Aug
3
Christianity and Modernity: Reflections on Blake’s “The Human Abstract”
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for Kristine Lowe, because she asked
The Human Abstract
William Blake
Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.
And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase:
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.
He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the grounds with tears;
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.
Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Catterpiller and Fly
Feed on the Mystery.
And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.
The Gods of the earth and sea
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree;
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.
Comment:
I am only putting forth some thoughts and questions on this poem. A proper discussion of it would require knowledge of the whole of Blake, which I do not have.
You can see that this poem is a sort of summation of Blake’s thought by where it stands in Songs of Experience - it is the 19th out of 27 poems. Songs of Innocence is only 19 poems long itself. There is no title in either sequence of poems containing the word “human,” either. The poems that I think come closest to the content of this one are “A Divine Image” and “The Divine Image;” since one could say that “the human abstractly considered” is the “divine,” this isn’t much of a coincidence.
Sep
11
On Blake’s "The Little Boy Lost" and "The Little Boy Found"
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The Little Boy Lost
William Blake
“Father! father! where are you going?
O do not walk so fast.
Speak, father, speak to your little boy,
Or else I shall be lost.”
The night was dark, no father was there;
The child was wet with dew;
The mire was deep, & the child did weep,
And away the vapour flew.
The Little Boy Found
William Blake
The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
Led by the wand’ring light,
Began to cry; but God, ever nigh,
Appear’d like his father in white.
He kissed the child & by the hand led
And to his mother brought,
Who in sorrow pale, thro’ the lonely dale,
Her little boy weeping sought.
Commentary:
The difference between “The Little Boy Lost” and “A Little Boy Lost” in the move from Innocence to Experience is important. The first little boy is probably singular, an individual whose life and the events therein cannot be repeated. The second little boy - the one that mouths off to the Priest - is more representative of something general.
So far, that’s just speculation. But the two poems in Innocence - “The Little Boy Lost,” “The Little Boy Found” - seem to indicate that what that child is going through is unique. His mortal father has walked too fast and does not speak to him. One wonders when a father would do such a thing: perhaps when a father is leaving the family? Or when a father is dead? Either way, the child finds that the father is moving away and is not speaking - there is no guidance physical or intellectual.
The child is surrounded by wetness, and “deep” I think is the key word. You don’t have to read far in the Bible to see what might be alluded to here: Are these the waters of Chaos surrounding the child? God’s breath hovers over those waters, and separates them and creates order, creates our Universe. Here, there doesn’t seem to be a God yet (at least not until the kid is found). There is only a mortal vapor flying away, and that last idea shows fully what the “mire” is: this boy wants to know what Death is, and of course no mortal can speak to him about that well, even having advanced on the path toward it.
To sum up “The Little Boy Lost:” In the face of death, our guide for life is uncertain. Death is a great equalizer in that the problem can be confronted by young and old, and negate all opinions each has, if it doesn’t just take us away outright. We’re all lost when we ask the question “Am I going to die?” But once such a heavy question is asked, divine answers can make themselves available. All one has to do is invert the hopelessness.
The thing about “The Little Boy Found” is that it starts with the idea that this kid was led by a “wand’ring light.” That means that if these two poems are about what we know or don’t know, then the kid was asking the right questions, but getting answers that didn’t quite add up. God appears in contrast to the light, and appears “like” the boy’s father.
Why wouldn’t God be the boy’s father? Every other prayer begins “Heavenly Father,” no? And what God is doing for the boy here is nothing short of a miracle - that must mean this boy has some closeness to God that everyone does not necessarily have. And yet Blake tells us “like,” and I have asserted that the title does indicate this is a singular happening.
The mother is perhaps the key. In looking for the boy, she became pale with tears. She was not afraid for herself, and thus demonstrated Beatitude: in mourning, she was comforted. It could be that all little boys are led back by God through pure coincidence, but the real coincidence is that love, virtue and happiness meet again even after confrontation with the question of death. Not everyone is a mother: many of us are more like the children wandering far away. In this age it could be said we’re all wandering, as we have an attitude that makes it impossible to go back to our mothers. That attitude is amply demonstrated in “A Little Boy Lost,” the Songs of Experience poem, and that attitude might be close to the truth of things, if not divinity.
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Apr
2
On Blake’s "The Tyger"
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The Tyger
William Blake
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 seize 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 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,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Comment:
The question raised is that of immortality, and what it means. For the ancients (think Achilles) immortality is the grasping of honor that will last beyond the age. The pagan gods are immortal, but they rely on honor too: Poseidon in the Illiad worries about a wall Agamemnon and his allies make - instead of making sacrifices, the Greeks build a wall that Poseidon feels outdoes the works of the gods (Illiad Bk. 7, towards the end).
Now I have tied immortality to character and divinity, and I think one can glance at The Lamb and see the immediate contrast. “He calls himself a Lamb” is an obvious Christian contrast with these other gods, which do show up in the Tyger. The question is the making of the lamb, and except for “gave thee life,” it could be a person being described, a person taken care of as in the 23rd Psalm. What God gives does not seem to embolden, but rather makes us childlike, and maybe even childish. The way the Lamb is written, it sounds like a joke: Jesus spoke in parables, not nursery rhymes. For more on Blake’s religious views, see here.
In the first stanza, note the literal control over fire one who is immortal has: the implication of the tyger being fire (”burning bright in the forest”) is that only something that was beyond human could shape it. Take note of “of the night,” too - I wonder if the implication is if the creator of the tyger can work in the dark, outside of light.
The second stanza is key because it suggests that the fire the immortal wields is a part of that immortal himself. What has happened is that divinity has alienated itself to create; in Creation, we can see an aspect of the Creator. “On what wings dare he aspire” - this is Daedalus, I think: he can create, but the daring will hurt another. Creation in-and-of itself is a breaking of bounds. “What the hand, dare seize the fire” - this is Prometheus, who gave fire to men so that all men could create.
What started as beyond human is now becoming very human, as the “immortal” of the first stanza who might have resided in “distant deeps or skies” now seems to have a direct relation to our ability to create. Contrast where God and man meet in “The Lamb” - this is the reverse of that order.
Now the third stanza, about the pure force (”shoulder,” “art”) needed to “twist” a heart into existence, and then deal with it beating, reminds me of this passage from Yeats:
I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side.
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;
Of Magnus Annus at the spring,
As though God’s death were but a play.- from Two Songs From a Play
Dionysus, the most human of the gods, was routinely torn limb from limb by his followers, and then would resurrect. The sacrifice of Christ is only alluded to in “The Lamb,” not described in visceral detail. Here, the mere creation of fury is itself a violence, but notice that it is not fury being born, but rather a “heart.” Why must love come from such a violence, one we might even stand apart from when completed?
Following this, the “brain” seems to have been shaped by Hephaestus, who also forged the ability to acquire (”grasp…its deadly terrors”). We have noted before implicitly that Blake understands the role of fear in acquisition, but I do not remember him linking that to the very fact of the human mind. It is not possible, though, to tell whether the creator made the mind or heart first, as the priority of will and reason is conflated in motion: the ordering of these stanzas that concern “heart, “mind,” and “stars” involves a primal motion (that the heart beats), turned into something deliberate (grasps with deadly terror), and then finally the question is, for what end?
Hephaestus was the man who built armor for Achilles and Aeneas, who as men of war should remind us of the descendants of Cain, who warred for honor and glory and were all wiped away by the Flood. If the Creator was responsible for the creation of what is in the tiger, has he presided over a work so imperfect that he must destroy his own Creation?
That last thought, I think, explains the final “dare” best. The issue with Creation isn’t merely that it could hurt others - to dare to create is the enterprise where God and man are on the same level, for it is what creation does that determines whether one made a mistake or not.
Mar
15
On Blake’s “A Divine Image”
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Thank you to Josh for bringing this poem to my attention.
A Divine Image
William Blake
Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secresy the human dress.
The human dress is forged iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace sealed,
The human heart its hungry gorge.
Comment:
It would behoove us to be familiar with another poem of Blake’s - one from “Songs of Innocence” - which could shed light on this one.
Now “The Divine Image” has four stanzas that do not correspond to this poem. The only one that does correspond is here:
For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face:
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Now we can see how “mercy” and “cruelty” oppose, and likewise “pity” and “jealousy.” But how are “love” and “terror” related? And “peace” directly opposes - “secresy?”
The nice thing about the “Songs of Innocence” version is that it gives the key to interpreting this poem in the other four stanzas it has. If you look at the other poem, you’ll notice that “love” in the next to last stanza is out of order, and that “peace” is missing in the last stanza. That’s the clue that tells us that the 4 stanzas that do not correspond to this poem do correspond to “mercy, pity, love and peace,” and the “heart, face, form, dress” order. From the other poem, we can deduce that mercy is connected with not just heart, but with “delight.” We can also see that the “human face,” in that poem being pity, is tied to how we picture God, and by extension, ourselves. The “form” is not merely “love” there, but the universality of prayer - all men pray. Finally, “peace” is the love of that form, the having of “mercy” on particular “faces” - “peace” is the garment all of us wear, that melts distinction.
So much for “The Divine Image.” How does it inform our reading of “A Divine Image?”
The place to start is with recognizing the difference between “innocence” and “experience.” We start with ideals, and then we meet the world. In that meeting, priorities are reorganized. Notice how the second stanza of the above poem moves from the dress to the heart - that is not the movement of the first stanza, nor the movement of the poem “The Divine Image.” Our priorities are literally reversed because of “experience:” we do not assume we know the solution to life’s ills; we now want to know what truly lies in men’s hearts.
So we move from the outside in. Forged iron implies armor and armaments - secresy is maintained not through hiding, really, but through the threat of using strength (see Shakespeare, Sonnet 94 for more on this). The same fire which might cause love - the flame of desire - is what forges that strength and in forging, makes us willing to use it. Contrast this relation with the exactly parallel relation in the previous poem: there, love of the human form led to peace: here, there is “terror,” which is the “human form divine,” and it leads to secresy (which can be obliquely seen in the words “furnace sealed,” too).
The devil in Milton is desire for control: he must have due respect for what he perceives to be his by right. I think “terror” is what gives one control over all men - to get them to be afraid, to rob them of spirit, is what is characteristic of excessive desire. The “human heart” is a “hungry gorge,” after all - it is that void which characterizes it, a void which speaks of unlimited desire.
Jan
12
Democracy’s Mysticism: Thoughts on "All Religions are One," by Blake
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All Religions are One
William Blake
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 I. 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 II. As all men are alike in outward form, So (and with the same infinite variety) all are alike in the Poetic Genius.
Principle III. 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 IV. As none by travelling 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 V. The Religions of all Nations are derived from each Nation’s different reception of the Poetic Genius, which is every where call’d the Spirit of Prophecy.
Principle VI. The Jewish & Christian Testaments are An original derivation from the Poetic Genius. This is necessary from the confined nature of bodily sensation.
Principle VII. 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.
Commentary:
The argument of this statement of principles reminds me of Kant’s declaration in the Critique of Pure Reason. In the Introduction, he states “that all knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt.” So the Kantian project of reconciling science and philosophy is in the background for me as I go through these principles.
If you cannot conceive of a conflict between science and philosophy, try to imagine what living philosophically might mean. It could mean using reason to restrain one’s wants and live with less; it could mean thinking about Being in order to better understand one’s true purpose, and live as virtuously as possible. Modern science takes as its point of departure the betterment of our lives in terms of us having more and being able to do more. Heidegger explicitly asserts that practicality was prior to theoretical endeavors as regards the emergence of science in the Enlightenment; one can see this most clearly in the thought of Francis Bacon, where true charity lies in the advancing of the sciences so as to let people live better and do more. Discovering the nature of the cosmos is not a goal, but something that happens incidentally while trying to solve perceived problems.
In any case, the tie between experience and experiment implies that the everyday is the realm of true knowledge. Now we might be very skeptical of this, for good reason. Most people live day-to-day in utter and total ignorance, tolerating and perpetuating massive injustices, thinking of themselves only all of the time, etc. But Blake is going to assert the primacy of everyday experience a curious way.
First, he asserts there is a “Poetic Genius” who is the “true Man,” which is a hypothetical. Suppose there was someone who was truly human, more human than any of us. He would be like a paradigm that all men would be lesser imitations of. So far, so good, until we explain how things came about.
Why on earth would anyone bring up “things?” Plato and Aristotle would fume at this move - the human things are not to be lowered to the realm of purely physical explanation. There is the assumption of modern science in the background, in principle 1: Blake moves to things because whatever principle explains how people came about should explain how everything came about. This is a purely practical move; as a theoretical matter, it makes no sense not to have a division between the human and inhuman. We want principles here that explain everything, and do so usefully and quickly, not so much “truly.”
Blake then argues that the Ancients (!) said the Genius of things was in their use of the words “angels, spirits, and demons.” Now this is curious. Plato does speak of Socrates having a “demon,” and there is the talk of Ideal Forms in the Republic. But none of that adds up to a comprehensive case that the ancients knew what “angels” were and used that as part of an ontology. Blake could be working from different ancient sources, but that’s not really important for our purposes, given that he is aiming for an explanation of all things, all at once. Such an endeavor is pre-Socratic, perhaps, but it is not characteristic of the high point of ancient thought, and he does seem to be mixing in Christian elements with pagan ideas.
His essential point is that things have to be considered as having degrees of mind, if we want to say there is a man who is truly human. What distinguishes a greater man from a lesser man is that the greater knows better, and things must show “mind,” therefore, as reflected in their form, their truly being suited for purposes.
But wait! He’s said things have a Genius that could be termed “angels, spirits or demons.” Things aren’t good or evil; things don’t apprehend time or assert purpose. There is a problem with this simple “knowledge defines the universe,” which is that knowledge in and of itself does not come from things. It comes from people. And so the one who would know truly best would have to comprehend the way everyone else does, all at once.
Hence, we move to principle 2, which asserts that the Poetic Genius must be composed of the infinite variety of men. The emphasis on body, again, shows that the logic of modern science is the driving force behind these principles that work to define mind. We should be asking at this point whether the Poetic Genius can actually be one person. It looks more like that he is the sum of an entire people’s wisdom, a sum that can never be apprehended, but is a force unto itself. Blake is seeming to say we know what is human not through one perfect being, but through the diversity of people showing us various perfections.
That sounds almost like ancient thought, actually, except that ancient thought can move far away from the concept of body for the purposes of a greater universality: we can posit unity of mind as the basis of the political. Here, it is men conceived continually as physical matter that serves as a check on the concept of mind. The implication is that thought like Blake’s doesn’t allow me to say “this guy knows better.” I can only say someone knows “differently,” and yes, you can see a lowering of standards in this humaneness that is being advanced.
Notice that lowering of standards in principle 3: no one can write something from passion. Thought is whenever something is expressible, including those times we mutter angrily to ourselves, not really meaning what we say. Now you know, as well as I do, people say dumb things, say things that are thoughtless. Blake holds that is not the case. Every little thing, as long as it is expressible, counts as thought, for it “intends truth.” The inability to discriminate between things intended as higher thoughts and things intended to be thoughtless means that philosophy itself, you know, “searching for wisdom,” is always partial to the individual.
You should be angry reading that. It means that those times you sat and thought through a problem, all you were doing is working with your biases. This is not a higher conception of being human, not at all. It is a beautiful one, for as we will see, it opens up the possibility of fraternity in a way that mere hierarchy cannot. But if you are someone who has been persecuted in any way for being right, if you are someone who sees what justice is in an unjust age, Blake’s sentiments are an attack on you.
Principle 4 articulates what I have been talking about, that the logic of modern science - man is bodily, reason is epiphenomenal - underlies Blake’s thought in this work. It articulates this through the assertion that no previous learning is good enough for all of Man, not Ten Commandments, not Aristotle’s Ethics, none of that. More knowledge must be had to deal with more problems, so we must progress, and the Poetic Genius must then be Mankind as a whole, in all his faults and values combined.
Principles 5 & 6 assert that as individuals cannot be philosophic as they are merely individuals, nations cannot attain wisdom as their principle of unity isn’t rational, but more a common bond. And since they cannot attain what would be the highest principle of unity, which would unite all mankind, they have religion, which is partial to a people always, even if it strives for universality. Spirit is a degree removed from mind, but more essential to the discussion of Poetic Genius, as the Poetic Genius is everyone at this point.
Now principle 7 brings us back to the true Man, which we know now to be everyone. The source of Religion, then, is everyone searching themselves for why they are in the place they are at the time they are. It is self-discovery that underlies Religion, and if people knew that, they would truly have religious toleration, for they would respect everyone in their searching, the principles of the searching being above, treated rather contemptuously by me. If the search for truth resides on a recognition of everyone else as human, if it starts from the mere recognition of the bodily, and then using the bodily as a check on one’s own knowledge, then a greater fraternity can be had that unites all people. It looks to me like Blake’s mysticism, at least in this work, stems from a deep belief in the logic behind science as empowering of the individual. The individual can see his own experience matters, and thus see that everyone else’s does, too.