I remembered that in class we talked about Blake’s reception and I raised the example that even English teacher in a good high school is reading the famous picture of Urizen in The Ancient of Days as God the Almighty. And Urizen’s act of systemizing and confining the human race is read as the creation of human.

It really strikes me when I again see this image with a  incorrect annotation during summer. I received a book from my teacher in China and was asked to change them into some SAT writing materials. The name of the Book is the Art of Being Human. In the chapter of Religion in Themes in the Humanities, the author uses Urizen as the preface to the chapter.

“An artist visualizes God the Almighty as described in the Hebrew bible.”
William Blake, The Ancient of Days 1794.

It brought me back to the beginning of the lesson when we saw how Urizen appears in the entrance of GE building.

People thought that’s God.

“A study of Buddha and Confucius suggests, as does a study of the great teachers of the Occident, that under its bewildering surface variety human experience falls after all into a few main categories. I myself am fond of distinguishing three levels on which man may experience life—the naturalistic, the humanistic, and the religious. Tested by its fruits Buddhism at its best confirms Christianity. Submitted to the same test Confucianism falls in with the teaching of Aristotle and in general with that of all those who from the Greeks down have proclaimed decorum and the law of measure. This is so obviously true that Confucius has been called the Aristotle of the East. Not only has the Far East had in Buddhism a great religious movement and in Confucianism a great humanistic movement, it has also had in early Taoism a movement in its attempts to work out naturalistic equivalents of humanistic or religious insight, offers almost startling analogies to the movement I am here studying” (xviii-xix)

Babbitt, though referencing the Romantic period writers more generally, hones in on central themes that Blake addresses in his works: namely the three levels of human experience. Herein lies the evidentiary support, or at least evidence of a shared supposition on the part of a scholar, that Ka lacked in her presentation. The fact that such a connection has been conjectured previously lends credence to her argument.

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I happened to be on the Vanderbilt History Department’s website and noticed this featured article on one of our faculty members and his new book: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/historydept/epstein.html. The artwork on the cover, of course, is by Blake, and I thought it was interesting that we just had a presentation on Wednesday that discussed the plate in depth. Interdisciplinary connections!

Flames of Genius engulfing the Passionate Lovers

“Blake’s renunciation of sin, punishment, atonement and moral law appear in a number of guises and different contexts in his work, which frustrate attempts at assigning Blake’s antinomian ideas to any one tradition. ” (Rix 109)

“Blake targets all those moralisers who ‘restrain desire’ (pl. 5; E34).” (Rix 110)

“the content of the Law may be valid, but its authority as an external code of instruction is not.” (Rix 113)

Swedenborgianism–

• Belief in a coded language of the bible
• Rejection of Justification of Faith alone without Good Works
• ‘Fear of Eternal Punishment’ if the Moral Law is violated

Questions:

1. What is the significance of the positioning/imagery of the scene of the Monkeys, baboons on Plate 20?
2. How does Blake’s satire tie into his belief in contraries?

The Blake dictionary, of course, has a great section on Ololon that will help answer the question of whether or not she self-annihilates, and if she does, in fact, self-annihilate, how it will compare to that of Milton’s. According to the text, Milton A Poem is the only work of Blake’s in which she appears. This makes sense, because she unwittingly symbolizes the “truth underlying [Milton’s] errors about women.”

As we have been able to glean from the introduction and footnotes of our edition of Milton, the popular British poet had his fair share of difficulties with the ladies. The Blake dictionary describes Milton’s relationship with women thus:

“Milton had never discovered Ololon—had never really understood the other sex. His honeymoon difficulties with his first wife had inspired his great tome on divorce; he loved his second wife at least to the extent of a great sonnet; his third wife was merely a housekeeper. It is well known how his three daughters mistreated their great father” (307).

His three wives plus the three daughters are Milton’s “Sixfold Emanation”, emanation being to Blake the “feminine portion, or ‘counterpart,’ of the fundamentally bisexual male” according to the Blake dictionary. Milton’s emanation was lost in his poor relationships with the women closest to him throughout his corporeal existence. Milton is the story of his return to earth to reclaim his lost emanation in the annihilation of his unfulfilled mortal self.

But in a close reading of the text, we will find that Ololon, too, self-annihilates, though in a manner far different from Milton. She begins the final movement towards her moment of annihilation with a short lament over the lackluster self-annihilation undergone by Milton, citing his horrible treatment of women: “Is this our Feminine Portion, the Six-fold Miltonic Female?/ Terribly this Portion trembles before thee O awful Man” (30-31) Eventually, Ololon divides into six parts and flees into the depths of Milton’s Shadow. This is her annihilation, which curiously brings her to be a part of Milton, the very figure whose shortcomings she happens to incarnate.

Ultimately, Milton’s self-annihilation fails to change the errors of his corporeal existence in his return to Earth. Ololon, as the voice of feminine criticism, shows in her own self-annihilation the dominance Milton maintains over her. The flight into “Milton’s Shadow” is likened to “a Dove upon the stormy Sea”(pl. 49 ln. 6). Here, Blake demonstrates the spiritual turmoil in which Milton remains after his failed self-annihilation.

I’m not sure how to figure Ololon’s self-recognition as Milton’s contrary into my reading, so if anyone can help me, I’d appreciate the insight.

This resolution is affirmed in plate 48, lines 29-39 (p. 202) of “Milton: A Poem.” In these lines the virgin Ololon cries, “Is this our Feminine Portion, the Six-fold Miltonic Female? / Terribly this Portion trembles before thee O awful Man” (lines 30-31). Milton’s “emanation,” or his female part/his true self, cowers before the human (and thus the “shadow”) form of Milton. Ololon continues: “Altho’ our Human Power can sustain the severe contentions / Of Friendship, our Sexual cannot: but flies into the Ulro” (lines 32-33). Whatever human elements are present in an emanation – namely, the imagination – they cannot hold up to the male dominance asserted by the shadowy Milton in the context of a sexual union. And such a union is, according to Blake, the pinnacle of desire and the experience of the divine. After Ololon “flies” away, she asks, “Are we Contraries O Milton, Thou & I? / O Immortal! How were we led to War the Wars of Death?” (lines 35-36) Though Ololon is Milton’s emanation, she is nonetheless his female contrary, as well as his spiritual opposite. She and Milton must be enemies in the “Wars of Death,” in which they are pitted against each other and in which one must be annihilated. Of course, it is Milton who ultimately self-annihilates, and Ololon who is preserved. But what ramifications do these results have for the gender makeup of the New Jerusalem?

Ololon’s next query asks, “Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enterd into / Becomes a Womb?… / Thou goest to Eternal Death & all must go with thee” (lines 38-39). The “Void Outside of Existence” may be equated with “Eternal Death”: it is the place where one experiences “Eternal Life” (plate 48, line 21). In this sense life is the same as death because self-annihilation, which results in “Eternal Death,” allows for the type of “Eternal Life” Blake sees as resulting from sacrificial self-annihilation. Self-crucifixion is surely Eternal Death of the self, but it makes possible the Eternal Life that is eternity spent communicating with the divine via one’s imagination. This eternity is a “Womb” because it allows for endless creativity, imagination, and production – all of which originates in the female.

This idea of the eternal Womb makes a full circle back to the notion that Milton’s emanation is female and superior to Milton’s male half. Self-annihilation destroys Milton’s male presence in favor of preserving the female emanation. But that male part is not lost forever; rather, it then exists in Eternal Life as the necessary counterpart to the female Womb. For at the beginning of her dialogue, Ololon is described as a “Virgin” (plate 48, line 29). A virgin’s womb cannot reproduce unless it is united with its male counterpart. Thus Milton’s maleness, in the act of self-annihilation, is returned to its true form as part of the female emanation. Milton’s human form is a shadow of his true self because it has rejected its female part. Death to that self-consciousness, in favor of recognizing the importance of the other gender, allows for the ideal union of gender into one body. This is, of course, an unique eternal body that is closer to Blake’s conception of an emanation, though it is a hermaphroditic one in which male and female are perfectly in union and yet perfectly at odds – because each must retain their unique gender in order to be joined together as one: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” (The Bible: New International Version, Genesis 2:24).

