William Blake. A Pre-Romantic Author

Transcription

1 William Blake A Pre-Romantic Author

2 William Blake ( ) engraver, printer, publisher and poet invents relief etching, working together with his wife poems published as illuminated volumes prophetic inclinations God is present in imagination favours energy and passion; against restrictive religion as institution Some Works: Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) America, A Prophecy (1792) Milton ( ) Jerusalem ( )

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4 William Blake: Imagination and Vision WILLIAM BLAKE TO DR TRUSLER (23 August Abridged) Revd Sir, I really am sorry that you are fall'n out with the Spiritual World, Especially if I should have to answer for it. I feel very sorry that your Ideas & Mine on Moral Painting differ so much as to have made you angry with my method of study. If I am wrong, I am wrong in good company. You say that I want some-body to Elucidate my Ideas. But you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worthy of my care. [...] I feel that a Man may be happy in This World. And I know that This World Is a World of Imagination & Vision I see Every thing I paint In This World, but Every body does not see alike. To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful than the Sun & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportions than a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some See Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate my proportions, & Some Scarce see Nature at all But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination Nature is Imagination itself. As a man is So he Sees. As the Eye is formed such are its Powers You certainly Mistake when you say that the Visions of Fancy are not be found in This World. To Me This World is all One continued Vision of Fancy or Imagination & I feel Flatterd when I am told So.

5 [a] THE ARGUMENT There is No Natural Religion (The Author & Printer W Blake) Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education. Naturally he is only a natural organ subject to Sense. I II III IV V VI Man cannot naturally Perceive but through his natural or bodily organs. Man by his reasoning power can only compare things & judge of what he has already perciev'd From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a fourth or fifth. None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had none but organic perceptions. Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not perceiv'd. The desires & perceptions of man untaught by any thing but organs of sense, must be limited to objects of sense.

6 [b] I Man's perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. He percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover. II Reason or the ration of all we have already known is not the same that it shall be when we know more. III [this page is missing] IV The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of a universe would soon become a mill with complicated wheels. V If the many became the same as the few when possess'd, More! More! is the cry of a mistake 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. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only. THEREFORE God becomes as we are that we may be as he is. 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.

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8 William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience two contrary states of the human soul (not of age!) innocence = uncorrupted state of childhood experience = does not refute innocence both states present a view of truth explores the tensions between reason and intuition; law and passion; oppression and liberty

9 William Blake ( ), "The Piper", from Songs of Innocence. 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 sang 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 vanished 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 song Every child may joy to hear.

10 William Blake, Hear the Voice, from: The Songs of Experience (Introduction) HEAR the voice of the Bard, Who present, past, and future, sees; Whose ears have heard The Holy Word That walk'd among the ancient trees; Calling the lapsèd soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might control 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 slumbrous mass. 'Turn away no more; Why wilt thou turn away? The starry floor, The watery shore, Isgiventheetillthebreakof day.'

11 Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life, and bid thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek, and he is mild; He became a little child. I a child, and thou a lamb. We are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!

12 Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art. Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

13 London (Songs of Experience) I wander thro' each charter'd street. Near where the charter'd Thames does flow And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice: in every ban, The mind-forg'd manacles I hear How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every blackning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls But most thro' midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

14 Two Generations of Romantic Poets First Generation Lake Poets William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge Robert Southey

15 Characteristics of Romanticism concern with history (medievalism, romance) return to nature (cf. Rousseau) literary primitivism (folk art models; e.g. Percy s Reliques of Ancient Poetry) subjective idealism interiority, introverted remoteness of poet (also: critique of escapism) individualism (political and poetic) importance of imagination and sensibility poetry as (original) creation (= poiesis) rather than imitation (= mimesis; cf. Classicism); emphasis on expression

16 Imagination Enlightenment: reason and judgment understanding; phantasy = merely an instrument of memory Romanticism: imagination mode of perception that transforms and reforms the exterior world Romantic imagination a) unites different elements to one organic whole; b) perceives a deeper truth and reality between the surface of the material world; c) transforms the material world according to the poet s vision.

17 Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biographia Literaria (1815 [1817]) 2 ("from Chapter IV") ("from Chapter XIII") ("Chapter XIV") ("Chapter XV") ("Chapter XVII") ("Chapter XVIII") ("from Chapter XX") ("Chapter XXII") From Chapter XIII The IMAGINATION then, I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind(i) of its agency, and differing only in degree(i), and in mode(i) of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital(i), even as all objects (as(i) objects) are essentially fixed and dead. FANCY, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites. The Fancy is indeed no other than a mode of Memory emancipated from the order of item and space; while it is blended with, and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will, which we express by the word CHOICE. But equally with the ordinary memory the Fancy must receive all its material ready made form the law of association.

18 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757)

19 The Sublime astonishment mixed with horror terror obscurity power, vastness and infinity irregularity uncontrollable a play on the senses, overpowering reason pain principle The Beautiful causes love clarity delicacy and fragility small, limited extension smoothness, gradual variation does not depend on reason or utility pleasure principle

20 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins o f Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason an that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us an by an irresistible force.

21 Vincent Arthur De Luca, Blake s Concept of the Sublime, in: Wu, Duncan (Hg.). Romanticism. A Critical Reader. London: Blackwell, 1995, "Astonishment," then, cannot be described so much as circumscribed by a ring of mutually canceling figures such as motion/arrest, penetration/resistance, heaviness/lightness. The figures are drawn from physical mechanics, but they compose no mechanics that Newton would recognize. Here the continuum of cause and effect breaks down; outward forces have unpredictable inward consequences. As Burke presents it, "astonishment" marks the intervention of sharp discontinuities in the spheres of both nature and mind: nature suddenly manifests itself in so overwhelming a fashion that normal relations of subject and object are abolished; at the same time, the mind loses its consistency of operation and becomes a thing of paradox, of self-contradictory extremes. (19)

22 Two possible sublimes quiver in the indeterminacy of the moment of astonishment: one, the sublime of terror and deprivation most closely associated with Burke, and the other, a sublime of desire and plenitude. Blake's imagination is repeatedly drawn to the Burkean sublime, but he appears skeptical that it can serve as a mode of genuine elevation and access to a liberating power. Burke would have us believe that the moment of disequilibrium, suspension of faculties, and immobilization of will arises from the access of an overwhelming external power or magnitude. Blake reads such scenes otherwise: encountering "terrific" objects, his protagonists reel not at a magnitude of power made present, but rather at the magnitude of power lost, at the degree of petrifaction revealed in so-called powers by the time they present themselves as natural "terrors. (22)

23 Pain and pleasure Pain and pleasure are simple ideas, incapable of definition. People are not liable to be mistaken in their feelings, but they are very frequently wrong in the names they give them, and in their reasonings about them. Many are of the opinion, that pain arises necessarily from the removal of some pleasure; as they think pleasure does from the ceasing or diminution of some pain. For my part, I am rather inclined to imagine, that pain and pleasure, in their most simple and natural manner of affecting, are each of a positive nature, and by no means necessarily dependent on each other for their existence. The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference.

24 Sympathy It is by the first of these passions that we enter into the concerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected; so that this passion may either partake of the nature of those which regard self-preservation, and turning upon pain may be a source of the sublime or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure; and then whatever has been said of the social affections, whether they regard society in general, or only some particular modes of it, may be applicable here. It is by this principle chiefly that poetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfuse their passions from one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself. It is a common observation, that objects which in the reality would shock, are in tragical, and such like representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure.

25 Lyrical Ballads 1798; 1800; 1802 by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

26 The "preface" as an attempt to write a "defence of poetry": "a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation" "a class of poetry... well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the quality and in the multiplicity of its moral relations". "to prefix a systematic defence of the theory upon which the poems were written".

27 The incompatibility of the Lyrical Ballads with comtemporary taste: poems are "so materially different from those upon which general approbation is at present bestowed". "a full account of the present state of the public taste in this country, and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved". He cannot determine this "without pointing out in what manner language and the human mind act and re-act on each other, and without retracting the revolutions, not of literature alone, but likewise of society itself."

28 A general definition of poetry as a historical art based on Hartley: "the act of writing in verse" "certain classes of ideas and expressions" "certain known habits of association." Principal object and form of poetry: "incidents and situations from common life" "language really used by men". "throw over them a certain coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect "primary laws of nature"

29 Attack on poetic diction: "humble and rustic life "repeated experience and regular feelings" poets using poetic diction : "they are conferring honour upon themselves and their art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious manners of expression."

30 The subjects and purpose of the Lyrical Ballads: "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." reader: "the reader must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified. "For the human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants." poet: "but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings. "that to endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period a writer can be engaged; but this service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day."

31 The historical and cultural background: "a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor." "great national events." (1) frequency (2) "the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies." (3) "frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and... idle and extravagant stories in verse". "this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation".

32 The style of the Lyrical Ballads: Rare use of personifications of abstract ideas Imitation and Adaption of "the very language of man Avoidance of poetic diction Strife for a style of "good sense Being cut of oneself from traditional "phrases and figures of speech", which have been abused and repeated for too long a time "by bad poets" Defence of prosaisms: "there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition "a selection of the language really spoken by men" makes the difference, not the distinction between metrical language and prose.

33 What is a poet - What is poetry? (1) a man speaking to men (2) endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm, and tenderness (3) who has a greater knowledge of human nature (4) a more comprehensive soul (5) a man pleased with his own passions and volitions (6) who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him (7) disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present (8) impelled to create volitions and passions as manifested in the on- goings of the universe, when he does not find them (9) an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet pleasing and delightful {i.e. supernatural, but not gothic } (10) acquires a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, (11) and especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement.

34 What is a poet - What is poetry? (12) he will feel that there is no necessity to trick out or to elevate nature (13) the more industriously he applies this principle, the deeper will be his faith that no words which his fancy or imagination can suggest, will be to be compared with those which are the emanations of reality and truth. (14) the poet is in the situation of a translator, "who does not scruple to substitute excellences of another kind for those which are unattainable by him; and endeavours occasionally to surpass his original, in order to make some amends for the general inferiority to which he feels that he must submit." "Poetry is the image of man and nature" being according to Aristotle the most philosophic of all writing: "its object is truth, not individual and local, but general and operative". (15) "the poet writes under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human being". This "necessity of producing immediate pleasure... is an acknowledgement of the beauty of the universe." (16) The poet "considers man and the objects that surround him as acting and re-acting upon each other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure"

35 (17) The poet "considers man and nature as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature." (18) Scientist vs. poet: "The man of science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion." (19) Quoting Shakespeare who said that the poet "looks before and after", {Shakespeare, Hamlet, IV,iv,37} the poet is regarded as "the rock of defence for human nature; an upholder and preserver..." (20) "the poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth and over all time". (21) Since "poetry is the first and last of all knowledge," the poet "will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science,..., he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of the science itself. The remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the poet's art as any upon which it can be employed..."

36 A general summary: [20-21:] "poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility; the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of re-action, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successfull composition generally begins... the mind will, upon the whole, be in a state of enjoyment... an indistinct perception perpetually renewed of language closely resembling that of real life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre, differing from it so wildely..."

37 The Eternal language of God Samuel Taylor Coleridge's FROST AT MIDNIGHT But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

38 William Wordsworth, Daffodils (1804) I wander d lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

39 IN Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient-as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. Kubla Khan But O, that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing A mighty fountain momently was forced; Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river.

40 Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! Theshadowof thedomeof pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! *********** A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she play'd, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me, Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! *********

41 And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise. XXXXXXXXXXXXX In 'Purchas His Pilgrimage' (1613) SAMUEL PURCHAS reports: "In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant springs, delightfull Streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure..."

42 Kublai Khan ( ) was "the fifth of the Mongol great khans and the founder of the Yüan Dynasty in China ( ). He is best known in the West as the Cublai Kaan of Marco Polo... Kublai founded what was intended to be his brother's new capital but became in effect his own summer residence, the town of Kaiping. It later was named Shang-tu or 'Upper Capital' and was immortalised as the Xanadu of Coleridge's poem." COLERIDGE himself indicates that he was inspired by travel literature (s.b.). In 'Purchas His Pilgrimage' (1613) SAMUEL PURCHAS reports: "In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant springs, delightfull Streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure..." KERMODE also refers to J.L. LOWES who "demonstrated that other borrowings from Purchas are important, particularly from the account of Alvadine, the Old Man of the Mountain, who employed his earthly paradise or garden of delights to train the assassins whom he sent against his enemies. BEER finds substantial parallels in J. RIDLEY'S Tales of the Genii in which the Merchant Abudah "was shown a vision of a dome, made entirely of precious stones and metals, which seemed to cover a whole plain and reach to the clouds, and who voyaged along a meandering river by woods of spices." BEER gives further examples taken from the Merchant's adventures, in which he perceives "huge fragments..., a dismal chasm... [and] warlike music" and comes to the conclusion "that the corresponding elements in Coleridge's poem are rooted deeply in recollected reading of Eastern romance." The subtitle of the poem is Or, a Vision in a dream. A Fragment. To the first publication of the poem, COLERIDGE adds the following explanatory note (excerpts): "... In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he [COLERIDGE] fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage: 'Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.'" According to his own account, COLERIDGE had the feeling that during his sleep "he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines..." and that "all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the corresponding expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and instantly wrote down the lines... At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business", which interrupted his recollection of ideas. In a note added to a manuscript copy COLERIDGE himself added that the vision was "brought on by two grains of Opium..." With regard to the Alph theme, Greek mythology may have inspired him: in one mythical account, Alpheus, the god who gave his name to the river, fell in love with a nymph by the name of Arethusa who fled from him; he pursued her and, after she has turned into a spring, "for love of her Alpheus mingled his waters with her." In a different account, the earth opens up to prevent the latter, and the goddess Artemis guides her away "through underground channels..."