» 284-87) Witnessing the binding of man to time's cycle, Beulah's daughters reveal a point central to Blake's late vision— a total Lazarus-like renewal of man through Christlike love is essential to eternal life. Alluding to the words of Martha to Jesus concerning her dead brother, Lazarus (John 11:22), Blake wrote: •Lord Saviour, if thou hadst been here our brother had not died, 'And now we know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God 'He will give it thee; for we are weak women & dare not lift 'Our eyes to the Divine pavilions; therefore in mercy thou I 143 i 'Appearest oloth'd In Luvah's garments that we may behold thee 1 'And live. Behold Eternal Death Is in Beulah. Behold 'We perish & shall not be found unless thou grant a place 'In which we may be hidden under the shadow of wings. 'For if we, who are but for a time & who pass I away in winter, •Behold these wonders of Eternity, we shall I consume.' (p. 304, 11. 253-62) iThe allusion to Luvah's robes of blood seems to link the |Body of Man and Jesus with revolution. At the same time, j |however, Blake seems to have realized that the real revo lution is spiritual— 11'in mercy,'" through the charity of j |Christ, through the kenotic outpouring of himself so that j we, like Lazarus, may rise to a new life. The Savior's i |condition, "'If you will Believe, your Brother shall rise i jagain,'" also reveals Blake's growing reliance on the | j spiritual in overcoming time and death. i In Night the Fifth Ore's birth is described: "... the wheels of turning darkness/ Began in solemn revolutions" (p. 306, 11. 27-28). According to Bloom, in Night V Blake expressed the hope of an imminent, worldly apocalypse through Ore, who is "a reborn Luvah, one of a cycle of such rebirths that will come to a saving climax in the birth of Jesus."35 while Bloom is fully aware of the irony of the Ore cycle, as a humanist his concept of Jesus is that of a great man, an imaginative genius come 35Bioom, "Commentary," p. 874. | 144 ito liberate man through vision.3^ Such a Christ is no |savior, however; his rebirth is no climax to history. (Moreover, as the imagery and direct assertions of the fol lowing lines indicate, Luvah-Orc could never initiate any I real apocalypse. Howling round the newborn Ore, fellow demons of repressed energy greet him as "'Luvah> King of jliOve . . , the king of rage & death1" (p. 306, 1. 42). ! This supposed love-king bears only possessiveness and ("Discord." Tragic is the cycle in which Ore, son of the 'once heavenly Los and Enltharmon, plots the death of his i jown fathers 1 I .. . Los beheld the ruddy boy Embracing his bright mother, & beheld malignant fires In his young eyes, discerning plain that Ore I plotted his death, (p. 307» 11. 80-82) 1 jBlake's insight into the violence inherent in erotic nar cissism (Ore) should silence any suggestions that the poet opted for the pleasure-principle and a millennium of child hood sensualism. The round of repression being thrown off is symbol ized by girdles which grew around Ore and were torn asunder in nights of sexual release: Grief rose upon his ruddy brows; a tightening girdle grew Around his bosom like a bloody cord; in secret sobs He burst it, but next morn another girdle succeeds 3^See Bloom's Blake's Apocalypse, p. 479, for his humanist views of the poet's concept of Jesus. ! 145 Around his bosom. Every day he view'd the fiery youth With silent fear, & his immortal cheeks grew deadly pale, Till many a morn & many a night pass'd over in dire woe Forming a girdle in the day & bursting it at night. The girdle was form'd by day, by night was burst in twain, Falling down on the rock, an iron chain link by link lock'd, (p. 307, 11. 83-91) The image of the locked chain Juxtaposed to the endless |girdling and unglrdllng of revolutionary energy suggests i |the predictability of history's pattern. Blake expanded the meaning of his chain imagery in the phrase, "the Chain I of Jealousy." Possessiveness, whether of things or of Ipeople, inevitably leads to the endless round of hiding and ! stealing, repression and aggression. This pattern is re vealed in the following lines, where Ore grows ready for i jsexual assault while Los jealously hides Enitharmon: I ! Surrounded with flames the Demon grew, loud howling | in his fires; i Los folded Enitharmon in a cold white cloud in fear, { Then led her down into the deeps & into his I labyrinth, ! Giving the Spectre sternest charge over the howling fiend, Concenter'd into Love of Parent, Storgous Appetite, Craving, (p. 308, 11. 109-13) Not only are Ore's endeavors erotic but so are Los's. "Storgous," according to Bloom,37 means parental. Thus, the phrase "Storgous Appetite " is an appropriate descrip tion of Los's relationship with his son, a kind of selfish 3?Bloom, "Commentary," p. 874. i 146 appetite that would consume Ore's own individuality. The I prophet's attempt to nail Ore down is doomed to failure, i t jfor to bind one's emotional energies to a Urizenically |ordered world is to subject those energies to history's jcycle. The beautiful Promethean qualities of Ore bound idown by Los (p. 308, 11. 114-42) reveal Blake's persistent attraction to that force as a means to "secrets of the |infinite" (p. 308, 1. 122). A few lines later Los musters up enough selflessness to try to free Ore, "Even if his own death resulted" (p* 309* 1. 154). He fails, according to Erdman, because I time's cycle cannot be stopped. Adhering to his belief in jBlake as an immanent millennialist, Erdman quickly adds: | "We need not take this as a fatalistic generalization but jas a description of the period."38 it appears, however, | that some new basis for liberating man from the ethic of possessiveness must be found. Neither Enitharmon, nor Los, nor Urthona, nor Luvah can free man: In vain they strove now to unchain, In vain with bitter tears To melt the chain of Jealousy; not Enitharmon's death, Nor the Consummation of Los could ever melt the chain Nor unroot the infernal fibres from their rocky bed, Nor all Urthona's strength, nor all the power of Luvah's Bulls. . . . (p. 309# 11. 160-64) 3®David V. Erdman, Blake: Prophet Against Empire (2nd ed., revised; Princeton: Princeton uT Pr., 19o9), p. 308. I will continue to use the older edition of Blake, making sure to distinguish by date an occasional reference to the new edition. 147 Given this passage, oan we say it Is Blake's belief that |the re-balancing of human faculties Is the key to deliver ance? Or Is forgiveness of sin the key? Perhaps both ! are since forgiveness transcends the morality of rigid |give-and-take justice, but a sound eplstemological basis |Is needed for forgiveness. The obverse of that basis Is hinted at by Urlzen In the last line of Night V: "'When | ■Thought is clos'd In Caves Then love shall shew its root i !ln deepest Hell1" (p. 311# 1. 241). Referring to the mind, i j the "Caves" of rationality exclude love and knowledge of | the other as other. Closed to Itself, the rational mind relates to another as something to possess or dominate, thereby creating a hell of fear and hatred. In the opening of Night the Sixth, Urlzen begins to i |explore his dens. His exploration is not an openness to |reality but an effort by the rational ego to dominate it: "... unsatiated his thrust, he assay'd to gather more . . •" (p- 311, 1. 4). Nevertheless, Urlzen can aggrandize himself no longer because he is repelled by "three terrific women." These women represent, according to Erdman, "the arts of Britain."39 Pushing this identification with little corroborative evidence, Erdman Ignores the fact that they are self-centered and possessive, repelling all others as "competition." With her name on her forehead, the first 39Erdman, Blake (1969), p. 372. ■ 148 I woman resembles the whore of Babylon or rapacious sexual ity. The second woman's "'strong attractive power/ Draws jail Into a fountain'" (p. 312* H. 13-14); and the third i |Is clad in jealous, self-seeking "'green'" (p. 312, 1. 17). i i These women are, In fact, the daughters of Urlzen. As I estranged emanations they, like Enion and Enitharmon, are objectifying and destructive: | And Urizen rais'd his spear, they rear'd up a wall of rooks. They shrunk into their channels, dry the rocky j strand beneath his feet, j Hiding themselves in rocky forms from the Eyes of j Urlzen. (p. 321, 11. 20-r23) i As with all of Blake's mythic characters, the division be tween these once creative forms and their author began in false, hypocritical love, Urizen claims he gave them his j"tbest'H love, all the finery in his possession; but, in fact, he gave them only material things, expecting them to ingratiate themselves upon him. Urizen reveals the rational ego’s propensity for revenge when he rages against his non-conformist daughters: 'Now I will pour my fury on them, & I will reverse •The precious benediction; for their colours of loveliness 'I will give blackness; for Jewels, hoary frost; for ornament, deformity; 'For crowns, wreath'd serpents; for sweet odors, stinking corruptibility; 'For voices of delight, hoarse croakings inarticulate thro' frost; 'For labour'd fatherly care & sweet instruction, I will give 'Chains of dark ignorance & cords of twisted self-conceit ! 149 I t j 'And whips of stern repentance & food of stubborn ! obstinacy. . . (pp. 312-13, 11. 35-42) As a final punishment Urizen subjects them to the cycle I i lof Ore, "'That they may curse & worship the obscure demon |of destruction'" (p. 313, 1. 44). The terror of this des- i itiny is so great that Tharmas re-enters the epic, despair- j lng of deliverance and wishing death for himself and iUrizen. j The alienation of Urizen's creative self is linked to jLockean episteraology, wherein one knows only his sense data: Beyond the bounds of their own self their senses cannot penetrate: As the tree knows not what is outside of its | leaves & bark And yet it drinks the summer joy & fears the winter sorrow, j So, in the regions of the grave, none knows his dark compeer | Tho' he partakes of his dire woes & mutual returns the pang, The throb, the dolor, the convulsion, in soul-sickening woes. (p. 314, 11. 94-99) Such solipsism perpetuates the alienation within and be tween men, creating a world of labor that is hell. In a world dominated by the rational ego, men and women are "dishumanlz'd," bound in foundry "Fetters of red hot iron" (p. 314, 11. 116, 104), Blake described the laborers of his world as harassed "serpents" ready to sting back ac cording to history's cycle: "Oft would he [Urizen] stand & question a fierce scorpion .. . In vain" (p. 315, 11. 131-32). As expected, there is no human encounter or communication among such laborers. Even when Urlzen stood "by a howling victim Questioning," ! . . . no one answer'd; every one wrap'd up I In his own sorrow howl'd regardless of his words, j nor voice ! Of sweet response could he obtain, tho' oft | assay'd with tears, (p. 315# 11. 126-29) j These laborers do not understand the goals of their "work- i . jraanship" and, therefore, lack creativity and vision. i i Urizen is unable to reconcile this situation because it is | psychological as well as epistemological. The whole of man jis "subject" to the problem: "He saw them curs'd beyond i |his Curse: his soul melted with fear./ He could not take jtheir fetters off, for they grew from the soul . . ." I |(p. 315» 11. 143-44). Blake hoped the Prince of Reason ! ' would learn from experience, going "thro1/ This dismal world" to a higher understanding. Unfortunately, Urizen 1 "threw/ Himself into the dismal world" (p. 315, 11149-50, 153; italics mine), resigning himself to be "A laborer of ages, a dire discontent, a living woe." "Here will I fix my foot & here rebuild," he says while aware that vision "thro'" the vortex of reality is transcendent ("upward all"; p. 316, 1. 192). Urizen's commitment is to a Newton ian millennium, measured and ordered, "suited to obey/ His will . . . himself being King/ Of all, & all futurity i 1 . . . bound in his vast chain" (p. 317# 11. 231-33). Ac cording to Blake, vision is possible for the spiritual man ("within") but not the Urizenic man, who fails to reconcile i !"outward forms," existing "in the Abyss," with inward life, existing in eternity. ! It may appear that the poet still longed for a re- i newal of these forms in presenting heady opposition to ! Urizen by Tharmas and the Spectre of Urthona, who defend I |Ore at the end of Night VI. The language is distinctly i ; apocalyptic: "Pour winged heralds mount the furious blast I j& blow their trumps" (p. 319* 1. 310). Yet even here the |imagery implies cyclic recurrence instead of a permanent transcendence of history: i ; In vast excentric paths Compulsive roll'd the Comets at his dread command, j the dreary way Palling with wheel impetuous down among Urthona*s | vales And round red Ore; returning back to Urizen, | gorg'd with blood, (p. 320, 11. 319-23) I ; Both David Erdman and Harold Bloom agree that the "a" version of Night the Seventh is the later one.^*0 I agree for a number of reasons. First of all, the "b" version stands more in opposition to the fresh spiritual hopes of Vila— hopes characteristic of the poet of Jerusalem rather than the poet of Night VI. The "b" version, as the earlier of the two, follows more closely the domination of Urlzen in Night VI. Finally, the characterization of Los in Vllb ^°Erdman, ed., The Poetry, p. 755* Bloom, "Commen tary," p. 878. I : 152 Is more In line with Blake's earlier understanding of him; !the Los of Vila is very close to the forgiving prophet of 1 Jerusalem. For these reasons, I will briefly discuss Vllb ;first as earlier in the development of Blake's apocalyptic I mentality. Night Vllb presents the entire world under the do minion of Urizen, who says he "'will walk forth thro' those wide fields of endless Eternity,/ A God & not a Man, a con queror in triumphant glory . . (p. 333, 11. 8-9). The |dehumanizing effects of the self-deifying rational ego are i !horrendous: j First Trades & Commerce, ships & armed vessels he ! builded laborious To swim the deep; & on the land, children are sold to trades Of dire necessity, still laboring day & night till all j Their life extinct they took the spectre form in dark despair; j And slaves in myriads, in ship loads, burden the I hoarse sounding deep, Rattling with clanking chains. . . . (p. 333, 11. 12-17) The estrangement and antagonism that Urlzen breeds embroils Tharmas and Ore. For example, Tharmas divides into bloody factions those who have denied him his Enion. And Ore is transformed into a serpent of wars "No more remain'd of Ore but the Serpent round the tree of Mystery" (p. 338, 1. 214). Ore sees the cause for his re-emergence as a serpent of war but cannot avert it: ! So Ore roll'd round his clouds upon the deeps of ! dark Urthona, | Knowing the arts of Urlzen were Pity & Meek affection I And that by these arts the serpent form exuded | from his limbs Silent as despairing love & strong a3 jealousy, Jealous that she was Vala, now become Urlzen's i harlot | And the Harlot of Los & the deluded harlot of | the Kings of the Earth, S His [Ore's] soul was gnawn In sunder. (p. 336, 11. 133-39) i Vala's becoming the harlot of Blake's mythic charac- t iters suggests the waywardness of Luvah-Orc's emanation and the apocalyptic nature of the situation. That love Is the ! |means to breaking out of time's chain is expressed In a i |conversation between Vala and Tharmas. She foolishly ! blames her love of Ore for binding her to history's cycle, |saying that she will not be free until "'this dark chain'" i | is "'loos'd'" (p. 339, 1. 255). But Vala's love is inau thentic since Ore remains "hidden" from her. Tharmas counters with the theme of "A Poison Tree," asserting the need for honest, open love: . . till I can bring love unto the light/ I never will depart from my great wrath'" (p. 339, 11. 257-58). Blake did not discard his first version of the sev enth Night, perhaps because the later version is so much more confusing and complex. The "a" version has a number of related themes. First, there Is the theme of domination by the rational ego— Urizen. The nous theos of rationalism j 154 seeks to 1 1 'Reduce all1" to his will (p. 323, 1. 129). The ways of his repression are manifold— stinginess, deception, j ! contrariness, cold-heartedness, Malthusianism, pretentious ness, moralism, and flattery: 'Compell the poor to live upon a Crust of bread, by soft mild arts. 'Smile when they frown, frown when they smile; & when a man looks pale 'With labour & abstinence, say he looks healthy I & happy; i 'And when his children sicken, let them die; | there are enough S 'Born, even too many, & our Earth will be overrun | 'Without these arts. If you would make the poor ! live with temper, 1 'With pomp give every crust of bread you give; with gracious cunning 'Magnify small gifts; reduce, the man to want a 1 gift, & then give with pomp. 'Say he smiles if you hear him sigh. If pale, ! say he is ruddy. ! 'Preach temperence: say he is overgorg'd & drowns his wit 'In strong drink, tho' you know that bread & water are all 'He can afford. Platter his wife, pity his children. . . .' (p. 323, 11. 117-28) Betting on worldwide reaction, Urlzen is cunning enough to allow Ore his little rebellion: "He suffered him [Ore] to climb that he [^Urizen^ might draw all human forms/ Into submission to his will . . ." (p. 324, 11. 164-65). The rational ego's plan to control Los and Enitharmon, who have been commissioned to liberate man, is especially insidious. Concerned only with external order, Urlzen will have Enitharmon's outward manifestation (a "Shadow") come under the dominion of his moralism. To do this he will sharpen ! 155 I the conflict between her and Los by having Los's domineer ing side (the Spectre of Urthona) gain control of their relationship, thereby driving her to Urizen. | Thus, the Spectre of Urthona pursues Enitharmon's I |shadow. In their ensuing conversation she reveals the na- i ture of the Fall as a division within man. After Urlzen I had separated from Albion, becoming spectrous, the latter i j saw Vala divide into male and female. The reason for these | divisions was Albion's erotic love for Vala (nature): j * ! 'Among the Flowers of Beulah walk'd the Eternal | Nan & saw ! 'Vala, the lilly of the desart melting in high noon: | 'Upon her bosom in sweet bliss he fainted. . . . I • ........................................................ ! ' . . . There he revel'd in delight among the j Flowers.' (p. 326, 11. 239-41, 243) | i The Spectre, in turn, recalls the division between himself and the shadow— how beside her in the womb of Enlon he ab horred the prospect of being born and so substituted his creative counterpart, Los, as Enltharmon'-s partner. Los's early relationship with Enitharmon was blissful enough to make the Spectre extremely Jealous: 'Ah jealousy & woe! 'Ah, poor divided dark Urthona! now a Spectre wand'ring 'The deeps of Los, the slave of that Creation . . . '. . .1 will destroy 'That body I created; then shall we unite again in bliss; 'Thou knowest that the Spectre is in Every Man insane, brutish, 156 *Deform*d, that I am thus a ravening devouring lust continually 'Craving & devouring; but my Byes are always ! upon thee, 0 lovely | 'DeluBlon, & I cannot crave for any thing but i thee: [& till 'I have thee In my arms & am again united to Los •To be one body & One Spirit with him del.] ! (p. 327, 11. 295-97, 300-0TT"304-09) ! {Divided from his creative self, the Spectre Is, as he ad- jmlts, cruel and rapacious. But when he enters Los's bosom for the purpose of reunion, they are reconciled: But then the Spectre enter'd Los's bosom. Every sigh & groan ! Of Enitharmon bore Urthona's Spectre on Its wings. Obdurate Los felt Pity. Enitharmon told the tale Of Urthona. Los embrac'd the Spectre, first as a brother, | Then as another Self, astonish'd, humanizing & In | tears, j In Self abasement Giving up his Domineering lust. 'Thou never canst embrace sweet Enitharmon, terr ible Demon, Till 'Thou art united with thy Spectre, Consummating by pains & labours 'That mortal body, & by Self annihilation back returning 'To life Eternal; be assur'd I am thy real self, 'Tho' thus divided from thee & the slave of Every These lines clearly reveal how Important the spectre— the role one adopts to relate with others— Is to interior being. Enitharmon is supportive of the spectre's fearful vigilance, making it easier for Los to be reconciled with pis aggressive self. Such a reconciliation will also im prove Los's relationship with his own creative form. As a matter of fact, he standB before her uln forgiveness of iassion •Of thy fierce Soul.' (p. 328, 11. 336 ! 157 i t . . . injuries" (p. 330, 1. 419), asking her why she would |want to remember the past— a question that foreshadows the jinseparable tie between forgiving and forgetting in the |vision of Milton and especially Jerusalem. Unready for |Los's encounter, Enitharmon unfortunately flees from him. i | The Spectre's rapprochement with Los sounds like ! something straight out of Jerusalem: 'If we unite in one, another better world will be j 'Open'd within your heart & loins & wondrous brain, | 'Threefold, as it was in Eternity, & this, the fourth Universe, | 'Mill be Renew'd by the three & consummated in j Mental fires; | 'But if thou dost refuse, Another body will be I prepared \ 'For me, & thou, annihilate, evaporate & be no more. ! 'For thou art but a form & organ of life, & of ! thyself j 'Art nothing, being Created Continually by Mercy I & Love divine.' (p. 329, 11. 353-60) i Ignoring the psychic as well as the intersubjective content of these lines, Bloom interprets them as $lake's desire for eternity through perceptual renewal.**1 But Urthona's speech is a brilliant insight into how psychic division (suggested in line 357) gives rise to erotic domination and how internal reunion will make for a "'better world.'" If Los refuses the Spectre's call to reunion, he will give rise to schizophrenia, wherein the self is split into "'Another body'" and completely lost. Los's reply to the Spectre is hopeful. As he says, the real world of value ^Bloom, "Commentary," p. 878. I " ~ ~ ~ ...” "................ ~ *158 " Is "‘within1”: 1 'Come then into my Bosom, & In thy shadowy arms bring with thee •My lovely Enitharmon. I will quell ray fury & } teach •Peace to the soul of dark revenge, & repentance to Cruelty.' (p. 329, 11. 367. - 69) iBy communicating through inner forms, by relating through ;"head," "heart," and "loins" and not just the persona or i jego-self, men can reunite. Thus, it is important that jBlake talked about a change in vision after he had talked jabout a renewal of love: . . the Spectre of Urthona/ I iWondering beheld the center open'd'" (p. 329, 11. 373-74). lAccording to Bloom, the above line means that vision con trary to the vortex of material existence is now possible.1 * 2 But apocalypse is not yet possible because the Spec- i jtre wishes to "destroy" Los's body rather than re-create j it; and Los himself re-creates only within a "Limit Two fold nam'd Satan & Adam" (p. 329, 11. 374-75, 383). Los hasn't quite entered the full spirit of transcendence, re maining only an esthetic rather than spiritual millennial- 1st. As he says to Enitharmon, 'Stem desire 'X feel to fabricate embodied semblances in which the dead 'May live before us in our palaces & in o.ur gardens of labour, 'Which now, open'd within the Center, we behold spread abroad 42Ibld.. p. 878. 159 I •To form a world of sacrifice of brothers & sons & daughters , •To comfort Ore in his dire sufferings, , , , (p. 331, 11. 439-44) Standing at the limit of translucence, which Bloom de scribes as the "place of final break-through" situated at i the upper limit of Beulah between the maximum Joy of ex perience and eternity,^3 lqq chooses to stay in Beulah, iHe follows Enitharmon, who, having overheard his conversa tion with the Spectre, "fled & hid beneath Urizen's tree" (p. 329, 1. 372). Enitharmon suggests a more therapeutic art, one that will spiritually purge the creator, the cre- iated, and the viewer: I '. . . if thou, my Los, 'Wilt in sweet moderated fury fabricate forms sublime, 'Such as the piteous Spectres may assimilate themselves into, 'They shall be ransoms for our Souls that we | may live.' (p. 331, 11. 452-55) 1 I To be saved Enitharmon requires that "'a ransom'" (Los's and Jesus') be offered for her; as she says, "'. . . Life lives upon death, & by devouring appetite/ All things sub sist on one another . . .'" (p. 330, 11. 390-91). Eni tharmon 's vision of art as a kind of sublime self-sacrifice seems to attract Los since he attempts to reconcile himself with Urizen's warriors. His creations are assimilated with ! the spectres of this world, and so, by his and Enitharmon's 43ibid., p. 878. 160 aelf-denial, their sons and daughters are made to live. i |Los's selflessness even extends to Urlzen: "His whole soul loved him . . ." (p. 332, 1. 498). | The hope expressed In Vila Is chiefly immanent, how- i jever. Alluding to the Biblical estimate of history's span, Blake wrote that the union between Los and Enitharmon is | "not to be Effected without Cares & Sorrows & Troubles/ !Of six thousand Years of self-denial & of bitter Contri tion" (p. 330, 11. 399-400). Blake never rejected the value of experience, and so the Spectre of Urthona comes to |realize the value of the body in time: "'These spectres l | have no [Counterparts del.] . . . . Let us Create them Coun [terparts;] / For without a Created body the Spectre is Eternal Death'" (p. 330, 11. 408-10). Although Los sees in i jEnitharmon the Transcendent, "'the Lamb of God/ Clothed in i Luvah's robes of blood descending to redeem'" (p. 330, 11. 415-16), she is not yet ready to participate in the apocalypse because she views existence in terms of revenge and despair: 'I behold the Lamb of God descending 'To Meet these Spectres of the Dead. I therefore fear that he 'Will give us to Eternal Death, fit punishment for such 'Hideous offenders: Uttermost extinction in eternal pain: 'An ever dying life of stifling & obstruction: shut out 'Of existence to be a sign & terror to all who behold, I 161 i ! 'Lest any should In futurity do as we have done ! In heaven. 'Such Is our state; nor will the Son of God redeem | us, but destroy.' (p. 330, 11. 424-31) 1 • j There is also the hint of Inescapable cyollolsm In Los's j |reconciliation with Urizen's warriors: ( I First Rlntrah & then Palamabron, drawn from out i the ranks of war, i In Infant Innocence repos'd on Enitharmon's bosom. Ore was comforted In the deeps; his soul reviv'd In them: j As the Eldest brother Is the father's Image, So I Ore became As Los, a father to his brethren, and he Joy'd | In the dark lake | Tho' bound with chains of Jealousy & in scales of iron & Brass, (p. 332, 11. 476-81) For all the hopefulness expressed In Night Vila, the poem Is structurally and psychologically unsound. Between \ I the first six Nights and Vila there is almost no prepara- j tlon for the radical changes In Los and Enitharmon. It may have been, perhaps, the lack of certain phenomenologi cal events (like love and forgiveness), supporting the changes in these characters and in the poem's apocalyptic ideas, that made Blake abandon it. Night VIII continues with a changed Los and a changed Enitharmon but again without sufficient motivation for their new relationship. Free to "enter into Enitharmon's bosom," Los enjoys knowing his emanation as creative in spiration and not as an elusive witch. Their rapprochement offers a clear example of the paradise within; as he says to her, "'I behold the Divine Vision thro' the broken ! 162 t i Gates/ Of thy poor broken heart, astonish'd, melted into jCompassion & Love'1 1 (p. 341, 11. 20-21). There follows a ! corroborating assertion from Blake: "Wondering with love i i& Awe they felt the divine hand upon them . . (p. 341, |l. 23). Through the self-sacrifice of her creativity, jEnitharmon overcomes despair, bringing herself and Los close to the Transcendent: Then Enitharmon erected Looms in Luban's Gate And call'd the Looms Cathedron; in these Looms she wove the Spectres Bodies of Vegetation, singing lulling Cadences to drive away | Despair from the poor wondering spectres; And Los loved them . . . , for the Divine Hand was upon him And upon Enitharmon. . . . (p. 342, 11. 36-41) jln his humanistic, Immanent orientation Bloom suggests that , jthe looms of Cathedron are "the inversion of a demonic in- | jdustrial image into an artifice of salvation . . . , an em blem of overcoming the existent cycle through an apotheosis of cycle, . . For Blake, however, cyclic history be comes apocalyptic only when the cycle is broken, not apoth eosized. Man alone, moreover, cannot break out of his tory's round. There must be something else, some other force, namely, the Transcendent. That is not to say Blake sells man and the immanent short, for Jesus is both immanent and transcendent. Whether everyone in Beulah ^Ibid., p. 879. "look'd upward . . . Or whether they look'd downward still j; |they saw the Divine Vision ..." (p. 342, 11. 49-50). It I may be that Blake had not yet fully rejected an immanent j |kind of apocalypse, for Golgonooza, his city of art, is |sensually millennial. According to the "Sons of Eden," i 'The Daughters of Enitharmon weave the ovarium & the integument •In soft silk, drawn from their own bowels in lascivious delight, 'With songs of sweetest cadence to the turning spindle & reel, 'Lulling the weeping spectres of the dead, Clothing their limbs 'With gifts & gold of Eden.' (p. 346, 11. 210-14) ! jAs for freeing mankind from historical process through po- i litical action, that possibility was out. Urizen conspires |"with the Serpent of Ore ... To undermine the World of ! j Los & tear bright Enitharmon/ To the four winds, hopeless i !of future" (p. 343, 11. 96, 98-99)* Ore's emergence as the j Napoleonic serpent signifies Blake's ultimate disillusion ment over the French Revolution and the abortive Peace of Amiens. Urizen has started another war, which is described as hermaphroditic. The metaphor is brilliant because com bat Is, in a psychological sense, as egocentric and self-aggrandizing as a hermaphrodite. A warrior thinks of his survival, of his interests, alone and is, therefore, as sollpsistlc, as autoerotic, as any hermaphrodite. Blake's concerns in Night VIII were not only human istic but also Christian. Speaking around the Lamb of Cod, ! ................. ' '....... 164 | the sons of Eden exhort him to l •Assume the dark Satanic body in the Virgin's womb, •. . . it cannot thee annoy. 0 pitying one, •Thy pity is from the foundations of the World & thy Redemption •Begun Already in Eternity. Come then 0 Lamb i of God, •Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.' (p. 347, 11. 241-45) Bloom misses the allusion in the last line to the Book of i jRevelation, wherein Jesus said he would “come quickly" (22:7) at the end of time.^5 Night VIII continues to recall , the promise of Jesus, who incarnated himself "To put off Mystery. . . . to Give his vegetated body . . . to be cut off & separated, that the Spiritual body may be Reveal'd" ! (pp. 347-48, 11. 261, 265, 267). The betrayal of the Peace i !of Amiens and the renewal of war are compared by Blake to the passion and crucifixion, for historical process dally crucifies man and the hope of deliverance. Prom the poet's contrary point of view, these allusions may give rise to new hope since the renewal of war, seen as a re-crucifixion of Jesus, may shock man into a vision for redemption. With the development of his doctrine of states and individuals in Night VIII, Blake moved more closely to the spirit of forgiveness expressed in Jerusalem. This doc trine has not been fully explained by major Blakeans. For ! example, with his usual emphasis on history, Erdman says ^Ibld., p. 880. | the poet developed the Idea to "strengthen his necessary I conviction that war and oppression can be permanently over thrown, , , ."^ But the critic never explains how states i land individuals make such an overthrow possible. The real |significance of these terms is that the former are Satanic, as vacillating as a weathercock and deceptive as a snake, while the latter are human, unique, and essentially un changeable. In Milton (p. 521, pi. 32, 11. 10, 22-29) Blake compared states to "Combinations of Individuals," |that is, political entities, literal states which, regard- iless of ethics or charity, continually change their poli- jcles for the sake of their own interests.^7 Because of their falsehood states grow and die, while "Individual lldentlties never change nor cease" (p. 521, pi. 32, 1. 23). i ^Erdman, Blake, p. 372. ^Blake's doctrine of states and individuals is Christian, though not in a Pauline sense. For Blake, only individuals are saved at the end of time; states, institu tions, human organizations, will be destroyed forever. But, according to Oscar Cullman's analysis of Romans 13 (Christ and Time, p. 201), the state in Paul's view belongs to the divine order as an agent of divine recompense: "How important this concept of the divine 'order' is to the apostle appears at the beginning of the chapter in the heaping up of the words that con tain this root: 'be subject,' 'ordained,' 'resist,' 'ordinance.' We thus confirm the fact that • • • a view is here presupposed according to which the | state, not by nature, but only by its being placed in a definite order, is God's servant and fulfills his will." Romans 13 offers a Christological foundation for the state, jrelatlng the redemptive process to the secular process. Blake's reaction to such a rationale for "State Religion" jwould have been, of course, outraged contempt. Because of their chameleon nature states are unredeemed In ! I : i eternity, while individuals are eternally redeemed. The i | j |former perish, the latter are saved: I I | 'There Is a State nam'd Satan; learn distinct to know . . . i 'The difference between States & Individuals of I those States. 'The State nam'd Satan never can be redeem'd in all Eternity; 'But when Luvah In Ore became a Serpent, he descended Into | 'That State call'd Satan.' (p. 351, 11. 379-83) |The depth of Blake's despair over Ore, who has reemerged as the imperialistic Napoleon, is symbolized by that eter nal "'State call'd Satan,'" with which Ore finally becomes identified. Ore's Satanic nature is described with Mil- |tonic vigor: l | A crest of fire rose on his forehead, red as the | carbuncle, Beneath, down to his eyelids, scales of pearl, then gold & silver Immingled with the ruby overspread his Visage down His furious neck. . . . (pp. 342-43, 11. 69-72) Adhering to the doctrine of individuals as forgive- able, Los stands with "tenderness & love" before Rahab, the harlot of Babylon (who was raped as Vala by Ore in America). Rahab is divided from all that is truly human yet she is forgiveable and not "unredeemable" as Bloom suggests.^® Bloom seems to have overlooked Albion's realization in Night IX that someone like Rahab can be forgiven: "'Error can never be redeem'd in all Eternity,/But Sin, Even Rahab, ^®Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 283. ! 167 is redeem'd . . .'" (p. 361, 11. 158-59). Thus, although iRahab rejects Los's discussion of states and individuals, he remains "in hope" of her changing. Unfortunately, how ever, Blake had not yet reached a full understanding of |forgiveness (especially as it relates to forgetting). By the end of Night VIII, Albion is still bound to the cycle of nature, and the problem of radical deliverance remains. ; The last Night of The Four Zoas, subtitled "The Last jJudgement," illustrates the increasing violence of the last istages of fallen time, the final cathartic violence neces- jsary for the conclusion of history. As David Erdman sug gests, however, Night IX only "prophesies the millen- jnium."^9 The world in all its chaos may be ready for the j ! apocalypse, but its people (represented emotionally, in- i i jtellectually, and spiritually by Blake's mythic characters) are not. Thus, there is not the sense of finality in their revenge as there is in the blood sacrifice and revenge of Luvah in Jerusalem. The apocalypse for Blake was not to be a simple, violent conclusion to history (history cannot be transcended by violence or its own conclusion.) but, in stead, a glorious visionary event concurrent with its end ing. There is a crucial lack of awareness and preparation in the poet’s characters, making such an apocalypse (not to mention the Last Judgment) quite uncertain. Lastly, in I _ . j ■ - - - - - - ■ — • | ^Erdman, Blake, p. 293. j ; 168 contrast to the false dawn of Night IX, Blake's transcend ent Christian vision grows as an alternative for apoca lypse, though not fully developed. In the last Night Blake presented various points of view concerning the apocalypse; some are honest, some !Ironic and undercutting, and some completely unprepared for. Since these points of view are Important in deter mining the viability or inadequacy of Night IX's apoca- ilyptlclsm, I will make comments about them as they appear i throughout the poem, relative to the issues raised in the previous paragraph. At the beginning of the final Night, Jesus, crucl- jfied, still appears “in the Sepulchre" of fallen existence i |(p* 357* 1. 3). While Los and Enitharmon weep, the | God-man attempts to bring them to complete self-annihilation i ! by "Separating/ Their spirit from their body" (p. 357, 11. 4-5)* But Los and Enitharmon will not accept an ex clusively spiritual union. (Nor did Blake, for whom the apocalypse and eternity are indivisibly transcendent and immanent.) Thus, such a separation is viewed as "Non-Existence." Bloom maintains that, despite the con fusion of his action, Los is "still imaginative man," understanding and creative.5° Throughout the poem, how ever, he does little that is imaginative or creative. Amid i 5°Bioora, "commentary," p. 882. I 169 I jtrumpetings of an apocalypse and "dreadful shakings" (al- |luslons to the Book of Revelation 6:9-10, 14), Los seeks to | transform earthly existence, "his vegetable hands/ Out stretch'd ... in fibrous strength." The violent, i one-sidedly immanent quality of his action betrays his good, though Orclan, intentions; he "Seized the Sun; His t jleft hand, like dark roots, cover'd the Moon,/ And tore 1 | them down, cracking the heavens from Immense to immense" !(p. 357, 11. 8-9). !. ! Though ensconced in the imagery of the Revelation, 1 jthe example set by Los and Enitharmon is tainted with re- I venge, the motivating force of history's cycle: i 1 | The poor smite their oppressors, they awake to the harvest, The naked warriors rush together down to the sea shore 1 Trembling before the multitudes of slaves now set at liberty I The oppressed pursue like the wind; there is no room for escape, (p. 357, 11. 19-21, 23P 1 Prom the viewpoint of the oppressed, tyranny seems to be purged from the earth: . * . shoal on shoal Float the dead carcases of Men and Beasts, driven to & fro on waves Of foaming blood beneath the black Incessant sky, till all Mystery's tyrants are cut off & not one left on Earth, (p. 359, IX. 76-79) ^See The Pour Zoas. p. 358, 1. $0. j 170 I Portents of death as an inevitable part of oyollo process still prevail, however. The Eternal Man (Albion), waiting j i - 1 to be renewed, "lay . . . Enwrapped round with weeds of Death" (p, 359. 11. 95-96). i ■ Prom Urizen»s viewpoint the apoealypse is his ultl- j i mate oonquest of a long-standing enemy, Oro: "'. . .the ! folding Serpent/ Of Ore began to Consume in fleree raving j i ! ! I Ifire ..." (p. 358, 11. 33-3*0. Committed to the destrue-j |tion of his opponent, urizen "gave the horses of Light into 1 the hands of Luvah" (p. 359, 1. 9*0. Blake's use of the | ! Phaeton myth is ominous. Just as Phoebus, the sun god, |gave his ohariot to Phaeton to ride around the earth, so I |Urizen binds Luvah-Oro to the souree of nature's oyole in | |an aot of seeming generosity. But, unlike Phoebus, who j |warned his son of the dangers of his oharge, Urizen gives his powerful horses to Luvah without any admonition. Just i as Phaeton met destruction, so does Luvah-Oro; but, for the latter, it beoomes a reourring ezperienee. Urizen»s action may seem inconsistent with his desire to forever tyrannize, but, like Hegel, he has rationalized rebellion and war as |part of the inevitable progression of man toward an abso lute order of the rational mind. Prom nature's point of view, Urizen's vengeance is apooalyptiot "The rocks groan horrible & run about; the mountains &/ Their rivers ory I with a dismal ory; the cattle gather together ..." | (p• 358* 11. 53-54). Nature's upheaval does, Indeed, ap- jpear truly cathartic: i I | The Bloody Deluge: living flames winged with intellect And Reason, round the Earth they march in order, flame by flame. Prom the clotted gore & from the hollow den Start forth the trembling millions into flames of mental fire, Bathing their limbs in the bright visions of Eternity, (p. 359* H. 86-90) The Eternal Man is bewildered and revulsed by the "'war within'" his members instigated by Urizen: '. . . tho' I arise, look out •And scorn the war within my members, yet my heart is weak 'And my head faint. . . . 'Whence is this sound of rage of Men drinking | each other's blood, •Drunk with the smoking gore, & red, but not with | nourishing wine?' (p. 360, 11. 118-22) i 'Enraged by Urizen's deceit, the Eternal Man threatens his wrath: "Thy crown & scepter I will seize, & regulate all my members/ In stem severity, & cast thee out into the indefinite . . ." (p. 360, 11. 145-46). Albion threatens to cast Urizen out unless the latter repents. Though he admits the error of his proud thrust for "the Eternal," Urizen pities himself Instead of repenting: •Seeking the Eternal which is always present to the wise; 'Seeking for pleasure which unsought falls round the Infant's path '. . .1, whose labours vast 'Order the nations, separating family by family, 'Alone enjoy not. I alone, in misery supreme, 'Ungratifled give all my joy unto this Luvah & Vala.' (p. 361, 11. 171-72, 176-79) The noua theos suddenly realizes that futurity, which j he has tried to put off by building his own millennial city; i out of brick and stone, "'is in this moment'" (p. 362, I. 183). His new understanding is so sudden, that Ahania,52j I ' Ihis emanation, who tried to show him the error of his ways in Night III, dies from an "Excess of joy" (p. 362, II. 197-98). Her sudden death seems to negate Blake's hu manistic vision of the apocalypse in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, for now an "Excess of joy is worse than grief" j (p. 362, 1. 197). The poet is aware that certain emotional,j ; I intellectual, and spiritual predispositions must exist be- ! ! tween people before their relationships can yield full ! : i t | knowledge and vision. Albion informs Urizen of the means ! ! I I to apocalypse, namely, the freedom and love of Jesus: 'Hear my words, 0 Prince of Light. I 'Behold Jerusalem in whose bosom the Lamb of God 'Is seenj tho' slain before her Gates he self-renew'd remains 'Eternal, & I thro' him awake from death's dark I vale.' (p. 362, 11. 204-07) I The Eternal Man suggests that, if Urizen adopts the same 1 kind of marriage between Jerusalem and Jesus for himself and Ahania, he will be renewed and "'live the life of jEtemlty'" (p. 382, 1. 219). But Urizen remains in error, j iseeking vision in things instead of personhood. For him j 52Bioomia reference to Ahania as a kind of Athena, a ikind of heightened wietdom (Blake's Apocalypse, p. 241), is ' a good characterization of Urizen*s creative counterpart. | 173 the chaos at hand will give rise to nothing new: And every one of the dead appears as he had liv'd before, All the marks remain of the slave's scourge f t j tyrant's Crown, | And of the Priest's o'ergorg'd Abdomen, f t of the i merchant's thin ! Sinewy deception, f t of the warrior's outbraving | f t thoughtlessness In lineaments too extended f t In bones too strait f t long. | They shew their wounds: they accuse: they seize the opressor. . . . (p. 363# 11. 245-50) |The cycle of revenge, of oppression and rebellion, con tinues because the scars and sufferings of the enslaved |“remain" unforgotten. I Something Is sorely needed to break through this cy- 1 cle. It is agape, although Blake did not at this time ex- i Ipect love's most perfect manifestation— forgiveness— with out repentance. Despite the mildness of his entreaty, a judge, placed before the oppressed, cannot be "forgiven" because he has not repented for his tyranny. Thus, Urizen, unrepentant and unforgiving, "walking thro' the flames/ To meet the Lord coming to Judgment," is "repell'd" (p. 364, 11. 