On page 202, lines 25-27, he says “These are the Sexual Garments, the Abomination of Desolation/ Hiding the Human lineaments as with an Ark & Curtains/Which Jesus rent: & now shall wholly purge away with Fire…” And earlier, in line 1 and 6-7: “To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human” and “To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination/To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration.”

We talked about this some at the end of last class, but that self-annihilation is necessary in order to do the most sublime act of putting others before oneself.  There is a lot of emphasis on taking off clothing–which Blake will eventually do–but I think self-annihilation is for the self, but also, as in plate 48/41 (p. 202) for the good of others.  It is about getting to the essence of what is really Human, casting aside such material things as clothing and “sexual garments” which I have been wondering what those actually are–do they indicate labels that define sexuality?

Self-annihilation seems to be why Blake’s illustrations are so precise, and why he draws a lot of naked people; emphasis on “human lineaments.”  Garments will be replaced with Imagination (which is the only reality as we discussed last class), and to create poetry in its purest form.  All that is not inspiration I believe for Blake means copying, or ripping from others what is not yours.

I think as we continue reading Milton, the reasoning behind self-sacrifice becomes clearer, as though the curtains that keep us from understanding Blake are slowly lifted!

This is what Blake the character did at the end of Milton. Milton annihilates himself, so does the Virgin Ololon. Thus, Milton became one of the Starry Eight who finally becomes Jesus and the Clouds of Ololon became the vesture dipped in blood written within and without. (“with one accord the Starry Eight became/One Man Jesus the Saviour, wonderful! Round his limbs/ The Clouds of Ololon folded as a Garment dipped in blood/ Written within & without in woven letters, p.203 lines 10-13). At this moment, the Last Judgment happens and Blake goes on describing the scene of the Last Judgment. Elements such as column of fire and trumpets appear.

When Jesus comes to Felpham’s Vale, Blake begins his own self-annihilation. “Thou goest to Eternal Death & all must go with thee” (p.202). This sentence highlights the spirit of self-annihilation: one must take the action himself because no one, no matter that’s Jesus or Milton, can do it for you. “I stood at that immortal sound/ My bones trembled. I fell outstretchd upon the path/ A moment, & my Soul returned into its mortal state/ To Resurrection & Judgment in the Vegetable Body” (Plate 49 lines 24-27, p.203). I read this as Blake returns to his body and the mortal state to start self-annihilation, which is the resurrection and judgment.

This Comment is in response to kathcal’s “The Necessity of Going Down.” This comment serves to add more support in terms of textual evidence to her argument. The passage that was assigned is in sync with kathcal’s statements on the sacrifice of autonomy in order to obtain oneness with God.

Milton, in his opening statements of the passage refers to the sacrifice of autonomy: “This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal Spirit; a Selfhood which must be put off.” Milton wishes to cast off his self-hood in order to become one with God–only attained through self-annihilation. He wishes to, in essence, be the impetus for a greater movement towards self-annihilation, to  start a chain-reaction. He wishes to “to take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination.” In the passage he speaks to address a large scale of people that seem to shun his view of Imagination–he seeks to purify, to reveal.

It seems to Blake that the individual forms that we currently occupy–our self-hood–has made us quite…selfish (ha). He is calling for a global cleansing on the scale of the Last Judgment in order to bring about the New Jerusalem. Blake, through Milton, fears that the current generation is too corrupt and tainted–too concerned with false figures, rather than pure Imagination–to bring about the New Jerusalem: “These are the destroyers of Jerusalem, these are the murderers/ Of Jesus, who deny the Faith & mock at Eternal Life.” And connecting back to kathcal’s post, it ties closely with the spiritual calling others down to the river. His call for rebirth indeed mimics baptism–a “Regeneration.”