Part III: Blake’s Criticism of Dante

5. Marginal Note to Boyd

Let us now examine in detail Blake’s critical statements about Dante. It is possible to
give too much weight to these comments, especially because we have so few recorded
state- ments from Blake on this subject. Still, I believe that using each of these criticisms
as a point from which to explicate the poets’ differences will shine light on the question
of why Blake chose to illustrate the Comedy. In the long run, such an analysis will allow
us to see their many points of agreement, as well.
Of the criticisms known to us that Blake made of Dante, the earliest and perhaps most
frequently quoted is this:
Dante was a Fool or his Translator was Not That is Dante was Hired or Tr was Not It
appears to Me that Men are hired to Run down Men of Genius under the Mask of
Translators, but Dante gives too much to Caesar he is not a Republican Dante was an
Emperors <a Caesars> Man Luther also left the Priest & joind the Soldier [E 634]

We find this note penciled into the margin of volume 1 of Henry Boyd’s translation of
The Divine Comedy. The strong language (“Dante was a Fool”) and overall negative tone
may lead us to believe that Blake is here mounting an all-out attack on Dante and the
Comedy. A careful examination of the context and content of the note, however, will
show that the criticism is carefully measured. Most of it is not aimed at Dante but at his
translator. In fact, it seems clear that in the battle of “Hired” men versus “Men of
Genius,” Blake includes Dante among the geniuses. We must also keep in mind the
historical moment at which this comment was made. Blake’s ideas about politics and the
possibilities of earthly revolution changed over time, and it may be that in 1825, when he
began the series of illustrations to Dante, he would not have written the note in the same
terms.

“An Emperors <a Caesars> Man”

In or about 1800, a quarter-century before he began his final series of illustrations, Blake
held in his hands a copy of volume 1 of Henry Boyd’s translation of The Divine Comedy.
He crossed out several phrases in the long introductory essay, intending to reverse Boyd’s
meaning in those paragraphs. He also wrote several brief but expressive notes in the
margins. These few emendations contain points that are useful to our present purpose.
They remind us that throughout his early career Blake grappled with issues of patronage
and of an artist’s

29
30 Part III. Blake’s Criticism of Dante

duty to the world of politics. His strong opinions about a true poet’s way of writing and
duties to the world were an integral part of his poetic message. We shall see in this
chapter that Blake was very aware of Dante’s history with patronage, politics, and the
processes of poetry.

When we examine Blake’s marginal notes we must be careful to remember their

context. However applicable they may be to our wider analysis, each was written as
a rejoinder to specific words in a specific text. Blake’s words form an antithesis that
occurs in the terms of the thesis it follows. In the case of the memos written in the
margins of Boyd’s translation, we should note first that they were not written next to
the words of Dante himself, but on the pages of the long introductory essay written
by Boyd. If we imagine picking up the volume that Blake annotated, opening the
cover and beginning at the beginning, we will see that almost the first thing to
confront us is the following dedication:
frederick, lord bishop of derry, and earl of bristol.
My Lord,

your Lordship’s great condescension, in offering your Patronage to the ensuing Work,
stamps it with a value, which, otherwise, I am afraid, it would hardly possess. Consonant
to your Lordship’s episcopal conduct, it proves your attention even to the humblest
claims of indus- try and application. To enlightened eyes, it even marks the extensive
views of the patriot; however minute the present object of your attention may seem to
vulgar observation. The minds of the multitude are very inadequate to comprehend the
liberality of your Lordship’s motives: they cannot see, what to you is so evident, that
public spirit depends upon the enlargement of sentiment, which can neither be acquired,
nor preserved, unless by a due attention to the interests of Learning, and particularly to
the Belles Lettres.

However unworthy of your Lordship’s Patronage the following Work may appear, I
hope the instance at least may awaken other competitors, far better entitled to your
protection, than

your lordship’s
Most obedient,
And grateful
Humble Servant,
henry boyd1

The obsequiousness of this opening seems almost designed to raise Blake’s ire. Boyd
here implies that the worth of The Divine Comedy (or at least of its translation) depends
on the patronage of the aristocrat who paid for it, not the talents of the poet who
produced it. At this early stage Blake bites his tongue—or pencil—and makes no marks
on the page. By page 35, though, he is crossing out phrases he disagrees with, and on
page 37 he begins writing contrary opinions in the margins. On page 118 he opens fire
on the translator, in the note I quoted at the beginning of this chapter.

I will return to this memo in my discussion of Dante’s political views. For now, I’d like
to take note of Blake’s use of the term “Hired,” a word that highlights the problems of
patron- age—the means by which Dante, Boyd, and Blake were all forced to make their
livings.
Blake acquired the book in which he wrote this note from William Hayley (1745– 1820),
who at that time was Blake’s sole patron. We have met Hayley before, in Part II, in which
we saw that he had done his part to popularize Dante’s work in England. He was a
successful writer and a patron of the arts, 2 and his first public success was a mixture of the
two pursuits—he wrote his Epistle on Painting as moral support for the artist George
Rom-
 5. Marginal Note to Boyd 31

ney. He gave generous financial assistance and advice—much of it welcome—to

Romney, the poet William Cowper, and the sculptor Flaxman, Blake’s friend. When
Hayley met Blake, probably through Flaxman, and offered his patronage, it seemed at
first to promise a happy arrangement for everyone. Blake was relieved of having to work
as a journeyman engraver in London, and he hoped to have the freedom to pursue his
vision. He moved to Felpham, a seaside village, to be near his patron. Perhaps it was
Hayley’s greater worldly success that made him feel free to dispense well-meant advice
to Blake concerning how he could live more comfortably from his art. Blake, never a
person to follow another man’s artistic system, quickly felt that he was being pressured
to become a less inspired, more conventional painter, and fell into difficulties with the
generous Hayley.

Blake’s work from this period and shortly after makes clear how much he was troubled
by the relationship with his patron. It was probably with Hayley in mind that he penned
the aphorism “Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies” (E 98). And at this time he began
the epic poem Milton, in which the thinly disguised Hayley causes inspiration to fall into
the world of materialism. In Milton and later in Jerusalem, Blake seems to abbreviate
Hayley’s name to Hyle, the Greek word for “matter,” to portray him as a materialist in
opposition to the higher, inspired realm. So we see that at the moment he wrote the note
about who was “Hired,” Dante or the translator, issues of patronage and artistic freedom
were much on his mind. The groveling dedication by Boyd to his patron would have
made it clear from almost the first page that this translator was on the side of those who
do the hiring.

Dante also lived by patronage in later life. He includes several lines in the Comedy prais-
ing current or potential supporters.3 Although he makes clear his high opinion of Virgil
and other great poets, he never challenges the social status quo of his day or the need for
artists to be dependent on those who hired them. Leonardo Bruni, in the short biography
of Dante included in Boyd’s volume, goes into detail about the poet’s travels around
Italy and France in search of patronage, and recounts without embarrassment a story in
which Dante is literally given the bones from his host’s table—an anecdote that ends
with the poet comparing himself to a dog.4 Admirers of Dante, even those of us who are
not dependent on patrons of our own, may find the strict regard for social class in the
prefaces to be irritating. We can understand how Blake’s situation in Felpham could
prompt an angry note.

“he is not a Republican”

Following the dedication to his patron and a list of the subscribers who helped pay for the
book, Boyd opens his preface to the Comedy by reproducing a chapter called “A
Summary View of the Hell of Dante,” from Thomas Warton’s History of English Poetry
(published in three volumes from 1774 to 1781). Warton is apologetic for Dante’s many
“extravagancies” and “indelicate” descriptions, forgiving them as examples of an earlier
age “before indelicacy became offensive.” 5 Despite these reservations, Warton does an
admirable job of sketching Dante’s place in literary history, using passages from
Hayley’s partial translation of the Inferno to look back to Virgil as antecedent and
recognizing the debt that Milton owed to the Com- edy. Warton’s comparatively scholarly
approach is quickly left behind in the first chapter written by Boyd himself, entitled “A
Comparative View of the Inferno, With some other