287-88). Neither Urizen nor Albion seems ready for the consummation, the final purgative harvest of mankind, pre ceding the apocalypse. But, again, with shocking sudden ness Urizen turns over another new leaf; his sons throw away the instruments of war, "the spear, the bow, the gun, the mortar," so that the world can be restored. Blake realized that the rational ego must be restored to sanity I 174 and love before man can be saved, before "the human har vest" can "begin" (p. 366, 1. 338); nevertheless, Urizen*s transformation is altogether unprepared for. He has had no change of heart; nor has he really relinquished any of his dominion. The sudden restoration of Ahania, his creative 'self, is equally unrealistic. Between the slave and his oppressor, the prisoner and his Judge, Urizen and Ahania, and the other mythic characters of The Pour Zoas. authentic personalism is still a primary issue. Thus, Albion urges Urizen to a renewed sense of intersubjectivity: '0 how couldst thou deform those beautiful proportions 'Of Life & person; for as the Person, so is I his life proportion'd.' j (p. 360, 11. 140-41) 1 But the changes within (the honest reconciliation with one's creative self and the renewal of one's imaginative 1 powers) and the new predispositions (understanding, love, and forgiveness) necessary to authentic personalism (as well as a real apocalypse) are still missing. So far, Night IX is only a rehearsal, a dry run, of the times pre ceding the apocalypse. Night IX does, however, touch on the Christian tran scendence that becomes central to Blake's later visions '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 | 175 j 'In dark Oblivion, with incessant pangs, ages I on ages 'In enmity & war first weaken'd, then in stern repentance | 'They must renew their brightness, & their disorganiz'd functions j 'Again reorganize, till they resume the image j of the human, 'Co-operating in the bliss of Man, obeying j his Will, ; 'Servants to the infinite & Eternal of the j Human form.' (p. 366, 11. 366-74) j Harold Bloom takes this passage as confirming Blake's apotheosis of man. But the passage is not merely human- jistlc. It is also profoundly Christian. First of all, "'Gods'” does not refer to the Divinity but to those forces within man (especially reason) that are objectifying, sepa rating him from his divine, infinite, and eternal nature. These gods can be thrown down by the Imagination; but the imagination, the inexpugnable agent of love and union in man,53 the agent of the creative self, is estranged by the division among men and their spectres and emanations. Thus, 53percy Bysshe Shelley, in his Defence of Poetry (Shelley's Prose, ed. by David Lee Clark £Albuquerque: U. of N. M. Pr., 1954], pp. 282-83), clearly related the imagination and love: "The great secret of morals is love, or a going out of our own nature and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine Intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination. ..." While somewhat different from Blake's understanding, Wordsworth's views of Imagination and love are t I there is in Night IX great emphasis on reorganization— jnot merely of man's faculties but also of his soul and his relationships with others and eternity. Thus, the reorgan- jization of Luvah and his emanation, Vala, is placed in the I ! context of a redeemed Beulah, where the relationship be- i I tween the transcendent and the immanent presages the re- |stored paradise of Jerusalem's apocalypse. Blake never re- j ■ jjected the Immanent for the transcendent or vice versa. In the apocalypticism of Night IX, the Eternal Man errs in jhoping to "put off his new risen body," for "His body .[[like everyone's^J was redeem'd to be permanent thro' Mercy Di- i jvine" (p. 366, 11. 355, 357). j Luvah's endeavor to redeem Beulah by reconciling with ! Vala is encouraging, but to achieve his end without Joining | iln the catharsis of a final apocalyptic harvest (without participating in the climax of experience— "they repos'd from the terrible wide universal harvest") is out of the question. Though he persists in his endeavor and though his emanation appears to thirst for "immortality," they do not reorganize. Vala confides in neither Luvah nor intimately related. Thus, he summarized the major themes of The Prelude in "Book Fourteenth," "Imagination having been our theme, So also hath that Intellectual Love, For they are each in each, and cannot stand Dividually." (The Prelude, ed. by Ernest de Selincourt ^London: Oxf. U. Pr., 1926], p. 483, U. 206-09.) 1 177 jtranscendence,^ nor does she really understand eternity. iShe cannot, at first, accept the mutable permanence of im- [ jmanence when It exists In proper relation with eternity. i To mitigate her fear of death, Luvah affirms eternal life: I"'Rise, sluggish Soul. . . . why dost thou sit & weep?/ Yon sun shall wax old & decay, but thou shalt ever flourish'" (p. 368, 11. 418-19). When she finally accepts Luvah's ! call, she lives as an "immortal spirit growing in lower Paradise," leading a pastoral existence appropriate to Beu- ■lah, passing in and out of her bodily house instead of try ing to build a permanent body of space and time as Enlon 1 did. Vala's crystal house serves as a brilliant metaphor 1 !for the continual rapprochement between Luvah and his crea- itlve self: 1 •When in the pleasant gates of sleep I I enter'd, 1 'I saw my Luvah like a spirit stand in the bright | air. j 'Round him stood spirits like me, who rear'd me j a bright house, ! 'And here I see thee, house, remain in my most j pleasant world. ! 'My Luvah smil'd: I kneeled down: he laid his hand on my head, 'And when he laid his hand upon me, from the gates of sleep I came 'Into this bodily house to tend my flocks in my pleasant garden.' (p. 369* 11• 464-70) ^Gabriel Marcel, in Being and Having: An Existen tialist Diary, trans. by Katherine Farrer XWestminster: Dacre £r., 1949). p. 14, emphasizes faith's relationship to transcendence: "... the only possible victory over time must have fidelity as one of its factors." ; 178 i Vala's relation to this crystal house can be contrasted to |the Imprisoning crystal cabinet of Beulah In fallen exis tence ("The Crystal Cabinet"). In time Beulah Is most ero- I I ;tic, like a cabinet which, though crystal and "lovely" within, contains man. The speaker's desire to relate to ! | the Inner person, the "Inmost form," of the maiden causes her crystal cabinet to burst. By parodying his other de- ! |scriptions Blake continuously contrasted desirable with i I undesirable forms of existence; "The Crystal Cabinet" gives ! ius a demonic parody of Vala and Luvah's relationship In jNight IX. Because Vala doesn't understand "how" she and others |are reinstated, she can attain no higher place than "lower |Paradise." Nor can 3he help Tharmas reconcile with his !emanation, Enion. And, because of his inability to recon cile with Enion, Tharmas himself remains erotic and uncre- ative: '0 Vala, I am sick, & all this garden of Pleasure 'Swims like a dream before my eyes; but the sweet smelling fruit 'Revives men to new deaths. I fade, even as a water lilly 'In the sun's heat, till In the night on the couch of Enion 'I drink new life & feel the breath of sleeping Enion. 'But in the morning she arises to avoid my Eyes, 'Then my loins fade & in the house I sit me down & weep.' (p. 371, 11. 538-44). As the last few paragraphs suggest, the harvest at the end of Night IX Is not really apocalyptic: "In pain i. . . [it] wav'd, in horrible groans of woe./ The Universal Groan went up; the Eternal Man was darken'd" (p. 372, |ll. 577-78). The dawn of the harvest appears doubtful as Ian apocalyptic dawn, for with it there occurs a "whirl wind "--an image of history's round. The image of Enion jrenewed as a "Golden Moth" also symbolizes an impermanent ;transformation. Moreover, her speech and the lines after lit, which, according to Bloom, welcome the apocalypse, have ! ; several negative elements: '0 Dreams of DeathI the human form dissolving companled ! 'By beasts & worms & creeping things, & darkness & despair. •The clouds fall off from my wet brow, the dust from my cold limbs 'Into the sea of Tharmas. Soon renew'd, a Golden Moth, ! 'I shall cast off my death clothes & Embrace Tharmas again. •Por Lo, the winter melted away upon the distant hills, 'And all the black mould sings.' She speaks to | her infant race; her milk | Descends down on the sand; the thirsty sand drinks & rejoices Wond'ring to behold the Emmet, the Grasshopper, the Jointed worm, j The roots shoot thick thro' the solid rocks, | bursting their way 1 They cry out in joys of existence; the broad stems Rear on the mountains stem after stem; the scaly newt creeps Prom the stone, & the armed fly springs from the rocky crevice, The spider, The bat burst from the harden'd slime, crying To one another: 'What are we, & whence is our Joy & delight? 'Lo, the little moss begins to spring & the tender weed 'Creeps round our secret nest.' (p. 373* 11. 595-611) | 180 jEnion's opening words are not at all hopeful. And, despite i her meager experience of transcendent exigence, she con- |aiders her renewal part of time's cycle. Just as the jgrasshopper, the worm, the fly, and the spider rise to "the |Joys of existence" from the eggs of their predecessors, so jshe, "a Golden Moth," is temporarily revived. She says she jshall, like a cocoon, "'cast off'" her "'death clothes & Embrace Tharmas again'" (p. 373# 1. 599). But how she will do so is not suggested. There is no mention of forgiveness jor self-annihilation— either from her or Tharmas. Her ireconcilation with Tharmas is completely unprepared for. j In the following feast, which can only be character ized as a rehearsal for the apocalypse, the men of Eternity ;are informed of their inadequacy. Looking upon woman erot- jically— "The female form now separate. . • • Not born for |the sport and amusement of man"— they satanically accuse her of "'Sin'" (p. 373, 11. 622-23). One of the Eternals responds, informing them of the error of their thinking: 'Man is a Worm; wearied with Joy, he seeks the caves of sleep 'Among the Flowers of Beulah, in his selfish cold repose 'Forsaking Brotherhood & Universal Love, in selfish clay JFolding the pure wings of his mind • . • '• • . thence we know •That man subsists by Brotherhood & Universal Love. 'We fall on one another's necks, more closely we embrace, 'Not for ourselves, but for the Eternal family we live. 181 •Man liveth not by Self alone, but In his brother's face 'Each shall behold the Eternal Pather & love & joy abound.' (p. 374, 11. 627-30, 637-42) |Nowhere in The Pour Zoas is Christian love more clearly icontrasted to self-seeking eros. Note how the decline of |perception follows the forsaking of such love and how the last two lines reveal Blake's approach to agape and tran- I scendence, wherein the Transcendent ("'the Eternal Pather'") is seen in other men. As Marcel puts it, "The Absolute Thou is also the absolutely necessary bond of my being with 'myself & with others."55 Nowhere is the apocalyptic value lof experience more convincingly stated: i '... we cast him [man] like a Seed into the Earth 'Till times & spaces have passed over him; duly ! every morn 'We visit him, covering with a Veil the immortal ! seed; ! 'With windows from the inclement sky we cover I him, & with walls 'And hearths protect the selfish terror, till divided all 'In families we see our shadows born, & thence we know 'That Man subsists by Brotherhood & universal Love.' (p. 374, 11. 632-38) Preachment, however, does not mean apocalypse. As the violence of time's harvest continues and revenge is wrung, Luvah realizes mankind's lack of auspicious readi ness. Stripped of all his masks, crushed in Luvah's 55oabriel Marcel, Homo Viator: An Introduction to a ,ns. by Emma cJraufurd (New York: winepresses, and revealed in all his spectrous nakedness, |mankind is a nous theos. a bare "desire of Being," of I self-deification (p. 376, 1. 734). And, as Luvah says, j"Attempting to be more than Man We become less" (p. 376, |1. 709). Thus, from humanity's point of view, there is illttle understanding and hope: ". • .in the Wine Presses the Human Grapes sing not nor dance,/ They howl & writhe jin shoals of torment . . ." (p. 371* Hi 748-49). Even the ["Eternal Man darken'd with sorrow" at the sight of Luvah*s ipresses (p. 377* 1. 772). The cyclic nature of history [Without transcendence, the growing conflict between |Ore-as-Napoleon and English reaction, all of this is aptly summarized by the actions of Tharmas, who has not yet t [reconciled with his emanation: "In his hand Tharmas takes [the Storms: he turns the whirlwind loose/ Upon the wheels j . . ." (P. 378, 11. 809-10). From nature's point of view, the most hopeful sign is that Luvah may be used "for dung" (p. 378* 1. 791) to grow wheat that can be kneaded into "the bread of knowl edge" (p. 379* 1. 820). Bloom thinks that Luvah, man's emotional being, "put for dung on the ground" will "ferti lize the new birth of a nature that will cease to be cy clic. "58 gut, as we have seen, Blake placed little hope 1 iin nature itself. According to E, Lamport's The Apocalypse ! i S^Bioom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 307. i 183 I i of History, the New Testament symbol of the harvest as an i |analogue to history's conclusion Is not to be considered j | In the classical way as cyclic but as the momentous, ulti mate act of all time.57 Ensconced in cyclic Imagery, the harvest of Night IX In no way resembles the apocalypse. Fortunately, Blake placed a great deal of hope In man. And iso, at the end of Night IX, in the pit of experience, man- 1 kind begins to knead the bread of knowledge and relearn the ! |principles for authentic life. But the vision that j iLos-Urthona and Tharmas have of eternity at the end of the 1 poem is all too sudden and unprepared for. Like Vala and j |Enion, they know not how they came by such a vision: i j 'How is it we have walk'd thro' fire & yet are ; not consum'd? 'How is it that things are chang'd, even as in ancient times?' (p. 379> 11. 844-43) Even Blake's humanistic critics admit that the ending of The Four Zoa3 is one of the greatest wish-fulflllments in literature.58 xn its conclusion Los is not a credible apocalyptic agent but only a deus ex machlna. For every mythic character in The Four Zoas. the Fall was a loss or perversion of love, leading to interior di vision, mutual estrangement, and finally a decline in 57e . Lampert, The Apocalypse of History: Problems of Providence and Human bestiny CLondon: Faber, p. 5®Frye, pp. 308-09; Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse. p. 310. ! 184 ] I vision. Blake's view of the Fall was not so new. As an analogue to the actions of Adam and Eve, the story of |Mordant and Amavia In Book II of Spenser's Falrle Queene i depicts man's fall as a result of eros. Milton considered I -V i \ jthe fate of the first parents In a similar way. Adam ac- |cepted the apple from Eve partly because of his erotic love |for her and his unwillingness to be without a companion. I For Blake the erotic dominion of either spectre or emana- i tion or of one self over another eliminates the possi bility of vision. Through love spectre and emanation are reconciled. Through agape the self is renewed and reunited i Iwith the other, and vision, which transcends everything, | |becomes possible. But the phenomenological basis for agape !is missing in The Four Zoas. Repentance is inadequate, be cause, as Los and Urizen have shown, it is rarely genuine. Since repentance is so ineffectual, revenge becomes the ultimate recourse in human relationships. Unfortunately, the only appropriate response to repentance, namely for giveness, which is the highest form of agape, is ignored in the poem. But the rationale for forgiveness, the doc trine of states and individuals, is introduced. That doc trine is developed in Milton, where psychological and phenomenological bases are further established in prepa ration for the apocalypse of Jerusalem. j CHAPTER IV i | MILTON: A DOCTRINAL INTERLUDE I 1 I .. . a work of art Is the work of a lover. It is a lover's worship.— Eric Gill j In The Four Zoas Blake seemed to have totally de- ! ‘ ispaired of not only the possibilities of revolution but ! also of his artistic endeavor. On a flyleaf of the Zoas, there were scribbled some lines in which Los breaks his |lyre out of sheer dejection. But Blake did not abandon |his belief in apocalypse. In fact, he reaffirmed it more vigorously than ever; at the same time what he reaffirmed i ; |was far more transcendent and Christian than ever. Mar- ! garet Rudd suggests that he postulated a higher realm in his apocalypticism only "to prove his vision intellectu ally to those who by their neglect made him doubt its va lidity. 1 , 1 His emphasis on transcendence through agape was not simply a contrived rationale for supporting his vision, however. As we have seen, the issue of transcendence (its exigence and partial actualization) was in the back of his mind from the beginning of his career. Never abandoning or limiting the value of experience, he came to see some ■^-Rudd, Organiz'd Innocence, p. 30. 185 ~ ................i86 : of Its potential dlsoonfirmed in the French Revolution. j ; j Thus, Blake's more transcendent orientation after Vala was a way out of his dilemma. j ; i In terms of social psychology, It was the most logi- ; cal reaction to the historical situation he was confronted ! with. As Leon Festlnger says in his study, When Prophecy j Falls. . . . man's resourcefulness goes beyond simply pro- ; tectlng a belief. Suppose an Individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that j he has a commitment to his belief, that he Is pre- j sented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable j evidence, that his belief is wrong. What will hap pen? The Individual will frequently emerge, not i only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth j of his beliefs than ever before.* i | The conditions of Blake's increased fervor closely match j ! those of Festlnger's study. While the poet was doubtful j ( ' i from the beginning of his career about an Immanent millen nium, he did hold tenaciously to a hope in an apocalypse of i isome kind. His conviction was not only persevering but j also active; that is, it Influenced his course of action. j Blake was among England's radicals opposed to William |Pitt's reaction to the French Revolution. Also, in terms of active commitment, his prophecies comprise a monumental I effort to enlighten England as to the apocalyptic nature | I o | cLeon Festlnger, Henry W. Rlecken, and Stanley Schach- |ter, When Prophecy Falls; A Social and Psychological Study of a Modem Group that Predicted the destruction of the World dfew York: Haro. R. ■ p. 5. ! 187 i |of existence. According to Festlnger's study, a belief i must be sufficiently specific and sufficiently concerned with the real world so that events may unequivocally refute i the belief.3 Blake's original millennialism was, as The j i French Revolution and America show, closely connected with |the revolutionary situation of his time. In the revolu tions of both America and Prance, the poet was hopeful of [man's liberation. Such hope was undeniably disconfirmed | [after the Peace of Amiens blew up and Napoleon rose to im- i jperial power. The crucial condition, according to Festin- [ger, upon which one will maintain his belief with full jvigor, the one condition which because of its absence shows !the incredible strength of Blake's conviction, is social support. Unlike most millenarists the poet had no social i [support, no sizable following, no group heeding his ideas Jand admonitions. The belief Blake tenaciously held changed, of course, to adjust to the dissonance between his early immanent mil lennialism and the realities of the French Revolution and Napoleon. According to Festlnger, a mlllenarist's reaction to dissonance may be in one of three ways. He may try to change one or more of his beliefs. He may acquire new in formation that will reduce the existing dissonance. Or, finally, he may forget or view as less important those ! 3ibid. 188 cognitions that are dissonant with his belief: If any of the above attempts are to be successful, they must meet with support from either the physi cal or the social environment. In the absence of | such support, the most determined efforts to re- j duce dissonance may be unsuccessful.4 Blake's reaction was a gradual change In his belief. His I [ jconvictions involved no group or following but became interpersonal in content. As he wrote in "William Bond" |(1803), Seek Love in the Pity of others' Woe, In the gentle relief of another's care, In the darkness of night & the winter's snow, In the naked & outcast, Seek Love there! (p. 436, 11. 49-52) The poet's faith changed from a hope in eros to a hope in agape. And, since his new belief was difficult to verify or support in a physical context, it became transcendent in orientation. To be sure, Blake's primary concern midway in his career was the interior or spiritual development of man rather than the perfection of his external situation. In his Annotations to Bacon's Essays (1798)> he wrote the fol lowing in response to Bacon's assertion of the value of in creasing one's estate: "The Increase of a State as of a Man is from Internal Improvement. . . . Man is not Improved by the hurt of another" (p. 402). Thus, the ascent of the poor and ascent of the rich, the tyranny of the populace 4Ibid., pp. 25-26. i ’ " ’.~.’ ...189"! and despotism of a monarch, are equally bad; and, as "The ■ Mental Traveller" shows, neither rebel nor oppressor will I i ■ i allow the other to endure In the context of society. j Some critics feel Blake avoided the political and ; historical morass of his times by a millennialism of art, | i by internal improvement through artistic creativity. For j example, In his analysis of Milton, Asloob Ansari says: | ; I ". . . in the process of being identified with Los . . . , : i Blake realized that the material universe . . . could be j | redeemed and turned into a means of the attainment of splr- ! ' I itual progress only when he himself was thoroughly perme- j K . ^ lated by the spirit of poetry."5 According to Harold Bloom,! ; ! Milton descends back into time in the poem in order to be- j i come more than a prophet, namely, a visionary artist. j John Beer expresses a similar opinion.7 And, indeed, it I appears that Blake did place great value in Qolgonooza, his 1 I symbolic city of art: i | From Golgonooza the spiritual Four-fold London eternal, In immense labours & sorrows, ever building, ever falling, Thro' Albion's four Forests which overspread all the Earth From London Stone to Blackheath east. . . • (p. 485, pi. 6, 11. 1-4) | Asloob A. Ansari, Arrows of Intellect (Aligarh, jIndia: B. M. Electric Pr., 19&5), P. 193. I ^Bloom, "Commentary," p. 823. 1 TBeer, p. 143; see above, p. 28, n. 66. 190 For Blake, to reach eternity one must possess the artistry of Qolgonooza: "... travellers to Eternity pass inward to Golgonooza" (p. 498, pi. 17# 1. 30). Such artistry con sists in the balance of all human faculties and in the creativity of whatever one does. But the esthetic millennium suggested in Milton is essentially immanent. Los-in-time is concerned with the actions of "Day & Night/ In Allamanda & Entuthon Benython where Souls wail,/ Where Ore incessant howls ..." (p. 517, pi. 29# 11. 27-29). Los's relationship with Ore and his concern with the "guts of the living" (Allamanda) seem to reduce his artistic endeavor to the round of nature. As the poet says, Qolgonooza is "ever building, ever falling," and in Jerusalem it is "continually building & continually decaying desolate" (p. 684, pi. 53# 1. 19). Blake's city of art, his estheticism, has other limitations which crit ics like Frye, making a religion out of his art, ignore. For those in corporeal conflict— all the nations of the world--the creativity of art offers little hope: 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, Nymph3, Gnomes & Genii of the Four Elements, Unforgiving & unalterable, these cannot be Regenerated But must be Created, for they know only Generation: 191 ] 1 t These are the (tods of the Kingdoms of the Earth, 1 In contrarlous And oruel 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 Qolgonooza. (pp. 519-20, pi. 31# 11. 17-26) ! i The tragedy of all living creatures is not a loss of per- ! i j ception but their corporeal strife— the jealous, revenge- j ful struggle among them. Their battles, moreover, take ! place in none other than "Los's Halls." Those engaged in | : I the struggle "cannot be Regenerated" as art rejuvenates | life but must be created continually anew in spirit and j i body— created by the antithesis of unforgiving and cruel j | opposition, by love and mercy. For Blake imaginative ere- j i i ativity does not refer to art and poetry only. It plumbs j the essence of truth and love. As Kathleen Raine says, I : I Under the term 'art* Blake plainly includes imagi native actions as well as poems, paintings, build ings, and other embodiments of imaginative ideas. . . . Life Itself, seen thus, can be called art (poiesls) insofar as it is imaginatively informed. Tnis Yeats also understood when he wrote that it is all one, 'Those hard symbolic bones under the skin,' whether we write a poem or 'live a thought.'® | As we have seen in Chapter III, the creative imagination !for Blake, as for Shelley, is man's chief agent of affec- i i tlve union. Its unitlve power Blake linked to the Divine ! Humanity, "the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus" (p. 482, 8Raine, II, 207-08. I 192 pi. 3, 1. 4), who Is the lord of agapic love, the One Man j jwho completely annihilated himself for all men. When asked i about his song in Milton, the Bard responds making the con nection between truth, creativity, and Jesus quite clear; ! 'I am Inspired! I know it is Truth! for I Sing i 'According to the inspiration of the Poetic Genius j 'Who is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity, i 'To whom be Glory & Power & Dominion Evermore. Amen.' | (p. 495, pi. 13, 1. 51-pl. 14, 1. 3) |The depth of Blake's concept of creativeness can be illu- jminated by the words of Marcel, for whom "... all crea- I jtlon, visible or not . . . discovers the 3ame presence, i . . . the same summons of Being to the 30ul which it in vests. "9 For the poet, as for Marcel, creative living is the birth of the Transcendent in a spiritual subject and the birth of the subject in transcendence; it is the re newal of being. Finally, Blake's relating love, Christ, and imaginative creativity has historical and cultural meaning. The poet realized that art cannot flourish in a warlike society. Peace is a precondition to creative en counter and creative exchange; and there can be no peace until men are willing to forget their spectrous righteous ness and forgive one another. Consequently, forgiveness and creativity are complementary conditions. ^Gabriel Marcel, Presence et Immortality, quoted in Kenneth J. Gallagher's j j h i e Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel (New York: Fordham U. fr., i9b£), p. $2. 193 Milton (1804-08) came at a time when Blake was not I "i i M 1 1 in"" only rethinking his old mlllennlallsm hut also formulating the course of a new one. I am confident that a critic like |David Erdman, who says very little about Milton, would I agree that It Is a much less political work than the ear lier prophecies. It Is much less concerned with history's j round of violence and much more concerned with psychic and i jinterpersonal relationships. As the speaker of "The Grey i |Monk,1 1 a poem written about a year prior to the beginning |of Milton's construction, suggests, history's conflicts jand struggles will alone never transcend history: •Thy Brother has arm'd himself In Steel •To avenge the wrongs thy Children feel. | 'But vain the Sword & vain the Bow, 'They never can work War's overthrow. •The Hermit's Prayer & the Widow's tear •Alone can free the World from fear. (pp. 430-31, 11. 23-28) Blake's second great epic is a doctrinal interlude10 in the dramatic growth of his apocalyptic mind. It exposes the divisiveness of envyj it explores the relationships be tween love, Christ, and the imagination, between spectre and emanation (Milton and Ololon) and between states and individuals. It also queries the nature and value of 10As Morton D. Paley says in Energy and the Imagina tion: A Study of the Development of flake's Thought (Oxford: Clarendon frr.t p. 238: "Milton, being 'a vision,' does not attempt to sustain a plot as Vala had attempted to do. Its structure Is more thematic ■than narrative." I 194 j Beulah, self-annihilation, and the Christian vision of love jas forgiveness and mercy. My analysis of it will be to | trace these themes throughout the poem's tenuous plot. j i At the beginning of the Bard's song, it is said that j : 1 ; t "Albion was slain upon his Mountains . . . thro' envy of • Living Form . . . And of the sports of Wisdom in the Human ; Imagination" (p. 482, pi. 3> 11. 1-3).11 "Mary" of the | Pickering Manuscript, written Just before the construction j Milton, also exposes the destructiveness of envy. Mary iis a Jerusalem figure stifled by jealousy. Like Jerusalem, i i a creative, liberating emanation, she is proud of her I I beauty and desirous of freedom. For this, the envious, who j i 1 jreduce all to quantity and quality, call her "a whore." j ' • ! Unfortunately, she takes the worst course of action; | ! ' ! | thinking her beauty the cause of envy, she attempts to jhide it. In Blake's epic the perversion of the imagination land its affective powers is to be remedied by Milton's j descent back into time. Reincarnate in the imaginative genius of Blake, Milton must mend the divisiveness and 11The perversion of the imagination in the Fall of man is further symbolized by Los's terrifying creation of the human body, divided into male and female (pp. 482-83, pi. 3* 11. 1-36), and by his arbitrary categorization of humanity into three classes: Elect, Reprobate, and Re deemed. While this classification provides useful refer ents for the Satan-Palamabron and states-individuals con flict treated later in the poem, from Los's viewpoint such a pigeonholing of mankind is devoid of the love necessary to make creation "a revelation of inexhaustibility." L_. I 195 Jdestruction to vision caused by the rational ego of the eighteenth century. Imagination, then, is the epistemological ground for i ! that remedy; it is the human faculty most significant in j the apocalyptic relationship between man and the Transcend- i jent. The importance of the imagination in that relation- jship is revealed in Milton's prose Introduction. Having j scorned the “Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, | |of Plato & Cicero," Blake wrote: "We do not want either i 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" (p. 480, pi. 1). The link between man's Imaginative power and Christ, the God-man, is again suggested in the invocation where Blake asked the Muses to Come into my hand, By your mild power descending down the Nerves of my right arm From out the Portals of my brain where by your ministry The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise. . . . (p. 48l, pi. 2, 11. 5-8) The paradise of the mind that Blake saw possible for man is similar to the "Paradise within" that Milton emphasized in his great epic. At the beginning of Book Eleven of Para dise Lost, Adam and Eve pray after the Fall. Their prayers go straight to heaven where the Son of God wraps them In Incense and takes them to his Father. The Son intercedes ! 196 } on behalf of the first parents, declaring that these 1 i prayers are the first fruits of his grace implanted in man,j : i far sweeter than all the fruits in Paradise which man j tended before he fell. The "Paradise within" is a free, j < I loving gift of the God-man. That gift, a kenotic outpour ing of himself into the world allowing man to participate ;in his being, eventually involved his self-annihilation. Thus, in Book Eleven Christ asks his Father to let men live i in society until, through his sacrifice, they enter eter- inity. Jesus' loving gift of himself requests love in re sponse, and so the Archangel Michael counsels Adam in Book jTwelve: j '. . . only add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith, And Virtue, Patience, Temperance, add Love, By name to come called Charity, the soul Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loth j To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess A Paradise within thee, happier far.'12 i Blake was undoubtedly influenced by Books XI and XII of Paradise Lost. But while Milton's inner paradise was a i matter of grace and virtue, Blake's was a matter of inspi ration, imaginative understanding, and love. i I j Hindering man from a full participation in that inner ! paradise— a paradise dependent upon man's interior being as well as his relationships with others and the Transcend- | ^John Milton, Paradise Lost, in John Milton: Com plete Poems and Major Prose. eri. by Merritt Y, Hughes (New York: Odyssey Pr., 1957), Bk. XII, p. 467,11. 581-87. 1 i 197 jent— -is the "False Tongue," whose dangers the poet dis- jclosed In his invocation to the Muses: I ! I j ) Tell also of the False TongueI vegetated Beneath your land of shadows, of its saorlfloes and | Its offerings: even till Jesus, the Image of the ] Invisible God, Beoame Its prey, a curse, an offering ... For Death Eternal, . . . (p. 4-81, pi. 2, 11. 10-14) j ; | I The false tongue Is symbolic of the Interpersonal cruel- j ities of pity, backbiting, and libel, cruelties which Jesus J j |and every man bear. (About this time— 180^--Blake himself | jwas slandered as a traitor by a soldier named Sohofield, j i jbrought to trial, and aoquitted.) The false tongue can | i ! jalso refer to error, which Blake considered distinct from i i | ; sin beoause of Its sheer willfulness and stupidity. The i poet's oonoept of error, especially as it relates to the doctrine of states and individuals, will be discussed I shortly. Finally, the false tongue is symbolic of the faculty of touch (sexuality), which has been perverted into the "delusions" of Beulah by man*s fall. Blake*s invocation asks that the Muses, Beulah*s daughters, "Record the journey of immortal Milton thro'" their "Realms/ Of terror & mild moony lustre." Beulah*s realms consist "in soft sexual delusions/ Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose/ His burning thirst & freezing hunger!" (p. 481, pi. 2, 11. 3-5). It may seem ironio that Blake linked Beulah's daughters with 1 198 j | | ! the Muses, asking them to describe how Milton coped with |their illusory delights. But the poet never denied the ! i value of experience. On the contrary, it was a springboardj ; I for inspiration, for understanding. Words like "terror," ! . | ;"moony" (mad?), "lustre" (a pun for "lust or"), "delu- 1 sions," and "varied" clearly suggest the dangers of i i i iBeulah-in-time, of eros which stultifies and thereby mag- ! i : nifies man's burning thirst for the infinite. j In the section on eternity and Beulah at the begin- j ning of the poem's second book, the estranged emanations ofj I j time shy away from eternity's creative contraries in favor j j • ! i I of the transient but restful eros of a redeemed Beulah: j But the Emanations trembled exceedingly, nor could they Live, because the [eternal] life of Man was too j exceedingly unbounded. His joy became terrible to them; they trembled & wept, Crying with one voice: 'Give us a habitation & a place 'In which we may be hidden under the shadow of i wings: | 'For if we, who are but for a time & who pass | away in winter, 'Behold these wonders of Eternity we shall ! consume. . . .' ! (p. 519, pi. 30, 11. 21-27) i [The emanations here are like Vala in Night IX of The Four i Zoas; they do not understand the mutable permanence of time in its proper relation to eternity. They seem willing to try to understand (". . .do you [of eternity] speak/ To jus; we will obey your words as you obey Jesus . . ."; 199 ! I : i p. 519/ pi. 30, 11. 29-30), but their main concern Is to ■ i assert themselves and never pass Into eternal union with i itheir spectres--a "union" allowing for an opposition ; j (contraries) forever creative. In the apocalypse the ema- ! i I nations will not be destroyed but, in fact, apotheosized: j : | ". . . they saw the Lord coming/ In the Clouds of Ololon ! : I ;with Power & Great Glory" (p. 519, pi. 31, 11. 15-16). | The heavens of fallen Beulah are not without value either. J Instead of resigning oneself to the struggles between spec-j ! t tre and emanation, one should experience Beulah-in-time as j i ; | a foreshadowing of the redeemed Beulah which offers rest ! ; i land strength for the great mental wars of eternity. As : Milton laments over his life of psychic and social I struggle, i I •I have turned my back upon these Heavens builded | on cruelty, 'My Spectre still wandering thro' them follows my Emanation, 'He hunts her footsteps thro' the snow & the wintry hail & rain. 'The idiot Reasoner laughs at the man of Imagination, 'And from laughter proceeds to murder by undervaluing calumny.' | (p. 521, pi. 32, 11. 3-7) | Of all the Issues raised in Milton, the one most cen tral to the poem, the one upon which most of the other issues or themes hinge, is that of spectre versus emana- I jtion. The very question of Milton's own fall and redemp- i jtion is related to it. As Blake queried in the invocation, 200 | Say first! What moved Milton, . .. Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter'd thro' the deep i In torment— To go into the deep her to redeem & ! himself perish? | (p. 481, pi. 2, 11. 16, 19-20) 1 Because of the importance of spectre and emanation, the Bard's song, which comprises much of Book I, attempts to j ; i reveal the regenerative potential of man's psychic states | I and his interpersonal relationships. The Bard is not Just j ; ! trying to keep us awake by repeating at least six times: "Mark well my words! they are for your eternal salvation" (p. 482, pi. 2, 1. 25). The first episode that the Bard's song relates is : Los's, imaginative man's, subjection of the fallen world (represented by Urizen) to a body and a "red/ Round Globe" ! (p. 483, pi. 3, 11. 29-30). Los's actions parody those of Christ after the Pall in Paradise Lost. Before the Pall in Milton's epic, there was the nether abyss and i I the eternal world of God and his angels. After the Pall i |God the Son, out of sympathy for man, created the world, t l |where man could work out his salvation. Unfortunately, ! because of man's own actions, it is a world of divisive- i |ness, "separated into a Female pale" and "a Male Form 1 I howling in Jealousy" (p. 483, pi* 3, 11* 33, 36). Having j subdued the spectre (instead of having reconciled with it), Los's own emanations eventually become diabolic. The I jtimes are apocalyptic, for the antichrist is universal 201 ithough he will eventually succumb before the hands of crea tive man: Subduing his Spectre, they Builded the Looms of Generationj They builded Great Golgonooza Times on Times, Age3 on Ages. First Ore was Born, then the Shadowy Female: then All Los's Family. At last Enitharmon brought forth Satan, Refusing Form in vain, The Miller of Eternity made subservient to the Great Harvest That he may go to his own Place, Prince of the | Starry Wheels Beneath the Plow of Rintrah & the Harrow of the Almighty In the hands of Palamabron. . . . | (p. 483, pi. 3, 1. 38-pi. 4, 1. 2) ! Through Los's wrathful treatment of Urizen, Blake got in a good slam at eighteenth-century rational mlllennialism: | '0 Satan, my youngest born [of the line of Urizen I and L03], . . . *• •• *• • •• * • • • • • * • • • • • • • • • 'Art thou not Newton's Pantocrator, weaving the Woof of Locke? •Thy Work is Eternal Death with Mills & Ovens & Cauldrons. •Trouble me no more; thou canst not have Eternal Life.' (p. 483, pi. 4, 11. 9, 11, 17-18) By contrast to Urizen*s physical mlllennialism, Blake's new Jerusalem will be a "building of human souls" (p. 485, pi. 6, 1. 19). Juxtaposed to his parody of the creation by Los is a j jmore personal 3tory of the divisiveness among men. Satan i |is the spectre which afflicts all men. He represses true ! 202 understanding and the creative self; as Los admonishes him,; 'If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent & 'Not shew it, I do not account that Wisdom, but ' Polly. ! 'Every Man's Wisdom is peculiar to his own Individuality.' (p. 483, pi. 4, 11. 6-8) ! I Because of the universality of the spectre, Blake com- { |pared his conflict with a patron, William Hayley, to the ; ■ j ! psychic (and eventually creative) struggle between Rintrah-Palamabron and Satan.*3 Rlntrah and Palamabron i I represent two very important facets of Blake's character: | Rintrah his honest indignation and tendency to scorn false-I ! | hood and oppression, Palamabron his artistic self tryingto j get along in society with all its demands and pressures. i [Before we go into the conflict, we will need a little more i biographical background, for which I am largely indebted ! *1 J| [to Harold Bloom. ^ At the age of forty-three, Blake moved to Felpham under the auspices of a seemingly genial patron, William Hayley. The poet had great hopes in Hayley's sup port and in the surroundings of Pelpham. Soon after arriv ing there (September 23# 1800), he wrote confidently to his friend, Thomas Butts: Work will go on here with God speed.— A roller & two harrows lie before my window. I met a plow on my first going out at my gate the first morning after my arrival, & the Plowboy said to the Plow- | man, 'Father, the Gate is Open.' (p. 803) i j 13The references to Satan before and after this story jare, of course, not to Hayley. j l i J Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 346-49. The plow and harrow mentioned to Butts became symbols for i : the outrage and creativity of Rintrah and Palamabron, whose j ' I story in Milton reflects the failure of Blake's trip to Felpham. Hayley must not have appreciated The Four Zoas | — ~i"rrt UTL.n or any of the poet's prophetic insights. Feeling pres- j sured to change his artistic endeavors to make them more | acceptable publicly, Blake must have sensed his yielding to | I ! jHayley's wishes (p. 486, pi. 7, 1. 8). As Palamabron says of the domineering spectre: . .he hath assum'd my jplace/ For one whole day under pretence of pity and love j | to me'" (p. 487, pi. 7, 11. 27-28). A few lines later iBlake admitted more direotly that he "had serv'd/ The Mills j i jof Satan as the easier task" (p. 488, pi. 8, 11. 4-5). j |Under the pretense of brotherly concern, Hayley tried j ■ i Igently to frustrate Blake's creative self (his destiny as j | ! |a prophetic poet): j 'You know Satan's mildness and his self-imposition, 'Seeming a brother, being a tyrant, even thinking himself a brother ! 'While he is murdering the just. . . .' | (p. 487, pi. 7, 11. 23-25) Instead of being honest with Hayley, Blake was for a time rather timid, hiding his true feelings: . . . alas, blamable, Palamabron fear'd to be angry lest Satan should I accuse him of | Ingratitude & Los believe the accusation thro' ; Satan's extreme | Mildness. (p. 486, pi. 7, 11. 13-15) ! 204 I Palamabron himself exclaims in anguish: "'Would I had told Los all my heart!'" (p. 487, pi. 7, 1. 31). Blake's ■ i pity divided his soul and unmanned him. Finally, he raged against himself for "'foolish forbearance'" (p. 487, pi. 7, 1. 30). Rintrah (wrath) assumed greater propor- i itlons in his character, and the conflict developed into a • : > i battle, paralleling the war between the good angels— j Palamabron's Gnomes— and the bad angels— Satan's support- | i ! ers— in Paradise Lost. When sides are taken in the I | struggle, the erotic, domineering nature of Satan is j i i jrevealed by the kind that assist him, namely, Bromion j and Theotormon. Palamabron-Blake finally realized that j "'Corporeal friends [like Hayley] are spiritual enemies.'" j iThus, he prayed with consummate bitterness: "'0 god, pro- j jtect me from my friends, that they have not power over !me"f (p. 489, pi. 9, 1. 5). I I i Blake exaggerated the conflict with his patron (the ! letters to Hayley after his stay in Felpham actually show a cordial relationship between them.), in order to make three points clear. First, a spectrous personality (like Hayley's and, to some extent, Blake's; there is some of Hayley's public concern in Palamabron.) can become con firmed in error and satanlc. Secondly, a loss of vision {naturally follows the lack of authentic relationships: j "Thus Satan rag'd amidst the Assembly, and his bosom grew/ jOpake against the Divine Vision ..." (p. 490, pi. 9, 11. 30-31). Thirdly, when one or another’s spectre domi nates a relationship, that relationship can only be re solved by self-annihilation whioh sets in order either one’s speotrous self or one’s righteous indignation over another’s speotrous impositions. The episode betueen Satan-Hayley and Palamabron-Blake also indicates a softening of the poet's prophetic mask. When Satan tries to assume his station and harrow, Pala mabron eventually reaots with firmness and honesty, but he does not suggest revenge. As he says, . . we must not be tyrants also”' (p. ^87, pi. 7. 1. 27). Blake’s grow- j |ing Christian mildness is suggested in an obverse way by Rintrah's entrance into the oonfliot. Bloom character izes Rintrah's interference as a "cleansing emotion. ;But Rintrah's wrath is not purgative. He is one "of those !form’d to destruction," flaming "above all the plow'd fur- |rows [of Satan's work] , angry, red & furious." Rintrah’s | jrage is not only destructive but also contagious, so that ! jit "flam'd high & furious" in Satan against Palamabron. It may seem that Blake accepted Rlntrah-llke wrath, for Sa tan's newfound ire appears to plaoe him among the "Repro- l jbate." But Satan soon reverts to his insidious pity. The |issue of wrath's marginal value oontinues later in Milton Jwhere Los warns against "fury premature" like the religious 1 | ^ B lo o m , B la k e 's A n o o a ly p s e . p. 352. I 206 j violence of the Protestant reformers. Los-Blake's admoni- i tion clearly Involves an element of self-criticism. I i Blake's references to the three classes of men ere- 1 I ated by Los (the Elect, the Redeemed, and the Reprobate) j |give additional meaning to the Satan-Palamabron oonfllct. The three classes of men, while appearing somewhat arbl- i 1 itrary and categorical, are valuable as referents for check- i ing one's growth, as valuable certainly as the material i world which was also formed so that men can pass through |It and be saved. As in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1 Blake Inverted conventional categories here. The Elect are j jreferred to sardonically as those who “cannot be Redeem'd, ! jbut [are] Created continually/ By Offering & Atonement in the crue[l]ties of Moral Law" (p. 484, pi. 5, 11. 11-12).^ Satan-Hayley is of the Elect, self-righteous in his advice to Blake and in his view of society's moral shortcomings. The Elect are worse than the sinful, whom Christ redeemed by his self-annihilation "on the cross" (p. 484, pi. 5, 1. 3), for they are convinced of their predestinative righteousness. They are confirmed in error (which is far worse than sin, according to Blake) and, like Satan, "canst not have Eternal life" (p. 483, pi. 4, 1. 18). The con flict between Satan-Hayley and Palamabron-Blake is a micro cosm of the division among all men. It is prophetic of the l6See Milton, p. 519, pi. 31, 11. 17-22. 207 doom Inevitable for the Elect should men's relationships not change. As Palamabron says of Satan, "... prophetic I behold/ His future course thro1 darkness and despair to eternal death” (p. 487, pi. 7, 11. 25-26). In spite of such a warning, Satan remained firm in his error, even to the point of thinking Palamabron the corrupt one. This must have disturbed Blake considerably since he repeats Satan's stand at least three times: . . . Satan's self believ'd That he had not oppress'd the horses of the Harrow nor the servants. Mean while wept Satan before Los accusing Palamabron, Himself exculpating with mildest speech, for himself believ'd That he had not oppress'd nor injur'd the refractory servants. But Satan returning to his Mills . . . . . .found all confusion, And back return'd to Los, not fill'd with vengeance but with tears, Himself convinc'd of Palamabron's turpitude. 7, li. 41-42: pp. 487-88, pi. 8, 11. 1-7) After Palamabron presents their oases to Los, judg ment falls on Rintrah's anger, which Satan falsely assumed for himself. Thus, Blake wrote with consummate irony, ". . .it became a proverb in Eden: Satan is among the Reprobate" (p. 489, pi. 9$ 1. 12). Satan doesn't merely ignore Palamabron's ways but, instead, openly and raoral- lstically accuses him of malice: 208 For Satan, flaming with Rintrah's fury hidden beneath his own mildness. Accus'd Palamabron before the Assembly of Ingratitude, of malice. He created Seven deadly Sins, drawing out his ! Infernal scroll Of Moral laws and cruel punishments upon the clouds of Jehovah, To pervert the Divine voice In Its entrance to the earth With thunder of war & trumpet's sound, with armies of disease, 1 Punishments & deaths muster'd & number'd, Saying: 'I am God alone: 'There Is no otherJ let all obey my principles j of moral Individuality.1 | (p. 489-90, pi. 9, 11. 19-26) I The Individuality of the Satanic Elect is really moral con-j I ■ I formity, righteous and self-deifying: ; i i ... Satan, making to himself Laws from his | own identity, j Compell'd others to serve him in moral gratitude j & submission, | Being call'd God, setting himself above all that j Is called God. . .. j (p. 491, pi. 11, 11. 10-12) j In contrast to the Elect (’ ’ the Reasoning Negative") there i |are the Redeemed and the Reprobate, the "two contraries," i Female and Male, separated and without vision except for i |the momentary delights of Beulah. I | The division between Palamabron and Satan bodes japocalypse: i The Separation was terrible: the Dead was repos'd on his Couch i Beneath the Couch of Albion, on the Seven Mou [n] tains of Rome, j In the whole place of the Covering Cherub, Rome. Babylon & Tyre. (p. 490, pi. 9> 11. 49-51) 209 ! * Enitharmon, Urthona-Los's emanation, is frightened by I the Spectre*s (Satan's) aotions and therefore tries to j ireoonoile him with his opposition (Miohael— the arohangel):! She form'd a Spaoe for Satan & Miohael & for the j poor infeoted. j Trembling she wept over the Spaoe & clos'd it with a tender Moon. (p. ^89, pi. 8, 11. 43-44) Enitharmon's intentions are good, but her methods will i ionly serve to lull and delude the relationships here. IThe spaoe that she creates is a land materialistic, tyran- j jnloal, and visionless— a Canaan. It is a production of the I | * I jtrembling, alienated anima: J . . . it shrinks the Organs j Of Life till they beoome Finite & Itself seems Infinite. And Satan vibrated in the immensity of the Spaoe, Limited j To those without, but Infinite to those within: i it fell down and ! Became Canaan, closing Los from Eternity in j Albion's Cliffs. j A mighty Fiend against the Divine Humanity, must'ring to War. (pp. 490-91, pi. 10, 11. 6-11) 1 jAs expected, Blake exaggerated his conflict with Hayley and ;his own emanation into the universal human conflict breed- j ing the wars of history. Like Enitharmon, Elynlttria and Ooalythron (the emanations of Rintrah and Palamabron re spectively) contribute to feminine weakness instead of cre ative honesty. Thus, Los cries out against man's lack of j jclear-sightednessj yet, for all his outrage, he partloi- ! I pates in self-deception by hiding Enitharmon "from the 210 I sight of all these things," In the "lulling" repose of I fallen Beulah (p. 491, pi. 11* 1. 2). j The case of Satan-Hayley and Palamabron-Blake was |held before an assembly of eternals; and, as expected, the i poet played with the terms of the verdict. Judgment fell |on Rintrah-Blake’s indignation for not asserting itself in jbehalf of truth. Palamabron had, in fact, lost his own |case when he "called down a Great Solemn Assembly,/ That he I t |who will not defend Truth, may be compelled to/ Defend a j !Lie . . ." (p. 489, pi. 8, 11. 46-48). Thus, the innocent | (Palamabron-Blake) is also guilty. He is guilty for an other reason besides timidity: { '. . . If the Guilty should be condemn'd he must ; be an Eternal Death, I 'And one must die for another throughout all Eternity. 'Satan is fall'n from his station & never can be redeem'd, I 'But must be new Created continually moment by j moment.' | (p. 491-92, pi. 11, 11. 17-20) i Here we have the first formulation of Blake's doctrine of self-annihilation, which Palamabron is not ready to accept. Satan's insistent righteousness leads to error. He can never be redeemed; but he can exist in creative opposition with others if they recognize his sincerity and lovingly annihilate themselves for his sake. i | The need for self-annihilation is implied in a con fession by Leutha, Satan's emanation, who sees herself as responsible for his possessive admiration of Palamabron: •... I am the Author of this SinI by my | suggestion I 'My Parent power Satan ha3 committed this transgression. •I loved Palamabron & I sought to approach his Tent '. . . hence rose his soft 'Delusory love to Palamabron, admiration join'd with envy. 'Cupidity unconquerable 1' (P. 492, pi. 11, 11. 35-37, pl. 12, 11. 6-8) Blake was quite clear about the evil nature of Leutha, for j jhis description of her resembles the horrible she-dragon, Scylla (sin), who sprang from Satan's brain in Paradise Lost. Like Lucifer and Scylla, Satan and Leutha comprise | |nA Hell of their own making." As the embodiment of Satan's perverse admiration, Leutha is driven from his brain when ;he becomes certain of Palamabron's creative intent. Satan jmoves from sin, which is deceptive, to error, which is con firmed falsehood. As Leutha says, i | 'I humbly bow in all ray Sin before the Throne i Divine« 'Not so the Sick-one. Alas, what shall be done him to restore 'Who calls the Individual Law Holy and despises the Saviour. . . .' (p. 493, Pl. 13, 11. 3-5) Without Palamabron's loving self-annihilation, Satan can never be re-created. As Leutha says, the problem began in eternity and will not be resolved "'Till two Eternities meet together'" in transcendent love. It is certain that the Elect will come to realize at the end of time that it ; 212 j is by “Divine Mercy alone" that they live. It is also cer tain that Satan and Palamabron cannot be reconciled by feminine repose, by a weak acceptance of the perverse love of Satan's emanation. At this point the Bard's song ceases for a moment. Many, having heard it, condemn it, saying: “'. . . Pity | jand Love are too venerable for the imputation/ Of Quilt'" i I(p. 495» pl. 13> 11. 48-49). But Palamabron-Blake is not able to annihilate himself and forgive Satan. And like Blake, who understood the dangers of succumbing to one's |emanation, the historical Milton was unable to see Adam's i relationship with Eve as anything more than uxorious i I weakness. Finally realizing, however, the righteousness of the Elect (of Puritanism which advanced state religion, hating inspiration and the body), Blake's fictional Milton takes “off the robe of promise1 1 and reenters time to annihilate his speotrous selfhood: 'I go to Eternal Death Cironically, life in the world]! The Nations still 'Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam, in pomp 'Of warlike selfhood . . . '. . . 0 when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come? 'Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death. 'I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave: 'I will go down to the sepulchre to see if morning breaks: 'I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death, 213 'Lest the Last Judgment eome & find me unannlhllate 'And I be seiz'd & glv'n Into the hands of my own Selfhood.' (p. 495, pl. 14, 11. 14-16, 18-24) The Christianity In these lines Is profound. Milton's self-annihilation— his stripping away the ego-self— is Icompared to the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. i Such is the path all men must follow. But the poet cannot |subdue his selfhood unless he reconciles with his creative i self, "the daughters of inspiration," represented by his jthree wives and three daughters, symbolized in a composite form by Ololon: i 'What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation? 'With the daughters of memory & not with the daughters of inspiration? 'I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One! ! 'He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells, 'To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.' (pp. 495-96, pl. 14, 11. 28-32) jMilton's reference to memory as being distinct from inspl- i ration has moral and esthetic implications. It foreshadows i Blake's growing dislike for memory devoid of imagination, a t I dislike tying in with his eventual emphasis on forgiveness iwhereln through imaginative love one not only forgives but completely forgets another's offenses. The concept of for- t I jglveness as an absolute forgetting is radically Christian. | |As S^ren Kierkegaard wrote in his Works of Love, ". . . forgiveness takes the forgiven sin away"; "... the |lover forgives: he forgives, he forgets, he blots out i sin. . . . ,!l7 Such forgiveness is transcendent, breaking continually the cycle of aggression and revenge (memory’s hidden serpent). Blake's concept also entails self-forgiveness. Thus, the pride of the rational ego which Milton subconsciously condemned to hell through his character, Satan,1® is to be forgiven and transformed into creative energy through self-annihilation. Returning to earth, Milton enters Blake's "left foot falling on the tarsus.” The new understanding, the new vision that Milton and Blake bring to each other, is sym bolized by the tarsus, which refers to not only a portion of the foot but also a fibrous plate in the eyelid which because of its support and its secretions enhances 1^S0ren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, trans. by Howard iHlng and Edna Hing (Londons Collins, 19o2), pp. 273, 275. See Walter Lowrle's Kierkegaard (New York: Harp. R., 1962), II, 403. The following emphasis on memory by an ilmmanent millenniallst like Herbert Marcuse would have been jrepugnant to Blake: "To forget is . . . to forgive what should not be ! forgiven if justice and freedom are to prevail. Such forgiveness reproduces the conditions which ! reproduce injustice and enslavements to forget ! past suffering is to forgive the forces that cause it— without defeating these forces. . . . Against this surrender to time, the restoration i of remembrance to its rights, as a vehicle of liberation, is one of the noblest tasks of thought. . . . Nietzsche saw in the training of j the memory the beginning of civilized morality— I especially the memory of obligations, contracts, | dues." (ErQ3 and Civilization, p. 232.) 1®C. S. Lewis, in A Preface_to Paradise Lost (London: jOxf. U. Pr., i960), p. 101, says Satan is an expression of Milton's own "pride, malice, folly, misery, and lust, j. . . It is therefore right to say that Milton has put much of himself into Satan. ..." ! vision.19 Milton now understands the purpose of experi- i |ence: i | To Annihilate the Self-hood of Deceit & False Forgiveness | In those three females whom his wives, & those | three whom his Daughters I Had represented and contain'd, that they might ! be resum'd. ... ! (pp. 497-98, pi. 16, 1. i-pi. 17, 1. 2) Blake emphasized the importance of this action by giving the first line above a plate and an Illustration of its i own. Milton's task is horrendous, for his emanations re main estranged and antagonistic. An "Image Divine tho' 1 I darken'd," he "seem'd a wanderer lost in dreary night" |(p. 496, pl. 15, 11* 6, 16). His isolation, his solipsism, i is also suggested by the image of the hermaphrodite to |which his shadowy spectre is compared. As Bloom says, ! !"Blake 3ees the wives and daughters of Milton sitting ■^Gordon L. Walls, in The Vertebrate Eye and its Adaptive Radiation (1947; repriripea, new ibrks H&i'rier Pub., 19b7)> p. 40, explains the importance of the tarsi: "Their presence insures a smooth sliding of the lids and obviates any tendency of the latter to roll up when in action. [Could the tarsi also enhance one's ability to sleep and therefore one's ability to experience Beulah?] Embedded in each tarsus is a row of elongated (Meibomian) glands which open by a series of apertures behind the lid margin. . . , The sebaceous secretion of these, together with that of smaller glands (of Zeis) associated with the lashes which are scattered along the edges of the lids, maintains a film of oily emulsion over the layer of tear fluid and holds the latter firmly and smoothly against the eyeball." That emulsion also Insures smooth movement of the lids, keeps foreign matter off the eyeball, and prevents the cells of the pupil from desiccating and dying. ranged round him like so many rocks, writing in Urizenic thunder at his dictate."20 It is most appropriate that the region of earth Milton travels unannihilate through is called Midian, because Midian, an area in the Arabian des ert, was a land of human desolation and oppression. In the I time of the Judges, the Mldlanltes Invaded the land of I (Canaan and oppressed Israel. i j As might be expected, Blake dealt ironically with the ! ireactions to Milton's reentry into time. Because he de scended as a falling star, Milton is confused with Satan by Los, who seeks at first to resist his journey. Eni- Itharmon welcomes his descent but for the wrong reason, |namely, that "'Satan shall be unloos'd upon Albion!'" [ (p. 498, pl. 17, 1. 33). The pity of Los's emanation is i cruel and deceptive. Weaving a garment of sorrow for Mil ton, she says hypocritically: "»I will put on the Human Form & take the Image of God,/ Even Pity & Humanity, but my Clothing shall be Cruelty"1 (p. 499, pl. 18, 11. 19-20). As Los's wayward emanation, Enitharmon oversaw the inevi table corruption of western civilization (in Europe) and now wishes to stunt its preparations for the apocalyptic moment. Ore, her son, chides her but in the wrong way, condemning the human form, which she also perverts. SPsioom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 361. 217 Upon descending in order to rid himself of spectrous selfhood, Milton meets his former comrade, Urizen. They |grapple in mortal combat, which parallels the sacred wres tling between Jacob and God in Mahanaim (Genesis 32:2). Urizen attempts to rebaptize Milton in his spirit, but the poet seeks to reshape spectrous rationality (the rational I ego) into "a Human form" (p. 500, pl. 19, 1. 14). The whole conflict is a metaphor for the psychic struggle Mil- : i ton, Blake, and all men must go through to achieve apoca- | i lyptic wholeness. Just as Jacob, freed of his deceitful i i ;self, was named Israel (meaning, "May God rule") and Just as he was reconciled with his brother, Esau, so will the i ipoet be delivered of his selfhood and reunited with his | emanation, Ololon. Urizen stands in Milton's path while ; i Rahab and Tirzah, possessive female emanations, try to en- j itice him across the river Arnon. The symbolism here is ob-i i jscure. The Arnon was the northernmost border of Moab, one i jof the twelve provinces of Israel. It seems that the aim 1 ! of Tirzah and Rahab is to reduce Milton to a natural man, devoid of a spiritual dimension, for across the Arnon lay Reuben, Blake's favorite Biblical symbol of the natural man. Rahab and Tirzah may also want him to Join in per petual political conflict, forsaking his real mission like the "Amalekites" (p. 501, pl. 19, 1. 37) who were in con tinual conflict with Israel (Exodus 17*9; Deuteronomy i I i l ! 218 25*17): "'And let us bind thee In the bands of War, & be |thou King/ Of Canaan and reign in Hazor where the Twelve |Tribes meet'" (p. 501, pl. 20, 11. 5-6). In the late seventeenth century Hilton had tried to combine secularism and spirituality, politics and religion, propaganda and vision. Blake mocked him for such an attempt, which Milton I |now rejects. i | The poet's descent begins to awaken Albion to apoca- i i jlyptlc light. The precarious position of apocalyptic vi- | |sion is aptly symbolized by those who block it out— "the dread Og & Anak," giants of the Old Testament who sought to destroy the race of prophets, the race precedent to Christ, the Israelites (Numbers 21:33-35; 13*33). Los, until now misunderstanding Milton's "reincarnation," finally realizes the antipolitical nature of the poet's descent: He recollected an old Prophecy in Eden . . . That Milton of the Land of Albion should up ascend Forwards from Ulro from the Vale of Felpham, & set free Ore from his Chain of Jealousy. . . . (p. 503, pl. 20, 11. 57, 59-61) The revival of the Miltonic spirit (or genius) in Blake, who has also suffered from spectrous selfhood,21 is re peated once again in the metaphor of "Milton entering" Blake's "Foot" (p. 503, pl. 21, 1. 4). 21As early as 1802 in a letter to Thomas Butts, Blake admitted suffering from the spectrous fiend within: ". . .1 have travel'd thro' Perils & Darkness not unlike a | 219 | Milton-Blake' s acceptance of his mission to redeem |the ego-self by perpetual self-annihilation elicits a simi lar resolution from Ololon, the symbol of Milton's emana tions, those creative forms that would have made him whole | had he responded to them in the proper spirit. Ololon i i jharkens to Milton's newfound sorrow with apocalyptic po tential. Alluding to Christ's promise to remain with his apostles always, even to the consummation of the world, the |Divine Family says to her: j | '. . . Watch over this World, and with your brooding i wings i 'Renew it to Eternal Life. Lo! I am with you alway. if t t ........ ' I So spake the Family Divine as One Man, even Jesus, Uniting in One with Ololon, & the appearance of One Man, Jesus the Saviour, appear'd coming in the Clouds j of Ololon. (pp. 504-05# pi. 21, 11. 55-56, 58-60) j ! Ololon1s initial response to Mllton-Blake invigorates the latter's imaginative power: Los stood in fierce glowing fire, & he also stoop'd down And bound my sandals . . .; trembling I stood Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale Of Lambeth; but he kissed me and wish'd me health, And I became One Man with him arising in my strength. (p. 505# Pi. 22, 11. 8-12) Champion. I have Conquer'd, & shall still Go on Conquer ing. Nothing can withstand the fury of my Course among the Stars of God & in the Abysses of the Accuser" (pp. 815-16). See also his letter to Hayley on the spiritual renewal he experienced after his visitation to the Truchsessian Gallery (October 23# 1804; pp. 851-52). 220 j Rintrah and Palamabron, Blake's wrathful, poetical selves do not, of course, realize that Milton's return is "the Signal that the Last Vintage now approaches." They recall j the poet's religion, fearing that his liberation of Ore i : from the chain of jealousy will renew the war and destruc tion which state religion promotes. Fretful that the pietist revival of Whitefield and Wesley (contemporaries of Blake) will be destroyed, Rintrah and Palamabron anti cipate imminent catastrophe and, therefore, advocate the repression of the rejuvenated creative power, Milton. | Having "become One with" the new Milton, Los, the agent of | the creative self, seeks to calm their raging zeal. With 1 i allusions to Christ, his admonition is one of Christian j agape: j i ; I '0 noble Sons, be patient yet a little! 'I have embrac'd [in self-annihilation] the falling j Death [Milton], he is become One with me: I '0 sons, we live not by wrath, by mercy alone we live!' (p. 507, pl. 23, 11. 32-34) Los is hopeful of apocalypse but doesn't understand "'How'" i I |(p. 507, pl. 23, 1. 53) it is to come, that is, how his I Abandonment of wrath and his growth in patience, under- ! 1 standing, and mercy are precisely the means to apocalypse. |He warns his sons to stay with him lest they fall into natural life, which Milton once fell prey to. Unfortu- i nately, though the spirit of understanding and prophecy has begun to resume its rightful place, Rintrah and Palamabron pay no heed to Los's admonitions. As every human soul begins to flock to the trumpet- i lings of the apocalypse, Los declares that they be bound i |each according to his class. The importance of faith, of jbelief, as it relates to the apocalyptic moment and the i itranscendent is expressed for the first time since Vala's |lack of fidelity in Night IX of The Pour Zoas. The Elect I is the class that "'cannot believe in Eternal life.'" The jReprobate "'never cease to believe'"; and the Redeemed, | |like Palamabron and Rintrah, "'live in doubts & fears per- jpetually tormented by the Elect.'" As his sons labor at !the harvest, Los admonishes them once again to control j I their wrath lest they fall into the round of natural life. j There follows a retelling of The Pour Zoas's jwinepress section (Night IX), which dealt with the conclud- i Sing violence of history. But a key difference becomes im- ! mediately observable; in Milton the element of revenge is gone. Ore appears to have been liberated from the chain of jealousy. Since Satan is the spectre of Ore (erotic pos sessiveness) and Ore is the generate Luvah (p. 517, pl. 29, 1. 34), Satan— the antichrist— is seen for what he is; and Luvah— man's emotional self— is stabilized.22 The wine presses of Luvah are now in the hands of Los; they have been transformed Into the loving but stern creativity of Mllton-Los-Blake, creativity that wages mental wars against 22see Milton, p. 514, pl. 28, 11. 1-2. ; 222 i I j the physical wars of greed and destruction. As in The Pour j Zoasj from nature's viewpoint the times are ready. Los’s ! Isons and daughters create a crystal house (the human form) | in and out of which suffering humanity may go in apocalyp tic moments. Los's activity creates the spectrous ego, ridding it of its doubts and fears of eternal death. Not jail spectres are re-created, however. Los's sons and ! daughters, associated with multiples of seven ("Their num- jbers are seven million & seven thousand & seven hundred"; |P. 515# pl. 28, 1. 22), are of the Seventh Eye of God. i |They struggle unsuccessfully with the spectres of this ! earth and can only create forms that portend the apoca- i llypse. Those associated with multiples of eight overcome i |"spectrous cunning"; their creativity is of the Eighth Eye I of God, Jesus, the creative imagination present apocalyp- jtically in every moment of time, in every pulsation of the t artery, in every globule of human blood. If we could just understand the value of every human life, we could see eternity here and now. It is not a matter of heightening our sense perceptions alone but of transcendence through love, through brotherhood. As Blake wrote of the "nature of infinity," it is a vortex through which one passes, see ing it roll behind him "into a globe . . , like a sun . . ./ Or like a human form, a friend with whom he [ the traveller through eternity] liv'd benevolent" (p. 497> pl. 11. 24-27). Enitharmon, Los's emanation, participates in 223 |this apocalyptic creativity, hut Rahab, the whore of Baby- jlon, the symbol of history's possessiveness and destruction, i 'tries to pervert her efforts in hopes of warding off Christ, !who is soon to come. | As already mentioned, Book II of Milton opens with a j passage on Beulah. It is in Beulah where Ololon hopes to |be reconciled with Milton, thereby cleansing him of i j selfhood and herself of female willfulness. Blake clearly i | expressed the apocalyptic potential of this event: |". . . they [the nations of the earth ] saw the Lord coming/ I . i In the Clouds of Ololon with Power & Great Glory" (p. 519# !pl. 31# 11. 15-16). The precursors of the incipient re- I newal of Milton-Los-Blake are a lark's song and the odor, | color, and dance of wild thyme. Blake used natural sym- | bols in diverse ways and from diverse points of view. Beu lah's description of these precursors is a lamentation, for they symbolize the distance Milton, as well as Los and Blake, have yet to undertake. Prom nature's viewpoint, the bird's song and the wild thyme represent the redeemed Beulah of eternity. But, unfortunately, in time spectrous forces like Og and Anak block out eternal vision while men grow "sick of love" that is possessive and domineering. Milton admits his former puritanical rejection of the regenerative values of Beulah, where his emanation and his | selfhood continue to struggle. He is then Instructed in 224 the doctrine of states and Individuals. Much of what Blake wrote here has already been explained in my chapter on The Pour Zoas. It should be added that a state can be not only a nation or group but also a person, object or preoccupation that becomes a man's god* Thus, Jesus cau- I tioned those who make mammon or their bellies their god. Blake was keenly aware of Christ's warning: . . . the Four States of Humanity in its Repose [fallen state] Were shewed them ^Milton's emanations'! First of Beulah, a most pleasant Sleep On Couches with mild music . • . The Second State is Alla, 8 c the third State Al-Ulro; But the Fourth State is dreadful, it is named Or-Ulro. The First State is in the Head, the Second is in | ; the Heart. I The Third in the Loins 8 c Seminal Vessels, 8 c the Fourth In the Stomach & Intestines terrible, deadly, i unutterable, (pp. 523-24, pl. 34, 11. 8-10, 12-16) j |To be engrossed in any of these states2^ (as is Urizen) is to destroy the "Human form Divine," which is j individual, transcendent, and eternal. Man must em- i brace and transcend all of them if he is to retain i I his divine humanity. Thus, to overcome his former l preoccupations, Milton is re-created in the state of i |self-annihilation, which is "triumphant over Death" I | ^Memory is a state because it is factual and uncre- ative, remembering only past transgressions instead of for giving them on the basis of an imaginative understanding of jthe human form divine in every man. 225 ] (p. 522, pl. 32, 1. 28). Central to the state of self-denial Is the imagination, the agent of love, without which all charity would become pitiful and t • : dehumanizing like the Church in "The Little Vagabond." j Self-annihilation through imaginative understanding is ; I the essence of Christian agape, regenerative of the human i i form divine. Following all of this is a speech by a divine voice j on behalf of Milton and his emanation. The speech parodies j the rationally erotic sentiments of Milton's love for his j wives, symbolized compositely as a "Daughter of Babylon":2^ | •When I first Married you, I gave you all my whole Soul, •I thought that you would love my loves & joy in my delights, 'Seeking pleasures in my pleasures, 0 Daughter of Babylon.' (p. 522, pl. 33, 11. 2-4) 1 i The threefold repetition of "my" suggests the erotic ego- i ; | jtism of the speaker. These lines strongly resemble an | ■ironic speech in The Four Zoas by Luvah, who proclaims his jlove for Vala (Night the Second; p. 282, 11. 81-110). j Like Luvah, the speaker never really gave his beloved his "whole soul." Overreacting to his love, Ololon j ;"'cruelly/ Cut'" him off. Note how his love, often i gt|Bloom. In Blake's Apocalypse, p. 386, connects the ipoet's reference to a “ 'Daughter of Babylon" with Milton's |emanation, Ololon. 25see above, p. 133# 226 I spoken of in the plural, Is not a deep union but a kind of j nice thing, a series of pleasures that gratify his ! |ego-self: j 1 i 'Thy love depends on him thou lovest, & on his dear loves i 'Depend thy pleasures, which thou hast cut off ! by Jealousy' (p. 522, pl. 33, 11. 8-9) ! ! i The speaker is also jealous but he soon realizes that j Ololon will be 1 1 'continually Redeem'd'" by Milton's ! I self-annihilation, not by rational possessiveness. Through the poet's annihilation she will repent of her j i willfulness, reinstating the true spirit of Beulah and, j jmore than that, the free apocalyptic love of Jerusalem. j iOlolon's change of heart is suggested by those in Beulah, |to whom she has descended: i | i 'And can you thus lament & can you pity & forgive? j 'Is terror chang'd to pity? 0 wonder of Eternity!' j (p. 523, pl. 31 *, 11. 6-7) Ololon's return to time to be united with Milton is ! |not free from Pisgah visions of mundane life, visions which i ! jnecessarily precede the reconciliation with her spectre: | . . . view'd from Milton's Track [of descent] they see the Ulro [the pit of experience] a Vast Polypus Of living fibres down into the Sea of Time & Space growing A self-devouring monstrous Human Death Twenty seven fold. (p. 524, pl. 34, 11. 24-26) Such is the status of human life when man's emotional self assumes a rational mask. The creative self is stunted and !the world lies in ruins: . . when Luvah assumed the I ! 227 |World of Urizen In the South/ All fell towards the Center ! sinking downward In dire Ruin" (p. 524, pl. 34, 11.38-39). 2^ ! jOlolon Is aghast at the dissolution of eternity In time; I ! I all natural things are "frozen to unexpansive deadly de- i istroylng terrors," and "Brotherhood is chang'd into a Curse & a Flattery/ By Differences between Ideas" (p. 525, |pl. 35, 11. 1, 4-5). Ololon will not flee Milton's Url- zenic shadow because time's struggles must be experienced | before one can proceed to the creative brotherhood of Gol- gonooza and beyond. Arriving at Milton's couch, she begs i l |forgiveness for hindering his creative self. Her effort to |reconcile with him is potentially apocalyptic, "for they |[Milton and those around him] saw the Lord in the Clouds of Ololon" (p. 526, pl. 35, 1. 41). I As Bloom suggests, Ololon's descent "opens a wide jroad from Generation [the round of natural life] to Eden, in contrast to the broad way from Hell to fallen earth opened by sin and death in Paradise Lost":2? I j 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. In this Moment Ololon descended ... . . , Southward in Milton's track. (p. 526, pl. 35, 11. 42-47) ^Historically, these two lines refer to the corrup tion of liberating revolutionary zeal in France ("the East") by the Urizenio spirit of England ("the South"). 2?Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 386. 228 ! ! In that moment lies the epiphany of the creative self, symbolized as "a Fountain in a rock/ Of crystal" ;(p. 526, pl. 35* 11. 49-50). Such a revelation comes either directly through art, leading one to Beulah and then Eden, or indirectly through experience, leading one | to a creative life and finally to Eden. Presaging man's j ! I :creative expansion is the image of wild thyme lying "Beside the Fount," covering the rock of nature, as j I • 1 Bloom says, "with . . . purple flowers." These flowers suggest not only the mourning of a young god's death j | i ! 1 ibut also the resurrection of the god, Luvah-Jesus, j j ; a Q who will restore man's creative power. Also fore- j 2®Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 388. Blake's use of ! nature imagery (especially the image of experience as a gi—j ant polypus through which man must travel) reveals two im- j portant points about his apocalypticism. First, Blake never lost sight of the revelatory power of experience (the epiphanic "Moment in each Day"). Secondly, he modified his jmillennialism from a largely immanent, political hope to a Bultmannian emphasis on man's momentous relationship with I the Transcendent. As John Beer suggests (Blake's Humanism, | p. 184), in the vegetation imagery near the end of Milton, ! "Blake has produced a symbol for the state of ! man which allows him to express both contlnu- | ing judgment, through Los and Enitharmon and their message to man, and a 'final' judgment, i through the imagery of the imminent harvest. | Instead of trying (as he had done in Vala) to describe the Last Judgment with the implica- tlon that it is about to happen, he can exploit this subtler myth— continually valid whether the Last Judgment happens tomorrow or is de ferred indefinitely. Man is always under judg- | ment in his 'vegetable body': the fruit of his actions is continually being harvested." 229 l shadowing the apocalyptic moment is the lark, Los's messen ger from the twenty-seven churches of history's corruption i to the twenty-eighth church, which descends with Ololon into Blake's garden, the church of psychic wholeness, love, j and transcendence. Ololon's virginity symbolizes her for- : ' i mer aloofness, which she abandons for the sake of a crea tive relationship with her counterpart. Blake hoped that j iher selfless action in behalf of Milton's spectrous nature j would influence Catherine in behalf of himself: . . pitying thou my Shadow of Delight:/ Enter my Cot- | i Itage, comfort her, for she is sick with fatigue'” over her j husband's obsessive vocation. A few lines later Blake ad- j i ' i mitted his own personal struggle with the spectre, compar- | ing it to Milton's struggle ("I also stood in Satan's bosom ! ! I i . . p. 529* pl. 38> 1. 15); and not long after Milton he expressed in a letter to Thomas Butts great exasperation i lover his spectre, which often feigned inspiration through a I mask of prophetic wrath. “ ! 2^Hoxie N. Fairchild, in Religious Trends in English Foetry, III, 104, has some perceptive comments on the [Interior concerns of Blake's later millennialism: | "During the Lambeth period integration was to j be achieved simply by defiance and revolt, for all his foes were conceived of as external to him. In The Four Zoaa, Milton and Jerusalem this idea is not decisively abandoned, but it is greatly tempered by recognition of the fact ! that some of the stinking weeds grow in his own mind. Man is now to win release from bondage ! not merely by rising up against the oppression, J but by undergoing inward changes which will make him worthy of freedom.” ! 230 I i ' At this point Milton also descends into Blake's gar- i |den. He is still a selfhood: ... within him [ are] Satan i And Rahab, in an outside which is fallacious, within, Beyond the outline of Identity, in the Selfhood deadly. . . . (p. 527, pl. 37, 11. 8-10) As such he frustrates true creative liberty; in him "Jeru salem's children consume in flames among the Stars" (p. 527, pl. 37, 1. 12). Milton's effort to combine reli gion and politics (the realms of Individuals and states re spectively) made him England's most appalling proponent of |state religion, of religion-hid-in-war, of repressed erea- Itlve energy succumbing to the female will and ultimately to jthe physical wars of nations. As Blake wrote, I beheld Milton with astonishment & in him beheld The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark . . . Synagogues of Satan. . . . | (p. 528, pl. 37, U. 15-17) The whole world (even its constellations) reflects the di vision and terror caused by Milton. Og, one of the enemies of Israel-England, dwells in Orion, a constellation in which he continually pursues the bright, shining Pleiades which always flee him. In a final confrontation with his satanic spectre, Milton realizes three crucial truths: (1) that he can de stroy his spectre but only by the laws of Satan, (2) that i I the goal of the spectre is to excite fear for the Tran- ! i iscendent and crustacean self-centeredness here and now, and | |(3) that he can restore his creative self only by annihi lating his ego-selfx 1 'Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to j annihilate JAnd be a greater in thy place & be thy Tabernacle i 'Such are the Laws of thy false Heav'nsj but Laws of Eternity 'Are not such; know thou, I cane to Self i Annihilation, j 'Such are the Laws of Eternity, that each shall mutually 'Annihilate himself for others' good, as I for thee. 'Thy purpose & the purpose of thy Priests & of thy Churches I 'Is to impress on men the fear of death, to teach 'Trembling & fear, terror, constriction, abject 1 selfishness. ! 'Mine is to teach Men to despise death & to go on 'In fearless majesty annihilating Self . .. 'I came to . . . I '.................................................... '. . . put off i 'In Self Annihilation all that is not of God alone, 'To put off Self & all I have, ever and ever. Amen.' (pp. 529-30, pl. 38, 11. 29-30, 33-41, 43, 47-49) After Milton's declaration, the Seven Eyes of God, harbingers of the apocalypse, exhort Albion to awake and reclaim his rational ego in balance with his other powers, submitting it to "'Divine Mercy'" (p. 530, pl. 39, 1. 11) and to Los, the agent of creative life. Albion stirs from his couch, tries to walk but sinks back down. Milton ranges about for help and, finally, he stands before Olo- |Ion, perceiving the paradise within, "the Eternal Form/ Of that mild Vision" (p. 532, pl. 40, 1. 1-2). Unfortunately, I 232 Blake did not fully understand the slgnlfloanee of Milton and Ololon's reunion: "'. . . wondrous were their acts, by me unknown/Except remotely'" (p. 532, pl. 40, 11. 2-3). 1 | Nor Is all fully resolved since Urizen still struggles with |Mllton "upon the Brooks of Arnon" (p. 532, pl. 40, 1. 4). j When Milton's Satan clearly emerges as the [antichrist, a horrible parody of the Trinity, confirmed |forever in error, with "sin on his right hand, Death on jhis left" (p. 531, pl. 39, 1. 29), the poet realizes that |he must be eternally annihilated: '. . . Obey thou the Words of the Inspired Man. 'All that can be . . • annihilated must be annihilated 'That the Children of Jerusalem may be saved | from slavery. 'There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary: 'The Negation must be destroy'd to redeem the Con traries [of mental war which the spectre represses]. 'The Negation is the Spectre, the Reasoning Power in Man: 'This is a false Body, an Incrustation over my Immortal j 'Spirit, a Selfhood which must be put off & | annihilated alway.' (PP. 532-33, Pl. 40, 11. 29-36) Like Blake in Jerusalem. Milton firmly bases his new reli gion of creativity in Christ: 'I come in Self-annihilation and the grandeur of Inspiration 'To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour. . . .' (p. 533, pl. 41, 11. 2-3) Realizing that all satanic spectres are "'the murderers/ i Of Jesus'" (p. 533, pl. 41, 11. 21-22), Milton commits hlm- jself to Christ, in whom "'Generation is swallow'd up in ; 233 iRegeneration'" (p. 533, pl# 41, 1# 28). I Ololon now realizes that she and Milton are creative contraries, their human (but not their sexual) powers cap- jable of sustaining the severe contentions of eternity. At jthis point, however, Blake himself fell short of apoca- jlypse. As Bloom says, "What Milton accomplishes on the |great forty-first plate of this poem, 'self annihilation I and the grandeur of Inspiration,' is not claimed by Blake jfor himself until the even greater ninety-first plate of { I Jerusalem. . . ."30 More than ever, all is ready: the | lark is on the wing and the wild thyme winds through Eng- i I |land's hills, presaging "The Great Harvest & Vintage of i |the Nations" (p. 535, pl. 43, 1. l). | More than any of Blake's previous works, Milton is | |especially Christian. While not orthodox, its ideas and doctrines capture the spirit of Christianity. Blake's understanding of the destructiveness of envy and the futil ity of revenge and of forgiveness without forgetting is in strict accord with Jesus' teachings. His distinctions be tween error and sin and between states and individuals are also Christian. To become confirmed in error is to become satanic. It is making either oneself, an object or a civi lization one's god. Such a commitment is unforglveable; but the sins of individuals who still have faith in the 39Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, p. 355. ! 234 I Transcendent are always forgiveable— In fact, they must be | forgiven. Such forgiveness necessarily involves ! iself-annihilation or agape,31 the paradox of Christian.lovej iwherein one lives authentically in relationship with others : i i ;and the Transcendent by extirpating that which is destruc- i tive within himself. The paradise within achieved by reordering the inner self through self-annihilation is j definitely a Christian aim. Moreover, living according to j : i | the paradox by which these inner and outer transformations ] I take place requires faith. Thus, the faith of the "Repro- j i i bate” is far more Christian than the predestinatlve righ- j iteousness of the "Elect.” Blake recognized this when he i questioned his ability to sing of transcendent vision and then said faithfully: "'If thou [Jesus] chuse to elect a j worm, it shall remove the mountains'” (p. 502, pl. 20, | | I |l. 19). Such faith sees the value of experience, of the i i |spectre when it is not satanic, of Beulah, and of sin it- |self. Finally, the poet's view of the relationship between ! ilove, Christ, and the imagination is perhaps the most Christian of all. The basis of such an understanding is [the belief that man participates in the creativity of God, i j ! 31s0ren Kierkegaard, in Works of Love, pp. 208, 250, jdistinguishes between eros, which can never escape I self-interest ("mine"), and agape, which "builds up by con- iquering oneself": "The one who sacrifices, renouncing |himself in all things, is the true lover." ! 235 |ln the creation of himself, the other, and eternal life. I This kind of thinking foreshadows the belief of Christian theologians like Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Rahner. In j | Jerusalem we shall see Blake's own apocalypse and his |clearest assertions as to man's participation in eternity. CHAPTER V JERUSALEM: THE OLD VERSUS THE NEW COVENANT Love is a revolution. . . . ~S0ren Kierkegaard I Most humanist Blakeans see Jerusalem as the fulfill- i iment of a peroeptual apooalypse. As Karl Kiralis says in i I his essay on the intellectual symbolism of Blake*s later |propheoies, [Vala] represents earthly standards of truth and beauty as opposed to the eternal ones of Jerusalem, i Vala constantly struggles to preserve her illusion of reality and to keep Jerusalem subjugated. It is the self-imposed and diffioult task of the poet (Los) to help man to eternity by ridding him of delusion throughout the oourse of mankind's | history. . • . Man gradually becomes aware of his j various misconceptions by reoognizing Vala-Rahab I for what she is. Then once he has learned the lessons of liberty and forgiveness (Jerusalem), I and of the primal innocence and beauty of the body I and love (Erin), he beoomes balanced fourfold i . . . and lives in eternity.1 Like Kiralis, Edward Rose reduoes the poet's view of man's condition to a problem of perception remedied by the cre ativity of art: "... the creative man goes into eternity oontinually and his goings, a kind of birth-death continuum, %arl Kiralis, "A Guide to the Intellectual Symbolism of William Blake's Later Prophetic Writings," Criticism. I (Summer, 1959). 19*K 236 are his works of art,”2 The most sweeping statement on the anthropooentrlsm of Blake*s apooalypse oomes from Harold Bloom, who rules out any deeply religious vision in the | J poet. As he says in his ohapter on Jerusalem: To annihilate the Selfhood is to emulate Blake's Milton by washing off the Not-Human, to oast off . . . covenanted religion and Indeed to liberate the spirit from every convention of belief, every shred of institutional or historioal Christianity. . . . If Blake is a Christian (and he insisted always that he was) then the vast majority of Christians are not. • . • Blake identified the ; fully liberated Imagination with the Holy Ghost; suoh an identification makes Isaiah or Shelley | or Yeats or any man set free into his full orea- j tlve potential a Christian whether he thinks him- self one or not. Blake was a great poet, and his rhetorloal transvaluations and personal definitions j are justified by their liveliness and the esthetic use to whloh he put them. But it hardly seems j right that his expositors should olaim his creative freedom at redefinition of aooepted terms. If the | theologians of the different Christian orthodoxies are true Christians, then Blake is not, and it j seems more accurate to name him an apooalyptlo humanist than a Christian. . • .3 Mr. Bloom'8 statement sets before us a challenge, isj I Blake's oonneotlon between the imagination and the Holy Spirit a rhetorloal transvaluation meant to be taken in a i way that considers man alone divine? I don't think so. If it oan be shown that the poet's self-proclaimed Christian ity is akin to the Ideals of Christian theologians, in par- tlcular liberal theologians of the last hundred years, then 2Edward J. Rose,"The Symbolism of the Opened Center and Foetlo Theory in Blake's Jerusalem.» Studies in English Literature. V (Autumn, 19^5)# j$7* 3Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, pp. 410-11. iMr« Bloom's challenge can be answered. Moreover, If it can be shown that Blake's apocalypse demands and fulfills an I intrinsic, substantive transformation in man rather than jjust a perceptual one, then the challenge will be overcome. i [ iA critic like Kiralis cannot show the relationships between i |perceptual renewal and the lessons of the body, liberty, love, and forgiveness without recognizing the necessity for 'such a transformation. For that reason I have tried to |show that in each apocalyptic moment of Blake's career the jorder of transformation has been from a substantive change j to an epistemological change. Such was the order of apoca lypse for Jacob Boehme, who claimed that in union with | jChrist one enjoys a vastly heightened perception.^ Such I also is the order of the apocalypse in Jerusalem, which |shall be discussed later on. ! The metamorphosis that Blake's vision 3eeks to achieve is ontological because it is grounded in the deep est of religious experiences— love. (I use the term "religious" according to its generally accepted etymology, I rellgare, which means to unite, i.e. a people, and bind them back to their origin, i.e. God.) The poet's apoca lypse is ontological, going to the very ground of man'3 being, because the experience of love upon which it depends ^Rufus M. Jones, Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth j and Seventeenth Centuries (New York: Macmillan, 1914), jpp. 265-00. i 239 j i ; itransforms human nature, uniting man to man and man to God |in the same instant. As Gabriel Marcel says, "Love, in so |far as distinct from desire or as opposed to desire, love treated as the subordination of the self to a superior |reality, a reality at ray deepest level more truly me than j ! i ! 1 I am myself— love as the breaking of the tension between I the self and the other appears to me to be what one might ' I call the essential ontological datum.Gregory Baum goes | | I even further than Marcel's assertions, affirming the regen-j : i ! 1 erative as well as transcendent nature of Interpersonal j i i loves "The word of God sounds in the dialogue by which t men become men. The dialogue which constitutes human life 6 ‘ I is, ultimately, a dialogue of salvation with God." . Close-j ;ly related to Blake's kind of apocalypse was a profound j I sense of Christianity.^ Bloom may not accept the poet as a jChristian, but the high concentration of "orthodox" vocabu- i ! lary in Jerusalem makes it hard to deny that Blake was in i ” many ways truly Christian. It is a fact, as Donald Unruh has pointed out in his unpublished dissertation, that from Vala to Jerusalem the poet's concern for an imaginative ^Marcel, Being and Having, p. 167. %aum, p. 47. ?The intimate relationship between apocalypticism and Christianity has been recently and unequivocally asserted by Jurgen Moltmann in The Theology of Hope: "Prom first to last Christianity is eschatology, Is hope, |forward looking and forward moving and therefore also jrevolutionizing and transforming the present" (p. 16). balanoe of human faoulties diminishes with a radical de crease in the number of references to the pour Zoas and a radical increase in the number of references to Jesus, O forgiveness, and self-annihilation. In Jerusalem Blake was especially oonoemed with jhuman relationships and the condition of man»s psyohe. He i treated these concerns in the spectre-emanation oonfliot i :(especially between Los and Enitharmon) and in the issues i of self-annihilation and forgiveness, mercy and freedom, and error versus understanding. Margaret Rudd's assertion j that "Blake presents his vision in terms of human relation-j i I jships . . . , in short of Albion and Jerusalem as everyman I i Q ! and everywoman . . . "7 seems to be right to the point, yet j I her extreme emphasis on the sexual aspects of such rela tionships reduces the poet's major prophecies to cosmic :Soap operas. There is nothing that is merely sexual in Blake's later vision, however. His dearest statements 'as to the relationship between interpersonalism and the ifreedom of the creative self in eternity often employ i i jsexual imagery, but the imagery is to be taken metaphori cally rather than literally. It is symbolic of full ! i ^ D o n a l d j t unruh, "Jerusalem: The Primitive Chris- jtian Vision of William Blake" (unpublished Ph.D. disser tation, U. of Southern Cal.» 1970), p. 111. 9Rudd, Organiz'd Innocence, p. 128. i j i I ................. ..“ SUl 'human integration:10 j When in Eternity Man converses with Man, they enter Into each other’s Bosom (which are Universes ! of delight) i In mutual Interchange, and first their j Emanations meet j Surrounded by their Children; if they embrace & comingle, i The Human Four-fold Forms mingle also in j thunders of Intellect. ... ! (p. 733, pl. 88, 11. 3-7) i Always with Blake perceptual renewal occurs ' ’ if" and j | "when" men relate authentically. For the poet an apoca- j lypse can only occur after men differentiate between the charity of Jesus (the new covenant) and the fallen order of Luvah and Urizen (the old covenant). Related to his empha- |sls on the former in Jerusalem was a last crucial refine ment in his concept of Christian love— a refinement summed : ; up in the word "Liberty" and the phrase "minute partic ulars." As I mentioned in my chapter on The Four Zoas, ilove and freedom were, for Blake, inseparable. In his last | great prophecy the poet not only emphasized this relation- jship through Jerusalem, Albion's emanation symbolic of freedom and love, but also offered an existential Instance i |of that relationship. Thus, "minute particulars" refer to the various qualities and attributes that make a man indi vidual. These should not be stunted by the solicitude or I 10Paul Miner, in "William Blake's 'Divine Analogy,'" 1 Criticism. Ill (Winter, 1961), 50, says that "Ultimately, in Blake's symbolism, the act of coitus becomes a propiti atory offering, a sacrifice of the selfhood. . , ." ! zhz ] : I ! i jdomination of another but should exist freely and openly. ' i j As Gregory Baum says, the use of love as an extension of i i ' 1 |our power "does not oommunloate freedom."11 And since the j word "Jerusalem" means olty of peaoe, there oan be suoh a j |city only when men allow one another to be what they are. j I j jThus, In his transformation from cm enraged prophet to sin j |understanding seer, Los begins to realize that "‘All broad j& general principles belong to benevolenoe/ Who protects minute particulars every one In their own identity . . .»" |(p. 6?2, pl. ^3, 11. 22-23). Because Jerusalem Is the apex of Blake's career as i • | jboth poet and apooalyptioist, It would do the work great 3n-j I I justice to consider it only a theo-phllosophical treatise. i lit is Blake's longest poem, his most oomplex structurally 1 ! |and his most variable rhetorically. In It are some of his | ^Baum, p. 51. Vincent P. Mioeli, In Asoent to Being: j Gabriel Marcel«s_Philosophy of Communion (New York: Des- jolee, l£6j>), p. lo2, discusses Marcel's notion of the inex- | tricable relationship between freedom and love: "... the j stage of communion among men . . . must oome Into existenoe as a human achievement, an accomplishment that oan only be won through self-donating human choices." The possibility of transcendenoe is also related to the question of free dom. As Reverend Baum says, "It would seem that the supernatural is present to man only in the option by whioh he opens him self to the infinite, . • . Either a person opens himself to the infinite and thereby beoomes more truly himself, or he refuses to follow the divine invitation, attaohes himself to a finite reality as if it were absolute, and violates his nature by blocking his quest for self-realization" (p. 38). most beautiful and most moving lines. His prophetic voice j 'ranges convincingly from the most explosive to the most j i ! soothing of verses. For these reasons I will not only j •trace throughout the poem the themes delineated above I(especially those in the last paragraph) but will also j I attempt to show how its rhetoric and Biblical motifs work j ! I ! to convince the reader of the poet's faith. j | i ; i Jerusalem. Chapter 1 i Jerusalem's subtitle, The Emanation of The Giant Albion, immediately suggests Blake's psychic concerns. As •Bloom says, the battleground where understanding and vision| ; i iare to be worked out through the course of the poem is the i i Ipoet's own mind. The hero of the epic is Los, who in many jways resembles Ezekiel indignantly admonishing a people jderelict in its covenant with God.*2 As the poem pro- j jgresses, however, Los breaks from the role of an Old Testa ment prophet and moves toward the New Testament vision of jmercy and forgiveness. In his earlier prophecies Blake jadmonlshed England, portending its doom, but now he speaks of the good news of Christ's presence in humanity and of transcendent interpersonalism. One of his notebook memo- i randa, written in 1807 while Jerusalem was under construc tion, appropriately admires a Behn poem about human love jwith which the Transcendent is related: 1.. | laBloom, "Commentary," pp. 843-44. j 244 ! j ; His panting breast to hers now Join'd, They feast on raptures unconfin'd, Vast & luxuriant, such as prove j The immortality of Love I For who but a divinity Could mingle souls to that degree And melt them In Extasy. (p. 441, 11. 13*19) i i I ! ! In the epic's frontispiece, however, we are iramedi- ! j lately confronted with the obverse of transcendence. Albion! i j is In the state of fallen existence, asleep In the shadowy j void of Beulah-in-tirae, "His Sublime & Pathos . . . Two j ; • j Rocks fix'd in the Earth" (p. 620, pi. 1, 1. 4). His situ-I ation is not one of openness and upwardness but of enclo- sure and downwardness. He is surrounded by materiality land, most deadening of all, his external self, "His reason, i his Spectrous Power, covers them [both "Sublime & Pathos'] | jabove./ Jerusalem his Emanation is a Stone laying beneath" j (p. 620, pi. 1, 11. 6*6). This sense of enclosure is sig- ! i nifleant in the poem because it accounts for a matrix of j ! vegetation imagery representing generative or material I |existence which blocks man from the creative dialectic (the |creative contraries) of his eternal center (by analogy the i earth's; the appropriate vegetation images here are the polypus, roots, and fibres.) and his eternal circumference (by analogy the earth expanded beyond its "mundane shell"; the appropriate images here are the Tree of Mystery, the |oak, groves, and forests.). The sense of enclosure is i . ■ | also central to the transcendence experienced in the ! |interior-interpersonal dynamic of the poem's mythic ; 245 | !characters. The weight of this enclosure suggested In the I ; l frontispiece no douht accounts for Blake's sardonic excla- j ; ' ! mation: "0 behold the Vision of Albion" (p. 620, pi. 1, I ! ■ i j l . 7). | As the opening of Jerusalem continues, Blake ex pressed its psychological content in terms of human alien ation. Thus, Los, in a negative lament for interpersonal engagement, cries out against "Half Friendship" as "the | bitterest Enmity" (p. 620, pi. 1, 1. 18). Superficial { | j |friendship is the worst kind of antipathy because it is Insidiously hypocritical. The poet sees the Transcendent | as enduring such relationships but not for long, for "there i |is a Judgment" (p. 620, pi. 1, 1. 10). As for himself I Blake must have felt more accepted personally and artisti- i jcally after his stay with Hayley at the coastal parish of i |Felpham: 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 receiv'd | the highest reward possible, the love & friendship | of those with whom to be connected is to be blessed, ! I cannot doubt that this more consolidated & ex tended Work will be as kindly recleved (p. 620, pi. 3). i Blake's assurance, which ultimately carries over into the |character of Los, affects the epic's Introductory plate, foreshadowing the poem's deeply Christian content. Exuber antly dedicating his work to Jesus, the poet seems like a |new man, his love and creative strength at their peak: "The | Enthusiasm of the following Poem, the Author hopes no Reader will think presumptuousness or arrogance when he is re minded that the Ancients entrusted their love to their Writing, to the full as Enthusiastically as I have who Acknowledge mine for my Saviour & Lord . . ." (p. 620-21, | ipl. 3). After asking his audience to be with him “One in I Jesus our Lord,'1 Blake then proclaims the essence of Chris- : I ;tianity: "The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of Sin . . (p. 621, pi. 3). Admitting his own sinfulness, ;the poet declares that those who wait to be "righteous" can |never enter the kingdom of God. He then follows with an assertion that clearly links interpersonal love to his own : I relationship with Christ: ". . .1 pretend to love, to j : j I see, to converse with daily as man with man, & the more to j ! ■ j ihave an interest in the Friend of Sinners" (p. 621, pi. 3). j I j Already appearing to switch his stance from an admonishing iprophet to one who wishes to be in full communication with 1 his audience, Blake asks his readers to love and forgive him also. Then, finally, he declares the apocalyptic na ture of his epic: "Therefore I print; nor vain my types shall be:/ Heaven, Earth & Hell henceforth shall live in harmony" (p. 621, pi. 3# 11. 9-10). i After repeating the same theme in the first two lines of Chapter I, Blake proceeds to indicate how the Savior in- 1 1 |spires this theme nightly. The words that the Savior dic- I itates to him reveal incontestably the importance of Chris- i jtian love in renewing mankind. Christ's words seem at i I I first to be directed to Albion as well as Blake— an inten- i jtlonally ambiguous stance, for Jerusalem is as much about | i ] the poet as it is about all men. As Jesus says, ! I i 'Awake! awake 0 sleeper of the land of shadows, j | wake! expand! 'I am in you & you in me, mutual in love divine: | 'Fibres of love from man to man thro' Albion's | I pleasant land.' (p. 622, pi. 4, 11. 6-8) j Blake'a Christ is deeply personal, going much further in ; ' j his relationship with man than any religion of the poet's ! | era recognized: j ' ! 'I am not a God afar off, I am a brother & friend; j 'Within your bosoms I reside, & you reside in me: j 'Lo! we are One, forgiving all Evil, Not seeking I recompense• •Ye are ray members, 0 ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades'* (p. 622, pi. 4, 11. 18-21) i \ Because he related his psychology to his Christianity, ! i ; i i Blake has Jesus ask where Albion hid Jerusalem, for man's j jfrustration of his creative self has kept him "'From the | i j jvision and fruition of the Holy-one . . .*" (p. 622, pi. 4, j 1. 17). The imagery of this section reflects the contrary jstate of man whose emanation "was wont to play • . . Beam ing forth . . . into the Divine Bosom" but who has forsaken i her and thereby lives in the "dark Atlantic vale," engulfed by black waters. Albion, of course, turns away from Jesus' pleas. jLlke a deist mocking a fervent evangelical pietist, he re- jsponds to Christ with accusations of deceit: ! 248 j '. . . We are not One: we are Many, thou most simulative | ! 'Phantom of the over heated brain! shadow of ! Immortality! 'Seeking to keep my soul a victim to thy Love! which binds 'Man, the enemy of Man, into deceitful friend ships, 'Jerusalem is not. . . .' (p. 622, pi. 4, 11. 23-27) ! To Albion's situation the poet clearly linked | i I eighteenth-century ethics13 which, in his view, continually I i ' i I i iset men at odds. Albion's faithlessness is self-centered land Pelagian. Rather than use his mountains for places of ! i worship as the Israelites did when they were faithful, he :"will keep them" for himself, instituting thereon "Laws of j Moral Virtue" (p. 622, pi. 4, 11. 29, 31)* The horrible j ! . j irony, as we 3ee in the next plate, is that "Albion's moun-i itains [which may also allude to the Atlantic mountains of |seventeenth-century mlllennlallsm and to the "sublime" ! mountains of eighteenth-century estheticism] run with iblood" (p. 623, pl. 5, 1* 6). Moreover, all his achieve- 1 1 ments (Blake refers to them sarcastically as "every Human perfection.") are "small & wither'd & darken'd" (p. 623, 1 pl. 5, 1. 8). The status of the world is nadiral: "Jeru- 1 salem is scatter'd abroad like a cloud of smoke thro' 13see Paul Russell's The Rhetorical World of Augustan i Humanism (Oxford: Clarendon Pr„ 1965), pp. 7-8, 54-o9, iwherein the heavily moralistic, hierarchical, and em- jpirlcal aspects of eighteenth-century humanism are treated. ;The preoccupations of Augustan humanism, which reduces man to a rung in the ladder of outward moral performance, were, for Blake, essentially dehumanizing. 249 ! nonentity"] and Britain is sacrificing its youth in war much in the same way as did the Moabites, the Amalekites, I and the Canaanites of the Old Testament. I ! Involving himself in all of this, Los-Blake says he j will not give up the task of showing man the paradise I within— a paradise that is both divine and human like j I Jesus: : i 'I rest not from my great task! \ 'To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal ! Eyes •Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity j ’Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human I Imagination. j '0 Saviour pour upon me thy spirit of meekness j & love! | 'Annihilate the Selfhood in me: be thou all ! my life! j 'Guide thou my hand. . . .' I (p. 623, Pl. 5, 11. 17-23) Blake's invocation is remarkably similar to Paul's prayer j jon behalf of the Ephesians: "That Christ may dwell in your jhearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in |love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the |breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the i |love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be 'filled with all the fullness of God" (3:17-19). Albion's sons and daughters work savagely against |Los. Their deceit and divisiveness are epitomized by jSchofield and Kox, the two soldiers who falsely accused I Blake of treason and brought him to trial. Instead of rag- Slng contemptuously against Albion's generations, Los now ! 250 ! ! . i |sheds tears like Christ weeping over Jerusalem. Los's j tears are for Albion's daughters, frustrated and "oontem'd j las fictions/ Although in every bosom they oontroll our j j I Vegetative powers" (p. 62^, pl. 5» 11. 38-39). Albion's j : I idaughters symbolize the emanatlve, prolific powers of the ihuman raoe, whioh have been isolated and made destructive, j i | Of those listed Bloom says that only two, Cambel and j I i Gwendolen, are Important beoause they represent the emana- j itions of Hyle (Hayley?) and Hand— two of Albion's disrup tive sons.^ But the poet's masterful compilation of al lusions to King Lear's daughters, Milton's Sabrina, and to [ I the Biblical figures, Tirzah, Rahab, Ezekiel's Covering jCherub (28:1^-16), and Mehetabel, offers considerable mean ing, These allusions compress into a short spaoe a num- ; jber of Blake's conoems, especially his preoccupation with j |divisiveness, duplioity, greed, and violence— the destroy- |ers of true personhood and understanding. For example, the i allusion to "Tirzah & her Sisters on Mount Gilead" (p. 62^, pl. 6, 1. * 1 - 0 ) refers to the efforts of Zelophehad's daugh ters to further divide Israel among themselves (Num. 27: jl-^). Divisiveness and deceit are also symbolized in the j ' |referenoe to Cordelia, Gonorill, and Ragan— the daughters i |who split Lear's kingdom and struggled for his personal i |favor. Blake's reference to Mehetabel is somewhat obscure, I .....i— ... ! l^Bloom, "Commentary," p. 8^5. ipossibly relating Albion's daughters to the violence-prone ! ; j grandson of Mehetabel who threatened the life of the de- Ivout Jewish priest, Nehemlah. All of these sisters are ! ! | "united into Rahab in the Covering Cherub" (p. 624, pl. 6, j ,1. 42). The allusion here oombines the harlot of Babylon I(Rahab), whose dominion preoedes the apooalypse, with the fall of Tyre foretold in Ezekiel (28:16-19). Aooording to !the ancient prophet, Tyre was to fall beoause of its ex- jcessive greed and resulting wars: "By the multitude of thy |merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with I i jviolence, & thou hast sinned: therefore I will oast thee I as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy j :thee, 0 covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire" (28:16). The poor harlot who cries through the ; i I materialistic streets of Blake's "London" is but another j i ;of Albion's unprolifio emanations, giving birth to j i !diseased and oondemned children. i The sons and daughters of Albion live in a world that | is not only materialistic but also overly meohanized. They | are like oogs in the universal machine of Newtonian physics. i iAssociated with the imagery of wheels, they draw Jerusalem | !out of the "Furnaces" of Los's imagination and objectify |her intp a material reality (Vala): | Abstract philosophy warring in enmity against | Imagination I (Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for ever), I And there Jerusalem wanders with Vala upon the mountain i i ] 252 j Attracted by the revolutions of those Wheels, | the Cloud of smoke ; ! Immense & Jerusalem & Vala keeping in the Cloud | Wander away into the Chaotic Void, lamenting i with her Shadow ! Among the Daughters of Albion, among the Starry Wheels, j Lamenting for her children, for the sons & daughters of Albion. ! (p. 62kt pl. 5. 11. 58-65) ! The division that Albion experiences within and with-j j iout is also suffered by the would-be creative Los, "For as j his Emanation divided, his Spectre also divided . . . , sug^ igesting murderous thoughts against Albion'1 (p. 62k, pl. 6, ill. 3» 7). In Chapter I of Jerusalem the vision of Los and I ' 1 I his sons and daughters does not go beyond the vegetable world (p. 635. pl. I * * ’ , 11. 19-2^). The renewal of their |vision requires that the prophet reconcile his spectre and ! ; • I emanation. At first Los's method of reconciliation is to j jflght fire with fire. In response to his speotre's sug gestion of murdering Albion, "Los rag'd and stamp'd the i I earth in his might & terrible wrathI" (p. 625» pl. 6» jl. 8). The spectre vies relentlessly for supremacy in the jdivlded ego: . .he sought . . . To lure Los, by tears, by arguments of soience & by terrors . . (p. 625. pl. 7, |11. 5-6). According to Bloom, Los's speotre represents the |stubbom instrumental will of the artist,^-5 but I think the jSpectre of Urthona is more general and representative than ■^Bloom, hcommentary," p. 8^5. Ithat. It tries to lure Los-Blake away from his commitment ; i i |to Albion by reminding him of mankind's penohant for "de ceitful Friendship" (p. 625, pl- 7, 1. 10). Using the wine-; i i press and harvest imagery of Night IX of The Four Zoas. the j i speotre tries to convinoe Los that Albion is maliciously I i ] oonsuming the prophet's sons and daughters. Shifting back j and forth in time in an analogy between England and Old j i Testament Israel, the speotre says that the same kind of people corrupting English society populated the decadent i ; . j societies of Babel and Ninevah. Schofield is a perverted j : i jAdam, and Kox, for whom all men are mere cannon fodder, is | ' i i ilike Noah, the sailor of the seas of materiality. (Blake I undoubtedly considered the flood in Genesis a further objec- Itifioation of existence.) The speotre continues with his j ! ■ ! !despairing and slanderous arguments. He deolares that Al- jbion has used the prophet's emanation (Enltharmon) for his |own delight. In a tone of disbelief he asks Los if he will j |"'still forgive'" Albion for substituting a deoeitful war- i imonger like Sohofield as the liberator of Edom-Franoe. The i i |allusion to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell reveals the abyss to whloh the oyole of rebellion and reaction has gone. i |The speotre tries to make Albion's situation look hopeless- i !ly irredeemable. Man's emotional self is led astray, he olaims, by Vala, who gives Luvah illusory hopes about !material existence. To ward off the "'evil day*" of apooa- ! |lypse, as the spectre puts it, Urizen oversees the enolosure of Luvah by Vala. Like Archimago in the second book of ; The Palrle Queene, the spectre declares that man's unbal- j i • ! |anced emotional self will overcome Los's and Albion's | spectres with rage and fury. As part of the mythic body of j the Grand Man (Albion), Los, Luvah, and Albion's spectres j I ! ! I jare engaged in perpetual conflict. ! In spite of the despairing declarations of his spec- jtre, Los tries to remain hopeful: j ; i | '. . . the time will arrive 'When all Albion's injuries shall cease, & when we shall 'Embrace him, tenfold bright, rising from his tomb in immortality' (p. 626, pl. 7, 11. 54-56) iLos's efforts are akin to the psychic struggles of every i iprophet from the overzealous Jonah to the exasperated poet i .of Blake's youth: I | 'They [Albion's sons and daughters] have divided j themselves by Wrath, they must be united by j 'Pity; let us therefore take example & warning, 0 | my Spectre. *0 that I could abstain from wrath! 0 that the Lamb . ' Of God would look upon me & pity me in my fury | 'In anguish of regeneration, in terrors of self-annihilation! | 'Pity must join together those whom wrath has torn in sunder. . . .' (p. 626, pl. 7, 11. 57-62) By "'Pity'" Blake was referring to the sympathy and regen erative charity of Christ. Such pity is a far cry from the condescension of English religion in "Holy Thursday"— a 1 "'Religion of Generation, which was meant for the destruc tion/ Of Jerusalem," becoming "her covering till the time jof the End'" (p. 626, pl. J, 11. 63-64). The reference to i 255 ! t | ithe hiding of Jerusalem by materialistic Christianity is j t jboth negative and positive in meaning. Indeed, generative | I religion did, in Blake's view, keep "afar" any truly spir itual regeneration. As we shall see, the poet considered i |the origin of such religion ancient Druidism, whose prac- i jtice of human sacrifice was repeated by the deistic lndlf- ! Iference of England's churches. Prom his contrary point of i iview, however, generative religion at least held hopes for Ithe material and ethical progress of man and was, therefore, i |an "'Image of Regeneration.'" Its views and Blake's are j |essentially antipathetic; but they have enough in common, |so that Los can refer to a "'point of mutual forgiveness Ibetween'" them (p. 626, pl. 7> 1. 66). ! 1 1 Unfortunately, Albion seems hopelessly floundered In i |generative existence, to which Los's spectre would have i | I them both 3uccumb. Harried by Urthona, the prophet threat- j jens to destroy his spectrous nature: '. . . 0 Spectre 'I know thy deceit & thy revenges, & unless thou desist 'I will certainly create an eternal Hell for thee. Listen! •Be attentive! be obedient! Lo, the Furnaces are ready to receive thee! 'I will break thee in shivers & melt thee in the furnace of death.' (p. 627, pl. 8, 11. 6-10) The spectre's effort to have Los be something that he is not, namely, an impatient utopian, upsets the prophet. With an incredible sense of destiny, Los declares his indi- | jviduality and his commitment to mankind: "'I act not.for ! 256•! ■ i ' I |myself; for Albion's sake/ I now am what I ami1" (p. 627, j jpl. 8, 11. 17-18). That Los is indeed Blake's fictional j : i |self, struggling among spectrous forces for the fulfillment ! of himself and mankind, is obvious if we compare his j I self-assertion with that of the poet's in a letter to Rev erend John Trusler (August 23, 1799). The good reverend, i | acting with the domineering benevolence of a Hayley, or- i : dered some pictures of his own design from Blake. After an !unsuccessful fortnight attempting to paint the pictures iaccording to Trusler's wishes, Blake finally gave up and i j drew them his way with the accompanying explanation: "I ; | j find more and more that my Style of Designing is a Species j ; i by itself, & in this which I send you have been compell'd j ! i ! I ; by my Genius or Angel to follow where he led; if I were to | I act otherwise it would not fulfill the purpose for which |alone I live ..." (pp. 791-92). ! In response to hi3 stand, L03's spectre is extremely |deceptive. He cowers before the prophet in apparent obed- jience but in reality is "thirsting for Los’s life" (p. 621, I jpl. 8, 1. 28). The prophet will put up with his spectrous j side no longer: j 'Thou are my Pride & Self-righteousness: I have | found thee out. 'Thy holy wrath & deep deceit cannot avail against me '. . ., unless 'Thou abstain ravening I will create an eternal Hell for thee.' (p. 627, pl. 8, 11. 30, 33, 37-38) Los doe3 not know how to handle his spectre but Is well | i i |aware that the frustration of one's emanation leads to war: i 'Hand & Hyle & Koban, Skofeld, Kox & Kotope labour mightily i 'In the Wars of Babel & Shinar; all their Emanations were ! 'Condens'd.' (p. 628, pl. 8, 11. 41-43) i i Blake's understanding of the sublimation (or condensing) of j ■ one's prolific energies Into the machines of war— the sword,j | the bow and arrow, the cannon and gun, all phallic images— j : is altogether modern. Because Los is painfully aware of the social and psychological damage in denying natural desire |and the creative self, he works furiously, trying to revive* i • |the emanations of Hand, Hyle, and Schofield. He demands j the assistance of his own spectre, but only "'forms of I cruelty'" emerge. He would very gladly protect Jerusalem's jemanations, but Albion's spectrous sons have in their "Ab- : j istract objecting Power"1* * divided the contraries of spectre jand emanation into vague notions of "Good & Evil." Blake's understanding of the negating powers of the rational mind began as far back as The Marriage of Heaven l and Hell. But in Jerusalem he goes more deeply into the differences between a negation and a contrary. Their chief difference is that of essentlalism versus existentialism. ^See William Luijpen's excellent summary of Jean Paul Sartre's insight into the "nihilating" power of con sciousness, which negates both self-identity and everything around it (Existential Phenomenology, pp. 105-06). ! 258 ! j i iNegations are predetermined abstractions, devoid, in a very jreal sense, of existence which is open to change and devel- | j opraent. Thus, Albion seeks to reduce Jerusalem to an i ! • i 1 impalpable voidness'" (p. 645* pl. 22, 1. 26); and she, j accordingly, complains of his negation just as Tharmas com- i plains of Enlon's objectifying search in his soul in The I Four Zoass *... 0 Albion! my Father Albion! 'Why wilt thou number every little fibre of my soul, ! 'Spreading them out before the Sun like stalks of i flax to dry?' (p. 645, pl. 22, 11. 19-21) I ! | The result of negation, which is a product of the rational j i 1 mind, is the divisioh of reality into arbitrary categories, j i (Contraries, on the other hand, "'mutually exist,'" advanc ing the growth of one another continually. Finally, since i a negation is, as an essence, all that it can ever be, it is unlike mutual contraries, incapable of ever going beyond j I Itself or relating to the Transcendent. As Los says to his j jspectre, . . nor shall that which is above/ Ever de- i jscend into thee . , (p. 639* pl. 17, 11. 43-44). Los's i (agonizing awareness of the division within and without prompts him to "'Create a System or be enslav'd by another Man's.'" His system will be to live as creatively as pos sible, employing all his energies to the fullest. But it appears that his new understanding is, for the .moment, only intellectual. His repeated demand for strict (obedience on the part of his spectre goes against the very nature of contraries. His stern manner makes his spectre I I ; despair and himself resemble an avenging prophet: i '. . . Obey my voice & never deviate from ray will j 'And I will be merciful to thee! i 1............. ............................ . | 'If thou refuse, thy present torments will seem southern breezes• . • •' ! (p. 629, pl. 10, 11. 29-30, 35) i Fashioning himself after Christ, whom Los truly resembles I In the apocalypse at the end of the poem, Blake's hero demands that his spectre not Impede little children from coming to him. At this point, however, L03 is far too |domineering and willful to be any kind of apocalyptic jagent, not to mention one fashioned after Christ. His Ispectre wishes to sacrifice all of Los's children and | (especially his emanation, Enitharmon. But the prophet I (represses him, ' Striving with Systems [(of rational thought] to j deliver Individuals from those Systems, ! That whenever any Spectre began to devour the Dead | [ironically, those living in the world], | He might feel the pain. . . . (p. 630, pl. 11, 11. 5-7) Los's struggle to liberate man's natural desire from spectrous impositions yields the joys of Erin, who repre sents a kind of Beulah. But because Erin's delights are only temporary, the problem of human integration still re mains. Thus, Los cries out with his sons and daughters, 11'. . . 0 what shall we do for lovely Jerusalem/ To protect the Emanations of Albion's mighty ones from cruelty?'1 1 ! , j(p. 631, pl. 11, 11. 17-18). While Albion's creative forms I 260 |prepare for spiritual conflict, sharpening "'their beamy i i jspears/ Of light & love,'" his spectrous self stands ready j ! I |for physical battle. Bound "'in iron armour,'" Schofield | 1 ( j is fittingly compared to a mandrake at Reuben's gate. Likej jReuben and the mandrake, whose shape resembles that of a j ihuman, Schofield is a natural man. He breeds war and |death, for the mandrake to which he is likened will kill i i any human form within earshot of its squeak when pulled j ; ' i from the ground. Alluding to the legend of the mandrake, j Los's children add that Schofield "'shoots beneath Jeru- j Isalem's walls to undermine her foundations'" (p. 631, ! I . | jpl. 11, 1. 23). The complexity of this passage testifies ! I I t 1 to Blake's penchant for the obscure. By juxtaposition the j poet reveals that, because of the materialism of men like i Schofield, Vala has been substituted for Jerusalem. Within ithe context of such a world, Los still remains hopeful, for I ■ . God by contrary design has allowed naturalism to take shape iso that it may be seen in all its enormity and "'cast off for ever'" (p. 631, pl. 12, 1. 13). Blake himself was also hopeful. He boldly envisioned the transformation of England's horrors (in particular, "^burn's fatal tree" where many were sacrificed by the state) into a new Golgotha where self-sacrificing creative men will prepare themselves for the New Jerusalem. Built i in Lambeth, where Blake began his system to deliver mankind from systems, this new Golgotha is Golgonooza. Though the ipoet's commitment to his city of art is distinguished by i j | virtues like love and selflessness, we must remember that j i ! j in Itself it is no new Jerusalem but a kind of halfway house to Jerusalem's spiritual regeneration. As Bloom ! i points out, in spite of its fourfold quality (for Blake creativity demands all the faculties of man.), Golgonooza's i !"eastern gate toward Eden is frozen solid, signifying the limitations even of art in giving us an entrance into the j I eternal world. Blake's city of art has strong similar- j ;itie3 to Spenser's House of Holiness in the first book of j i The Falrle Queene. Of course, the virtues upon which Gol- j jgonooza is built are less orthodox than those in Spenser's j jHouse. But the importance of love in both visions is the !same. In both there are moments of heavenly contemplation |and glimpses of the apocalypse. But, Just as the Red Cross | Knight must withdraw from the House of Holiness and commit ! | himself to the elimination of war before he can fully par- i ticipate in Jerusalem, so Los must do likewise, for "Around i iGolgonooza lies the land of death eternal, a Land/ Of pain i l and misery and despair and ever brooding melancholy ..." (p. 633, pl. 13, 11. 30-31). The progressive objectification of the world, a dis enchantment hastened by institutional religion, has not, however, denied it its intimacy with eternity. In fact, •^Bloora, "Commentary," p. 845. I 2 6 2 j f . t ias Blake's metaphor reveals, the "Vegetative Universe" Is flanked by eternity at Its. center and circumference. The ! i ipoet's analogy Is too beautiful not to quote: j ! i The Vegetative Universe opens like a flower from ! the Earth's center j In which Is Eternity. It expands in stars to j the Mundane Shell And there meets Eternity again, both within & ; without. . . . (p. 633, pl. 13, 11. 34-36) ; j Blocking man from eternal vision are numerous linages made j i ■ opaque by natural religion. These obstacles to vision in clude "the Cave, the Rock, the Tree . . . , The Forest and j the Marsh . . . , the Trees of Malice, Revenge/ And black ; Anxiety. • . ." Preceding the technique of lmaglsm, Blake \ j magnificently links his Images with psychic realities so | that they intimately reflect one another. The same Images j ; that block man from eternal vision spring from minds of ! i opaque self-containment, from "self-righteousnesses con- j j glomerating against the Divine Vision." As a witness to nature's plight, Los knows Its l |causes, namely, man's expulsion from Eden and his division I I by the "False Tongue": j He views the Cherub at the Tree of Life, also the 1 Serpent Ore, the first bom, coil'd in the south, the j Dragon Urlzen, i Tharmas the Vegetated Tongue, even the Devouring j Tongue, | A threefold region, a false brain, a false heart And false bowels, altogether composing the False ! Tongue, Beneath Beulah as a wat'ry flame revolving | every way, And as dark roots & stems, a Forest of Affliction, j growing In seas of sorrow, (p. 634, pl. 14, 11. 2-9) ! I Enclosed above by shadowy forests and below by seas of ! materiality, Los seeks deliverance through Oolgonooza. But his millennialism of art is, at Its deepest level, materi alistic and incapable of lifting man above the vegetative world. Thus, spectres like Hand and Hyle continue to flourish. Blake's metaphor for the proliferation of spec- j : i trous selfhood is perfect: i : ' ! And Hand & Hyle rooted into Jerusalem by a fibre i Of strong revenge, & Schofield Vegetated by Reuben's Gate In every Nation of the Earth, Till the Twelve Sons of Albion Enrooted into every Nation, a mighty Polypus growing | From Albion over the whole Earth: such is my \ awful Vision, (p. 365* pl. 15# 11. 1-5) j I | ;The complexity of these lines is staggering. Within the | : I metaphor of self-generating egoism is an obscure allusion | i I to ancient Israel, linking the warlike establishment of its I twel ve tribes under Joshua to the purveyors of war in Blake's time. In the poet's view the purveyors of human | conflict were not, in a causal way, Hand, Hyle, and Scho field but instead Bacon, Newton, and Locke, whose empiri cism and tyranny of intellect gave rise to a materialism ! and technology alien rather than Integral to the human spirit. Blake's understanding at this point in his career was so perfectly worked out that he looked upon the violent rage of his prophetic self with fear and trembling: ! 264 1 ; j I see In deadly fear In London Los raging round | his Anvil Of death, forming an Ax of gold; the Four Sons | of Los Stand round him cutting the Fibres of Albion's hills. . . . (p. 636, pl. 15, 11. 21-23) ! Although Los has not reconciled with his spectre, whose j ; l zeal is destructive rather than creative, by the end of j ■ | Jerusalem he will realize the futility of his aggression, j i r _ l 0 I Presently, at the core of his desire is an impatience that is very much this-worldly. His eagerness to wipe away the j ! i materialism growing in his society is Just as divisive as j [ • j the desire in Nazi Germany to preserve Western Christian 1 culture. Blake's attitude toward Los at this point is revealed ; by a complex Biblical allusion to Abraham and his descend- j | ent, Reuben. Apparently the poet saw in Abraham's devotion! : I to Jehovah a selfishness and fanaticism that reduced human ilife to nothing. After all, Abraham denied his wife at ;least twice in order to save himself from regal tyranny i j (Gen. 12:10-16, 20:2-13). Moreover, as Reuben plotted the i ideath of Joseph, so Abraham nearly sacrificed his own son. i |His near-destruction of Isaac was, in Blake's view, to !gratify the same Urlzenlc God used to defend war and human ! j sacrifice in nineteenth-century Europe— the same God whom Jesus shall replace by the end of the poem. As the allu- jsion reads, Los struggled to cut “the Fibres of Albion's | hills,1 1 [So] That Albion’s Sons may roll apart over the Nations, While Reuben enroots [settles] his brethren in the narrow Canaanite Prom the Limit of Noah to the Limit of Abram, in whose Loins Reuben . . . shall take refuge. • . • i (p. 636, pl. 15, 11. 24-27) t Unfortunately, the prophet's fiery rage seems only to add to England's engulfment: Hertfordshire glows with fierce Vegetation; in the Forests The Oak frowns terrible, the Beech & Ash & Elm enroot Prom the blue Mundane Shell even to the Earth of Vegetation, Throughout the whole Creation, which groans to j be deliver'd, j Albion groans in the deep slumbers of Death upon ! his Rock. (pp. 636-37, Pl. 16, 11. 3-5, 25-27) Perhaps Blake was more of a realist than we give him credit 1 I for. While it may be terrifying, there is great value in j Iseeing life as It is. At least Los's outline of space and time will help us to see reality In all Its enormity and {prompt us to do better. Accounting for the historical and cosmic degeneration i {discussed in the previous paragraph are the psychic diffi- I i cultles presented in plate 17. Fearful of being consumed by Albion's beautiful but generative emanations, Los re lates to them through his spectrous mask. The result is i repression. The prophet separates from his spectre in 1 l {order to protect his creative self but, in so doing, j {denies his creative side the very contrary by which it is ! 