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| Subject: El Kuds | |
Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 15:11:03 12/19/04 Sun In reply to: Ian (Australia) 's message, "Jerusalem?" on 13:52:16 12/19/04 Sun Well, I think that, notwithstanding the barmy British Israelitism (which still persists), there's a lot of spiritualism in Blake's work which deserves closer evaluation. The idea of building Jerusalem is not an exhortation to construct an architectural copy of a rather pleasant city in the Middle East - it's a metaphor for building a spiritually-fulfilled society. Moreover, just as 'Jerusalem' diesn't refer to the city but to the idea, 'England' in the poem doesn't refer to a large part of a group of islands at the end of the North Atlantic storm corridor, either: it's an idea, and, specifically, the idea that, spiritually, England should come to mean what Jerusalem once meant - the passing of the torch, so to speak, from God's previous chosen people to his new chosen people. There is also an argument that the "dark satanic mills" bit refers to the grim and dehumanising factories of the Industrial Revolution, and, basically, how Blake didn't like them very much. Personally, I don't buy that interpretation, and rather think that he was going on about Stonehenge and all that sort of neolithic rubbish which clutters up our countryside. Lastly, Jesus turning up in Cornwall with his tin-trading Uncle Joseph can also be seen metaphorically: light and civilisation coming to a barbarous land. It would be difficult to argue that Britain at the time of Caesar Augustus was not a pretty backwards kind of place, and it would be difficult to argue that Britain at the time when Blake wrote the poem (1804) was not a pretty sophisticated kind of place. Clearly, something had changed, and the idea of a 'visitation' from a carpenter from the Holy Land could be seen as a reminder that the impetus which impelled us from barbarism to civilisation in fact came from abroad. I would tend to agree with this. No, I'm a great fan of 'Jerusalem', and Parry's tune is great, too. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 12:20:37 12/20/04 Mon Blake is certainly dangerously visionary, or if you prefer, spiritual. I would not exclude "barmy British Israelitism" from being among his intentions, but that he is one of the best poets in English since Milton, no challenge. "One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression" You nominated "Jerusalem" as a song that "represents just England", but if you argue that the song is not really about the geographical England but rather the idea of "passing of the torch ... from God's previous chosen people to his new chosen people", doesn't that rather detract from its representativeness? In the United States, "Jerusalem" would probably fit in quite nicely as just one more example of the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny". It's odd, in a way, that Blake was seen as such an eccentric in England, because the whole Swedenborg school of thought that was such an influence on him (and which he claimed to despise) was quite commonplace on the other side of the Atlantic. I'd be intrigued to know how you back up the view that the "dark satanic mills" are not actual Industrial Revolution mills but stone circles. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 12:37:07 12/20/04 Mon Well, I would say that it represents not the physical lump of rock which is England but the idea of the Perfect England. Manifest destiny is not universal if one believes that only one people has that manifest destiny. I do not think that Cromwell, Milton, Blake and the American Anglo-Saxonists thought that God (he's always involved somewhere) looked equally as favourably on the French or Patagonians as he did on the British. As for the High Romantic anti-industrialism of Blake, which many use as the basis for their belief that "dark satanic mills" is a poke at the ghastly conditions of early-industrial work-places, I would disagree with that for a very simple reason. In short, the context is right off. This poem is about religion, not social deprivation. If old wossisname, Jesus, was schlepping around the West Country with Joseph of Arimathea, the religious institutions which he encountered would have been pagan, and hence satanic in Blake's opinion, rather than Christian. The idea of British Israelitism is that the Britons were converted personally by Jesus as the First Church of God, rather than converted by the papist Romans centuries later, which is why We Are God's Chosen People and all that nonsense. So, for me, the 'dark satanic mills' have always been the pre-Christian druidic shrines which retreated before the "countenance divine" shining on them and dispelling myth and ignorance. Still, old Blake has been dead for some time, so we can never ask him if I'm right; and, indeed, even if he were very much alive he was probably too bonkers to be able to give a coherent answer... [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:17:48 12/20/04 Mon "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it." Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 6 "Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thought to be one of the Antediluvians who are our Energies." Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 17 "Energy is Eternal Delight." Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 4 To say that the mills are "satanic" does not therefore mean that they are "bad". They are a manifestation of energy, and thus a source of delight. "Where man is not, nature is barren." Marriage of Heaven and Hell, plate 10 [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 13:06:02 12/20/04 Mon I'm off to Britain this afternoon, so I'll tell you if I spot any satanic mills or if I am overpowered by a sense of Manifest Destiny on the runway... That said, Stansted Airport is not noted for its spiritual uplift. A bassa Venezia! Forza Inghilterra! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |