Blake's Poetry and Designs [Norton Critical Edition, 1st ed.]

I’ll start by saying that this collection includes one of my favorite quotes of all time, from Auguries of Innocence:
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower:
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”

Blake was creative, intense, and quasi-religious, opposing both the repressiveness of the established church and the rationalism of its critics. As the commentary in this edition states, “…after eighteen centuries during which Christianity had come to identify itself with the interests of the ruling class, it was now high time to recall the disruptive and revolutionary actions of Jesus.” However, Blake also rejected the popular Deist movement of the day: “…you are also Enemies of show more the Human Race & of Universal Nature.”

So in some ways a good portion of his writing is a pulling down of religion, with Blake creating his own mythology to replace it. He sees the fall from grace as (1) the error of perceiving life as finite and corrupt, and limited to the physical plane (personified by a character he calls Urizen, who reduces all reality to what can be manipulated by cold, calculating rationality, the proponent of royalty and creator of religion), and (2) the error of perceiving reality as brute matter resulting from a failure of imagination (which is symbolized by Los, the creative force, a poet, and the ‘eternal prophet’).

There are many other aspects to this mythos: Fuzon, pure defiance, the pent-up lust of Urizen who cannot better the world; Orc, who struggles against political oppression, sexual repression, and all rational constrictions and restrictions on energy (representing America) … and many others that I won’t go through as it’s a bit tedious. Blake sees the resurrection as man, with the help of imagination, attaining self-acceptance and a recognition of the divinity within.

There are occasional nuggets of gold in the passages, but Blake is a bit overwrought and I am a little surprised in retrospect that I read through this entire book. The Norton Edition is quite nice if you’re a Blake fan; it includes all his artwork; personally I think his art is only ‘ok’ but they do add to the text, and are given beautiful treatment including color plates in the center.

Quotes:
On babies, from A cradle song in Blake’s Notebook:
“Sleep sleep beauty bright
Dreaming oer the joys of night
Sleep sleep: in thy sleep
Little sorrows sit & weep

Sweet Babe in thy face
Soft desires I can trace
Secret joys & secret smiles
Little pretty infant wiles”

On clarity, from A Memorable Fancy in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; which Jim Morrison read and named his band after:
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

On experience, from Night II:
“What is the price of Experience? do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath: his house, his wife, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the withered field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.”

On goodbye, from An Island in the Moon:
“Leave, O leave me to my sorrows,
Here I’ll sit & fade away,
Till I’m nothing but a spirit
And I lose this form of clay.

Then if chance along this forest
Any walk in pathless ways,
Thro the gloom he’ll see my shadow,
Hear my voice upon the Breeze.”

On the holiness of life, from America: A Prophecy:
“For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life:
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil’d.”

And this one, from Milton, Book the Second:
“His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine;
All Nature listens silent to him & the awful Sun
Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird
With eyes of soft humility & wonder, love & awe.”

On innocence, this is actually from the criticism, Northrop Frye, Blake’s Treatment of the Archetype:
“When we say that a child is in the state of innocence, we do not mean that he is sinless or harmless, but that he is able to assume a coherence, a simplicity and kindliness in the world that adults have lost and wish they could regain.”

On pity, and forgiveness, from Jerusalem:
“Every Harlot was once a Virgin: every criminal an Infant Love!”

On religion, from Milton, Book the Second:
“Thy purpose & the purpose of thy Priests & of thy Churches
Is to impress on men the fear of death; to teach
Trembling & fear, terror, constriction; abject selfishnesss.
Mine is to teach Men to despise death & to go on
In fearless majesty annihilating Self, laughing to scorn
Thy Laws & terrors, shaking down thy Synagogues as webs.”

On tolerance, from The Divine Image in Songs of Innocence:
“An all must love the human form,
In heathen, turk or jew.
Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.”

On transience, from The Book of Thel:
“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 infant’s face,
Like the dove’s voice, like transient day, like music in the air:
Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head…”

On war, and achieving peace, from The Grey Monk:
“But vain the Sword & vain the Bow,
They never can work War’s overthrow.
The Hermit’s Prayer & the Widow’s tear
Alone can free the World from fear.

For a Tear is an Intellectual Thing.
And a Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King,
And the bitter groan of the Martyr’s woe
Is an arrow from the Almightie’s Bow.” show less

Blake is my favorite poet, and this collection contains his best work. Including the well-known "Tyger, Tyger". Also included are his wonderful original illustrations.

A Norton Critical Edition