266 |fulfilled. Los would gladly make Enitharraon his contrary I |but does not realize that he cannot until he is reconciled i jwith his spectre. Terrified by his vision of reality and I i I angry for change, he seems to have lost sight of his mis- j ! ! |slon, joining ranks with the cruel and oppressive: I"1. . . tell Hand & Skofield they are my ministers of evil/j |To those I hate, for I can hate also as well as they*1" ; | (p. 640, pl. 17, 11. 62-63). | i I I In spite of the prophet's ire, Albion's sons remain ! j obstinate. Self-righteous and warlike, they call self-denial "sinful delight," proclaiming their opposition to peace, forgiveness, and "brotherhood." Aligning them- ■ selves to nature, they completely pervert Christian vision into "'War & deadly Contention.'" In trying to destroy the inotlon of Jesus as a friend of sinners, Albion's sons are, j |in fact, committing self-murder. The irony of their |self-aggrandizement is tragic, for, in "rav'ning to gour- mandlze/ The Human Majesty," they work "against their Human jnatures" (p. 641, pl. 19, 11. 23-24). Although much of their hatred and warmongering is described in the context of sexual repression, their real problem goes far deeper than mere "sexual malady."1® Much of the sensual imagery Blake used to describe mankind's inauthentic condition is 1 japproprlate considering the moral prudery of institution- i ! ^^Bloora, "Commentary," p. 849. 26? alized religion in his time. Moreover* the sublimation of repressed sexuality into mar is only a symptom of the real diffioulty which is the restraint of man's oreative self: ". . . hidden far within/ [is] His Bon [emanation] weeping j in the oold and desolated Barth" (p. 6*1-1, pl. 19,11. 15-16). Slnoe his eternal center and eternal olroumferenoe ■ I are closed to divine vision, Albion withdraws into himself. j His self-commingling only serves to remind him of the loss i | of Jerusalem, who pleads with Vala to know why she was de- | nled her relationship with Jesus. Albion overhears Vala's j implication that Jerusalem's sadness is due to the sorrow j i • ! I experienced in reoalllng past sins. (In her prolifio re- ; | latlonship with Albion, she had been aooused of sin.) Jerusalem's response questions the finality of sin and | ' ■ i asserts the regenerative potential of forgiveness. Her | assertions are mixed with the poignant memory of Eden when j man enjoyed a oreative union with nature and his emanation: '• • • Albion beheld thy beauty, i 'Beautiful thro' our love's oomellness, beautiful thro' pity. 'Albion loved thee: he rent thy Veil: he embrao'd thee: he lov'd theel 'Astonish'd at his beauty & perfection, thou for- gavest his furious love. 'I redounded from Albion's bosom in my virgin loveliness: 'The Lamb of God reoelv'd me in his arms, he smil'd upon us: •He made me his Bride & Wife: he gave thee to Albion. 'Then was a time of love. (p. 6 * 1 - 3 , pl. 20, 11. 32-33, 36-1 *1) Listening to the dialogue between Jerusalem and Vala, I Albion finally accosts them. Like Job he is covered with ibolls and abandoned by family and friends. Unlike Job he is full of despair and shame, guilt-ridden for his union i with Vala and Jerusalem. Completely taken in by the relig ion of repression and self-righteousness, Albion tries to i | deny his awareness of the primordial energies of Eden. His wish is to "’be clos'd up1" from all otherness through I j I natural virtue, yet he seems vaguely aware of his partici- j | i pation in the cycle of Ore: I ! ! 'X hear my Children's voices j 'I see them die beneath the whips of Captains; j they are taken 'In solemn pomp into Chaldea across the bredths of Europe. 'Six months they lie embalm'd in silent death, worshipped, 'Carried in Arks of Oak before the armies in spring. 'Bursting their Arks they rise again to life: they play before 'The Armies. I hear their loud cymbals & their deadly cries. 'Are the Dead cruel? are those who are infolded in moral law 'Revengeful?' (p. 644, pl. 21, 11. 37, 42-49) Blake's comparison of England's sons, destroyed in the wars of Europe, to Israel's rebellious sons, overcome by the Chaldeans according to Jeremiah's prophecy, is magnificent in its economy and meaning. Like the Israelites who were led by false prophets (Jer. 28:1-7), trusting in the perma- inence and dominion of a political realm, the English waged iwar to secure imperial strength. Like Jeremiah (27:12-32) 269 ! I i i iBlake oounselled restraint and patience, for rebellion and ! repression are merely two sides of the same process which ' i is history. And like Jeremiah, Blake was aocused of trea- j son. Just as there were the death marohes of Israel's cap-! tives into Babylon (2 Kings 25:6-11, 19-21), so were Eng- j land's sons oarried out of Prance in ooffins. Blake*s jcynicism is particularly blatant in Albion»s chauvinistic ! : i Ireferenoe to the worshipped*” dead of these marohes. ; I Just as Jeremiah had struggled to rid Israel of the false | ; theology of political messianism, so Blake tried to expunge! ! j ifrom his society the theology of justice, self-righteousness,! ! i land atonement— the theology of war. Indeed, Albion*s ques tion should be put in the affirmative: those who are in folded in moral law are revengeful. The allusion to Jeremiah in the dialogue between Vala, Albion, and Jerusalem has additional meaning. Using I the words of Enion to Tharmas in The Four Zoas (Night I, j |11. 36-38* W--45)t Vala asserts man's loss of love. She says that she has peered into the soul of Albion and seen only sin. Thus, in a world without love, she is sustained jby the oonflicts and wars over her boundaries. Aooepting I 1 her veil as the supreme reality, Albion throws off Jeru salem and saorifioes himself to nature: j I 'Hide thou, Jerusalem, in impalpable voidness . . . 1 *But oome, 0 Vala, with knife & cup, drain my blood ! 270 ! 'To the last drop, then hide me in Thy Scarlet Tabernacle. • • i (p. 645, pi. 22, 11. 26, 29-30) ; i i t |With Jeremiah as his source, Blake has Jerusalem offer j Albion a higher reality, a higher kind of life through for-j jgiveness. This is the new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah, |replacing the old Sinai covenant of law. As the symbol of : ’ l jlove and freedom opposed to Vala's religion of chastity, Jerusalem parallels the highly apocalyptic female image in j j Blake's source. As the Lord said in one of Jeremiah's i jdreams (31:21-22), ! I Turn again, 0 virgin of Israel, I Turn again to these thy cities. How long wilt thou go about, | 0 thou backsliding daughter? ! For the Lord hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man. i This passage, especially the last line, has eluded Biblical jscholars for centuries. But in his belief that Jerusalem j j | shall be reconciled with Albion and Albion with the Tran- I ! jscendent, Blake was not too far from today's most accepted I ! |exegesis. According to Guy P. Couturier's work on Jeremiah i |in The Jerome Biblical Commentary, . . . we deal here with a symbolic language, where 'woman' personifies Israel [or Jerusalem in the case of the poet3 and man personifies Yahweh [[and/or Albion for Blake]] .... Indeed, Jeremiah still talks of Israel as an adulterous I wife (Hos. 1:35 Jer« 2:20) who had been divorced I by Yahweh, her husband (3*1)• If she now adheres to her husband, certainly this is something new— 271 something unheard of in her entire history (of. v. 19).19 Because Blake viewed the fallen condition of man as chiefly Ian interior problem, his hope is that Albion will be re united with his emanation in love and forgiveness and thereby united with Christ. Speaking of the poet's hopes, there is, finally, an 'autobiographical parallel between his poetry and the Book i I of Jeremiah, The oontrary design by which God allowed i ' | Israel to fall to the Chaldeans so that it might rise to a : ^higher vision is similar to the prooess by whioh Blake rose j from disillusionment over the politioal morass of his time, i The poet's allusions to Jeremiah are especially good be- | ! ! cause of their similar theologies. As Peter Ellis says of j |the Old Testament prophet* j ; i £Hs emphasized! the practioe of religion in spirit I and truth (3:16; 7:1-5; 29:10-1^; 31:19ff.) and j the making of a future new oovenant between God j and Israel to replaoe the broken Sinai Covenant | (3:18-2**; 31ff.; 32:**0). . . . It is not too muoh to say . . . that without Jeremiah the mystical side of man's nature and the unfathomable capa city of the human heart for unselfish suffering i -^Guy P. Couturier, "Jeremiah,» ' in The Jerome Bibli cal Commentary, ed. by Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fltz- meyer, and Roland E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: P-H., 1968), p. 326. James Hyatt and Stanley Hopper ("The Book of Jeremiah," in The interpreter * s Bible. ed. by Nolan B. Harmon £New York: Abingdon Pr., 19563, V, 103*0 agree in essence with this view, saying that the last line of the passage should be emended to read: "... the woman re turns to the man," that is, Israel will return to Yahweh. 1 might have lain hidden until the coming of i Christ.20 i In the conversation between Jerusalem and Albion con-! i eluding Chapter I, the latter confuses love with condescend-! i ; I lng pity (an "'Inward complacency of Soul1"). He admits the error of his thinking, offering himself In sacrifice j for his children, but his pose as a fisher of men ("He drew the veil of moral virtue . . . / And cast it Into the At lantic Deep to catch the souls of the Dead") Is absurd and ! 9 i i I futile. The confusion within him Is so great that he sud- ! i j denly curses mankind before the avenging, morally right eous God of his churches. With references again to Jere- imiah (18:18) Blake's Grand Man admits that the overthrow of Jerusalem by Babylon was the result of clinging to the Sinai covenant: JO Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I have forsaken thy Courts. •0 Human Imagination, 0 Divine Body I have Crucified, •I have turned my back upon thee into the Wastes of Moral Law. | 'There Babylon is builded in the Waste, founded in Human desolation.' | (p. 647, Pi. 24, 11. 17, 23-25) jAlbion-Israel'a adherence to outward forms of millennial j (hope has, in Blake's view, led to the repeated denial of 1 limaginatlve love embodied in Jesus. By God's contrary de- i jsign (revealed in an allusion to Jeremiah's Parable of the ! 20Peter Ellis, The Men and Message of the Old Testa ment (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical £r., 19&3), pT?97. 273 Potter) there is still hope: •But Albion is cast forth to the Potter, his Children to the Builders •To build Babylon because they have forsaken Jerusalem.1 (p. 647, pi. 24, 11. 29-30) According to the parable in Jeremiah, God, the potter, is in complete control of men and nations (his clay). He can remake a nation that is destroyed, just as he can renew Jerusalem after its captivity. But the extent or depth of his renewal depends on man's actions: "If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them" (Jer. 18:8). Unfortunately, all Albion can do at the mo ment is recall the paradlsal harmony of the past, scorning God for his lack of mercy and Jerusalem as a transient de lusion. Like typical eighteenth-century mlllenniallsts, Albion's children "'have assum'd the Providence of God,'" reducing the position of their father to oblivion. Their concept of man as moral conscience hindered by the body has denied much of human life. Their religion of law and sac rifice has reduced men to sinners, denying the divine hu manity in every man. Jerusalem. Chapter 2 In the introductory plate of Chapter 2,21 Blake set up a contrast between Britain as the abode of ancient j 2*Since David Erdman's edition of Chapter 2 offers a better arrangement of its plates, especially with regard to I 274 I ! i !religion, spiritually akin to the Christian gospel, and j Britain as the seat of barbarous Druidlsm. According to j the following lyric, England's original paradise was cor- | [ [ rupted by human cruelty. Thus, she is faced with a I ! choice— a choice between the unitlve love of Jesus and the i selfish, provincial love of Albion's spectre, who is re- 1 !sponsible for deism, a contemporary counterpart of primi- !tlve, sacrificial religion: ! The Lamb of God walks by her [Jerusalem's] side, And every English Child is seen, Child of Jesus 8 c his Bride. ! Forgiving trespasses & sins ! Lest Babylon with cruel Og, With Moral & Self-righteous Law Should Crucify in Satans Synagogue! (p. 170, pi. 27, 11. 18-24) j Blake refers cynically to Albion'3 relationship with man- ikind as one of "Family-Love" since his love is like that of !the Hobbesian clan. Tyrannical and possessive in his re- jlationship with others, Albion resembles both Tyriel and Urlzen. As the overly solicitous father of mankind, he obvi ously destroys real love, be it the selflessness of an artist for his work or the self-sacrifice of friends. These kinds of love (Los seeks to embody them both.) he objectifies in order "'That Man be separate from Man . . .'" (p. 172, pi. 28, 1. 12). His effort to establish the mental development of the poem's hero, Los, I will use jhls edition for my analysis of the chapter. ! 275 national, racial, and soolal distinctions between men has jgiven rise to a legalistic ethic murderous in its denial jof human encounter. Thus, Blake describes him sitting by | ! Tyburn's brook, where deserters and enemy soldiers in the I i ! i i |war against Prance were executed. Under his heel a "deadly| | tree" germinates; it is the tree of "Moral Virtue & the j iLaw/ Of God who dwells in chaos hidden from the human i jsight." This tree's proliferation into forests of darkness jsymbolizes the division between men and between man and the ; Transcendent. Ingeniously mixing allusions to Jeremiah's jParable of the Potter and Abraham's near-sacrifice of I I iIsaac, Blake depicts Albion erecting twelve altars for the i Isacrifice of his son3 to a god who mysteriously directs the jdestiny of nations. Jeremiah, under the inspiration of |God, advised the twelve tribes of Israel to submit to Baby- i |Ionian captivity because a new covenant and a new age were jto come. Like Albion's sons Israel revolted against self-sacrifice only to bring about the very thing it feared most— the fall of Jerusalem. The revolt of Albion's sons, like the reaction of England against France, is a denial of the opportunities for peace and love represented by Jerusalem. - | The culprit persuading Albion of an Immanent destiny |is, of course, his spectre: I am your Rational Power 0 Albion & that Human Form You call Divine, is but a Worm seventy inches long I 276 I I j That creeps forth in a Night & is dried in the morning sun. . .. • i \ (p. 173, pi. 29, 11. 5-7) I I |While trying to expose humanity's shortcomings, Albion's spectre reveals some of his own. Blake firmly believed ! | :that every social organization under law was the result of | i . i man's rational attempt to preserve and expand himself. As j I . 1 |with Israel such covenants are doomed to failure because of 1 man's penchant for forgetting or breaking former promises. |Thus, the spectre asks with some doubt: ! 1 i And shall Alblons Cities remain when I pass j I over them j With my deluge of forgotten remembrances over 1 the tablet. . .. (p. 173, pi. 29, 11. 15-16) 1 i Blake's doubts about the memory as a worthwhile faculty in 1 I 1 human relationships also ties in with his dislike for the inotlon of atonement. By contrast to Los, who rejects i 1 (atonement for sin as recompense to a Urizenic god (Los will I i soon realize that the sacrifice of selfhood is the only way for man to be "at-one" with man.), Albion's spectre creates a religion of reparation. In effect, his religion has changed "willing sacrifice of Self, to sacrifice of (miscall'd) Enemies / Por Atonement" (p. 173, pi. 28, jll. 20-21) . Because of the spectre's self-centered, solipsistic vision, it is no wonder Vala reflects his hermaphroditic form (p. 173, pi. 29, 1. 28). Recalling her part in the i degeneration of paradlsal harmony, she argues for sexual 277 ! dominion, rejecting all love that Is selfless and tran scendent: I emanated from Luvah over the Towers of Jerusalem And In her Courts among her little Children offering up The Sacrifice of fanatic love! why loved I Jerusalem! Why was I one with her embracing In the Vision of Jesus Wherefore did I loving create love, which i never yet Immlngled God & Man, when thou & I, hid the Divine Vision In cloud of secret gloom . . . Bom of the Woman to obey the Woman 0 Albion the mighty ! For the Divine appearance is Brotherhood, but I am Love. . • . (p. 174, pi. 29, 11. 41-47, 51-52) As an estranged emanation, Vala la deceptive, suggesting that Albion may eventually rise to divine vision through |her erotic love. But Albion recognizes her as the mother i of Babylonian idolatry. He also realizes that the erotic |relationship which he began with her in Eden has sublimated 1 iinto war: j ... 0 dweller of outward chambers j From grot & cave beneath the Moon dim region of | death Where I laid my Plow In the hot noon, where my | hot team fed i Where implements of War are forged, the Plow to j go over the Nations | In pain girding me round like a rib of iron in hSaven! . • . Albion the high Cliff of the Atlantic Is become a barren Land. . . . (p. 174, pi. 30, 11. 10-14, 16) ! Overhearing the conversation between Vala and Albion, Los recognizes the danger of an estranged emanation hiding through erotic love "the most evident God" (p. 175, pi. 30, II. 32). According to Los, Albion's whole orientation is iupslde-down: There is a Throne in every Man, It Is the Throne of God This Woman has clalmd as her own & Man Is no Morel Albion Is the Tabernacle of Vala & her temple And not the Tabernacle & Temple of the Most High. ... (p. 175, pi. 30, 11. 27-30) Vaguely reminding us of the choices of faith offered In the introductory plate of Chapter 2, Los presents, by way of Biblical allusion, similar choices. The pivotal figure in I the kinds of faith that the prophet contrasted is Reuben. 1 There is some confusion as to the actual settlement of •Reuben's tribe. Some Scripture scholars say that it settled first on the west side of the Jordan and then moved jeast where It eventually dispersed, many of the clan taken 1 ilnto captivity by the Babylonians.22 But Chapter 32 of jNumbers says that It originally intended to settle on the t least side of the Jordan but was commanded by Moses to go i j o v e r to the west side in conquest of the Promised Land. | Blake seems to have sided with the latter view. Thus, Reu ben Is described as sleeping east of the Jordan In Bashan, ; 22John Hastings, ed., Dictionary of the Bible j(2nd ed., revised by Frederick C. Grant and H. ti. Rowley; New York: Scribner, 1963) , p. 846. {"out off from Albions mountains" which lie "Between Succoth jand Zaretan" where Solomon made numerous artifacts for the j temple in Jerusalem (l Kings 7*46; 2 Chron. 4:17). Though the Reubenites built an altar on the east side of the Jor- ! dan in order to be united with the faith of Jerusalem i (Jos. 22:10-34), Blake must have felt that something was lost In their division from the rest of the Promised Land. |He Implied their loss not only cartographlcally but also I dramatically, for all who see Reuben when he is sent west I !of the Jordan are materialized In spirit and vision: "they jbeoame what they beheld" (p. 175, pi. 30, 1. 54). Using jthe drama of Reuben's appearance In the west as a metaphor I for the horrors of materialistic vision, Los adds an oml- i inous warning: "Consider this 0 mortal Mani 0 worm of I i sixty winters . . . / Consider Sexual Organization & hide 'thee in the dust" (p. 175, pi. 30, 11. 57-58). To the i i horrors of materialism and sexual organization, Blake I linked the demand by Albion-Israel'a emanations for a share in the division and ownership of Palestine (p. 175, pi. 30, 1. 52). Fortunately, the division of Albion was, according to Blake's doctrine of states, a hopeful sign. Inspired by a jnew covenant, "Saving those who have sinned from the pun- ! jishment of the Law," Los-Blake declares: I J Mo individual can keep these Laws, for they are I death j To every energy of man, & forbid the springs of life; Albion hath enterd the State of Satan! Be I permanent 0 State! | And be thou for ever accurs'd! that Albion i may arise again: And be thou created Into a State! I go forth to create States: to deliver Individuals evermore! Amen. (p. 176, pi. 31, 11. U-16) |According to Blake, the fallen world Is in such dire con- jdltion that the fixing of Its nothingness Into states |(national as well as psychic) allows for the opportunity to jdeliver individuals from those states. If anyone thinks j Blake's apocalypse is merely a matter of perceptual re- 1 jnewal, he needs only to consider what the poet wrote on |this plate. Looked upon eplstemologically the Four Zoas jare "the Eternal senses of Man," but with the Fall they i"are States Permanently Fixed" so that each may be tran- jscended. To be preoccupied with one or the other Is to be i idangerously caught up in time and the capricious events of |men. Thus, Los works Impatiently to transform Reuben's t |vegetative existence into Imaginative life so that the uni- l Iversal states of Ulro may be transcended. The prophetic I lartist plays an Important part in this process, for he helps determine the states of human life so that individ uals may be freed from them. Unfortunately, he is harried by his Impatient spectre, wanting the Promised Land at any cost. But deliverance will not come through violence and jwar. Like Moses, who commanded the tribe of Reuben to join 28l~1 ! in the military conquest of the Promised Land according to I the Sinai covenant, Los sends Reuben to war against Albion: S "The Seven Nations fled before him they became what they beheld/ Hand, Hyle & Coban fled: they became what they |beheld. . . (p. 176, pi. 32, 11. 14-15). That Blake ! considered the righteous conquest of Canaan by the Israel- : i 1 1 Iites a violent, merciless act is clear from his annotations j ■ 1 ; I to Bishop Watson*s Apology for the Bible: j To me, who believe the Bible & profess myself a Christian, a defence of the Wickedness of the ! Israelites in murdering so many thousands under pretence of a command from God is altogether Abominable & Blasphemous. Wherefore did Christ come? Was it not to abolish the Jewish Imposture? j Was not Christ murder'd because he taught that God loved all Hen . . . & forbade all contention | for Worldly prosperity in opposition to the i Jewish Scriptures. . . . (p. 387) j In the conflict between England and France, Blake also con- I Isidered France (the east) equally culpable. According to |his cartographical symbolism, used to refer to contemporary 1 ! las well as Biblical events, man's rational self has re pressed his creative energies: "... Urlzen assumes the iEast, Luvah assumes the South/ In his dark Spectre ravening Ifrom his open Sepulchre" (p. 176, pi. 32, 11. 29-30). As in the atrocious conflict between American and Vietcong soldiers, each side becomes the warlike fiends it beholds ! in its opposition. Thus, "Jerusalem trembled seeing her j children drlvn by Los's Hammer" (p. 176, pi. 32, 1. 21). i ! Though vexed by his spectrous self, Los will eventu- ! 282 j ; j ally realize that only ‘ ’ Divine Meroy/ Steps beyond and Re- j deems Man in the Body of Jesus" (p. 177, pi- 32, 1. 55). For the moment, however, Blake contrasts a merciful redemp-j Ition in Jesus with the moral illusion of chastity in order i to make a theological point. If ohastity seems to be j morality for someone, then for that person’s oonsoienoe it j i is, in spite of all the torments and despair it may bring, j iBut divine meroy goes ‘ 'beyond” this delusion, helping man ! : ■ | |to realize that the physioal body, which is all the moral- j ;ity of chastity sees, is also a spiritual body in Jesus. j That the poet’s understanding is deeply Christian is dear j from the similarities between his belief that "Length Bredth Eighth will again Obey the Divine Vision" (p. 177, pi. 32, 1. 56) and Paul's hope for the Ephesians "That 1 Christ may dwell in your'hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted & grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth and [height ...» (3:17-18). Los appears to understand the difference between 1 [morality and meroy. He joins the divine body, following in 1 jmeroy after Albion, who nears the brink of oblivion. The [action here is profoundly Christian. Blake depicts the ! [Savior in pursuit of Albion, "Displaying the Divine Vision" 1 not by way of some humanistic enlargement of the mind but i jin the "loves and tears of brothers, sisters, sons, fathers I 283 i I and friends/ Which if Man ceases to behold, he ceases to i ' exist1 1 (p. 178, pi. 34, 11. 12-13). Expanding on Blake's j understanding is the Divine Family, which emphasizes its j union in Jesus through forgiveness and a mutuality of con- j traries. Seemingly unaffected by both human and divine assist-! i i ance, Albion still wanders astray. At the pit of Ulro, he | (appears to have become pure vegetative existence— above, 1 below, and within: I 1 I go to Eternal Death! the shades of death j Hover within me & beneath and spreading themselves i outside i Like rocky clouds, build me a gloomy monument of woe. (p. 179, pl. 35* 11. 16-18) | 1 i IIn his condition there is no basis for genuine human en- i (counter; his "friends are become a burden/ A weariness I . . . & the human footstep is a terror ..." (p. 179, ! 1 jpl. 35* 11. 22-23). As many around him witness, he is en- i jgaged in a terrible reversal of human relationships: ! ! . . . his Friends are his abhorrence! i Those who give their lives for him are despised! Those who devour his soul are taken to his bosom! To destroy his Emanation is their intention. . . . j (p. 180, pl. 36, 11. 14-18) 1 jUrizenic in his self-pity and his concept of God, Albion I asks why there is no ransom offered to redeem him, and ! jLos replies that atonement is "Moral Severity," destroy- ling mercy in Its victim, for mercy, like love, must be | 284 j ! freely offered.23 ; j ! ) To deplot Albion's solipsism Blake developed an in- I ■ | tricate metaphor, comparing mankind to a house Isolated j ; S from outlying communities. Though the twenty-four cathe- j ! i ;dral cities of England halfheartedly pray for Albion, the j I i latter is still "possessd by monsters of the deep" (p. 180, j pl. 36, 1. 28). Using the Image of physical sickness to suggest Albion's psychic Illness, Blake wrote that man has ! ; j |"become a [spectrous] Fiend, wrap'd in an endless curse,/ j ■ . \ Consuming & consum'd for-ever in flames of Moral Justice" j (p. 180, pl. 36, 11. 29-30). Not even Bath, well-known for; its medicinal power, can help him. Although the poet's j reference to Bath may allude to Reverend Richard Warner, | who opposed England's war against France,2* * I think Blake's! : I i I first reference to the cathedral city implies its lack of , i Christian commitment before Warner came along. After all, Bath Is at first referred to as "the physician and the I poisoner" who "cast Jerusalem forth upon the wilds of 2%lake's anti-atonement sentiments may have been In fluenced by Reverend Jacob Duchy, whose works he possessed (Discourses on Various Subjects. 2 vols.). Desiree Hirst, in riidden Riches; Tradliional"“ Symboilam from the Renais sance to Slake (New York: £arnes and NoSTe, l9b4), p. 11, quotes from a letter by Duchy to Thomas Paine, suggesting the reverend's view: "A wrathful God whose anger could only be appeased by the blood of His own Son pour'd out in behalf of sinners allways appear'd to me next to blasphe mous ." | 2**Erdraan, Blake, p. 440. I 285 Poplar & Bow:/ To Malden & Canterbury In the delights of cruelty" (p. 181, pl. 37, 11. 5-6). It seems that the poet! viewed with a sense of horror the shallow, inactive Chris- j 1 tlanity of England's cities: j 1 i The Twenty-eight da mistake for twenty-four] trembled in Deaths dark caves, in cold despair They kneeld around the Couch of [Albion’s] Death I in deep humiliation And tortures of self-condemnation while their ! Spectres rag'd within. i (p. 181, pl. 37, 11. 23-25) ! I IThe lack of real concern from outside Albion is matched by j ; • I the lack of harmony within. Possessed by spectrous self- j ; i hood, universal man seeks to repress his creative powers. England's cities bear witness to this on the national levelj ; ■ 1 iwhere whole countries are shut from divine vision: j 1 They saw America clos'd out by the Oaks of the j western shore If we are wrathful Albion will destroy Jerusalem with rooty Groves If we are merciful, ourselves must suffer destruction on his Oaks! j Why should we enter into our spectres, to behold our own corruptions ! 0 God of Albion descend! deliver Jerusalem from ; the Oaken Groves! (p. 182, pl. 38, 11. 6, 8-11) i The hesitancy of England's cities reveals their essential i 1 jlaok of Christianity. They are unwilling to bear the cross I |and deny themselves by forgiving others. Reluctant to ad- | mit their spectrous selfhood, they also cling to the belief i in an atonement. Their weak dependence on a god above who j handles everything denies humanity's necessary role in ! 286 ! salvation history. Their Christianity is the kind that ' , j Jesus condemned when he said, "Not everyone that saith untoj me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven | . . (Matt. 7*21). Against their lukewarm faith Los i i jcries out justly: | . . . Why stand we here trembling around I Calling on God for help; and not ourselves in whom ! God dwells I Stretching a hand to save the falling Man. . . . | (p. 182, pl. 38, 11. 12-14) j ! It appears that Los is becoming more and more aware j |of the relationship between vision, love, and human iden- j ; i jtity; as he says, I ' I All broad & general principles belong to benevolence j Who protects minute particulars, every one in their own identity ... the soldier who fights for Truth, calls his enemy his brother: ! They fight & contend for life, & not for eternal death! (p. 183, pl. 38, 11. 22-23, 41-42) i I Such is the nature of true charity: it respects the minute jquallties of a person and, in so doing, understands the |person as an individual. As the prophet says, ! It is easy to acknowledge a man to be great & good while we Derogate from him in the trifles & small articles of that goodness: Those alone are friends, who admire his minutest powers, (p. 183, pl. 38, 11. 56-58) Unfortunately, such charity has been lost in Ulro: . . . here the affectionate touch of the tongue is closd in deadly teeth And the soft smile of friendship & the open dawn of benevolence 1 i 287 1 1 Become a net & a trap, & every energy renderd cruel, Till the existence of friendship & benevolence j Is denied. . . . here the Soldier strikes, & a dead corse falls at his feet. . . . I (p. 183, pl. 38, 11. 24-27, 43) iln the fallen world, where selfhood dominates, man is ^thought to be by "Nature the Enemy of Man" (p. 183, pl. 38, 1. 52). Such thinking Is perverse. In Blake!s view men ! ; j should respect each other to such an extent that they can j iconflict Intellectually and progress toward truth together. Such Is the life of eternity defined by the poet as "Hunt ing & War," spiritual activities which have been perverted jlnto physical violence: i And the two Sources of Life in Eternity, Hunting S e 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 I of Liberty To destroy Liberty, a pretence of Religion to destroy Religion. . . . (P. 183, pl. 38, 11. 31-36) Alluding to the internecine feuds of Israel's twelve tribes, Los is especially bitter about the promises of i junity unfulfilled by men, especially relatives: 1 ! I Oshea & Caleb fight: they contend in the valleys | of Peor In the terrible Family Contentions of those who i love each other: | 288 j j I I see America closd apart, & Jerusalem driven in terror j Away from Albions mountains, far away from Londons spires! j | 1 will not endure this thing! I alone withstand j to death, ; | This outrage! i ! (pp. 183-84, pl. 38, 11. 37-38, 69-72) | Los’s indignant speech provokes England's cities to ; i action but in the wrong way: j ; I They Albion surround with kindest violence to j bear him back | Against his will thro1 Los's Gate to Eden. . . . (p. 184, pl. 39, 11. 2-3) ! Blake knew very well that imaginative vision could not be j | forced on others. There are no short cuts to his spiritual! i ’ f I i millennium. Eden without freedom is no Eden at all. As I I the poet wrote, "... the Will must not be bended but in jthe day of Divine/ Power . . ." (p. 184, pl. 39, 11. 18-19). jTo be sure, the imagination plays an important part in the I apocalypse because of its capacity for noumenal perception. i jAfter all, Albion must go through Los's gate to get to ! ! Eden. But he must first reorganize his psyche in relation i j to others. Critics like Bloom ignore the interpersonal and religious dimensions of Blake's vision.25 if Jerusalem's reunion with Albion and the putting off of Vala's posses- ; slve will mark the apocalypse, then Blake's vision is not j simply imaginative or artistic: 25as Bloom says in his "Commentary,1 1 p. 853, "Eden is not to be won through the Will, but only through the j constant process of Imaginative work until the day of Di- | vine Power, of apocalypse, comes." ! 289 j \ ! Man Is adjoin'd to Man by his Emanative portion: Who Is Jerusalem In every Individual Man. ... ! (p. 185, pl. 39, 11. 38-39) In their misdirection Albion's cities fall Into the j : divisive state of nature. As their representative, the | best amidst an Ineffectual lot, Bath speaks of Albion In a ' i i tone that is weak-kneed and sentimental. He recalls i j nostalgically how Albion's appearance In eternity used to | ! elicit tears even from the envious but that now man has ! i . i : i "become/ A piteous example of oblivion" (p. 185, pl. 40, l ; - i ill. 8-9). Ignoring the human role In salvation history, j : . i Bath thinks that Je3us alone can save man: I ; . . . However loving j And merciful the Individuality . . . ! . . . we are nothing: but fade away in mornings breath. Our mildness is nothing: the greatest mild- j ness we can use ' Is incapable & nothing! none but the Lamb of God can heal This dread disease: none but Jesus. • . • (p. 185, Pl. 40, 11. 10-11, 13-16) j iRelying solely on God's help, Bath perfunctorily abandons |his position to Oxford, who 13 equally ineffectual. Even the cities that have "embrac'd Eternal Death for Albion's jsake" have done so out of weakness, not strength. Their i lack of Christian commitment is not only futile but also I |infuriating: ! Erdman, in Blake, p. 443, and Bloom, in his I"Commentary," p. 853, describe Bath's speech as both weak |and futile. 290 ; Alasl— The time will oome, when a mans worst enemies Shall be those of his own house & family: in a Religion Of Generation, to destroy by Sin and Atonement, happy Jerusalem, The Bride and Wife of the Lamb. (pp. 186-87, pl. *U, 11. 25-28) i Albion understands neither how his friends oan be enemies nor the contrary principle that spiritual opposi tion is true friendship. Thus, he aoouses Los of being an enemy, and Los accepts the acousation. Albion demands "righteousness & justioe" as his way of relating to others; the prophet, in opposition, offers mercy. Sounding almost like Hamlet in his contempt for deceit, Los says: "I have no time for seeming; and the little arts of compliment,/ In morality and virtue: in self-glorying and pride" (p. 18?, pl. ^2, 11. 27-28). Not realizing that the prophet's con trariness is really for his benefit, the Grand Man threat ens physical retaliation. Albion's desire for revenge per verts traditional Christian principles into a rationale for war; as he says, "Man lives by deaths of Men" (p. 188, pl. ^2, 1. ^9). Cursing every "human kindness," he also oalls upon God to offer an atonement for him. In response to his presumptuous self-pity, Los continues to build the "Mundane Shell," so that its limitations may be reoognized and transcended. As the Divine Voice advises. The Reactor the satanio spectre hath hid himself thro envy. I beheld him. But you oannot behold him till he be reveald in his System Alblons Reactor must have a Place prepard: Albion must Sleep The Sleep of Death, till the Man of Sin & Repentance be reveald. Hidden In Alblons Forests he lurks: he admits of no Reply From Albion: but hath founded his Reaction Into a Law Of Action, for Obedience to destroy the Contraries of Man. He hath compelld Albion to become a Punisher & hath possessd Himself of Alblons Forests & Wilds! & Jerusalem Is taken! I come that I may find a way for my banished | | ones to return j Fear not 0 little Flock I come! Albion shall I rise again. (p. 189, Pl. 43, 11. 9-17, 25-26) Though the above passage repeats much that we have i jalready learned about the spectre, It offered Blake a great i iopportunity to discuss more deeply the reasons for Albion's i rejection of human kindness. As the only two that escaped ithe full consequences of the Fall, Los and his emanation ! offer the discussion. As usual their understanding Is pre- i jsented in the form of a mythical narrative (the same narra- ! tive appearing in Night 3 of The Four Zoas. 11. 44-103). In eternity Albion distorted love into eros, “A sweet en trancing self-delusion . . . / Soft exulting in existence; all the Man absorbing!'1 (p. 189, pl. 43, 11. 39-40). plake was very astute about the self-centered nature of jerotic love. Thus, Albion became "Idolatrous to his own i jShadow" (p. 190, pl. 43, 1. 46), until he felt entrapped: I j " . . . Luvah strove to gain dominion over Albion/ They 292 | ! I jstrove together above the Body where Vala was Inclos'd . . (p. 190, pl, 43# 11* 61-62). The Grand Man cast i ! Luvah into nature, both in “the east [Prance] & west j [America]," where he waits to be redeemed by Jesus.i j , I Eventually coming under the dominion of his spectre, how- j I . 1 ever, Albion merely abandoned one form of eros to adopt j j | ianother more destructive form. Indeed, though the eros j ! i that Luvah represents is subject to accusations of guilt, ! . i lit is at least generative of the physical body. Though : sexual union is not the Last Judgment, it is in sexual or vegetative existence that the Last Judgment will take place. And with that Judgment there will be a union of j men's spiritual bodies through Christ, who rends nature's j j . i veil and the veil over the ark of the old covenant. j Apprehensive as a result of the above narrative, i Los's spectre and emanation enter his soul. The prophet is | |still open to divine vision and firm in his commitment to humanity (p. 191, pl. 44, 11. 16-20). Thus, he parodies jurizen's tyrannous advice in The Four Zoas in order to attack those who oppress humanity with poverty and false religion. Los's devotion to man is so great that he enters Albion's soul, searching, "in all the terrors of friend- 3hip," for its tempters. In many ways this Incident is, as ! ------------------- ! 2^As universal but fallen energy, Luvah is capable of ! spontaneous but temporary resurrection, which we have seen !in America. i - J - r " “ - ! 293 I j ;Erdman suggests, the central action of the poem.2® Dra- j matically, it is a central event in the prophet's growing i . 1 I dedication to Albion and imaginative Christianity. Los is ; j junable to discern man's tempters because they are ingrained I i f in human despair. Albion is framed for destruction like j the Jews, who were forced to make bricks for Egypt's pro- j i i fane temples: j . . . they Qthe tempters] take up I j The articulations of a mans soul, and laughing j throw it down j Into the frame, then knock it out upon the plank, ! & souls are bak'd j In bricks to build the pyramids of Heber & Terah. ! | (p. 192, pl. 45, 11. 9-12) ! : 1 That Elake considered the Israelites' legalistic religion | ho better than that of the Egyptians is indicated in his references to Heber and Terah, who were descendents of ! |Israel through Abraham. And just as there has been the de- igeneration of religion, so there has been the unceasing i |objectification of humanity. Man's soul, in all its minute particulars, has become abhorrent like the dogs at Lucifer's i |hell gates, hardened into grains of sand and so devoid of |kindness that in the asylum of Bedlam, in its "dens of de- j jspair," the "human form was none" (p. 192, pl. 45* 1. 26). I | Psychologically, Los's search in Albion's soul is cen- i i tral to his growth in Christian charity. Albion's plight i is so dire that even imaginative man cannot perceive his i I 2®Erdman, Blake, p. 433. ! “ " " i i ! victimizers. Instead of blindly lashing out as he might have done in the past, Los recognizes that sin is a nec- i i jessary element in human existence and that "the sinner j shall always escape" because of Qod's Providence. Thus, even if he could find the accusers of sin in Albion's soul, I he "could not dare to take vengeance; for . . . he who i ; takes vengeance alone is the criminal of Providence . . ." j l (p. 192, pi. 45* 11 • 30, 32). Reminding us of Jesus' com- j jmltment to save sinners and not the sinless, Los's under- ; : i I standing is clearly Christian: "0 whom/ Should I pity if ! 1 I j I pity not the sinner." The prophet's insight is also ; i 1 ! other-directed, so that it becomes his task to persuade j 1 ! iAlbion against the cycle of revenge. In dramatic terms, | I ! however, Blake's treatment of Los's new development is j |brilliantly low-keyed. The latter half of his epic would j ! i have been anticllmactic if he had dramatized Los's change 1 I in glorious and eloquent verse. The prophet's latest real- jization is expressed appropriately in negative terms; he | jdares not take revenge. By the end of Jerusalem, he will be the paragon of mercy and forgiveness, the human exemplar of brotherhood and vision. Travelling through Albion's soul, Los beholds the fundamental conflict within man— the struggle between the jliberating love of Jerusalem, who is potentially everyman's ! 'emanation, and the self-seeking love of Vala, who is Jeru- j jsalem's shadow struggling for dominion in every spectrous jman. In her righteousness Vala is like some of Israel's prophets who accused Jerusalem of an adulteress relation ship with Jehovah. Albion is hopelessly under Vala's con trol. His faculties are closed to vision, covered by her veil of repressive morality. Witnessing this, Los works feverishly on man's behalf. Appearing to rely as usual on his own strength, he eventually shouts "loud for Divine aid" (p. 193, pi. 46, 1. 9). i In response to Los, Jesus gives Albion repose from |the nightmare of history, surrounding his couch with Bibli cal reminders of his destiny. Suddenly aware that regener- t ation comes from both within and without, Los understands that Jerusalem's separation from man is the worse course of t action. Albion's fallen condition is nadiral, but it is j part of divine Providence. Time and space, Enion's crea- jtions, are truly the mercy of eternity. In fact, "Rephaims Vale," in which Albion rests, is not to be mistaken with Rephaim east of the Jordan in the land of Reuben but is in- i jstead a valley lying between Jerusalem and Bethlehem (2 Sam. 23:13), the Bride and Bridegroom of the marriage of mankind and divinity. History, which ha3 appeared for so jlong an inescapable cycle, points toward an end: | Los also saw her ^Enion] in his seventh Furnace j [history's last stage which he tries to reveal to man], he also terrified | Saw the finger of God go forth upon his seventh I Furnace: i Away from the Starry Wheels to prepare Jerusalem a place, (p. 195, pi. 48, 11. 44-46) ! ..~ '.... '.' ...' ..... ' ....' ' " 296 “j To convince Jerusalem not to abandon Albion, Erin, a I liberating emanation of Beulah,29 addresses everyone. She Isays that all the self-sacrifice of those in eternity is i reduced to human destruction "unless a Refuge [Jerusalem] can be found/ To hide" men "from the wrath of Albions Law" i (p. 195, pi. 48, 11. 59-60). The world has become, accord ing to her description, a vast, spontaneous proliferation 1 of doomi ! ! | 0 Polypus of Death 0 Spectre over Europe and Asia I Withering the Human Form by Laws of Sacrifice for Sin By Laws of Chastity & Abhorrence I am witherd up. Striving to Create a Heaven in which all shall be pure & holy In their Own Selfhoods, in Natural Selfish j Chastity to banish Pity And dear Mutual Forgiveness; & to become One Great Satan Inslavd to the most powerful Selfhood: to murder the Divine Humanity. . . . (p. 196, pi. 49, U. 24-30) j jThe revolt of selfhood from Lucifer to Adam to Ore has driven Albion*3 sons and daughters into lands of abomina tion. The phrase, "their uncircumcision in Heart & Loins," describing the faithless condition of Albion*s children, smacks of Jeremiah, who continually emphasized the need for observing the spirit rather than the letter of the law. The prophet's words, underlying Blake's allusion, seem to present a bleak prospect for man: "Behold, the days come, 29Erdman, in Blake, pp. 444-47, says that on the historical level Erin represents a new spirit of liberty which began around the turn of the nineteenth century in Ireland. i ! 297 1 I | Isaith the Lord, that I will punish all them which are cir- j i ! jcumclsed with the unolrcumclzed; Egypt, and Judah, and j 'Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Noah, and all that are | In the utmost corners, that dwell In the wilderness: for i al1 these nations are unclrcumclzed, and all the house of i i |Israel are unclrcumclzed In the heart" (9:25-26). But just as Jehovah permitted the Chaldeans to defeat jthe Israelites In order to renew the spirit of Jewish re- I i jllglon, so did he allow pagan kings like Og and Slhon to ! ; impede the Israelites' entrance Into the Promised Land. \ In permitting the latter, he united the Israelites under i i Moses1 direction; and they, In turn, conquered the kings jthat resisted their passage (Jos. 2:10; Jg. 1:20, 11:19-20): I The Lord ! Jehovah is before, behind, above, beneath, around He has bullded the arches of Alblons Tomb binding i the Stars | In merciful Order, bending the Laws of Cruelty to Peace. He hath placed Og & Anak, the Giants of Albion for their Guards: Building the Body of Moses in the Valley of Peor: the Body Of Divine Analogy; & Og & Slhon In the tears of Balaam The Son of Beor, have given their power to Joshua | and Caleb, (p. 197, pi. 49, 11. 52-59) As a prophet and apocalyptioist Blake saw many parallels | be tween the Promised Land and England. Clearly the body of |Moses and his community are precursors of the body of Jesus and his community. Indeed, the reference to "Peor" Is most revealing. While it may refer to Moses* burial place east I 298 (of the Jordan, where the Israelites settled before enter ing the Promised Land (Dt. 3*29* 4:46), it also refers to j j a region near Bethlehem (Jos. 15:59). I | 1 The very evils that appear to hinder the process of i salvation history are not only blameless but helpful. Thus, ;Erin asks her sisters in Beulah to help man see through j i jfalse appearances, especially the arbitrary categories of ; i | (good and evil: i i | Remove from Albion, far remove these terrible surfaces. They are beginning to form Heavens & Hells . . . Yet they are blameless 8 c Iniquity must be imputed only To the State they are enterd into that they may be deliverd. . . . (p. 197, pi. 49, 11. 60-61, 65-66) i i {The erotic and sometimes disruptive energy of Luvah-Orc j has, as we know from The Four Zoas. become a state to be i t delivered by the Divine Humanity. The means to such liber ation is clearly one of transcendence: Learn therefore 0 Sisters to distinguish the Eternal Human That walks about among the stones of fire in bliss 8 c woe Alternate] from those States or Worlds in which the Spirit travels: This is the only means to Forgiveness of Enemies. • . . (p. 197, pi. 49, 11. 72-75) Unfortunately, Albion is set on a tragic course of moral, self-deifying raillennialism, "a Providence oppos'd to the Divine Lord Jesus" (p. 197, pi. 50, 1. 4). As a result, all of "Creation • . . groans, living on Death" | 299 } (p. 197, pi. 50, 1. 3). The allusion here to Paul reveals |the poet's sense of Christian eschatology: "For we know I jthat the whole creation groaneth and travalleth in pain to gether until now" (Rom. 8:22). Blake's sense of Christian j j 1 ■hope is also suggested in his allusion to the Gospel of |John. By contrast to Albion, Erin, resembling Nary, the I sister of Lazarus (John 11*32), professes faith in the re generative powers of Jesus: j i Come Lord Jesus, Lamb of God descendI for if, j ; 0 Lord! I i If thou hadst been here, our brother Albion i I had not died. j j (p. 197, Pi. 50, 11. 10-11) j |Although Erin's faith is not matched by an active commit- i ment to humanity like Los's, Beulah's daughters seem to learn much from her advice. Their understanding is pro- jfoundly Christian (cf. Ephesians 4:26): • • to let the i |Sun go down/ In a remembrance of the Sin: is a Woe & a |Horror!" (p. 198, pi. 50, 11. 27-28). Finally, Blake's Christian hope is again revealed near the end of Chapter 2 in the daughters' prayer, "Come then 0 thou Lamb of God and take away the remembrance of Sin"— a prayer that clearly alludes to Jeremiah's prophecy of a new covenant of mercy between man and God: Behold, the days come salth the Lord, that I will I make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and ! with the house of Judah: Not according to the cove- ! nant I made with their fathers • • • But this shall j be the covenant that I will make with the house of I Israel . . . I will put my law in their inward parts, | ........ .. ~" ~ 300 ] ; i ! and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. . . • for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember i | their sin no more. (31*31-34) | i I |Since the Fall was responsible for "the memory between Man j land Man," memory that holds grudges and seeks revenge j i i i I | (p. 685, pi. 54, 11. 6-8), then the apocalypse must consist iin forgiveness that wipes away the remembrance of sins, jMoreover, as the end of Jerusalem shows, Blake's apocalypse 1 | is the coming together of transcendence and Immanence i through a new covenant of forgiveness and through the inte- ! jgration of man's "inward parts." As Jeremiah wrote, "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every iman his brother, saying, Know the Lords for they shall all jknow me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord . . ." (31:34). I i Jerusalem. Chapter 3 i | Chapter 1 of Jerusalem deals chiefly with Los's com- imitment to Albion, who has separated from his emanation and resigned himself to material existence (Vala). The pro phet, seeking to build Golgonooza, a halfway house to Jeru salem, is opposed by Albion's spectrous sons and daughters. The latter represent negation, a condition of the Fall made into a religion by the cruel sacrifices of ancient Druid- ism. In Chapter 2 we were presented with the negation of creative life in the covenant of Sinai which, for Blake, had its contemporary counterpart in Albion's religion of law and atonement. Between the religion of predestlnatlve self-righteousness and the Christian love of minute par ticulars, Los chooses the latter. But in Chapter 3 the prophet must confront another counterpart of spectrous re- j ligion— deism. j For Blake the beliefs of Voltaire and other enlight- i i ened contemporaries represented the ultimate degeneration ; I of true religion. The poet is amazingly orthodox in his ' i condemnation of the Pelagian ethic of deism: You, 0 Deists, profess yourselves the Enemies of Christianity, and you are so. . . . Man is bom a Spectre or Satan & is altogether an Evil, & requires a New Selfhood continually, & must con tinually be changed into his direct Contrary. But your Greek Philosophy (which is a remnant of Druidism) teaches that Man is Righteous in his Vegetated Spectre. . . . (p. 682, pi. 52) i ; Basing its ethic on "the Selfish Virtues of the Natural ; Heart," deism demands a rigid code of give-and-take Jus tice. Such a religion is satanic because the motive of its ethic is vengeance for sin. In the face of |eighteenth-century rational ethics, Blake was a staunch ! defender of Christianity. Whereas deistic morality lay behind the machinations of history's cycle, "the Religion of Jesus, Forgiveness of Sins, can never be the cause of a War . . ." (p. 683, pi. 52). Thus, Los works furiously against deistic ethics in order to protect Albion's emanations. He is a tired, harried prophet, "clothed in sackcloth of hair," separated i 302 | |from his own emanation and Immersed in vegetative exist- > ! i j jence. While Blake was very realistic about Los's nadiral j j condition, he also expressed great hope in the restoration :of man's emanation and the renewal of his soul: j I In Qreat Eternity every particular Form gives forth or Emanates: Its own peculiar Light, & the Form is the Di- I vine Vision And the Light is his Garment. This is Jeru- | salem in every Man, A Tent & Tabernacle of Mutual Forgiveness, Male & Female Clothings. ! And Jerusalem is called Liberty among the I Children of Albion. ! j (p. 684, pi. 54, 11. 1-5) t ! In the Longlnlan sense Jerusalem is an emanation from the divine will,* in the psychological 3ense she is the source i !of free and loving contact between men. Because of his I ifallen condition, however, man's chief means of maintaining I | contact with others is the memory with all its potential I i for revenge: But Albion fell down, a Rocky fragment from Eternity hurl'd j By his own Spectre, who is the Reasoning Power in every Man, Into his own Chaos, which is the Memory between Man & Man. The silent broodings of deadly revenge springing i from the i All powerful parental affection, fills Albion | from head to foot. (p. 685, pi, 54, 11. 6-10) Indeed, Albion's main problem is not one of perception but of possessive love. As Blake wrote, "... when Luvah [man's natural affections] assumed the World of Urizen," ! 303 | becoming spectrous and egocentric, "All fell towards the | . ! I Center, sinking downwards in dire ruin" (p. 691, pi. 59* |11. 15* 17).^ The abysmal state of human relationships ; i is plainly suggested later in Chapter 3 by the reference i | | |to Luvah as Albion's spectre, unformed and chaotic (p. 692, pi. 60, 11. 2-5). It is Los's task to articulate the means to authentic human relationships and, in so doing, restore ! Luvah. As we shall see, the prophet's expression becomes 1 j most creative when it is the Gospel of Jesus. Presently, Ithe eros that Luvah represents is really "Spiritual Hate." i Thus, Jesus, who preaches spiritual love in the forgiveness I I |of sins, is declared foolish by the spectre because he at- ; |tempts to build a "World of phantasy" and not an orderly j domain in a world where man is by nature the enemy of man. For Blake and "those who disregard all Mortal Things," i Ithe genuine brotherhood of men is fulfilled in Christ. | Toward him salvation history, with all its providential contraries and negations, moves. Through him the covering cherub of our banishment from Eden and the veil of the tab ernacle of the old covenant are transcended. Through him the accusing law that divides men from one another and ^Interpreted historically, these lines also relate to the selfish nature of man's love and to his resulting dismal condition. Once symbolic of the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity in the French Revolution, Luvah succumbed to physical conflict with England's Urizenlc power and sank into the cycle of Ore. 1 1 | 304 jrepresses their creative Instincts is overcome. Through i ! him all experience is lifted up and "blessed for ever." j f This process is not completely unilateral, however. The j j i participation of Christ in history is directly dependent on jman's response. As the voices of Eternity proclaim, . . . let every Man be Judged By his own Works. . . . , , , , , f , , f ............ I He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars. General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite & flatterer The Infinite alone resides in Definite & ! Determinate Identity. . . . (p. 687, pi. 55, 11. 57-58, 60-61, 64) |Por Blake, to assert that one loves all mankind is not only 1 jmeaningless but also hypocritical. Love which participates iln the infinite can only exist in the context of personal, I I individual encounter. As the precursor of Jesus' apocalyptic emergence into i t history, Los confronts Albion's willful daughters, the fe male counterparts of his rational sons. Immediately, we no tice a crucial difference between the prophet's angry con frontation with the sons In Chapter 1 and his spiritual con flict with the daughters here. The indignant prophet has obviously begun to mellow. Though somewhat sarcastic, he reminds the daughters of the dangers of their maternal in is tincts extending beyond the cradle. Going even further than Milton in his distrust of the female will, Los sees its busy, here-and-now concerns a3 responsible in part for ! 305 ! i " " • Ithe Fall of man as well as the passion and death of Christ I(p. 688, pi. 56, 11. 33-37* 42-43). Although the prophet |achieves little In admonishing Albion's daughters, he does !not abandon his commitment to society. While Urlzen builds i I 1 a "Hermaphroditic Satanic World," Los works busily to con- ! vert it into a "beautiful Mundane Shell . . . , the Place/ ! I 1 jOf Redemption & of awaking again into Eternity" (p. 691, i |pl. 59, 11. 7, 9). Providing a dramatic contrast to Al bion's daughters, Los's daughters are especially benevo- i ■ I lent: I j . . . they regard not pity & they expect no one ! to pity, I For they labour for life & love regardless of any one But the poor Spectres that they work for always. | incessantly, (p. 691, pi. 59, 11. 36-38) I In spite of the prophet's efforts, Jerusalem is jnearly in despair. Separated from Albion, she lives in ] Ifear and trembling, a state bewildering and dreadful to man. Although she seems to rely on Jesus, who promises to lead her out of Ulro (p. 693* pi. 60, 11. 36-37* 62), she is under the dominion of Vala, whose "Religion of Chastity & Uncircumcised Selfishness" epitomizes each man's isola tion. With Scripture as the background of much of his thinking, Blake's references to chastity and uncircum cision have psychological and religious significance. In ancient Judaism there was no "religion" of chastity, but there was a preoccupation with the virginity of brides, 306 1 | who, if not chaste, were severly treated (Deut. 21:12-14). ; ! i j I The moral pride that condemned devirginate Jewish brides j ! I I was, in Blake's view, most cruel. This accounts for his j | l i j linking such moral righteousness with the ancient Druidic practice of sacrificing virgins. For the poet, as Paul j Miner suggests, sexual love was analogous to self-annihilation, and chastity comparable to self-love. Thus, Blake used the Gospel story of Joseph's doubts about |Mary before their marriage to convince Jerusalem of the j i |hypocrisy of Vala's morality and the joys of forgiveness. |The poet's imaginative re-creation of the story presents a ; truly authentic encounter between the bride and her groom. |As she says in response to his accusations of adultery, 'Art thou more pure 'Than thy Maker who forgiveth Sins & calls again Her [Jerusalem] that is Lost? | '. . . if I were pure, never could I taste the ; sweets I *0f the Forgive[ne] ss of Sins. . . . (p. 694, pi. 61, 11. 6-7, 11-12) i Mary's emphasis on forgiveness ties in with Blake's refer ence to uncircumcised selfishness. Not only was circum cision a preparation for Jewish marriages (Ex. 4:26) and a sign of being part of the community (Eze. 28:10; 31*18; 32:18) but also an act of spiritual commitment. Jeremiah's frequent references to a circumcision of the heart (4:4) jare part of "the background of Pauline teaching that *clr- i [cumclsion is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the I ' ! 307 1 ; i letter' (Ro. 2:29). . . • Circumcision of the heart is equivalent to forgiveness through Jesus Christ. • . ."3* Thus, Vala's show of holiness is mere self-righteous cere- j mony. And Mary's words concerning Jerusalem's deliverance i through Jesus are most reassuring. As the Divine voice says to Jerusalem, alluding to Jesus' assurance to the j apostles and to Martha, the sister of Lazarus: ! i ; • I 'Give forth thy pity & love; fear noti lo, I am i with thee always 'Only believe in me, that I have power to raise from death j 'Thy Brother who sleepeth in Albion. . . .' (p. 694, pi. 60, 11. 66-68) j 1 i 1 • ! The reconciliation between Mary and Joseph is paradisaic, j i j I Transcending the vegetative existence that stifles Albion, ! I i "she flowed like a River of/ Many Streams in the arms of | i j |Joseph . . . Emanating into gardens and palaces upon" the !four rivers of Eden (p. 695* pi. 61, H. 28-33). i I By contrast to the encounter between Joseph and Mary, i jVala's relationship with spectrous Albion is stultifying ! and murderous: Then the Spectre drew Vala into his bosom . . . Crimson with Wrath & green with Jealousy, dazling with Love And Jealousy immlngled, & the purple of the vio let darken'd deep, Over the Plow of Nations thundr'ing in the hand of Albion's Spectre. A dark Hermaphrodite they stood frowning upon London's River; ^Hastings, ed., pp. 163-64. ! 308 | ! And the Distaff & Spindle In the hands of Vala, J with the Flax of i Human Miseries, turn'd fierce with the Lives of j Men. . . . (p. 699, pi. 64, 11. 25, 28-33) ! Los understands that the oause for suoh a relationship Is ; the rational ego (p. 699, pi. 64, 1. 20). He also witnesses the spectral sacrifice of Luvah, a human analogy to Christ,] l I "nail'd . . . to Albion's Tree in Bath," where even the j best lack conviction. History's abomination of human af- j I fections and its proliferation of the "Arts of Death" are j i t 'the obvious apocalyptic preparations of Providence. Luvah will eventually be raised from his sepulchre by Christ. ! ; I [For the present, however, Albion conscribes England's youth land binds her labor force to a military-industrial complex stifling all creative vision. Blake brilliantly connected ] i - ! jEngland's social malaise with the psychic chaos of spectre and emanation, comparing that chaos to the destructive but ] redeemable relationships between Druidic priests and their sacrificial victims: So sang the Spectre Sons of Albion round Luvah*s Stone of Trial, Mocking and deriding at the writhings of their ! Victim on Salisbury, j Drinking his [[the spectre's] Emanation in intoxi cating bliss, For a Spectre has no Emanation but what he imbibes from deceiving A Victim: Then he becomes her Priest & she his Tabernacle ] And his Oak Grove, till the Victim rend the ! woven Veil I In the end of his sleep when Jesus calls him from j his grave, (p. 701, pi. 65, 11. 56-62) ! 309 i The rational ego's victimization of others divides it from j i jits creative counterpart, making the latter a mysterious j and aloof Holy of Holies. The scriptural allusions in this| 1 _ I passage also indicate a separation between man and the ! i Transcendent, since in Old Testament times only the high ! i priest could enter the Holy of Holies and then only on the | ' ! Day of Atonement. Blake's reference to Voltaire and Rous- j i seau as cherubs on the veil enclosing the Holy of Holies (cf. Ex. 26, 31) suggests that in their deism they fur- j 1 thered the division between man and God. j I • ! Having crucified the only vestige of Christ's spirit, j jnamely Luvah-France, Albion is in dire straits. His insti tutional religions are largely responsible for the repres- ! i ision of true Christian religion. Thus, immediately after I 1 ! i l jLuvah is sacrificed, Albion's daughters "erect a temple & jan altar./ They pour cold water on his brain" in a prosti tution of true baptism, which is of the spirit and not the flesh, which opens eyes instead of closing them "in veils of tears" (p. 702, pi. 66, 1. 31). As in the political sphere where slaves become despots, the victims of righ teous sacrifice become like their vlctimizers. The old covenant has persisted to the present, and Luvah is nearly destroyed. Blake's allusion to the "withering gourd" which God prepared for Jonah (4;6-11) suggests the need for aban- j |doning the old law in order to possess vision. Jonah was 1 exceedingly displeased at God's conversion of the Nlnevites, 310 | i I ’ who had once been Israel's bitter enemies. To comfort the j prophet but show him the error of his hardheartedness, God j gave him a gourd and withered it. Jonah complained of his i ; | discomfort, and God revealed that the destruction of Nine- j vah, which the prophet desired, would have been far more i cruel and unjust than the destruction of the gourd. That Luvah sacrificed by Albion's daughters is an | I I omen of the apocalypse is symbolized by their composite forms, namely, Tirzah, who was one of the possessive daugh- , ters of Zelophehad, and Rahab, who is. the harlot she-dragon| i I of John's Revelation. Materialistic and self-aggrandizing,| j Tirzah and Rahab deny eternity and are "ashamed to give | Love openly to the piteous & merciful Man" (p. 704, pi. 67, 11. 19)• Overwhelming in their impact, they pervert Albion's ; I ; j sons into purveyors of war, jealousy, and deceit: j They drink up Dan & Gad to feed with milk j Skofeld & Kotope; | They strip off Joseph's Coat & dip it in the blood of battle. | (p. 704, pi. 67, 11. 22-23) ! ■ * Just as Rahab prompts Dan and Gad to envy their brother's coat, to try to get rid of him, and to deceive their father in doing so, Vala tries to bind Joseph (who forgave his | ibrothers) to a strict observance of the law: "Bind him down, Sisters, bind him down to Ebal, Mount of cursing" (p. 705* pl. 68, 1. 3). The allusion here is replete with meaning. According to Deuteronomy (11:29; 27:4, 13) and Joshua (8:30), the Mosaic law was erected on Mount Ebal and 311 icurses for trespassing the law were proclaimed to the i ! Israelites before their entry into the Promised Land. The irony in this allusion is superb, for the world Vala ere- jates is certainly no promised land but, Instead, a "Great I I Polypus of Generation & War" fostered by the very covenant ;in which she places so much value. Her repression of hu- Iman contact is, in fact, the very cause of physical con- i ifllct. As her warriors proclaim in one voice, j *. . . she goes forth from Albion 'In pride of beauty, in cruelty of holiness, in the brightness ' 'Of her tabernacle & her ark & secret place . . . 'I must rush again to War, for the Virgin has frown'd & refus'd.' ! (PP. 705, 707, pi. 68, 11. 13-15, 63) ~ j Because of lt3 self-righteousness, Israel-England perpetu- j jates the worship of bloody gods like Chemosh, to whom :Moab's king sacrificed his son to advance his battle i i lagainst the Jews (2 King 3*27), and Molech, whose sacrlfl- jclal worship began with Solomon (1 Kings 11:7). While ad vancing the process of salvation history as a whole, the Jews' conquest of Canaan was, in Blake's view, an act of fanatic self-election resulting in Beulah's corruption by the law. The very relationship between Rahab and her spec tre, Hand, is analogous to that between Sin and Death in jMilton's vision of hell. Transcending Albion's wasteland is "the Heavenly Canaan . . . and above Albion's Twelve Sons . . . Jerusa- 312 jlem's sons & all the Twelve Tribes" (p. 709# pi. 71# 11. 1-3). And Just as the immanent implies transcendence, i i i |so does transcendence imply immanenoe: "What is Above is j I Within, for every-thing in Eternity is transluoent ..." |(p. 709# pi. 71# 1. 6). This relationship is reciprocal and necessary. Thus, not only does Los rebuke Bath for too I 1 much piety but also himself for too much independence. He i does not abdicate his prophetio role, as Bloom says he does.instead, he again recognizes the need for "aid | ! 1 ; Divine" (p. 711. pi. 71# 1. 57). Committed to liberating 1 } jman, Los establishes the limits of opaoity, characterized i iby history*s tyrants, and the limits of contraction, char- j jacterized by history’s prophets. The latter are created to| i • i preserve the former from "Eternal Death" (p. 714, pi. 73, I i ■ ! 1. 40). ! Through Los•s efforts Blake was able to revive his i |attack on the rational ego and foresee the apooalyptio signs ahead. Amid the omens of imminent disaster, Bloom sees a hopeful sign in the emergenoe of Dinah, "the youth ful form of E r i n ."33 The critic misses, however, the clearly negative aspeots of Dinah’s seduction in Chapter 34 of Genesis, which Blake was surely aware of. After Sheehem seduced Dinah, he proposed marriage and promised to aocept 32Bloom, ticommentary," p. 858. 33lbid. ! 313 I ! any conditions of dower her father and brothers might im- i i I pose. The marriage took place, but afterwards Dinah's ‘brothers, Simeon and Levi, slew Shechem. When the latter1s! ! j ;father, Hamor, offered to make amends for Shechem's miscon-j jduct, Jacob and his sons saw an opportunity for more re- j !venge. Hamor proposed a covenant of general Intercourse ;between his and Jacob's families. The latter refused, ex- icept on the condition that all.the males of the city be i I circumcised. When the men were, as a result, unable to de- |fend themselves, Jacob's sons slew them. As Genesis 49:5-7 I land Blake himself suggest, the tribes of Simeon and Levi i ■ ! were scattered as a result of their ruthless violence. | Though early in the cycle of history, the vengeance of ! Simeon and Levi finally culminates in the machinations of i Rahab. The times are ripe for a second coming. As the ipoet wrote, ! But Jesus, breaking thro' the Central Zones of | Death & Hell, Opens Eternity in Time & Space, triumphant in ; Mercy, (p. 716, pi. 75* H. 21-22) By the end of Chapter 3 of Jerusalem. Blake was openly 'Christian. As he wrote near its conclusion, "Hence is my Theme. 0 Lord my Saviour, open thou the Gates/ And I will lead forth thy Words!" (p. 715, pi. 74, 11. 40-41). i Jerusalem. Chapter 4 Directed to Christians, the last chapter of Jerusalem appropriately begins with Jesus' words to Paul converting ! 31^ ] 1 him from the old to the new law. Chapter *Hs introductory i i ■ plate plainly reveals Blake's faith as more orthodox than j 1 ! humanistic. For him the vision of Jesus and the new Jeru- j salem is one of freedom and creativity— mental, interper sonal, and spiritual: j ! t I I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty of both body & mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination. . . . What are the Treasures of Heaven whioh we are j i to lay up for ouselves, are they any other than j Mental Studies & Performances? . . . What is I Mortality but the things relating to the Body j which Dies? What is Immortality but the things | relating to the Spirit whioh lives Eternally, i . . . to Labour in knowledge is to Build up Jerusalem, and to Despise Knowledge is to De- I spise Jerusalem & her Builders. And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental Gift in another, calling it pride & selfishness & sin, mocks Jesus the giver of every Mental Gift. . . . Let every Christian, as much as in him lies, engage ; himself openly & publicly before all the World | in some Mental pursuit for the Building up of ! Jerusalem, (pp. 716-17, pi. 77) i If despising another for his abilities is not Christian, then respecting the abilities of another is. Blake's re ligion of creativity does not seek a new esthetiolsm but instead personhood and community— a community of souls, a new Jerusalem. Such a community requires human responsi bility as well as divine assistance. Thus, Blake para phrased Milton's reference in Sonnet XIX to the Parable of the Talents (Matt. 25:26): "What is that Talent whioh it is a curse to hide?” (p. 717* pl« 77)• Encouraged like the i I Apostles (Matt. 28:19-20), every man must play a part in the spreading of forgiveness and mercy: 315 '. . . 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 Christ's 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 • . . 'But to the Publicans & Harlots go, | 'Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse I 'Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their ' , peace. . . .' (p. 718, pi. 77, 11. 21-28, 31-33) I Despite the understanding Blake demonstrates In i |Chapter 4's introduction, Albion remains unreconciled with I his emanation. Moreover, ithe manner in which Los seeks to l I jliberate him i3 still less than Christian. As if he were I i | God the Potter (cf. Is. 30:14; Jer. 19*1)* the prophet | | strikes Albion's spectres, seeking to destroy their I self-righteousness (p. 719, pi. 78, 11. 5-6). Because of | Albion's and Los's mistakes, Jerusalem searches alone for jShiloh (p. 720, pi. 79* 1. 10). Her search is symbolic of i | a desire for reinstatement, since Shiloh was, like Jeru salem, a central place of worship (Jg. 18:31)* the scene of great religious festivals and pilgrimages (Jg. 21:19; 1 Sam. 1:3). Her efforts also have implications of Chris tian eschatology, since the verse, "Until Shiloh come" 1 i (Gen. 49:10), refers to the ascendancy of the House of ! jDavid and the coming of Christ. Despite her struggles, I t Jerusalem still walks "'like a lost sheep/ Among precipices ; of despair'" (p. 720, pi. 79* 11. 10-11). Her search for i 316 'light in Goshen— a plaoe where the Israelites lived free jfrom the oorruption of Egypt— and her searoh for oomfort | In Gilead— famous for its healing balm— are frustrated, | f sinoe Goshen's freedom fell to Fhilistean tyranny (Jg, 3:31 j 1 1 Sam. 4:1*10) and Gilead's oomfort materialized into the t 1 oppression of Og. Frustrated to the point of despair, she | explains that salvation does not lie in the sensual beoause i its joys are possessive and temporary: •0 Vala! Humanity is far above 'Sexual organization & the Visions of the Night of Beulah ! , ................................. 'Wherefore then do you realize these nets of beauty & delusion 'In open day, to draw the souls of the Dead i into the light 1 'Till Albion is shut out from every Nation under Heaven?' (p. 721, pi. 79# 11. 73-74, 78-80) I I In response to Jerusalem, Vala admits the terror of j | being ••rent*1 from her transoendent counterpart (p. 722, j ! i | pi. 80, 1. 12). Confused and pressured by Jerusalem's t |question, she still hangs on to sexual distinctions. As i the objeotified emanation of Albion, she has naturalized man's affective powers (Luvah) and then blamed them for his demise. Upset by Albion's domineering nature, she mis understands the purpose for whioh Luvah and Jesus exist: . .0 Lamb of God I 0 Jesus pity met/ Come into Luvah'8 Tents and seek not to revive the Dead'1 ' (p. 722, pi. 80, 11. 30-311 italios mine). Analogous to the relationship between Vala and Albion i i ! are the encounters between Hand and Cambel and Hyle and i !Gwendolen. Of all the relationships In Jerusalem, these i I dramatize most clearly the psychic problems perverting love land imaginative vision. Hand is not attracted to Cambel |because she is a person but because she is the "beautiful/ ICambel, his bright beaming Counterpart, divided from him" i I(p* 723* pi* 80, 11. 57-58). Such is the nature of erotic, |self-aggrandizing love— attraction by appearances and di vision by possession. Like Vala's love, Cambel's is delu sive and objectifying, "Drinking Hand's sighs in sweet in toxication,/ Drawing out fibre by fibre, . . . To weave i jJerusalem a Body repugnant to the Lamb" (p. 723, pi. 80, i 111. 60-61, 65), Like Vala and Cambel, Gwendolen natural- i jizes her counterpart, hiding his heart "in his ribs & back" I and "his tongue with teeth," compelling him "into a shape of Moral Virtue against the Lamb" (p. 723, pi. 80, 11. 69, | 77)* And Just as Vala reduces human affection to the cycle of nature, Gwendolen transforms Hyle into an infant under her care, his body clothed with Joseph's coat, the bloody cloak of violence and deceit (cf. Gen. 37:23-24, 31-33). Righteous in her moral perfection, she rejects imaginative possibility, turning images of love into sin, repression, j jand war. As Blake interjected into her speech, there is a great difference between her love and agape: "in Heaven iLove begets Love, but Pear is the parent of Earthly Love ! i i . . . " (p. 725, pi. 81, l. 15). | To insure her dominion and that of Albion's sisters, 'Gwendolen fabricates a story that Los and Enitharmon seek |to overcome them. In spite of such opposition, she assures 1 i jthe daughters that they will endure and Babylon flourish. j , "Forgetting that Falsehood is prophetic," that it is never iwithout consequences, she revives Hyle for herself; but his renewal as a "winding worm" portends her own destruction, jGwendolen is horrified by her creation, but Cambel is jeal- |ous, forming even more "Deformity." When Los tries to iameliorate the latter*s envy, Gwendolen realizes her own jerror. As the first really hopeful sign in the poem, she I tries to create Hyle "into a form of love by tears & pain" j :(p. 726, pi. 82, 1. 76). Her suffering is undoubtedly part |of the self-annihilation necessa;ry to creative love. Some of Albion's daughters follow her example, repenting of their i |former possessiveness. i 1 | Comforted by their remorse, Los recommits himself to jmankind, reminding Albion of his alienated emanation and of I "the affection to her children" needed to bring them to gether (p. 729, pi. 83, 1. 7). The prophet is more con cerned with reconciliation than purgation. As he pleads, '0 when shall the Saxon return with the English his redeem'd brother? •0 when shall the Lamb of God descend among the | Reprobate?' (p. 727, pi. 83, 11. 14-15) To counteract the actions of Gwendolen, who sent Albion's I daughters into the divided lands of Egypt, Moab, and i Canaan, Los tries in vain to elicit compassion from those ilands: j | 'I woo to Amalek to protect my fugitives: ; Amalek trembles. 'I call to Canaan & Moab in my night watches: they mourn, 'They listen not to my cry, they rejoice among their warriors.' (p. 727, pi. 83, 11. 16-18) iUsing the Imagery of cities and villages to symbolize the ! |community that is Jerusalem, Los clarifies the choice for I mankind: | j 'The land is mark'd for desolation & unless we plant •The seeds of Cities & of Villages in the Human bosom 'Albion must be a rock of blood. . . .' (p. 728, pi. 83, 11. 54-56) The cities of brotherhood that the prophet hopes to build i I are truly spiritual, "'not yet embodied in Time or Space'" ! (p. 730, pi. 85, 1. 27). But, in order for Albion to be I |delivered from the abyss of history, these cities must be come a part of time and space. The transcendent and the immanent must interpenetrate. As Blake wrote a few lines later, Nor can any consummate bliss without being Generated On Earth, of those whose Emanations weave the loves Of Beulah for Jerusalem & Shiloh. . . . (p. 731, pl. 86, 11. 42-44) I 320 i i In consort with his emanation, who also wishes to prepare j | I the world for Jerusalem, Los seems ready for a balanced j i i I Integration with his spectre. The apocalypse is imminent. ! I i jPor the prophet Jerusalem's coming will give direction and i I J | harmony to mankind's confusion: j | 'I '. . . I there behold Israel in her Tents; I 'A Pillar of a Cloud by day, a Pillar of fire by night •Guides them; there I behold Moab & Ammon & i Amalek. | | 'There, Bells of silver round thy knees living j articulate I 'Comforting sounds of love & harmony. . . .' ; (p. 731, pi. 86, 11. 26-30) i ! Blake's allusion to both Exodus (13:21-22) and Paul (1 Cor. |13:1) indicates that with the revelation of Jerusalem there t will be not only direction but also love and beauty, espe cially among nations that were once desolate. ! For all his hopefulness, however, Los has not yet |fully reconciled with his spectre and emanation. In the past his relationship with Enitharmon was largely erotic, a result of his struggle with spectrous selfhood (p. 733, pi. 88, 11. 34-35)* Blake's diction reveals the ideali zation, obsession, and divisiveness Inherent in the pro phet's erotic love: | . . . Enitharmon like a faint rainbow waved I before him ! Filling with Fibres from his loins which j . redden'd with desire ! Into a Globe of blood beneath his bosom j trembling in darkness i Of Albion's Clouds; he fed it with his tears ! & bitter groans, I ~ j 321 I i i Hiding his Spectre in Invisibility from the timorous Shade, Till it became a separated cloud of beauty, i i grace & love i i Among the darkness of his Furnaces, dividing | | asunder till She separated stood before him, a lovely | Female weeping, Even Enitharmon separated outside . . . . . . his pains he soon forgot j j Lured by her beauty outside of himself in j shadowy grief. j : Two Wills they had, Two Intellects, & not as j in times of old. j ! _ | Silent they wander'd hand In hand . . . ! . . . terrified at each other's beauty, | Envying each other, yet desiring in all de- | vouring Love. . . . (p. 732, pi. 87, 11. 50-64) j i ' i In the ensuing conversation between Los and his emanation, | i ! I I the prophet further discloses his selfish desire— a desire i so Intense that it makes him nearly lose sight of the form jhe longs to possess. Aware of his selfhood, Enitharmon ! i acts like a lamia, unsympathetic, willful, and domineering.j t ' | jShe is Jealous of the prophet's concern for Jerusalem and j | I therefore tries to make him feel a victim of Albion's i iplight. In responding to her, Los is crucially aware of the need for assimilating the creative self in order to relate fully with others: 'When in Eternity Man converses with Man, they enter | 'Into each other's Bosom (which are Universes of delight) I 'In mutual Interchange, and first their Emanations meet '. . . ; if they embrace & comingle, 'The Human Four-fold Forms mingle also in Thunders of Intellect; 'But if the Emanations mingle not, with storms & agitations 322 1 % #> A 'Of earthquakes & consuming fires they roll apart in fear; 'For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations 'Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity. 'How then can I aver again be united as Man with Man 'While thou, my Emanation, refusest my Fibres of dominion? 'When Souls mingle & join thro* all the Fibres of Brotherhood 'Can there be any secret joy on Earth greater than this?' (p. 733, pi. 88, 11. 3-15) Better than any of the psychologists or phenomenologists of Ithls century, Blake has understood the transcendence, the eternal joy, of men relating to one another creatively. iFor him, as well as Marcel, the mutual engagement of indi viduals is free from differences that divide. Although Bloom says that Los insists on sovereignty over his ema- I nation,3^ the prophet, in fact, seeks only the control jnecessary to direct that form (that modality of human activ ity) toward the authentic engagement of others. Fortunate- i !ly, Enitharmon's refusal to assimilate in Los is by no i means final or unequivocal. As Blake wrote, i 0 perverse to thyself, contrarious To thy own purposes! for when she began to weave, Shooting out in sweet pleasure, her bosom in milky Love Flow'd into the aching fibres of Los, yet con tending against him. • • . (p. 733, pi. 88, 11. 26-29) Moved by Los's struggle, Albion's daughters ask for assistance but, unfortunately, the wrong kind. Bloom sees i 3%loom, "Commentary," p. 860. 323 j their sudden assimilation into Rahab as a result of hard- ! jheartedness.35 indeed, it is the "power to subdue" which they seek from Los that further unites them with Rahab's j "Spindle of destruction" (p. 729# pi* 84, 1. 30). Instead of reconciling with Albion's sons, they use Gwendolen's |falsehood to pervert the prophet's vision into a Canaan. i More temperate and mild than before, Los is not upset; he |sees their actions as part of God's contrary design leading I to a new Jerusalem. Thus, the antichrist, the "majestic i I image of Selfhood," appears. The communion cup becomes an I image of solipsism, and the Instruments of redemption I ("Cross & Nails & Thorns & Spear") are perverted into ma- i |chines of cruelty by the religions of history. Vala, I I Rahab, and Tlrzah reign, and the Leviathan stretches over | nature. ! Albion's faculties have so degenerated that what were once the seats of Eden's four fruitful rivers are now the seats of tyranny, war, and false worship. Blake's politi cal anatomization of mankind is so brilliant that I feel compelled to quote it at length: His Head • • • incloses a reflexion Of Eden all perverted: Egypt on the Gihon many tongued And many mouth'd, Ethiopia, Lybia, the Sea of Rephaim. | Minute Particulars in slavery I behold among i the brick-kilns 35ibid. Disorganiz'd; & there Is Fharoh In his Iron Court His Bosom wide refleots Moab & Ammon on the River Pison, since call'd Arnon: there Is Heshbon beautiful, The Rocks of Rabbath on the Arnon & the Fish-pools of Heshbon Whose currents flow Into the Dead Sea by Sodom & Gomorra. His Loins inclose Babylon on Euphrates beautiful And Rome In sweet Hesperia: there Israel scatter'd abroad In martyrdoms & slavery I behold, ah vision of sorrowI ... in the midst of a devouring Stomach Jerusalem Hidden within the Covering Cherub, as in a Tabernacle Of threefold workmanship, In allegoric delusion & woe: There the Seven Kings of Canaan & Five Baalim of Phillstea, Slhon & Og; the Anaklm & Emlm, Nephilim & Glbborlm, From Babylon to Rome; & the Wings 3pread from Japan, i Where the Red Sea terminates the World of Generation ! S t Death, To Ireland's farthest rocks, where Giants bullded their Causeway, I Into the Sea of Rephaim, but the Sea overwhelm'd ! them all. (pp. 734-35, pi. 89, 11. 14-18, 24-27, 38-40, 43-51) I The mixture of allusions here Is complex but decipherable. Man's mind has become an Ethiopia of carelessness (Eze. 30:9), a Libya of war (Jer. 46:9), and an Egypt of tyranny where Israelites are enslaved in the labors of brick-building (Ex. 1, 3). All of this must be before It Is overcome in the apocalypse. As Ezekiel wrote of Nebuchadrezzar's conquest, which was to lead ultimately to the restoration of Jerusalem: "And the sword shall come jupon Egypt, And great pain shall be in Ethiopia. . . . | 325 j | Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people j ; : • • • shall fall with them by the sword" (30:4-5). Al- | bion's bosom also reflects the antagonism and barbaric wor-( • ’ ‘ i ship of Moab and Ammon— countries that invaded Israel and j tainted its religion (Jg. 3:12-30; 2 Kings 13:20). As al- | ; > I ready mentioned, Solomon eventually conquered the Ammonites j land the Moabites, after which he took their women into his j i \ harem and built a shrine to their God, Chemosh, a God that j j _ i demanded human sacrifice (1 Kings 11:1, 7; 2 Kings 3?27). i ! ! |Thus, Albion-Israel's heart, though once a river of Eden j j(the Pison), is now a boundary of division like the Arnon, j i j Iwhich separates trans-Jordan Jewish lands from Moab. The j i ’ i Arnon flows to the Dead Sea, so that all that was once j beautiful in Israel (like "the Pish-pools of Heshbon"; cf. j j ! |Ca. 7:4) 13 now a part of man's destruction. As Blake ! wrote, There Israel [i3] in bondage to his [man's] Generalizing Gods, Molech & Chemosh; & in his left breast is Philistea, In Druid Temples over the whole Earth with Victim's Sacrifice. . . . (p. 735, pi. 89, 11. 30-32) Albion's sexual energy has sublimated into kingdoms of power. In the pit of his stomach, in the guts of experi ence, Jerusalem lies hidden. The whole world is overrun by false gods, monstrous men, and seas of materiality. iMan's minute particulars are enslaved, the Israelites set j :ln chains, and religion reduced to war. Rahab's appearance ! 326 { i j |within the tabernaole on Horeb (Sinai), "mustering multi- j tudes innumerable/ Of warlike sons" (p. 735* pi. 89, | 11. 56-57), makes the old covenant the culprit of history*s ! decline. The covenant has run it course, so that the mercy iof Jesus and the liberty of Jerusalem can now quicken man 'to a new identity, a new community, and a new vision. Witnessing the prevailing chaos, Los openly condemns ithe assertion of selfhood as an act of proud i self-containment. To think of oneself as the fulfillment iof a universal type or characteristic is to assume too much 1 jfor humanity to bear: ! So Los cried in the Valley's of Middlesex in the j Spirit of Prophecy, i While in Selfhood Hand & Hyle & Bowen & Skofeld appropriate | The Divine Names, seeking to Vegetate the Divine Vision In a corporeal & ever dying Vegetation & Corruption. . . . I (p. 737, pi. 9, 11. 39-42) i |In contrast to Albion*s 3pectrous sons, Christ assumed a j vegetative existence in order to reveal the weakness of I |outward forms and to put them off forever. As Los de claims, 'Those who dare appropriate to themselves Universal Attributes 'Are the Blasphemous Selfhoods & must be broken asunder. 'A Vegetated Christ & a Virgin Eve are the Hermaphroditic 'Blasphemy; by his Maternal Birth he is that Evil-One 'And his Maternal Humanity must be put off Eternally, j 327 i t ! 'Lest the Sexual Generation swallow up Regeneration. 'Gome Lord Jesus, take on thee the. Satanic i Body of Holiness J' j (PP. 736-37, pi. 90, 11. 32-38) i i ! I Responding to the prophet's warnings against righteous j i ! jself-assertion, Hand and Hyle conspire to murder him | (p. 737, pi. 90, 1. 63). These are the age's humanists, jdeifying themselves, "mocking God & Eternal Life, . . . i jcalling themselves Deists, Worshipping the Maternal [vege- 1 jtative] / Humanity" (p. 737, pi. 90, 11. 64-66). Their I blasphemous selfhood "must be broken asunder." But, this |cannot be done by wrath and revenge. Los cannot wildly | |chop down the fibres of vegetative vision but must water 1 I"The Tree of Life" with tears of self-annihilation, so that jit can penetrate "Stone walls of Separation" with a "ming ling of soft fibres/ Of tender affection" (p. 736, pi. 90, ill. 9, 12). Self-annihilation through the "Forgiveness of ene mies" is the way to overcome righteous selfhood. This i3 love. As Kierkegaard wrote, "... the true lover does not love his own individuality. He rather loves each human | being according to the other's individuality."^ This does not mean that one passively accepts the abuses of another but, instead, honestly confronts the other with his differ ences in order that they may progress toward truth together. i j . . . . , . , — ----------------------------------------- . i 3%lerkegaard, Works of Love, pp. 251-52. 328 To do othemIsa is Jaalousy and Yilifioatlon, deatruotlve I to oneself* the other* and the Transcendent amidst. To do ! 'otherwise is to deny the particularity, the very individu- ; j i ality, of oneself and the other*37 and that would deny our i i I membership in Jesus. As Los says to his speotre* ! | ! •. • . the Worship of God is honouring his gifts | * In other men: & loving the greatest men best * 1 eaoh acoordlng •To his Genius: whloh is the Holy Ghost in Mans there is no other I *God than that God who is the intellectual foun tain of Humanity. •He who envies or calumniates* whioh is murder i & cruelty, •Murders the Holy-one ... | 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. . . . 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 perfeot Whole, Must see it in its Minute Particulars, Organized ... You [speotrous Satan] accumulate Particulars & murder by analyzing, that you May take the aggregate, & you oall the aggregate Moral Law But . . • every Particular is a Man, a Divine Member of the Divine JeBus.* (p. 738, pi. 91, 11. 8-13, 16-22, 27-28, 30-31) 37siake also expressed his anti-uniformitarianlsm in a saroastlo annotation to Baoon*s Essays: "Baoon supposes all men alike" (p. 398). 329 ! ! i Los's vision is deeply Christian. To "'act with benevo- j lienee'" (p. 738, pi. 91, 1. 26), to feed the hungry, to Igive drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to do all j ! 1 these things, is to recognize Jesus in other men (cf. Matt. i 25:3^-40). As Karl Rahner writes, ". . .of the God whom j jwe confess in Christ we must say that he is precisely where ;we are and can only be found there.To love each man | |according to his genius is also Christian because that en- | i • I I tails respecting the minute particulars of each man's per- !sonality.39 Blake was no leveller, advocating the same | jlove for all men. Nor was he attempting to make man a god junto himself. The Holy Ghost is the genius in man because j lit is the bearer of inspiration. Blake did not say that j . . I there is no other God than humanity or that man is Jesus.. Rather, God is the Intellectual fountain, the inspiration, of humanity; and man is "'a Divine member of the Divine Jesus.'" As transcendent vision and the giver of all spir itual gifts, God is that toward which man aspires— not to possess but to be in fellowship with. The relationship between God and man in Blake's theology is certainly inti mate but no more intimate than Jesus' assertion that when 3%arl Rahner, Theological Investigations, trans. by Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helieone Pr., 19&t>), IV, 117. 39o'Arcy, p. 76, expresses sentiments very similar to Blake's: "Everything must be loved in proportion to the value it possesses." ; we envy or love another we envy or love him. The rational ego's subjection of men to arbitrary i imoral codes Is no longer tolerable. Thus, Los Ignores the |ethical mlllenniallsm of Urthona's spectre, who builds i"stupendous works" and "pyramids of pride" "To reach the Iheavenly arches" (p. 738, pi. 91, 1. 42). The prophet ! I understands that the only worthwhile distinctions in life jare foolishness and wisdom. To cope with the former re quires forgiveness; to achieve the latter requires mental | |conflict. Excited by a vision of human unity ("The jCanaanite united with the fugitive/ Hebrew"; p. 739, I jpi. 92, 11. 3-4), Los integrates with his spectre and ema- jnation. Once and for all, he realizes that the division i iamong men, symbolized by moral and sexual distinctions, i * I will vanish when "Deceit," "Revenges," and "Jealousies" are jovercome "by mutual Forgiveness" (p. 739, pi. 92, 1. 18). |Enitharmon seems to understand. Speaking to her sons, Rintrah and Palamabron, she cautions them against alienat ing their emanations: "'. . . you seek a Love/ Of the pride of dominion that will Divorce Ocalythron & Elynit- tria . . .'" (p. 7^0, pi. 93, 11. 4-5). Reconciled with his emanation, Los is now organized within, at "one with" |his spectre, and soon to be "'united in Jesus'" (p. 7^1, pi. 93, 11. 18-19). Before Albion enjoys the same transcendence; he too must be reconciled with his emanation, Brlttannia, the ' 331 ; i kO ' ■ ; temporal form of his eternal wife, Jerusalem. Swept by j jseas of materiality, wrapped In "weeds of Death," and i I "closed apart from all Nations," Albion has for the dura- ; i ■ ! jtion of history hidden his emanative portion, she "folding ! I | round/ His loins & bosom, irremoveable," both in one, long, j |hermaphroditic sleep (p. 7*1-1, pi. 9*** 11. 5-1*0. With di vine assistance coming to them through Los's self-sacrifice ; I | (p. 7*f2, pi. 9 * 1 - , 11. 18-20), the two awaken together. A {new covenant is substituted for the old. Brittannla con- ! ! ;fesses her former efforts to control Albion with "'Dreams j of Chastity & Moral Law'" (p. 7*1-2, pi. 9*0 1. 23). Acoept- ! ing Albion's rebuke for the past, she enters his bosom re- i 1 joicing, and Jesus appears. Christ comes to Albion in the i i form of a man with the likeness of Los, for wherever a man i !gives of himself to another Jesus is there. As the German !mystic Meister Eckhart declared in one of his sermons, "To deny one's self [as Los has done^J is to be the only begot ten Son of God and one who does so has for himself all the i properties of that Son,"^-*- In his commitment to mankind, I lq In his Vision of the Last Judgment Blake refers to Jerusalem as Albion's daughter (p. 609). The fact that she is also the scion of a creative marriage (between Albion and Brittannia) reveals the incredible intricaoy of the poet's psychology. • ‘ • Meister Eckhart; A Modern Translation, trans. by Raymond Bernard Blakney (New York: barp. ft. , 1957)* P. 203. Blake and Eokhart were not alone in this belief. According to Rufus Jones (Spiritual Reformers, p. 20*1-), Jacob Boehme believed that ail self-will £for example. Los's impatient j speotre] must be controlled before Christ oan live in man. Los fulfills the Gospel, and Christ Is revealed. Blake's | ! a ! ivlslon Is not Immanent and humanistic hut transcendent and i j I Christian. ! | Asking what he can do to make up for the past, Albion j I ' 1 confesses that It was his selfhood, marching proudly and | j ihostilely "from Slnal & from Edom" Into the "Promised Land,"j ihis selfhood that divided him within and separated him from j ;others and the Transcendent. Jesus responds, explaining j ! i ! ■ I jthe Importance of self-annihilation: j ! '. . . Pear not Albion: unless I die thou canst j | not live; 'But if I die I shall arise again & thou with me. 'This Is Friendship & Brotherhood: without it | Man is Not.' (p. 743, pi. 96, 11. 14-16) 1 jPor the benefit of mankind, Jesus speaks both historically jand metaphorically. Thus, it is only through man's death |to selfhood that he rises "with" the other; that alone is I brotherhood, without which men are objects for each other to manipulate. The death Jesus speaks of means "'every kindness to another'" (p. 743, pi. 96, 1. 27). It also i means the abandonment of self-righteousness by the forgive ness of sins. As Jesus says to Albion, "'. . . Thus do men in Eternity/ One for another to put off, by forgiveness, fevery sin'" (p. 743# pi. 96, 11. 18-19). Upon speaking jwith Christ as a brother and a friend, Albion's "self was jlost in . . . wonder at the Divine Mercy'" (p. 7^3# pi. 96, 1 11. 31-32). Such is the nature of the Christian apocalypse. 1 As Gregory Baum says, in the moment of divine revelation 333 "God manifests himself as the faithful friend."^2 ! . . « j Upon his reconciliation with Brlttannia, his newfound ! conviction, and his loss of selfhood, Albion is finally imade whole. All of his faculties, which before reflected his disorders both within and without, are restored: "And jurizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona arose into/ Albion's Bosom" (p. 744, pi. 96, 11. 41-42). Luvah, the human fac- s julty corresponding to Jesus' creative love, has risen from his sepulchre through the help of Los. The immanent has jrisen with the Transcendent. Symbolic of the apocalyptic (annihilation yielding man's regeneration are the bows and jarrows of love shot fourfold through the heavens: i Then Albion stretch'd his hand into Infinitude j And took his Bow. Fourfold the Vision; for bright ! beaming Urizen ! Lay'd his hand on the South & took a breathing Bow ! of carved Gold: j Luvah his hand stretch'd to the East & bore a | Silver Bow, bright shining: Tharmas Westward a Bow of Brass, pure flaming, richly wrought: Urthona Northward in thick storms a Bow of Iron, terrible thundering. And the Bow is a Male & Female, & the Quiver of the Arrows of Love Are the Children of this Bow, a Bow of Mercy & Loving-kindness laying Open the hidden Heart in Wars of Mutual Benevolence, Wars of Love ^%aum, p. 97. That love is central to the transfor mation of this relationship is asserted by D'Arcy, who says that love has for its "object to change the relation of creature and creator into one of friend with friend, beloved and lover" (p. 321). Then each an Arrow flaming from his Quiver fitted carefully . . . ; loud sounding flew the flaming Arrow fourfold. The Druid Spectre was Annihilate, loud thund'ring, rejoicing terrific, vanishing, Fourfold Annihilation; & at the clangor of the Arrows of Intellect The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appear'd in Heaven, And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakespear & Chaucer. . . . (pp. 744-45. pi. 97. 11. 6-14, pi. 98, 11. 1, 3, 6-9) Blake's vision is plainly one of forgiveness, for his past bitter enemies now rise with creative men to the great men- i tal wars of eternity. The poet's combination of familial and martial Imagery in this passage suggests both the sta bility and constant mental conquest of eternal contention. j His use of quatemal numerology also reveals his belief in | the wholeness and creative potential of the risen body, j whose very form is modelled after Eden with its four fruit ful rivers.^3 a3 he wrote, ^Blake's belief in quaternal wholeness in the recon ciliation of Los with Enitharmon and Albion with Brlttannia is grounded in archetypal psychology. For example, as Jo- lande Jacobi writes, Jung's teaching is . . . based on an archetype which finds.its expression particularly in ’tetrasomy', four-bodiedness (cf. the theory of the four functions, the pictorial arrangement of the four, orienta tion by the four cardinal points, etc.). . . . Another archetype is the number three, which from time immemorial, and particularly in the Christian religion, has been re garded as a symbol of the 'pure abstract Spirit'. Beside it Jung sets the four as an archetypal expression of the highest significance for the psyche. With this fourth term the 'pure spirit' takes on 'corporeity' [[for Blake, the 334 ! i i 335 South stood the Nerves of the Eye; East, in Rivers of bliss, the Nerves of the Expansive Nostrils; West flow'd the Parent Sense, the Tongue; North, stood The Labyrinthine Ear . . . Driving outward the Body of Death in an Eternal Death & Resurrection, Awaking it to Life among the Flowers of Beulah, rejoicing in Unity I In the Four Senses, in the Outline, the Circumfer- i ence & Form for ever In Forgiveness of Sins which is Self Annihilation; it is the Covenant of Jehovah. i I j The Four Living Creatures, Chariots of Humanity I Divine Incomprehensible, In beautiful Paradises expand. These are the Four Rivers of Paradise And the Four Faces of Humanity, fronting the Four Cardinal Points Of Heaven, going forward, forward irresistable from Eternity to Eternity. ! (p. 7^5, pl. 98, 11. 16-18, 20-27) j |The paradisal vision that Albion now enjoys is perceptual; 1 . his body and mind are whole; his senses restored. But it jmust be remembered that none of this comes about until he is reorganized both within and without. Until he is con- I verted to selflessness and love, until he abandons the Covenant of Sinai for the Covenant of Jehovah, he remains asleep, oblique and sightless as a clod. Even his percep tual renewal is described in terms of personal wholeness. process occurs in reverse order, threefoldness being of the physical body and fourfoldness of a risen corporeity, imaginatively creative . 3 . . . . Along with the masculine spirit, the father principle which represents only one half of the world, the quaternity comprises the feminine and bodily aspect as its opposite pole— the two are needed to form a whole" (pp. 46-47, n. 2). I [Where before in history mutual negation and marginal human- | j I ilty prevailed, non “Every Character” is “Human according to j ;the Expansion or Contraction, the Transluoence or/ Opake- j : I ness of Nervous fibres . . (p. 7^6, pi. 98, 11. 35-37). j Time and space are re-created in the union of transoendenoe j i j land immanence, in the “wonders Divine/ of Human Imagination | f ithroughout all the Three Regions immense/ Of Childhood, ! Manhood & Old Age . . ." (p. 7^6, pi. 98, 11. 31-33). Con cluding Jerusalem is one final speech against the old i jcovenant, this time spoken by Jehovah himself. The ration- ! al morality of Albion's speotre, the Tree of Good and Evil, | j jhas been uprooted. And instead of the old negations of igood and evil, soul and body, man and woman, speotre and i jemanation, transoendenoe and immanence, there is now the jmutual interchange of all things: ... all Human Forms identified, living, going forth & returning wearied Into the Planetary lives of Years, Months, Days i " & Hours; reposing, ! And then Awaking . . . in the Life of Immortality. ! (P. 7^7 ♦ Pi. 99, 11. l-*0 CONCLUSION I Every misconception about the theology of j history arises from some neglect of either j the divine or the human element. | — Jean Danlelou Because a theology of history radically depends upon a careful balance of divine and human elements, most Blakeans misconstrue the poet's apocalypticism. For ex ample, Mark Schorer says that Blake is a "religious poet i |who is without either a theology or a proper God; for the jfirst he substituted a mythology, for the second, the image of Man."1 Like Schorer, Northrop Frye denies the tran scendent reality of Christ, asserting that "there is no form of life superior to our own . . . ; the acceptance of Jesus as the fullness of both God and man entails the re jection of all attributes of divinity which are not hu man."2 Elsewhere Frye declares that Blake's Jesus is "the uniting of the divine and the human in our own minds. • • ."3 Following suit, Harold Bloom also emphasizes the humanity of Blake's Jesus. Even recent critics like ■^Schorer, p. 97; see also pp. 63-64, 138, 310 for similar remarks. 2Frye, p. 32. ^Frye, p. 387. 337 338 William Walling and Thomas Altizer consider the poet's notion of Jesus as the divine entirely Immanent In hu manity.^ Some critics go so far as to suggest that Blake's concept of Christ Is purely symbolic. Such assertions deny the historicity and personality of Jesus. For example, In i jhis essay, "William Blake and the Religion of Art," Kenneth j Hamilton maintains that Blake's "Christ is simply the eter nal embodiment of Imagination."5 And George Harper, "Neo-platonizlng" the poet, says that Jesus is "the Form of Forms," the Platonic ideal of the One, comprehending all realities.^ Finally, Kathleen Raine says that Blake's Jesus is the embodiment of all "forms sublime," at once "the mind that knows, and . • . the object of all knowledge." 7 These concepts of Christ, which major Blakeans have ventured, have obviously influenced their understanding of % the poet's apocalypticism. As we have seen, the usual re sult has been to see Blake's apocalypse as the deification of man achieved in the expansion of his perception. There ^William Walling, "The Death of Gods William Blake's Version," Palhou3le Review. XLVIII (Summer, 1968), 242; Altlzer, p. i4i>. ^Hamilton, p. 171. %arper, pp. 87-88. 7Raine, I, 264; II, 190. ! 339 4 is nothing essentially religious, not to mention Christian, In this view. According to these critics, Jesus Is not only the human Imagination but also the product of that faculty. In their analyses there Is nothing to suggest that Christ is exempt from the "omnipotence" of human imag- 1 jination. He is dependent upon the mind of Los and hence Jupon the mind of Blake. But none of this squares with the i |poet's innumerable lines on Jesus, the resurrection, eter- j jnity, and the supernatural. We would do well to remember Blake's annotation to Lavater that "human nature is [only] the image of God." By contrast to the critics mentioned above, some be lieve that the poet's Christianity is quite orthodox. For example, S. Foster Damon insists that Blake "steadily be came more and more passionate, even dogmatic, over the ft essentials of the Christian faith."0 Bernard Blackstone maintains that Blake's early notion of Jesus was one of the innocent Lamb and the Good Shepherd, evolving into Christ as the fulfillment of imagination.9 Another of these orthodox critics, J. G. Davies, goes so far as to assert that Blake believed not only in the Jesus of institutional ®Damon, p. xi. ^Bernard Blackstone, English Blake (Cambridge jEngland: Cambridge U. Pr., 1949)* p. 3^0 ! religion but alao in hla atonement for our sins,10 i i Blake's view of Jesus and the Christian faith mas i ! I neither orthodox or humanistic, however. For the poet j ; j Christ is a reality, personal and transcendent, human and j divine. As he wrote in one of his annotations to Baoon's j I Essays. "Did not Jesus desoend & beoome a Servant?" (p. 399). Blake's oonoept of Jesus is deeply Christian, j for, as one contemporary theologian puts it, central to our! i I understanding of the God-man is "the conviction that within j Christianity the transoendenoe of God cannot be taught i i without also teaching the full and very human humanity of iChrist," Continuing, the same theologian says that "Christ i | in all his warmth, kindness and oonoem for the very least of his brothers reveals to our human perception the divine ! warmth, kindness and concern,"11 i The poet's Christianity undoubtedly looks back to j I jaoob Boehme, who emphasized an Inward and personal brotherhood with Christ as the means to salvation.12 But his vision also looks forward to the anthropologloal 10J. G. Davies, The Theology of William Blake, pp. 116-17• ^Paul Hllsdale, "Superman versus Christ— God versus Deml-God," The Living Light. I (Winter, 1965). 27* 29. i 12jones, pp. 190-91, 199. Christianity of the nineteenth and twentieth century. jBlake's belief is akin to the dynamic faith of men like j jschleiermacher, Kierkegaard, Bultmann, and Rahner, men for j jwhora theological truth (revelation) is grounded in the {existential subject. Thus, Just as Schleiermaoher's Chris tianity seeks to "articulate the contents of the conscious- i i jness of man whose personal existence is qualified through t |and through by . . . Christ,nl3 ao is Blake's view of Jesus' revelation equally existential.1^ As the Lord says i |to Albion in Jerusalem. i ‘I am not a God afar off, I am a brother 8 c friend; j 'Within your bosom I reside, & you reside in me: 'Lol we are One, forgiving all Evil, not seeking j recompense.’ jschleiermacher believed that the redeemer "creates persons," j jthat he is the "one in whom Adam is finally formed.m15 I |This personal, intimate regeneration in Christ is clearly the central feature of Albion's apocalyptic renewal. Los, the creative man, bears a resemblance to Jesus at the end of Jerusalem because, to refer to Schleiermaoher's theology, man's regeneration is hearing the word and being conformed ■^Richard R. Niebuhr, Schlelermacher on Christ: A New Introduction (New York: Scribner, l9b4), p. £ 2d. ■^^lake's emphasis on apocalyptic love necessitates the concept of a personal savior because, as Teilhard de Chardin asserts, Love dies in contact with the nameless and Impersonal" (The Phenomenon of Man, trans. by Ren6 Hague [New York: Scribner, l^bi], p. 207). j I ^Niebuhr, pp. 213, 214. 1 342 j ! to the image of Christ.^ And just as Schleiermacher de-emphasized the historical Christ in favor of the God-man I j"whose own identity has become a living part of the con sciousness of his followers,"1^ so is Blake's Jesus the body and spirit in whom all mankind will someday be united. jThis is not to suggest that man becomes Jesus but Instead j jthat he is raised above history through Jesus. i i < Such transcendence requires love, the central message j jof the Gospels and of theologians like Sjzfren Kierkegaard. i |As we have seen in Jerusalem, Blake's Jesus came to abro gate the old law, to free man from the round of righteous ness and cruelty through forgiveness and mercy. This is the Christ of The Everlasting Gospel, the rebel who, dis satisfied with the world, came to deliver mankind, who for gave Mary Magdalene, and chastised proud pharasaism. Critics like Frye think that Blake deplored the suffering Lord,-*-® but the poet's emphasis on self-annihilation (comparable to the self-giving of agape which Kierkegaard also emphasizes in his Works of Love) is thoroughly Chris tian. To quote Karl Rahner, "The incarnation of God is • • • the unique, supreme, case of the total actualization of human reality, which consists of the fact that man is •^Niebuhr, p. 214. ^Niebuhr, p. 228. l8Frye, p. 387. i 343 1 t * * w \ i j in so far as he gives up himself.h19 Thus, while the poet ! ! . . ! appeared to deify "Poetic Genius," imagination, and the hu- j ! • i man form, these all became recognized as the "I in you" of | Jesus, whose Gospels were, for Blake, the most liberating j and creative examples of vision. Blake's references to i j Christ as an artist, as the paragon of imaginative power, j j I Iwere to suggest Jesu3' creative import for man. Likewise, j his apparent identification of God and man was not to sug- i jgest that man is the divinity but that he is divine in as j i i much as Jesus poured himself out, posing, to quote Rahner, j"the other as his own reality."20 Indeed, the poet did not japotheosize himself but, instead, relied on Providence (pp. 862-63), endeavoring "to live to the glory of God" | and not himself (p. 822). Since Blake's Jesus is a perfect union of divinity and humanity, intimate with the very ground of man's being, the poet's theology of history is particularly clear. The creativity of God and man together is open and continuous, foreshadowing the ultimate re-creation of man at the end of time. Blake's view of history is essentially linear; for him cyclic existence is not only limiting but also diaboli cal. And since "Christ addresses himself to the [whole] ^Rahner, 170. 20Rahner, 114. 344 Man, not to his Reason" (p. 774), Blake's apocalypticism Is |in no way scientific, rational, philosophic or moral. The Ipoet embraced no evolutionary doctrine nor did he accept I |the notion of man's own perfectibility. His millennialism |is neither epistemological nor artistic. Nor is his vision i . |erotic in either the emotional or rational sense. As we ; have witnessed in the minor prophecies and The Pour Zoas, ! neither Orclan nor Urizenic eros is apocalyptic. In j Night IX men, as well as their spectres and emanations, do not Join in any kind of lasting or creative relationship. Absent from The Four Zoas and most of the poet's ear- jlier work are the phenomenological events of love and for- j jgiveness, the events transcending time's delusive cycle, jSince Blake's Jesus is the essence of personal fulfillment, j jrealized in man's relationships with others, it Is to these| i j j experiences that we must turn if we are to understand his Christian vision. For Blake the destructive contention of man's spectre and emanation is made creative by his rela tionship with Christ. Experience is integral to this dynamic because it is only through honest, creative "Friendship" that man becomes absorbed in Christ. This is not merely the pursuit of a cooperative order within and without. Blake's concept of love is the essence of Chris tianity, which "teaches that love is a relationship between raan-God-man, that is, that God is the middle term."21 Like 21Kierkegaard, Works of Love, p. 87. : 3^5 I Kierkegaard, Blake believed that Christian love achieves an jequallty among men higher than any revolutionary equality. I iSuoh love requires self-annihilation, the forgiving and i |forgetting of sins, and the abandonment of righteousness. The apocalyptic capacity of such love is clearly revealed by Los's self-sacrifice on behalf of Albion, by his for- jgiveness of Enltharmon, and by the integration and vision jhe enjoys at the end of Jerusalem. The importance of freedom to this love is also demonstrated in the creative t restoration of Jerusalem to Albion, who, becoming whole, jconverses with Jesus "as Man with Man." In terms of modem I {liberal theology, divine revelation manifests itself as |self-revelation, so that "God manifests himself as the ! faithful friend."22 While appearing altogether modern, i Blake*8 vision is firmly grounded in Scripture. Saint Paul's treatment of agape as a persevering, selfless com mitment to the other and an openness to truth ("Charity suffereth long, and • . • seeketh not her own . . • but rejolceth in truth"; 1 Cor. 13:4-6) places Blake squarely in the tradition of Christian belief. In fact, the poet's belief in the Gospel was a very important part of his apocalyptic orientation. For him "Nothing is displeasing to God but Unbelief . . ." (p. 613). Moreover, faith is equivalent to truth while objectifying rationality 2%aum, p. 97. ! 346 t I represents error. Thus, as he wrote, “Whenever any Indi vidual Rejects Error & Embraces Truth, a Last Judgment ! passes upon that Individual" (p. 613)* j | As the last quotation suggests, the apocalypse for Blake occurred within time, always foreshadowing the glori ous conclusion to history depicted in Jerusalem. Such a |concept is not out of the mainstream of Christian escha- j tology. As a matter of fact, according to Erich Frank's | The Role of History in Christian Thought, "history comes to ! an end in the religious experience of any Christian 'who is |in Christ.'"23 Blake's belief that the apocalypse is now ! ' |is thoroughly Christian. To quote Donation Mollat, | The mystical experience of the Son of Han in all | men imports an unsuspected eschatologlcal dimen sion into all human relationships. . . • Mankind is now face to face with the Son of Man at every moment of existence: the Judgment is now.24 i I , This is not the private experience of a visionary but the Christian experience delineated in Scripture. As Paul says, we are "risen with Christ" (Col. 3:1 )> “We have al ready begun to reap our spiritual harvest" (Rom. 8:23); and as John also asserts, "We are sons of God even now" (1 John 3:2)j "Now is the judgment of this world" (12:31). 2^Erick Frank, The Role of History in Christian Thought (New York: Herder, 195$), P. 75. 2^Donatlen Mollat, L'Evanglle et lea Epitres de Saint Jean, quoted in Jean Danieiou. T h e Lord ot History: Iftei^leo- tlona on the Inner Meaning of History, trans. by Nigel Abercrombie (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1958)* P. 272. 347 I I Blake's apoealyptlc moment, then, is very much akin to j jKierkegaard's "Instant” which Is "full of eternity."2^ As j with Kierkegaard, the poet's emphasis on love Is especiallyj relevant because agape, according to H. C. D'Arcy, "holds ; ! | that eternal life begins In this world. . . ,"2^ Por Blake j ithe providence of God is nothing more or less than a con tinuing creation, an unceasing creative activity in the world. The imagination plays an important role in this i jprocess because it is the most affective and creative i i faculty man possesses. With the apocalypse (whether of the moment or at the jend of time), creation is transformed. Blake never aban doned the world of experience. It simply takes on a new ! |dimension for those in fellowship with Christ. Transcend- i jence and immanence come in touch with one another. This |vision is neither private nor peculiar to the poet but is, in fact, Christian. As Jurgen Moltmann says, "if the escha ton is not a return to a pristine, originally pure world then It will involve the taking up of the cosmos. | j . . ."27 Thus, Albion's awakening at the end of Jerusalem can be considered in New Testament terms as a met a no la. a 25s0ren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Sorapa, quoted in Lowrle, Kierkegaard, II, 312. 26D'Arcy, p. 114. 2?Moltmann, p. 136. {radical change. The selfhood dies, the real person Is |horn, and all things become new. Blake's risen world Is {Christian because It Is realized In the risen body of di- i |vine humanity, for whom all objectification ceases. | As with Gabriel Marcel, Blake's notion of transcend- i jenoe was not one of going beyond experience but of sub stituting one mode of experience for another, of striving I I ifor an increasingly purer mode of experience. With the apocalypse all things exist in dialectical (or contrary) relationship. Through Christ, risen man is united with |risen man and with the cosmos. These relationships are in no way static. Blake's apocalypse is not the end; it is the beginning of a constant interchange of contraries, j {forever expanding and creative. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Aberle, David P. "A Note on Relative Deprivation Theory as Applied to Millenarian and Other Cult Movements.*' Mil lennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study. Edited by Sylvia L. Thrupp. The Hague: Mouton, 1962. Altizer, Thomas J. J. The New Apocalypse; The Radloal Christian Vision of William Blake. Mich. S - f c . U. Pr.. T 9 5t. " ; Ansari, Asloob A. Arrows of Intelleot. Aligarh, India: B. M. Electrio Pr., 196^. •Baohelard, Gaston. La Formation de l1Esprit solentlflque. Paris: j. Vrin, 19^7. ;Baoon, Francis. The Proflolence and Advancement of Learn ing. The Works of Francis Bacon. Edited by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath. Vol. VI. New York: Hurd and Houghton, I869. _______ . Wisdom of the Ancients. The Works of Franols Bacon. Edited hy James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, an<i Douglas Denon Heath. Vol. XII. New York: Hurd > and Houghton, I869. |Baum, Gregory. Man Becoming: God in Seoular Language. New York: Herder, 197oT “ jBeoker, Carl L. The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century philosophers. New Haven: Yale U. Pr.,' 1932. I Beer, John. Blake’s Humanism. New York: Barnes and Noble, 193B: Bentley, G. E., Jr., and Nurmi, Martin K., eds. A Blake Bibliography: Annotated Lists of Works, Studies, and Blakeana. Mlnneapolis: U. of Minnesota Pr., 1964. Blaokstone, Bernard. English Blake. Cambridge, England: Cambridge U. Pr., T$W. — : --- Blake, William. Blake: Complete Writings. Edited by Geoffrey Keynes: fcnd ed. London; Oxi'. U. Pr., 1966. 3^9 jBerdyaev, Nicolai. The Beginning and the End. Translated j by R. M. French. New xork: Harp. S.,' 1952. i Bloom, Harold. Blake's Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument. Garden 6ity, New York: Anch. Doubleday, ! _______ . ’ 'Commentary." The Poetry and Prose of William | Blake. Edited by David V. Erdman. Mew York: ! Doubleday, 1968. ! iBodkin, Maud. Archetypal Patterns in Poetry; Psychologi cal Studies of ihe Imagination. London: 6xf. u. Pr., 1555: iBrinton, H. H. The Mystic Will: Based on a Study of the Philosophy of Jacob Boehme. Mew York; Macmillan, J9W. t jBronowski, Jacob. William Blake; A Man Without a Mask. : Trenton, England! Wessex Pr., 1943. jBrown, Norman 0. Life Against Death? The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan U. £r., 1^59. sBultmann, Rudolph. History and Eschatology. Edinburgh: i Edin. U. Pr., 1957! ICapek, Milic. "'Eternal Return.1" Encyclopedia of Philos ophy. Edited by Paul Edwards. Vol. ill. Mew York: ! Macmillan, 1967. i jChardin, Teilhard de. The Phenomenon of Man. Translated by Ren6 Hague. New York: Scribner, 19bl. Cohn, Norman. The Pursuit of the Millennium. London: Seeker and Warburg, 195?• ________. "Medieval Mlllenarlsm: Its Bearing on the Com parative Study of Millenarlan Movements." Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study. Mdlted by Sylvia L. Thrupp. ^ne rtague: Mouton, 19&2. Colllngwood, R. G. The Idea of History. New York: Oxf. U. Pr., 1956. 351 Couturier, Quy P. "Jeremiah." The Jerome Biblical Com mentary. Edited by Raymond S. Brown, Joseph A. £itz- raeyer, and Roland E. Murphy. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: P-H., 1968. Cullman, Oscar. Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of frime and History, translated by f e ’ ioyd V. | Pilson. London: S.d.M. Pr., 1962. ! 1 Damon, S. Poster. William Blake: His Philosophy and | Symbols. New York': Peter Smith,' 194t. Danielou, Jean. The Lord of History: Reflections on the Inner Meaning of Historyi Translated by Nigel Aber crombie. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1958. D'Arcy, M. C. The Mind and Heart of Love: Lion and Uni corn, A Study In £ros and Agape. 2nd ed., revised. ! New York: Mar. World Pub. ' , 1956. Davies, J. 0. The Theology of William Blake. Oxford: | Clarendon Pr., 1948. i Eliade, Mlrcea. The Myth of the Eternal Return. Trans lated by Willard trask. New York: Pantheon, 1954. ________. Myth and Reality. Translated by-Willard Trask. New York: Harp.R., I963. Ellis, Peter. The Men and Message of the Old Testament. Collegevllle, Minnesota: Liturgical Pr., 19bj. England, Martha Winburn, and Sparrow, John. Hymns Unbidden: Donne. Herbert, Blake, Emily Dickenson, and the Hymno- grapheira. Hew York: H. V. Sub. Lib.. 14bb.-----*---- Erdman, David V. Blake, Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of the History of His 6wn Times. Princeton: Prince ton U. Pr., 1$$4'. • ed. A Concordance of the Writings of William "Hake. 2 volsT'Tfhaca: Cornell KJTTr.',' 1967.---- ed. The Poetry and Prose of William Blake. New f 6 u • Xil6 * 06try 8 York: Doubleday, i9ott. Blake, Prophet Against Empire: A Poet*3 Inter pretation of the History of His Own times. 2nd ed., revised. Princeton: Princeton U. Pr., 1969. |..." .. ~................."...." " " "....... 352 ! Fairchild, Hoxie Neale. Religious Trends In English ! i Poetry. Vol. Ill: 17bO-lb3Q, Romantic Faith- ] foew j Vork: Columbia U. Pr., l94§. i Festlnger, Leon; Rlecken, Henry W.; and Schachter, Stanley. When Prophecy Falls: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the | WorTar-'New-York: Harp. ft.. 13Sb.--- ---------------- ! Fisher, Peter F. The Valley of Vision: Blake as Prophet i and Revolutionary. Edited by Northrop Frye. Toronto: I U. of Toronto Pr., 1961. ! Frank, Erick. The Role of History In Christian Thought. | New York: Herder, ! jFriedriok, Carl J., ed. The Philosophy of Hegel. New ! York: Modern Lib., 19$3. I iFrye, Northro0. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William | Blake. L iton: Beacon tr., 1962. I . "Blake's 'Introduction' to Experience." Blake: ! A Collection of Critical Essays. Edited by Northrop | Frye. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: P-H., 1965. jFussell, Paul. The Rhetorical World of Augustan Humanism. Oxford: Clarendon iPr., 1965. Gallagher, Kenneth J. The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel. New York: Fordham U. Pr., I’ 9b2. Grant, John E. "Apocalypse In Blake's 'Auguries of Inno cence.'" Texas Studies in Language and Literature, V (Winter, "489-5551----- --------------- Hamilton. Kenneth M. "William Blake and the Religion of Art," Dalhousie Review, XXIX (Autumn, 19^9)» 167-82. Harper, George Mills. The Neoplatonism of William Blake. Chapel Hill: U. o f X T r f p ., I$6'l7 "Apocalyptic Vision and Pastoral Dream in Blake's. Four Zoas." South Atlantic Quarterly, LXIV (Winter,T565T;T.10-2T;-------- ------ I Harris, R. W. Reason and Nature In the Eighteenth Century. | London: Blandford, 19bd. j |Harris, Victor. All Coherence Gone. Chicago: U. of ! Chicago Pr., 1949. T 353] lHastings, John, ed. Dictionary of the Bible. 2nd ed., [ revised by Frederick C. Grant and H. H. Rowley. New York: Scribner, 1963. I ; „ i Hilsdale, Paul. Superman versus Christ— Ood versus j Demi-God." The Living Light, I (Winter, 1965), 18-30. j Hlrsch, E. D., Jr. "The Two Blakes." Review of English ' Studies, XII (November, 1961), 373-957 j ' i : Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to I ! William Blake. New Haven: 1?aie U f. £r., 1984. j Hirst, Desiree. Hidden Riches; Traditional Symbolism from! the Renaissance to Blake. New York: Barnes and Noble, i T§&T.------------------------ History of Herodotus, The. Translated by A. D. Godley. i 4 vols. London: William Heinemann, 1950. i I Hughes, William R. William Blake's Jerusalem: A Simpll- | fied Version. London: George Allen and Unwin, 19b4. i I Hyatt, James, and Hopper, Stanley. "The Book of Jeremiah." The Interpreter's Bible. Edited by Nolan B. Harmon. Vol. V. New York: Abingdon, 1956. 1 Jacobi, Jolande. The Psychology of C. G. Jung: An Intro duction with iTlustratlonsT Translated by Ralph Man- heim. 6th ed., revised. New Haven: Yale U. Pr., 1962. Jones, Rufus M. Spiritual Reformers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New York: Macmillan, 1914. Kierkegaard, Spren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Translated by David F. Bwenson and Walter Lowrie. j Princeton: Princeton U. Pr., 1944. _______ . Works of Love. Translated by Howard Hing and Edna Hing. London: Collins, 1962. Kiralls, Karl. "A Guide to the Intellectual Symbolism of William Blake's Later Prophetic Writings." Criticism, I (Summer, 1959), 190-210. Krleter, Carmen. "Evolution and William Blake." Studies in Romanticism, IV (Winter, 1965), 110-18-. . Lampert, E. The Apocalypse of History: Problems of Provi dence and Human Beatiny" London: Faber, 1958. ! 354 j Lasky, Melvin J. "The Prometheana: On the Imagery of Fire and Revolution." Encounter, October, 1968, pp. 22-32. ! __. "The Metaphysics of Doomsdays John Rogers and j Oliver Cromwell.7 1 Encounter, January, 1969, pp. 36-^7. I Law, William. The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regen- i eration. The Collected Works of William tawl Edited by G. Mo re ton. Vol. V. London: IB55T i jLewis, C. S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. Londons Oxf. U. Pr., i960. ! iLowith, Karl. Meaning in History: The Theological Impli cations of the Philosophy of History. Chicago: tt. of i Ohicago Pr., 1^49. i Lowrie, Walter. Kierkegaard. 2 vols. New York: Haro. | R., 1962. | ;Luljpen, William A. Existential Phenomenology. Pitts burgh s Duquesne, T$b'3. Manuel, Frank E. Isaac Newton, Historian. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Br., 1953. iMarcel, Gabriel. Being and Having: An Existentialist ! Diary. Translated by Katherine Farrer. Westminster: j Dacre Pr., 19^9. i . The Mystery of Being. Vol. I: Reflection and ! Mystery" Trans late d by G. S. Fraser. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1950. ! I The Mystery of Being. Vol. II: Faith and | Reality" Translated by Ren6 Hague. Chicago: Henry j Regnery, 1951. 1 Homo Viator: An Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope. Trans la ted "by Emma Craufurd. New York: Haro. ffTri962. Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. Boston: Beacon Br., 1900. Maritain, Jacques. Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry. | New York: Pantheon, 1953. ! Meister Eckhart: A Modern Translation. Translated by Ray- mond Bernard Blakney. New York: Harp. R., 1957. | 355 iMerton, Thomas. “Blake and the New Theology." Review of The New Apocalypser The Radical Christian Vision of William falake. by"fhomas J. J. Altizer. Sewanee Review. LXXVI (Autumn, 1968), 673-82. | I — — —- I Micell, Vincent P. Ascent to Being: Gabriel Marcel's Philosophy of Communion, New York: Desciee, 1953. jMilton, John. Paradise Lost. John Milton: Complete Poem3 I and Major Prose. Edited' by Merritt V. Hughes. New | York:Odyssey Pr., 1957. iMiner, Paul. "William Blake's 'Divine Analogy.'" Criticism. Ill (Winter, 1961), 46-61. jMoltmann, Jurgen. Theology of Hope: On the Ground and ■ Implications of Christian Eschatology. Translated by James Leitch. New York: liarp. R., 1967. jMorton, A. L. English Utopia. London: Lawrence & W., ! 1952. i ________ . The Everlasting Gospel: A Study in the Sources i of William felakel London: Lawrence & W., 1954. I Neumann, Erich. Art and the Creative Unconscious. Trans lated by Ralph Manhelm. New York: Pantheon, 1959. I ! ; Newton, A. Edward. Introduction. William Blake. I 1757-1827: A Descriptive Catalogue. Philadelphia: tea ^ Febiger, 1939. Nicolson, Marjorie. Mountain Gloom. Mountain glory: The Development of the Aesthetics of the Infinite. Ithaca: Cornell u. Pr., 1959. Niebuhr, Richard R. Schlelermaoher on Christ: A New Introduction. New York: Scribner, 19&4. Noland, Richard W. "The Apocalypse of Norman 0. Brown." The American Scholar. XXXVIII (Winter, 1968-69), 59-68. Nygren, Anders. Agape and Eros. Translated by Philip Watson. 2 voTs!London: S.P.C.K., 1953. Paley, Morton D. Energy and the Imagination: A Study of the Development of Blake's Thought. Oxford: Claren don Pr., 1970. : — — jPercival, Milton 0. William Blake's Circle of Destiny. I New York: Columbia N. Pr., 193b. I 356 I jPlato, Pollticus. The Works of Plato. Translated by Ployer Sydenham and i’ homas Taylor. London: l8o4. Rahner, Karl. Theological Investigations. Translated by Kevin Smyth" VolT'iVi Baltimore: fielicone Pr., 1966. Raine, Kathleen. Blake and Tradition. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton U. Pr., 1966. Rail, Harris Franklin. Modern Premlllennlallsm and the Christian Hope. New York: Abingdon, 1920. | jRldeau, Emile. The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin. Trans lated by Rend Hague. New York: fctarp. it., 1967. | iRose, Edward J. "The Symbolism of the Opened Center and | Poetic Theory in Blake's Jerusalem." Studies in | | English Literature. V (Autumn, 1965), £8t-606. I i |Rudd, Margaret. Divided Image: A Study of William Blake j and William Butler Yeats. London: Routledge and j Kegan Paul, 1953. ! Organiz'd Innocence: The Story of Blake's I iProphetic Books. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, | 1$56. iRust, Eric C. Evolutionary Philosophies and Contemporary Theology. Philadelphia: Westminster, I969. Schorer, Mark. William Blake: The Politics of Vision. New York: Random, 1959. Shankel, George Edgar. God and Man in History: A Study in the Christian Understanding of History. Nashville: Southern £ub., 1967. 1 Shelley, Percy Bysshe. A Defence of Poetry^— Shelley's---- Prose. Edited by David Lee Clark. Albuquerque: tj. of M. M. Pr., 1954. . Shepperson, George. "The Comparative Study of Millenarlan Movements." Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study. Edited by Sylvia L. Thrupp. fhe HagueT tfouton, 1962. Smith, Ronald Gregor. Secular Christianity. London: Collins, 1966. Tillich, Paul. A History of Christian Thought. Edited by Carl E. Braaten. New York: Harp. R., 1968. ; 357 I Todd, Ruthven. Tracks in the Snow: Studies In English Science and Art. Mew York: Scribner, 1947. jTuveson, Ernest Lee. Millennium and Utopia: A Study of the Background of_ the Idea of Progress'! Los Angeles: j I of Cal. Pr., 1949. 1 . The Imagination as a Means to Grace: Locke and I ! the Aesthetics of Romanticism. Los Angeles: t t . ' of “ I dal. Pr., I960. lunruh, Donald J. "Jerusalem: The Primitive Christian ! Vision of William Llake. * ' Unpublished Ph.D. dlsser- i tatlon, U. of Southern Cal., 1970. I |Walling, William. "The Death of God: William Blake's Version." Dalhousie Review. XLVIII (Summer. 1968 K j 237-50. Whitehead, Alfred North. Science and the Modern World. Cambridge, England: Cambridge U. Pr., 1927. ! ! Wordsworth, William. The Prelude. Edited by Ernest de I Sellncourt. London! 6xf. U. Pr., 1926.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Jerusalem: The Primitive Christian Vision Of William Blake

