Comments for William Blake and Enlightenment Media

Comment on Eternal Death and Sexuality by Gender, Sex and Intersex: A Primer | Queering the Church

Gender, Sex and Intersex: A Primer | Queering the Church — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:44:45 +0000

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Comment on Father-son relationship: causation and progression by Elise Lasko

Elise Lasko — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:59:23 +0000

I particularly enjoyed your likening of Los and Orc as father and son and your reasoning for the conflicted nature of their relationship. However, what justification do you have for Los’s representation of the progression beyond Orc other than his devising a war that Orc did not initially carry out? Perhaps more than a transition, Los serves as the authority he possesses over Orc, thereby reinforcing the father/son justification. Also, I agreed with your noting that the French Revolution, despite its widespread effects, was not sufficient for Blake due to its constraints of reason and even the sexual repression of women evidenced by the introduction to “Europe, a Prophesy,” as we discussed in our class. What Blake desired was an abandon of reason – dissenting much with the pragmatic Paine – in favor of creative expression and freedom of will. Your bit about the revolution of the Poetic Genius and the French Revolution is a useful comparison in that it reveals the utter apocalyptic and sublime nature of the former and, in Blake’s opinion, the inferior of the latter. Thought-provoking post!

Comment on The Nightmare of Female Power by dianawitless

dianawitless — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 05:23:39 +0000

Frightenedinmate2 –

I completely agree with your comment above. I feel like the Shadowy Female is a reflection, or a parody almost, of the female’s role in society. The Shadowy Female feels like she has been doomed to have children for Men, and she is “stamped” to become a slave to men for this reason. She is bound by nature into a patriarchal system of repression. The Shadowy Female ultimately retreats into herself in a move that is necessary for her own self preservation in society. Because her lack of a name (she is only known as the “Shadowy Female,”) and her lack of a concrete form, I feel like Blake is using this female as a representation of all women and their societal role. Blake gave her this form in his poem so that it could be transcendent and representative of all women.

Comment on Blake’s Writing Process As Shown in Europe A Prophecy by rollingrock33

rollingrock33 — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 05:03:51 +0000

I definitely agree that the fairy says a lot about Blake’s writing process and can be thought of as a stand in for poetic genius. It is through the creative process of writing that one can escape from the rather ‘allegory of the cave’ like conditions that the fairy describes as the state of man. This introductory segment indeed seems a mini-allegory of the creative process and ultimately says that one must capture poetic genius and allow it to flow through oneself, exactly as you say, to experience the totality of “the eternal world” rather than mere glimpses of it afforded man through sensory perceptions. I don’t know if I agree that the poetic genius he receives is pre-thought, however. I think the most interesting thing about it is that it isn’t pre-thought, rather it comes entirely spontaneously. The writing process he describes seems more in the vein of giving reign to the subconscious as the fairy demands to be fed “love-thoughts” and “poetic fancies” which can then be spontaneously converted into song when the fairy is “tipsie” or enflamed with poetic inspiration. This also speaks to the interesting master-slave relationship between the poet and poetic genius; the poet, the apparent master, must constantly experience passions and flights of imagination in the hope that poetic genius might be tipsie at the time so that something transcendent may be created.

Comment on Blake’s Writing Process As Shown in Europe A Prophecy by mjaka10

mjaka10 — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 02:11:54 +0000

I agree with the assertion that Blake, though supposedly the master, becomes in effect the servant of the fairy through his role as scribe. While Blake does call the fairy “he”, fairies are generally imagined as females, and I found myself reading the exchange between the two as an exchange between a male and female. In this way, the relationship between the fairy and it’s “master” is much like the relationship between a man and a woman as presented by Blake through Enitharmon and the Shadowy Figure that is Orc’s consort in Europe a Prophesy. Man is the master of women, though women are temptresses that represent a false sense of modesty and whose sex is to blame for the ills of the world. Men are master in name alone since they fall prey to the temptations of women and use them for reproduction – to create more men to rule women. However, women, like the fairy, see that they have been captured and must outwardly obey the command of their male masters, even though they truly hold the power in the relationship.

Comment on The Epic War by Bryan Byrdlong

Bryan Byrdlong — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 01:09:23 +0000

i enjoyed your post and believe you have posted a very interesting question. In my opinion it seem that Los indeed represents the spirit of the poet in the era. However, i find it odd that at the end of his poem he describes Orc as going into action before Los. It seems that this is a clue to Blake’s idea about the vitality of the Revolution. I agree that Los the blacksmith is a representative of Blake. However, he is also a representative of all the poet prophets. I would say that Los gets ready for battle after the revolution of Orc begins because Blake knows that the poets must fight on the behalf of the revolution lest it fade into nothing. I think that it is possible that he foresaw the potential threat to Orc. He states that, “Then Los arose his head he reard in snaky thunders clad/ And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole,/Call’d all his sons to the strife of blood” (9-11) Thus, Blake knows that the revolution can’t win the battle without the the poet and this line is representative of Los as the cavalry.

