527-S01-09-25-13

1. 527-S01-09-25-13 • Introduction • Poetic difficulty. several introductory examples: • Blake’s tractates (All Religions are One; There is no Natural Religion (a), and There is no Natural Religion (b)

2. THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION The Author & Printer W Blake [a] The Argument Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education. Naturally he is only a natural organ subject to Sense. I Man cannot naturally Percieve, but through his natural or bodily organs II Man by his reasoning power. can only compare & judge of what he has already perciev'd. III From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a fourth or fifth IV None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had none but organic perceptions V Mans desires are limited by his perceptions. none can desire what he has not perciev'd VI The desires & perceptions of man untaught by any thing but organs of sense, must be limited to objects of sense. THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION [b] I Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. He percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover. II Reason or the ratio of all we have already known. is not the same that it shall be when we know more. [III lacking] IV The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a univer[s]e would soon become a mill with complicated wheels. V If the many become the same as the few, when possess'd, More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul, less than All cannot satisfy Man. 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 possession is Infinite & himself Infinite Conclusion, If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character. the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things & stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things seesGod. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only. Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is Texts and contraries

3. ALL RELIGIONS are ONE The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness The Argument As the true method of knowledge is experiment the true faculty of knowing must be the faculty which experiences. This faculty I treat of. PRINCIPLE 1st That the Poetic Genius is the true Man. and that the body or outward form of Man is derived from the Poetic Genius. Likewise that the forms of all things are derived from their Genius. which by the Ancients was call'd an Angel & Spirit& Demon. PRINCIPLE 2d As all men are alike in outward form, So (and with the same infinite variety) all are alike in the Poetic Genius PRINCIPLE 3d No man can think write or speak from his heart, but he must intend truth. Thus all sects of Philosophy are from the Poetic Genius adapted to the weaknesses of every individual PRINCIPLE 4. As none by traveling over known lands can find out the unknown. So from already acquired knowledge Man could not acquire more. therefore an universal Poetic Genius exists PRINCIPLE. 5. The Religions of all Nations are derived from each Nations different reception of the Poetic Genius which is every where call'd the Spirit of Prophecy. PRINCIPLE 6 The Jewish & Christian Testaments are An original derivation from the Poetic Genius. this is necessary from the confined nature of bodily sensation PRINCIPLE 7th As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various) So all Religions & as all similars have one source The true Man is the source he being the Poetic Genius All religions are one

4. Known in his own time primarily as an artist and engraver Poetry: demanding, systematic, notoriously confusing Songs of Innocence and of Experience 1780-1794 The Marriage of Heaven & Hell 1790-1793 Book of Thel 1789 Visions of the Daughters of Albion 1793 America A Prophecy 1793 Europe A Prophecy 1794 The Book of Unizen 1794 The Book of Ahania 1795 The Book of Los 1795 The Song of Los 1795 The Four Zoas (Vala) 1797 + (to 1820?) (manuscript) Milton a Poem 1804-1811 Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion 1804-1820 NOTE THE PATTERN IN THE AVOWED DATES See: www.blakearchive.org/ Blake’s education: Influences: The Bible, Art & Poetry, Swedenborg . William Blake 1757-1827

5. The evolving project • It is fairly clear, allowing from variations from the engraved date and the time of production, that Blake set out on a unified project—let us say, on behalf of the poetic imagination—that shows traces of strategic decisions that quite consistently run into complications. • Why foreground The Four Zoas? (clearly, it is not finished, and does not stand alone, but it is the most intensely worked example of imaginative production that we can easily find. • (The facsimile edition)

6. Shewing the two contrary states of the human soul: 1. Contraries (not opposites, not negations: both are necessary; both are real, neither is “reality”) 2. States: do not conceptualize on the basis of a temporary (temporal) “identity.” It prevents the recognition of development and change. 3. ‘you see through the eye, not with it’: Innocence and Experience

7. Intro to Innocence

8. Introduction Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child. And he laughing said to me. Pipe a song about a Lamb; So I piped with merry chear, Piper pipe that song again-- So I piped, he wept to hear. Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe Sing thy songs of happy chear, So I sung the same again While he wept with joy to hear Piper sit thee down and write In a book that all may read-- So he vanish'd from my sight. And I pluck'd a hollow reed. And I made a rural pen, And I stain'd the water clear, And I wrote my happy songs Every child may joy to hear Text

9. Experience

10. Introduction. Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past, & Future sees Whose ears have heard, The Holy Word, That walk'd among the ancient trees. Calling the lapsed Soul And weeping in the evening dew: That might controll, The starry pole; And fallen fallen light renew! O Earth O Earth return! Arise from out the dewy grass; Night is worn, And the morn Rises from the slumberous mass, Turn away no more: Why wilt thou turn away The starry floor The watry shore Is giv'n thee till the break of day. EARTH'S Answer. Earth rais'd up her head, From the darkness dread & drear. Her light fled: Stony dread! And her locks cover'd with grey despair. Prison'd on watry shore Starry jealousy does keep my tent Cold and hoar Weeping o'er I hear the Father of the ancient men Selfish father of men Cruel jealous selfish fear Can delight Chain'd in night The virgins of youth and morning bear. Does spring hide its joy When buds and blossoms grow? Does the sower? Sow by night? Or the plowman in darkness plow? Break this heavy chain, That does freeze my bones around Selfish! vain! Eternal bane! That free Love with bondage bound. Experience / text

11. Illumination for Experience

12. Individuals and States • The schema for I & E requires that one recognize that an individual does not lose individuality by being IN different states. Thus, there is an inherent possibility of recognizing that two different individuals may, either at different times or one time, be in the same state. The immediate implication is that our sense of our selves as being isolated, unique, self-contained is simply wrong, and to think from that position is self isolating and error-generating

13. Chimney Sweeper poems

14. The Chimney Sweeper When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue, Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep. t So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep, Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head That curl'd like a lambs back, was shav'd, so I said. Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head's bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair. And so he was quiet, & that very night, As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight, That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black, And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he open'd the coffins & set them all free. Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run And wash in a river and shine in the Sun. Then naked & white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind. And the Angel told Tom if he'd be a good boy, He'd have God for his father & never want joy. And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm, So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm. Innocence

15. THE Chimney Sweeper A little black thing among the snow: Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe! Where are thy father & mother? say? They are both gone up to the church to pray. Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil'd among the winter's snow: They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe. And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury: And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King Who make up a heaven of our misery Experience

16. Poetic Vision is, etymologically, a constructed vision, not identical with an elaborated image or narrative. The basic idea is the presentation of a set of elements that can be related to each other in a very specific way, to create an idea or a general relation among elements. Example: In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, individual poems can be juxtaposed, where one poem (from the Songs of Innocence) can be seen in relation to a second poem (from the Songs of Experience). The reader, then, reading the two poems as contraries, can see what constitutes or is characateristic of the state of innocence, and compare it to what constitutes or is characteristic of the state of experience. But the reader is in neither state, but at the focal point where poetic vision is possible. Innocence Experience Reader (The poetic vision is what the reader sees, and is constructed from the relation between the contraries) Extension: This idea can be applied, or elaborated, in a wide variety of contexts. The key is that the poetic vision is not what is passively given to be observed, but the active construction of the vision from the relation among elements. Poetic Vision reader

17. The critical reception Phase 1: boggled admiration • Swinburne, W. B. Yeats & Edwin Ellis, G. K. Chester Phase 2: assembling the materials S. Foster Damon: A Blake Dictionary Keynes: a decent edition Phase 3: making sense of the poems Northrop Frye: Fearful Symmetry (the pivotal study) Phase 4: sneaking up on the traveller Hazard Adams: The Contrary Vision: Blake & Yeats Harold Bloom: Blake’s Apocalypse David Erdman: Prophet against Empire Jean Hagstrom: William Blake: Poet and Painter Robert Gleckner: The Piper and the Bard John E Grant: Essays on William Blake J.T. Mitchell: Blake’s Composite Art Grant & Erdman: Blake’s Visionary Forms Dramatic Phase 5: The Blake Archive: Morris Eaves, Robert Essick, Joseph Viscomi