PDF

Blake, Novalis, and Nerval: the poetics of the apocalypse. A study of Blake's Milton, Novalis' Hymnen an die Nacht and Heinrich von Ofterdingen, and Nerval's Aurelia

PDF

Obstinate In Resurrection: An Interpretation Of Coleridge'S Envisioning Of Reality

PDF

George Henry Lewes' Evolutionism In The Fiction Of George Eliot

PDF

The Word Within The Word: A Literary Examination Of Lancelot Andrewes' Presentation Of The Life Of Christ

PDF

William Faulkner'S "Absalom, Absalom!": An Exercise In Affirmation

PDF

A Structural Analysis Of Shakespeare'S Early Comedies

PDF

William Faulkner: From Past To Self-Discovery; A Study Of His Life And Work Through 'Sartoris' (1929)

PDF

Versions Of Pastoral In Henry Fielding'S Prose Fiction

PDF

An Analysis Of Selected British Novelists Between 1945 And 1966, And Their Critics

PDF

The Epistemological Poem: Wordsworth'S 'Prelude'

PDF

The Artful Artificer, Bertolt Brecht: A Study Of Six 'Bearbeitungen.'

PDF

Neo-Metamorphoses: A Cyclical Study. Comparative Transformations In Ovidian Myth And Modern Literature

PDF

An Inquiry Into The Problem Of Style: A Negative Experiment

PDF

A Critical Edition Of Thomas Heywood'S 'The Wise Woman Of Hogsdon' With Introduction And Notes

PDF

Cleanth Brooks And The Formalist Approach To Metaphysical And Moral Values In Literature

PDF

Paradigms Of Phenomenology In Three Romantic Poets

PDF

Structure And Imagery Patterns In The Poetry Of Emily Dickinson

PDF

William Morris'S Concepts Of Ideal Human Society As Indicated In Public Lectures, 1877-1894 And In Three Prose Romances, 1886-1890

PDF

The Phenomenon Of Literature: Prolegomena To A Literary History

Asset Metadata

Creator Welch, Dennis Martin (author)

Core Title William Blake'S Apocalypse: A Theo-Psychological Interpretation

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program English

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, General,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Eggenschwiler, David L. (committee chair), Arnold, Aerol (committee member), Wilson, Donald E. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-493041

Unique identifier UC11363202

Identifier 7221710.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-493041 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 7221710

Dmrecord 493041

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Welch, Dennis Martin

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA