William Blake

(1757-1827) “Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Prese (Introduction, Songs of Experience).

nt, Past, & Future, sees”.

William Blake was born in London in 1757. His father owned a small hosiery

business which barely supported his family of six children, one of whom died in infancy. At the age of eight, Blake is reported to have had his first vision, a tree full of angels. He was to have visions all his life long. His work was inspired by ‘Spirits’ who talked to him, or he himself would talk to God, or to Jesus Christ or to Biblicarl figures such as Moses, or to the great dead, such as Socrates, Dante or Milton. When his brother Robert, to whom he was very close, died at the age of twenty in 1787, Blake said he saw his soul ascending heavenwards “clapping its hands for joy”.

Because of his family’s poor conditions, Blake did not receive any formal

education, but was basically self-taught in all disciplines, with the exception of drawing and engraving. In fact, at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to James Basire, engraver to the Society of Antiquaries. Under Basire’s direction, he trained in Gothic style and was sent to sketch monuments in Westminster Abbey. Drawing and engraving were to become, in combination with poetry, his most powerful means of expression.

In 1779 he was employed as an engraver by Joseph Hohnson, a bookseller whose ideas had made him the centre of a radical circle attended by other free spirits of time with whom Blake would later share his enthusiasm about the French Revolution.

In 1781 Blake became ill, but recovered thanks to the care of a market-gardener named Boucher. His daughter, Catherine, married Blake in 1782. Most accounts of Blake’s life report that their marriage, with no children, was a happy one. Blake became the centre of Catherine’s life; her personality was somehow annihilated by his. Semi-illiterate, Catherine was taught to read, and she even became able to write and draw in a style that was almost indistinguishable from Blake’s. She is even said to have shared some of Blake’s visions. She spent ther entire married life at the service of her husband and his artistic mission. In 1783 Blake’s first work Poetical Sketches was printed at the expense of Reverend Henry Matthew, one of Blake’s early patrons. This collection contains rather conventional poems but contains in embryo what were to become his favourite themes. During this period Blake started attending the salon of Rev. Matthew’s wife, and his encounter with the provincial intellectual society gathering in there was burlesqued in An Island In The Moon written in 1784. Beside containing the earliest Songs of Innocence, this work mentions an early scheme of ‘illuminated printing’, the original relief-engraving technique which Blake developed on his own and used for the rest of his life to engrave all of his artistic and poetic production. Blake used this process for the first time in 1788 to engrave There is No Natural Religion and All Religion Are One, two short philosophical tractates. From this year on, Blake’s own poetic output became significant while at the same time he tried to make a living by selling a very limited number of public etchings and engravings.

Blake developed an original technique to print his designs and poems which he defined ‘Illuminated Printin’. He etched his poems (written in reverse) and illustration with acid on copper plates; the he corroded the unused portions of the plate with acid so that the text and design would stand out. The pages printed from these plates were coloured by hand. Blake said that his technique had been suggested to him by his brother Robert during one of his vision.

106

In 1789 he engraved Songs of Innocence, a collection of poems centered around the figure of the child and focusing on the theme of innocence. He also wrote Ririel and the Book of Thel. These works belong to the series of the so-called ‘prophetic books’ whose composition and engraving were one of Blake’s major efforts during his life. Among them the most often quoted are The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790?-1793), Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1791?-1793), America: A Prophecy (1793), Europe: A Prophecy (1794), The Book of Urizen (1793-1794) The Four Zoas (1796?-1808), Milton (1802-1808) and Jerusalem (1804-1820). In the energetic and passionate poetry of these books, Blake expounded his lifelong concern with the struggle of the soul to express its natural energies when restricted by reason, law and organized religion. His visionary approach forged a mythology which is often hard to understand because it is Blake’s personal one. The conflicting forces at work in his myth are personified in allegoric figures such as Urizen, who is Jehovah or reason, Los, who is Imagination or Christ, or Orc, the rebellious spirit in man.

In 1791, his work The French Revolution, Book I was typed by Joseph Johnson but never published. Blake hailed the French Revolution because of his passionate love for freedom, justice and brotherhood and shared his enthusiasm with other English radical intellectuals. In 1792, when it was clear the English government was against intellectuals and sympathizers of the French Republic, he warned some of them of being in danger of arrest.

After 1791, Blake entered a period of crisis. His crisis was both political and

personal. On the political side, his hopes in the French Revolution were ended with England’s unsympathetic attitude towards France and, later on, by the tyrannical turn taken by the French Republic. On the personal side, Blake went through a crisis with his wife. He hated all sorts of constraints and although his marriage was apparently happy, he felt tied by it, and especially tormented by his wife’s jealousy. Though she adored him, she was not at all enthusiastic about his idea of free love: Blake is said to have suggested that Mary Wollstonecraft (the author of Frankenstein) should join him and his wife in a menage a trois. Blake’s spiritual crisis can be best seen in Songs of Experience, which were engraved in 1794 and published in combination with his earlier Songs of Innocence.

The period between 1800 and 1817 witnessed Blake’s activity as an engraver. He

designed Blair’s The Grave (1805-1808), illustrated Milton’s Paradise Lost, and applied himself to the engraving of The Last Judgement (1808-1820) and The Book of Job (1821-1825). Another work worth mentioning is his designs in illustration of Dante’s Divina Commedia. It was commisssioned by John Linnelll (1792-1882), a portrait and landscape painter whom Blake met in 1818 and who was yet another great support in his later years. Linnell introduced him to many young painters, who had formed a group called ‘The Ancients’ and admired Blake and copied his work.

In 1826 Blake became ill and died one year later in 1827. His wife Catherine died in

1831.

107

Songs of Innocence (1788-1794) TEXT A 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!” 5 glee: joy. So I piped with merry chear.

“Piper, pipe that song again”; chear: cheer: happiness So I piped: he wept to hear.

thy: your. “Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; pluck’d: picked up. Sing thy songs of happy chear”: 10 a hollow reed: a kind

of tall plant with a hollow stem which grows near the water.

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, 15

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. 20

TASKS

1. In the Introduction to Songs of Innocence the poet had a vision: a child on a cloud asked him four things. Read the poem and complete the chart.

Child’s request Poet’s response 1. 1.

2. 2. 3. 3. 4. 4. 2. The child seems to imply a relationship between music > song > poem.

Can you predict the features of the poems included in the collection?

108

TEXT B The Lamb Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life, & bid thee feed thee: you. By the stream & o’er the mead; Dost thou: do you. Gave thee clothing of delight, 5 bid thee feed: told

you to eat. Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, mead: meadow. Making all the vales rejoice? meek: gentle and

quiet. Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? 10

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, & he is mild; 15 He became a little child. I a child, & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee! 20 Portrait of the Artist's

Daughter, Lina by Luigi Calamatta

TASKS 1. The first stanza is about the identity of the creator of the lamb. This creator

appears very generous. His gifts to the lamb are:

1. ………………… 2. food 3. ………………… 4. …………………

2. Which adjectives refer to the lamb? In your opinion, what does the lamb symbolize? 3. Read the second stanza and look at the punctuation. Can you detect any

difference from the first one?

4. Lines 15-18 establish relationship between three elements which can be visualized as follows.

creator lamb child

What do they have in common? Tick as appropriate. meekness innocence purity mildness Sense of sacrifice discipline youth generosity In your opinion, what is the name of the creator?

109

5 In lines 17-18, the “I” of the poem calls himself a child and states both he and the lamb “are called by his name”. Again this can be visualized as follows:

I

lamb creator Now compare the two triangles. What emerges from the comparison? Justify your answer.

The Infant Christ Triumphing over Death and the Infant St. John the Baptist,

6 Read aloud the poem. Write down the rhyme scheme and the sound devices. by Lucas Cranach.

7 Choose one or more instruments to accompany this song.

____ guitar ____ flute ____ trumpet ____ piano ____ pipe ____ drums ____ violin ____ harp Do you think the poet accomplishes the relationship between music, song and poem established in the Introduction?

Songs of Experience (1794)

PRELIMINARY TASK

In pairs look at the picture of the tiger and list the feelings it evokes.

110

TEXT C

The Tyger 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 frame: forge. Burnt the fire of thine eyes? thy: your On what wings dare he aspire? deeps: seas. What the hand dare sieze the fire? thine: your. On what wings dare he aspire: what wings did your creator use in the hope of reaching his ambitious goal? This image is clearly associated with the myth of Icarus.

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? sieze the fire: seize

the fire. It refers to Prometheus’s tale according to which, once when Zeus had hidden fire from men, he stole it and took it back to earth.

When the stars threw down their spears, And water’d 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, sinews: the cords

which connect the muscles to the bones.

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? anvil: an iron tool

used by the blacksmith to hammer hot metal pieces.

TASKS

1. The Tyger is the most famous poem of Songs of Experience. Read the title. What is anomalous about it? What does it suggest?

clasp: seize. when the stars threw down their spears: the stars are the rebel angels who with Lucifer went against God and were consequently thrown to hell. Here they seem to give up the battle because they are afraid of the creator.

2. Like The Lamb, the poem centres around the quest for identity of the creator. The first stanza is based on contrasts: burning bright vs forests of the night fearful vs symmetry Explain them and try to justify the choice of contrasts the poet made.

111

3. The creator and the tyger are described as having special qualities. Write down words or phrases which convey this specialness. the creator the tyger

4. Think of adjectives which sum up the qualities of

the creator: the tyger:

The first and the last stanzas are the same but for one word first stanza: could last stanza: dare “Could” refers to the creator’s ability to do something. What does “dare” refer to? * Jakob Bohme

(1575-1624) was a German mystic and theosophist, that is a philosopher who believed that the knowledge of the Divine was due to direct inspirations by God. He wrote several philosophical tracts on such a theory of knowledge as well as on the concept of God. Bohme said he had visions or ‘illuminations’ which let him see the essence of things and gain knowledge of the Divine in all living creatures. His work influenced other philosophers such as Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Georg Hegel (1770-1831)

5. The dominant feeling/s of the poet is/are: awe fear amazement irritation surprise boredom passion envy

6. Which line suggests that the creator of the lamb is the same as that of the tyger?

7. In your opinion is it possible to create two such contrasting animals? Read the following quotation which can help you to provide an answer. “The God of the holy World and the God of the dark World, are now two gods; there is but one only God. He himself is all being. He is Evil and Good; Heaven and Hell; Light and Darkness; Eternity and Time; where His Love is hid in any thing, there His Anger is manifest”. Jakob Bohme *

112

8. Read aloud the poem and write the rhyme scheme. Are there any sound devices?

9. Which instrument/s would you choose to accompany this song?

guitar flute trumpet piano drum pipe violin harp As in The Lamb is the relationship beween music, song and poem successful? 10. Here below the content of the poem is summarized. Fill in the blanks with the words given.

special create awe wonders good power answer energy mystery evil unique

In The Tyger the poet is in a state of in front of the qualities of the tyger. He who could be so special to such a animal. He cannot give an because the tyger remains a in which and are

united in harmony. The rhythm of the poem underlines the and the animal represents. Chimney sweepers were children of very poor families who were sold

for little money to a master. He xploited these little children (they were six or seven but sometimes younger) because they were small and could easily climb up the very narrow chimneys and clean them. The soot collected was put into bags in which the children slept because they were homeless. This job was very dangerous because the children, often naked to gent into the chimneys more easily, got injured, or risked being suffocated when there was a fire stillburning. Sometimes the master stuck pins in the children’s feet as they were climbing. Because of the pain they felt, the children climbed faster. The children also had their hair completely cut and soon became black from the soot.

113

weep: the word should be ‘sweep’, which is what the chimney sweepers shouted to announce their presence. Here maybe the child is too young to pronounce it correctly. However, ‘weep’ means also ‘cry’.

TEXT D The Chimney Sweeper 1 When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry “’weep!’ ’weep!’ weep!” So your chimneys I sweep, & in soot I sleep. There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head, That curl’d like a lamb’s back, was shav’d: so I said “Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare

soot: the powder produced by fire.

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair”.

coffins of black: they were in black coffings but the words can also refer to their bodies black with soot.

And so he was quiet, & that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! That thousand 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,

leaping: jumping. And he open’d the coffins & set them all free; sport: play. Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run, never want joy: never suffer from the need of joy.

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; tho: though. 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.

TASKS

1. This poem describes events and feelings. Fill in columns 1 and 2 of the chart.

1. Event 2. Feeling 3. Colour/s 4. State of human soul

I

experience

Tom Dacre

Dream

After the dream

114

2. Read the poem again. Blake uses colours to express feelings. Match the feelings with the corresponding colours in column 3.

3. The subtitle of Songs of Innocence and Experience reads “shewing” the two contrary states of the human soul”. Match the two states in column 4 with the colours in column 3.

4. The last line is apparently a Christian message but Blake’s intention is more bitter and poignant. Explain it.

5. The use of language is perfectly in tune with the content of the poem. Which words or phrases give the idea of:

• the young age of the children

• the hardship of life • the joy in the dream

6. Do the sound devices reinforce the meaning? How?

TEXT E The Sick Rose O rose, thou art sick! art: are The invisible worm That flies in the night, In the howling storm, howling: making a

loud crying sound. Has found out thy bed

Of crinsom joy, crinsom: deep red. And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

115

TASKS

1. State why the rose is sick.

2. This poem is highly symbolic. According to A Dictionary of Symbols by the Catalan poet J.E. Cirlot, “the single rose is, in essence, a symbol of completion, of consummate achievement and perfection”. In pairs try to interpret:

• Blake’s idea of love. • Blake’s use of contrasting images. 3. The rose is also the emblem of England. Do you think there may be a socio-political interpretation?

CRITICAL NOTES William Blake’s life was that of a highly independent artist, poet and engraver, who used his mind and hands to make a living. He was often at the very limits of poverty, and had to depend on the patronage of a few people who admired his work and his intense passion for it. He was also determined to keep his art free from any kind of restriction. Though the comparison may seem daring, Blake could be considered and early bohemian, living in a splendid isolation of his own because of his unconventional approach to art, society and life.

Blake was often defined ‘insane’, a madman, by his contemporaries. As an artist, he came after a period in which reason, balance, order, form, judgement were given the greatest importance. Blake was the opposite. He ‘was ruled by instinct’ in the sense that he refused any kind of limit, constraint and rule imposed upon man which would risk the loss of his creative powers. For him, as he himself stated, the real man was the imagination.

His motto, taken from his prophetic book Jerusalem, was: “I must Create a System or be enslav’d by another Man’s. I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create”. To define his spiritual world is not easy because it is made up of ideas and

concepts that often contrast and clash but Blake himself stated that “without Contraries is no Progression” (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell).

As a free spirit, Blake was enthusiastic about the French Revolution and its

principles. He could not stand any bounds, either physical or spiritual, and thought that only a revolution would abolish injustice and repression and replace them with complete freedom. His freedom was political, social and intellectual. He strongly criticized the England of his time where people were imprisoned by a corrupt system and where poverty, disease and sexual repression were common. The following lines from Proverbs of Hell express his longing for change:

116

“Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with Bricks of Religion”.

He also believed in a world where all people loved one another in a spirit of universal brotherhood and where there were no racial or social barriers. Slave trade was not the only thing he denounced; the exploitation of children, the appalling conditions of slums, the indifference of institutions were also the causes of much suffering. His disillusionment with the results of the French Revolution did not stop him from his passionate, though solitary, battle, but rather heightened his conviction that any good implies an evil counterpart. As a visionary poet, Blake rejected the empirical and mechanicistic approach of John Locke and Isaac Newton and was on the contrary fascinated by the religious mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg* . To Blake the emphasis on reason as man’s unique ability to apprehend reality was highly limiting to man’s creative powers and imaginative forces. Man’s highest faculty was imagination, but the most notable fact about this is that imagination for him is not an extra gift but is the real essence of man. This real essence is divine, that is, God. Here is how Blake states this fundamental concept of his vision:

Emanuel Swedenborg (1668-1772) was a Swedish mystical thinker and scientist. He showed a particular gift for mathematics and, thanks to his fertile mind, he anticipated some hypotheses and discoveries, such as the magnetic theory, the aeroplane and the machine gun. In 1745 he claimed to have visions and wanted mankind to know his doctrines. He devoted the rest of his life to the writing of his doctrines which were based on pantheism and theosophy.

“Man is All Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in him… Imagination or the Human Eternal Body in Every Man… Imagination is the Divine Body in Every Man”. Blake therefore advocates this equation Man = Imagination = God. God is not outside man or above him and man must not search for Him as an outside presence but he must look inside himself. God is man himself when the latter realizes his vision by using imagination to the utmost. The fact is that man has lost the possibility of using his imagination to the utmost. The fact is that man has lost the possibility of using his imagination because of the many restrictions and constraints imposed upon him by reason on one side and society on the other. Blake saw his task as restoring ideal conditions where man and imagination are one again. The poet, as Blake himself states, is already endowed with this divine power which singles him out. However, the poet is not a superior being. The restoration of the primal equation and the criticism of all the things that destroy it remain for Blake his unique theme with ever more complex variations. Blake’s production known as the ‘prophetic books’ becomes difficult to understand because of a symbolism which was only Blake’s own. His most accessible work conceptually is Songs of Innocence and Experience.

The first part regards the state of childhood, its innocence and its purity. It is a state of the sould which is lost in maturity because attacked by materialism, corruption and moral laws. These items are part of the experience which the second part analyzes. Experience in itself is a degraded state which destroys innocence, but it is inevitable and necessary. Only the man capable of embracing imagination can restore his innocence and make the best out of experience. This collection of poems is also the most accessible of Blake’s work with regard to language and imagery. While in the prophetic books words and images overflow with an energy that often dismays the reader in his effort to make sense, the language of the songs, simple but effective, visualizes the ideas which Blake wishes to convey. The result is a smooth, musical rhythm in which sound becomes itself meaning.

117

118

CONCLUDING TASKS

Consider the following statements by Blake, choose four out of eight and explain

them. If you like, you can quote from the poems you have read. Opposition is True Friendship. (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). Energy is Eternal Delight. (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). The Road of Excess leads to the Place of Wisdom.

(The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). Science is the tree of Death. (Lacoon Group). I care not whether a Man is Good or Evil; all that I care is whether he is a Wise Man or a Fool. (Jerusalem).

And I know that This World is a World of Imagination & Vision. (Letter to Dr. Trusler, August 23, 1799)

Portrait of William Blake from Death Mask, Francis Bacon