Comment on The Nightmare of Female Power by lostinthekeys

lostinthekeys — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 22:06:36 +0000

Blake Lively,
I agree with frightenedinmate2′s suggestion that Enitharmon represents the the contemporary state of women for Blake, but I think the “nameless shadowy female” provides some more interesting connections.

In Plate 1, the shadowy female is born from the breast of Orc, a fairly blatant reference to Eve’s birth from the rib of Adam in Genesis. However, the metaphor is flawed, as the Biblical story includes an outside force, Jehovah, forming Eve out of the rib of Adam. With Orc and the shadowy female, the woman is simply born out of the man. It’s an ironic narrative, considering the female consistently cries to Enitharmon, expressing her fear of having to constantly reproduce while the male characters take her place of power. Again, Blake returns to his contraries (both men AND women are charged with reproduction), but the imagery of Orc giving birth to a weak, oppressed woman is particularly interesting. Does revolution itself bring about the negative treatment of women? Several others have posted on the limitations of Orc, how physical revolutions can only go so far, and perhaps they’re right. Only when the world finds true equality – freedom from class, religion, and gender – can the purest revolution (and apocalypse) come to fruition. It is only then that the shadowy woman can be freed from her endless cycle of reproduction and fear of replacement.

Comment on The Nightmare of Female Power by frightenedinmate2

frightenedinmate2 — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 21:18:28 +0000

Blake Lively–
You put forth an interesting argument regarding the anti-feminist tendencies of Europe: A Prophecy, however, I feel that there lies feminist undertones beneath the myth. Your descriptions of the characters are adequate, but I am compelled to see Blake’s Enitharmon as a negative female connotation, that of the female status of Blake’s contemporary Europe. Yes, the overthrow of this female tyrant appears to be strongly anti-feminist, but I believe that Blake wishes to overthrow the modest female archetype in favor of a more natural and desirous version that operates more in line with the Poetic Genius. The Shadowy Female, I feel, attempts to convey Blake’s ideals most appropriately–unfortunately her voice is unheard and she must return to her “secret place.” The Shadowy Female laments that she is unable to feel the pleasure of childbirth and is doomed to yield children on Man’s behalf; we are forced to see her as a victim and pity her. Blake also points to ORC rising in the end of the work to ignite revolution and overturn Enitharmon’s system. Constructing these events, Blake must wish to change the status of the 1800 year dream.

Blake places two contradictory female figures in the same mythological landscape but chooses to repress the weaker in order to better communicate his ‘history.’ Yet it is in these contraries that we see a deeper meaning in Blake’s work. Would you like to offer anything to this argument?

Comment on Blake’s Writing Process As Shown in Europe A Prophecy by Romantic Fanatic

Romantic Fanatic — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:50:38 +0000

swarleystinson -

I, too, found the opening stanzas of “Europe a Prophecy” to be quite revealing, and I think that you have identified the true relationship forged between Blake and the fairy. Despite the fact that the fairy names Blake his master and promises obedience, Blake ultimately becomes the slave to the creative genius of the fairy. Here, Blake seems to be emphasizes his role as the mere poet-prophet in the presence of grand imagination; although Blake stands physically superior to this small celestial being, he assumes the role of scribe so as to experience the divine message the fairy agrees to communicate. Perhaps, as you suggest, the fairy represents the wide spectrum of his imaginative scape; or perhaps the fairy may as well be the messenger responsible for delivering his lifelong visions.

Comment on Blake’s Writing Process As Shown in Europe A Prophecy by katiearata

katiearata — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:17:32 +0000

I think the previous commenter ends with a very astute question regarding Blake’s poetic genius and elaboration on the “material world.” As she says above, “how does the master-slave relationship change the idea of poetic genius?” Even though Blake’s writing is an outcome of this poetic genius that we discuss, how much influence does the voice of the fairy have over him? In “Europe a Prophecy” Blake unveils to the reader his poetic genius through the lens of another figure, this fairy. It is hard for me to determine if this fairy belongs to the divine, but it does seem like the divine vision and inspiration comes through the fairy’s dictation of the material world. I really enjoyed how the original blog writer ended with the idea that Blake is a “receptacle of the divine,” and I would like to argue that Blake, through the relationship with the fairy and through out his texts, is receptive to the divine and makes use of what he sees and experiences.