Lesson B

Words:
Many people have the naive idea that a word has one
and only one meaning. True in Science, but not in
poetry. Words are metaphors or symbols that mean
different things according to the context.

For Blake everything had its contrary:
Quote a passage
If you really want to understand Blake, you have to learn
his language. That involves learning his metaphors and
symbols, one by one, or as he put it, dealing with the
minute particulars.

Take the word love for example:

1. It may mean sex

2. it may mean godly love.

Blake used the word love in a very special sense
This poem at Erdman 475-6 (one of my very favorites)
illustrates Blake's strange use of love, as well as
several other words needing Blakean definition;
The Spectre we've already talked about, identified
with the Selfhood and Satan. In this conversation Blake
has with it; we may talk at some other time about the
emanation (far within).

Blake's sweet loves here are the Visions that meant so
much to him. But under the influence of the Selfhood he's
lost the faculty of Vision.

"My Spectre around me night & day
Like a Wild beast guards my way
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my Sin

.............
Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereaved of their life
Their marble tombs I built with tears
And with cold & shuddering fears

Seven more loves weep night & day
Round the tombs where my loves lay
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright

And seven more Loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head
Pitying & forgiving all
Thy transgressions great & small

When wilt thou return & view
My loves & them to life renew
When wilt thou return & live
When wilt thou pity as I forgive

(Now he talks about Female Love; it would
take an hour to explain what the meant by
that; he's telling the spectre that until they
give it up he'll never get his Visions back.)
.........
Till I turn from Female Love
And root up the Infernal Grove
I shall never worthy be
To Step into Eternity

(The Infernal Grove is something that
books have been written about.)

..............
Let us agree to give up Love
And root up the infernal grove
Then shall we return & see
The worlds of happy Eternity

& Throughout all Eternity
I forgive you you forgive me
As our dear Redeemer said
This the Wine & this the Bread"

The last two verses have turned to the
happier mode. He equated Eternity with
forgiving.

-------------------------------------------------------------
To go back to love Blake wrote many
beautiful poems on the subject:

The Clod and the Pebble
"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 despair."

So sung 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."

This one gives the most exalted Vision
of Love:

SONGS 18 (of Songs of Innocence) The Divine Image.                                              t To Mercy Pity Peace and Love, All pray in their distress: And to these virtues of delight Return their thankfulness. For Mercy Pity Peace and Love, Is God our father dear: And Mercy Pity Peace and Love, Is Man his child and care. For Mercy has a human heart Pity, a human face: - 12 - And Love, the human form divine, And Peace, the human dress. Then every man of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine  Love Mercy Pity Peace. And all must love the human form, In heathen, turk or jew. Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell,   There God is dwelling too  When you read this poem, you must realize that Blake was a Universalist and denied the exclusivity of Christianity as what narrow minded religionists refer to The Only Way.

Values are what determines what we think of
Blake,
whether we love him or hate him