BLAKE & 'DEAD MAN' II

Read the first post on BLAKE & 'DEAD MAN'.

These are some Blake quotes which were used in the movie Dead Man.

Auguries of Innocence (E 492)
"Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn & every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night"

Marriage of Heaven and Hell , Plate 8, (E 37)
"The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn
of the crow."

Marriage of Heaven and Hell , Plate 5, (E 35)
"Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead."

Everlasting Gospel, (E 525)
"The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy"

Innocence is the state in which the character William Blake begins his journey in the movie Dead Man. The destination to which he is traveling is the end of the railroad line - a town named Machine. The optimistic innocence of William Blake has been disrupted even before he disembarks from the train. The disappointment of finding the promised employment unavailable leaves him destitute of hope and resources. Another innocent crosses his path: Thel, who makes and sells paper flowers. The two are outcasts who find each other. William Blake, the poet wrote a short book about Thel - the lovely innocent who refused to enter the world of generation and embark on the path of experience. In the scenario of the movie Thel is killed by the same bullet which lodges in the dead or dying William Blake. Her innocence is preserved but he proceeds along the road of experience.

A Native American who has been trained in white man's ways assumes the care of William Blake because he has read the poet Blake and found his writing the only thing he understood in the white culture. Blake is a hunted man, fleeing from the law, hired killers and the vengeance of father of the man he shot. The Native American, who calls himself Nobody, acts as guide and protector of William Blake supplying wisdom from the poet Blake along with tribal insights as the pair head for completion of William Blake's return to his origin.

We can look at William Blake's journey in the movie in the light of the journey Milton took to redeem the errors of his life in Blake's Milton .

Milton, PLATE 14 [15], (E 108)
[Milton speaking]
"I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave.
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks!
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate
And I be siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood
The Lamb of God is seen thro' mists & shadows, hov'ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim
A disk of blood, distant; & heav'ns & earth's roll dark between"

One haunting image from the film pictures William Blake whose 'life' is slowly draining from his body lying beside a dead fawn. It is easy to see the fawn as a reminder of the 'Lamb of God', a term which occurs frequently in Jerusalem and the Four Zoas. The appearance of the Lamb of God in Blake's poetry is a portent of redemption.Picture by William James Linton after William Blake from Gilchrist's Life,

Watch images from the movie along with the soundtrack by Neil Young.

BLAKE BIO

Michael Bedard has written a biography of William Blake which is directed to young adults. Although it is easy to read, it is thorough and reliable. He titled it William Blake: The Gates of Paradise and he organized it around the plates in Blake's poem of that title. He follows Blake's life by using an image from Gates of Paradise (which was originally addressed 'For Children') as a preface to each chapter of the book.

Chapter Six titled Lambeth: The Figure on the Stairs uses Plate 8 showing the infant emerging from the egg, captioned "At Length for Hatching Ripe He Breaks the Shell." The text deals with the economic and social situation which was disrupting the lives of the people through industrialization in Blake's day. Of the vision of the figure on the stairs Bedard says: "Perhaps the grim figure on the staircase hailed from the dark world that occupied Blake's mind so much at that time. For now he was busy putting together the poems that would depict the contrary state to the joyful vision of Songs of Innocence."

The cost of the book was kept down by not using color illustrations, but the pictures are numerous and well chosen. The book is indexed, contains source notes and a bibliography. Bedard's book is an ideal introduction to Blake for anyone not acquainted with the rigors of the life of one whose imagination belied his outward circumstances.

SEEK LOVE

Seldom do we find Blake making a simple direct statement which we immediately understand. These few lines seem to be such a statement. The love found in the light of day is the love in the time of innocence - undeveloped consciousness. In the darkness of the night is found the love of experience which has been tested by suffering and had learned compassion. The gift of love is more likely to be received and given among those who have encountered not only light but darkness.

Pickering Manuscript, William Bond, (E 497)
"I thought Love livd in the hot sun Shine
But O he lives in the Moony light
I thought to find Love in the heat of day
But sweet Love is the Comforter of Night

Seek Love in the Pity of others Woe
In the gentle relief of anothers care
In the darkness of night & the winters snow
In the naked & outcast Seek Love there"

The journey from innocence to experience draws us from the unadulterated light into the shadows or darkness. Blake wrote The Book of Thel from the perspective of an innocent who looked ahead to the journey of acquiring experience and declined to take the next step.

Thel, PLATE 1, (E 3)
"The daughters of Mne Seraphim led round their sunny flocks.
All but the youngest; she in paleness sought the secret air.
To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day:
Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard:
And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew.

O life of this our spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
Why fade these children of the spring? born but to smile & fall.
Ah! Thel is like a watry bow. and like a parting cloud.
Like a reflection in a glass. like shadows in the water.
Like dreams of infants. like a smile upon an infants face,
Like the doves voice, like transient day, like music in the air;
Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head.
And gentle sleep the sleep of death. and gentle hear the voice
Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time."

To experience life implies becoming acquainted with death; entering the field of time inevitably exposes one to the experience of change; pain is introduced as a pedagogue to guide development. Thel avoided these threatening things by remaining in a state of innocence instead of transitioning into an adult who knew from experience the meaning of sacrifice, brotherhood, redemption and compassion. Blake proposes that participating in the experience of division, and living in an imperfect world is the way to completeness, to the realization of the infinite and to Eternity. Thel choose the 'sleep of death' rather than the sleep of life.

____________________________ Picture from Song of Los, Plate 6

INTRODUCTION TO OUR BLOG

This is a repost of an earlier post intended to help Blake students get started:

An anonymous reader has asked that we provide more information in our posts. So I will try to explain what we are attempting to do in our Blake blog.

First we want to focus our attention on William Blake and his writing.

We are not experts but students of Blake. We follow our own interests. We are interested in sharing what we have learned of Blake and would would like to tailor our posts to the interests of the reader. We hope readers will let us know what interests them about Blake.

There have been posts which attempt to introduce the reader to studying Blake especially using the resources on the internet. The links to the text of Blake's poetry and prose, and to his graphic works are provided. A link to Larry's online book which includes a primer is also a useful tool. (These files can be electronically searched for specific topics.) Within the posts we often provide links to external files which expand the study to wider sources.

None of Blake's work is simple to understand. Beginners can start with Songs of Innocence and Experience. Marriage of Heaven and Hell grabs the attention of many with its irony. The major prophecies can be approached a little at a time rather than entire. If you are visually oriented, the visual images can be used as an avenue to draw you into reading the poetry.

Blake's body of work is large and complex. On our blog we have not attempted a systematic study. We are giving clues to solving the mystery. Analysts of Blake's work often tell us that Blake expected the reader to go beyond what was stated in the text, to perceive the underlying meaning. We hope our readers will sift through the blog posts looking for cracks or doors or highways through which they may enter Blake's mind and heart and imagination.

Reading Blake may expand your mind, nourish your spirit, or enrich your imagination; don't expect it to put money in your pocket, expand your social circle or impress your professors.

Here are some earlier posts which may help the neophyte.

Bible
Perception
Vision
Emphasis
Help
Fourfold
Idealism
Reader
Plates
4Z's




I can't end without a quote from Blake as well as the picture.
Liberty or Stems of Vegetation

Jerusalem, Plate 60, (E 209)

"within the Furnaces the Divine Vision appeard

On Albions hills: often walking from the Furnaces in clouds
And flames among the Druid Temples & the Starry Wheels
Gatherd Jerusalems Children in his arms & bore them like
A Shepherd in the night of Albion which overspread all the Earth

I gave thee liberty and life O lovely Jerusalem
And thou hast bound me down upon the Stems of Vegetation"

The Happy Child

Before the loss of innocence the average child has an inner vision absent to most adults; it's generally stripped away by the age of six. Under the influence of early public education a socialization or social conditioning process takes place, and conventional thought forms take the place of the child's inner thoughts.

Most Blake students remember the vision of the angry God that Blake found in his window at the age of four. You can be sure that such a fancy is likely to be trained out of a small child-- in most cases but not in Blake's. We know very little about his parents other than a generally dissenting faith (Swedenborgians, Moravians, etc.).

But they must have had liberal ideas about child rearing because a few years later when he reported seeing a tree filled with angels, his mother talked his father out of a disciplinary response. Another liberal idea was their permission for him to leave school after the first day (when the schoolmaster flogged a boy).

All this leads to the conclusion that Blake never lost the faculty of inner vision, which has been conditioned out of most of us. With no hindrance to his childhood visions and freedom from organized schooling Blake became an autodidact; in all likelihood regarding pre-Enlightenment thought he became the most learned man of his generation.

Jesus is reported to have said, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein" in Mark 10:15. That's often thought to mean that the child trusts his father, but might it not also mean he has a child's imagination?

One might say Blake remained like a child his entire life. The four year old who had seen the angry God in his window, who a bit later had seen the tree full of angels continued to see those sorts of things as the years went by.

In the course of time the 'angry God' became Nobodaddy and a large variety of other 'god-like' figures. And the 'tree full of angels'? who knows.

How could that be? Unlike you and me Blake (after the first day) never went to school, the place where most of the 'child' has been drilled out of us. For Blake? no! "I must Create a System or be enslav'd by another Mans". He didn't heed what the priests told him about God; he already knew the God within (the Quaker Way). He spent twenty years wrestling with the God he knew.

In Songs of Innocence he gave delightful portraits of the child within himself, and in Songs of Experience he showed us what this cruel vale in tears where we live had done to those lovely children. Look at Version 1 and Version 2 of Holy Thursday and at Version 1 and 2 of the Chimney Sweeper.

The Little Black Boy showed a child put upon by a cruel society, but not embittered thereby. Blake's poetry is often bitter, ironic, satiric, condemnatory! "Blake's poetry has the unpleasantness of great poetry" (T.S.Eliot). So much like Isaiah and Jeremiah: pages and pages of bitter excoriation.

But in the midst of the cries, just like Isaiah, you suddenly find passages of ethereal beauty and joy. Like a child: either delighted or miserable!

Finally the child is creative! I haven't found any poet who matches Blake's creativity; his System is like discovering another planet.

INNOCENCE

Blake produced more copies of Songs of Innocence and of the combined Songs of Innocence and of Experience than he did of any other works. The first 16 or 17 copies of Innocence were made in 1789 and he was still issuing copies near the end of his life in 1827. The earliest copies received pastel washes of color simply applied as was suited to relatively wide distribution. Later issues were finished in a more detailed, time consuming manner to be sold at special order and at a higher price.

The Blake Trust is publishing a series of facsimiles of Blake's illuminated books of which Songs of Innocence and of Experience is the second. Andrew Lincoln wrote in the introduction:

"The poems of Innocence focus on joyful and protective relationships, on the sense of common identities between individuals. In the awareness of shared happiness - present, remembered or anticipated - innocents triumph over loss, deprivation and the steady passage of time. Divinity here is an innate presence that becomes visible in the human form, a personal saviour ' ever nigh' who comforts the distressed. The landscape of Innocence is typically common ground: pastoral fields, valleys wild, the village green."

"Several poems develop variation on the Christian theme 'Whoso dwelleth in love dwelleth in God' (E 599, K 87). But the theme is approached without conventional qualifications, in a way that tends to dissolve the traditional distinctions between the human and the divine. Children's unselfconscious innocence is sometimes used to expose the limitations of adult perspectives. Indeed, the child-like vision of the poems may even challenge contemporary assumptions about poetic argument. The reader is drawn into a world in which ambiguous syntax and elusive ironies at once invite and frustrate a search of definite conclusions."

In an 1893 book by Edwin Ellis, he included images of unfinished plates of Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The plates seem to have been intended to be watercolored as was typically done before the books were sold, but these were left uncolored.

From Wiki media commons, here is a scan of an original book - page 5 (The Shepherd) - of Facsimile of the original outlines before colouring of The songs of Innocence and of Experience executed by William Blake, published in 1893 by Edwin Ellis.

These are images of an uncolored and a colored plate for comparison.




















In thinking about the whole process which Blake undertook - entering the world of the child's innocence, transforming that world into poetry, designing and engraving the plates, and coloring each page individually - we get closer to the man and the artist. Seeing the stage of the uncolored plates also can make us feel closer to the creative endeavor of producing Songs of Innocence.

IMAGE

SONGS OF INNOCENCE, Number 16, (E 11)
A CRADLE SONG

"Sweet dreams form a shade,
O'er my lovely infants head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams.

Sweet sleep with soft down,
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child.

Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight.
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes.
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep sleep happy child.
All creation slept and smil'd.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep,
While o'er thee thy mother weep.

Sweet babe in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe once like thee,
Thy maker lay and wept for me

SONGS 17
Wept for me for thee for all,
When he was an infant small.
Thou his image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee.

Smiles on thee on me on all,
Who became an infant small,
Infant smiles are his own smiles.
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles." 

Blake has a way of setting the stage for the development of his future complex system in his early works. Looking at A Cradle Song from the perspective of Jerusalem we see both the intimation of his process of speaking through images and the particular images which came to speak volumes in his mature works. The word 'image' appears twice in this double poem.

First the mother is able to see the creator in the countenance of he child:

"Sweet babe in thy face,
Holy image I can trace."

Later she prays that the child himself may ever see the image of the creator:

"Thou his image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee."

So the child is in the image of God, and the God whom the child may see is an image also. Blake consistently presents the world of matter as the reflection of another world, the Eternal, more real than this one but which we see through images not through our senses. Throughout his art and poetry Blake is presenting us with images of the Eternal for us to integrate into our mental processing.

Among the words in this poem which will frequently appear as images as we continue to read Blake are dream, shade, infant, moon, sleep, weave, Angel, child, night, delight, mother, weep, babe, face, maker, holy, see, heaven, earth, peace. As images the words point to configurations of associated ideas drawn from our own experience and from the experience of those who influence us. Blake builds his image vocabulary in this poem and in whatever he writes or pictures. We are assisted in building our vocabularies of images through Blake's vast assimilation of ideas from past thinkers and through his gift for seeing through images to the Eternal realities beyond.