LUSTRATED QUARTERLY 5 6

Spring 1981
53Ue
was on leave of absence this past
R O D N E Y M. B A I N E
fall quarter from the University of Georgia to
check the botanical chapters which he is adding to
his zoological ones for a book on Blake's
biological symbolism.

D A V I D B I N D M A N , Westfield College, University of

London, is organizing a Blake exhibition to be
IAN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY 56 held at Yale and the University of Toronto in
I Volume 14 Number 4 ~ 198-83.

[Spring 1981 ROBERT N. ESSICK, Professor of English at the Univ-

ersity of California at Riverside, is the author of
William Blake: Printmaker (Princeton, 1980) and
A Catalogue of William Blake's Separate Plates
CONTENTS (forthcoming Princeton, 1982).

B l a k e ' s "Enoch" L i t h o g r a p h M I C H A E L F I S C H E R teaches English at the University

by Robert N. E s s i c k , 180 of New Mexico. His publications on modern
criticism have appeared in such journals as The
John T r i v e t t N e t t l e s h i p and His "Blake Drawings" Georgia Review, Salmagundi, and Critical Inquiry.
by Morton D. P a l e y , 185 He is completing a book on the defense of poetry in
modern criticism.
Blake and the Mountains o f t h e Mind
by Nelson H i l t o n , 196
teaches English at Queens College
T H O M A S R. F R O S C H
of the City University of New York. He is the
MINUTE PARTICULARS author of The Awakening of Albion, a study of
Blake, and Plum Gut, a book of poems.
Bromion's "Jealous Dolphins"
by Rodney M. B a i n e , 206 ERIK FRYKMAN was the first to hold the Chair in
English Literature, University of Gbteborg (since
W. J . L i n t o n ' s T a i l p i e c e s i n G i l c h r i s t ' s Life of 1967). He was a Lecturer in Swedish at the Univer-
William Blake sity of Aberdeen, 1950-56. Fi1. dr., University of
by Robert F. G l e c k n e r , 208 Uppsala (1959). His publications include John
Gait's Scottish Stories 1820-1823 (Uppsala, 1959);
DISCUSSION studies on Matthew Arnolds's poetry, on W. E.
Aytoun, on Norman MacCaig's poetry (all in
The Dead A r d o u r s R e v i s i t e d Gothenburg Studies in English); Textbooks and
by David Bindman, 211
anthologies for Swedish universities; Skottamas
Skottland (Stockholm, latest ed. 1976); De
mots'dgelsefulla viktorianema (Stockholm, 1980).
REVIEWS
Frank Lentricchia, After the New Criticism R O B E R T F. G L E C K N E R has published The Piper and the
Reviewed by Nelson Hilton, 212 Bard, Selected Writings of William Blake,
Romanticism: Points of View, Byron and the Ruins
Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant, eds., Blake's of Paradise, The Complete Poetry of Lord Byron and
Poetry and Designs many other articles. He is now working on a book
Reviewed by Michael Fischer, 215 tentatively entitled The Contours of Blake's
"Poetical Sketches. "
G'dran Malmqvist, ed. and trans., En"opa M&nen
Reviewed by Erik Frykman, 217 NELSON HILTON is Professor of English at the
University of Georgia and the Review Editor for
Andrew Wilton, British Watereolours 1750 to 1850 Blake.
Reviewed by William Vaughan, 218
MORTON D.PALEY, University of California at
David Alexander and Richard T. Godfrey, Painters Berkeley, is completing work for his book on
and Engraving: The Reproductive Print from Jerusalem.
Hogarth to Wilkie
Reviewed by Robert N. Essick, 220. W I L L I A M VAUGHAN is Reader in History of Art at
University College London. His most recent book
Simon Stuart, New Phoenix Wings: Reparation in is German Romantic Painting.
Literature
Reviewed by Thomas R. Frosch, 224

© copyright 1981 by Morris Eaves & Morton D. Paley CONTRIBUTORS

EDITORS
EDITORS: Morris Eaves, Univ. of New Mexico, and
Morton D. Paley, Univ. of California, Berkeley.
BIBLIOGRAPHER: Thomas L. Minnick, Ohio State Univ.
REVIEW EDITOR: Nelson Hilton, Univ. of Georgia,
Athens.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR GREAT BRITAIN: Frances A.
Carey, Assistant Curator, Department of Prints
and Drawings, British Museum.
P R O D U C T I O N OFFICE: Morris Eaves, Department of
English, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque,
NM 87131, T E L E P H O N E 505/277-3103.
Morton D. Paley, Department of English, University
of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.
Thomas L. Minnick, University College, Ohio State
University, 1050 Carmack Road, Columbus, Ohio
43210.
Nelson Hilton, Department of English, University
of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602.
Frances A. Carey, Department of Prints and Drawings
British Museum, Great Russell Street, London
WC1B 3DG, England.
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT IN CHARGE: Susan Corban,
Univ. of New Mexico, E D I T O R I A L A S S I S T A N T S :
Pam Blair, Wayne Erickson, Wendy Jones, Kris
Lackey, Univ. of New Mexico.
BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY is published Under
the sponsorship of the Department of English,
University of New Mexico.
SUBSCRIPTIONS are $12.00 for 1 year, 1 volume, 4
issues. Special rates for individuals, $10.00,
surface mail. $15.00 for subscribers overseas who
prefer air mail. U.S. currency or international
money order if possible. Make checks payable to
Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly. Address all
subscription orders & related communications to
the Circulation Mgr., Susan Corban, Blake, Dept.
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MANUSCRIPTS are welcome. Send two copies, typed
and documented according to the forms suggested
in the MLA Style Sheet, 2nd. ed., to either of the
editors: Morris Eaves, Dept. of English, Univ.
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Paley, Dept. of English, Univ. of California,
Berkeley, California 94720
I N T E R N A T I O N A L S E R I A L N U M B E R is 0006-453X. Blake/
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(Whitson Pub.).
INFORMATION
180
BLAKE'S " E N O C H " LITHOGRAPH
ROBERT N. ESSICK
L ike many of Blake's separate graphics,
"Enoch" offers several problems for those
who wish to determine its exact medium, date,
and the circumstances surrounding its production.
Even the subject of Blake's only known lithograph
was not discovered until 1936. l My purpose here is
to review what we know about the techniques Blake
used to create "Enoch" and present some new informa-
tion on its relationship to the history of early
lithography in England.
The pen and ink inscription (illus. 1) on the
verso of an impression of "Enoch" in the collection
of Mr. Edward Croft-Murray (illus. 2) would seem to
offer a description of how the print was made. The
handwriting is George Cumberland's, whose own
involvement with graphic experiments, and in partic-
ular with Blake's plans to publish an account of his
inventions,2 lends some authority to the inscription.
Mr. Croft-Murray tells me that the print appeared
in a Sotheby's auction in 1957 as part of a mis-
cellaneous lot that included a number of Italian
engravings that were probably from Cumberland's
extensive collection of such material. Cumberland
probably acquired his "Enoch" directly from Blake,
and his description on its verso may very well be
based on Blake's own account of how he made the
print, as the last two words of the note indicate.
The inscription reads as follows:
White Lyas--is the Block / draw with Ink
composed of asphaltum dissolved in dry [?] /
Linseed oil--add fine Venetian Tripoli & [?]
Rotten Stone Powder. / Let it dry. when dry
saturate the stone with water and / Dab it with
the broad Dabber, and [deleted'} coverd very
thinly with / best Printers Ink--and Print as
3
a block--. / of Blake.
If we assume the general accuracy of Cumberland's
account, the "Block" or stone was white lias, a
limestone from an area near Bath in southwestern
England, rather than the German Kellheim stone used
by Alois Senefelder in the lithographic process he
invented in the mid-1790s.1' Instead of using
lithographic chalk or ink, Blake drew his design
with a mixture of asphaltum and linseed oil which,
if not the acid resist he actually used in his
copperplate relief etchings, must have been a liquid
with very similar physical properties. Besides the
chemical differences between this mixture and
lithographic ink,5 Blake's material was probably
more glutinous and would have to be heated so as to
flow evenly from the brush or pen and harden quickly
upon contact with the cool stone. According to
Cumberland's note, Blake added "Tripoli" and/or
rotten stone, both fine polishing compounds, to his
resist, perhaps simply as a thickener or to increase
the receptivity of the resist to printing ink. At
this point, the usual procedure in early nineteenth-
century lithography, at least as practiced in
England, would have required a lithographic etch,
water wash, and gum-water treatment to increase the
stone's ability to hold water and repel ink. The
first of these procedures actually reduced the
surface of the stone wherever it was not protected
by the lithographic ink or chalk, which functioned
like the ground or acid resist in copperplate
etching. Although he later realized that the proper
inking of the stone depended almost completely on
the antipathy of the oily printing ink to the water-
soaked stone, Senefelder states in his -Complete
Course, p. 10, that he etched his early stones to
a depth of "about a 10th part of a line, (or 1-120th
part of an inch)." That this practice was continued
in early English lithography is indicated by Thomas
Fisher who notes, in the Gentleman's Magazine of

1808, that "that part of the face of the stone not
actually covered with the ink is lowered about the
thickness of half a line [i.e., about 1/24 of an
inch?]." 6 Thus, "polyautography" (as early litho-
graphy was called) was a relief process and not a
true planographic technique like modern lithography.
If Cumberland did not accidently leave these
steps out of his description, then Blake's method
required neither etching nor gumming-up and he added
only water to repel the printing ink from the
uncovered surface of the stone. The foreshortening
of the conventional procedure may have been possible
because Blake's asphaltum and linseed oil resist
would itself raise the image above the level of the
stone. Asphaltum will solidify at a slightly higher
level than any smooth surface to which it is
applied.7 Finally, Blake inked the stone with a
"broad Dabber," which must have been a large type-
printer's inking ball of the sort generally used in
early English lithography,8 and printed the stone
"as a block"--that is, in relief like a woodcut or
one of Blake's own copperplates for his illuminated
books.
If we can trust Cumberland's intriguing
inscription, "Enoch" was produced by a hybrid
technique combining the stone and water elements of
early lithography with an acid resist very similar,
perhaps even identical, to that used by Blake in his
own relief etchings. The awkward execution of some
passages in the design (note, for example, the two
faces upper left) may be the result of the experi-
mental nature of the medium and Blake's unfamiliarity
with working on a stone that was far more porous
than his copperplates. It is even possible that
Cumberland played a role in the preparation of the
stone; similar types of gracelessness of line and
stiffness in the figures appear in the outline
engravings (or perhaps simply drypoint sketches) he
made for his Thoughts on Outline (1796). It must be
admitted, however, that Blake's own work, particu-
larly drawings executed in the 1780s, is not free
from such features.
A basically similar use of acid resist on a
lithographic stone, but one that required etching,
is described by William Home Lizars in his "Account
of a New Style of Engraving on Copper in Alto
Relievo" in The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 2 Several crucial, if not absolutely conclusive, pieces
(January-April 1820), 23. In a letter dated
January 1819, Cumberland wrote his son to "tell
Blake a Mr Sivewright [thanked by Lizars for
assistance] of Edinburgh has just claimed in Home
Philosophical Journal of Last Month As his own
invention Blake's Method--& calls it Copper Blocks
I think."9 I cannot find any "Home Philosophical
Journal," and the relationship between Cumberland's
letter and Lizars' article (the former dated a year
before the publication of the latter)remains a
mystery. But E. B. Murray's astute redating of one
of Blake's letters to Thomas Butts 10 has suggested
to me the possibility that Cumberland failed to
change to the new year when he dated his letter in
January, and thus it may have actually been written
late in the first month of 1820 and does indeed refer
to Lizars' article. In any case, it is quite possible
that Blake knew of Lizars' work, but the information
181
could not have reached him until long after he had
produced "Enoch."
A. G. B. Russell, Laurence Binyon, and Sir
Geoffrey Keynes have all associated the execution of
"Enoch" with the lithographic publishing endeavors
of Georg Jacob Vollweiler.11 Late in 1800,
Senefelder came to England and patented his new
process of polyautography.12 He brought with him
Phi 1 ipp Andre", to whom Senefelder had taught the new
process. When he returned to Germany after a visit
in England lasting about seven months, Senefelder
sold the patent to Andre\ who stayed in London. In
1803, Andre" issued Specimens of Polyautography
containing twelve lithographs by various English
artists, including Barry, Stothard, and Fuseli.
When Andre" left London in 1805, Vollweiler took over
as patentee. He reissued Specimens, adding to it
twenty-four new prints, with a title-page dated
1806 but with some prints inscribed 1807 on the
stone. Like the first issue, Vollweiler's publica-
tion attracted little notice, and he returned to
Germany in August 1807. His lithoqraphic equipment
passed into the hands of D. Redman, who removed the
business to Bath in 1813.
But "Enoch" was not published as part of either
issue of the Specimens.12 The best known impression
of "Enoch" is the one in the British Museum,
Department of Prints and Drawings, bound into a
volume containing many Specimens prints, but also
containing a number of lithographs not published in
Specimens. No impression of "Enoch" is mounted on
paper with a brown aquatint border, as are all the
prints actually issued in the Specimens, 1803 and
1806. Indeed, Cumberland's description of Blake's
experimental procedures would seem on the face of
it to dissociate his work from the entire Senefelder-
Andr6-Vollweiler enterprise. It seems improbable
that the inventor of lithography or his official
successors in London would sponsor a project that
did not follow normal lithographic procedures on
which they held the patent. The special properties
of Kellheim stone would logically have been one of
the keys to their secret, patented process, and the
substitution of another, locally obtainable stone
something that the patentees would eschew. This
is the line of thinking I set forth in my previous
comments on "Enoch,"11* but some new evidence I have
come upon indicates a very different conclusion.
of evidence do link "Enoch" to Vollweiler's
activities.
Fisher, writing in the Gentleman's Magazine in
1808 (see my note 6 ) , remarks that "M. Andre imported
them [the lithographic stones] from Germany, although
his successor [Vollweiler] assured me that stone
[i.e., white lias] of a nearly similar quality might
be procured in the neighbourhood of Bath, but not,
he believed, in very large blocks" (pp. 193-94).
This statement does not prove that Vollweiler
actually used white lias, but it does indicate that
he was amenable to its use and suggests that one of
the reasons his successor, Redman, moved to Bath
may have been the availability of proper stones in
that area. According to Felix Man, "Vollweiler issued
circulars asking amateurs to try their hand in the
new art, offering instructions and materials, with
182

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1 Pen and i nk i n s c ri p ti o n by George Cumberland on
the verso of an i mpressi on of Blake's "Enoch"
lithograph (i l l u s . 2 ) . The mat covers a few l e t t e r s
on the f a r ri g h t .
2 Blake's "Enoch." Mod
iif ed li t h o g r a p h , 1806 or
e a r l y 1807. 21.7 x 31 cm. The marks i n the whi te
space above the central fi g u r e are l e t t e r s of the
i n s c r i p t i o n (i l l u s . 1) showi ng through from the
verso. Collect i on of Mr. Edward Croft-Murray;
reproduced w i th hi s permi ssi on.

the stone on loan at a moderate p r i c e . " 1 5 Thus,
V o l l w e i l e r may have provided stones to a r t i s t s who,
l i k e Blake, had l i t t l e contemporary fame and thus
would not have been asked to contribute to Specimens.
And these a r t i s t s of l i t t l e consequence would have
been the very s o r t to be given the somewhat i n f e r i o r
white l i a s rather than the imported, and probably
much more precious, Kellheim stones.
The papers on which three of the four extant
impressions of "Enoch" are printed suggest a f u r t h e r
connection with V o l l w e i l e r . The p r i n t in the B r i t i s h
Museum i s on the same type of buff colored wove
paper, and both the image (21.7 x 31 cm.) and the
sheet (22.6 x 31.9 cm.) are of about the same s i z e ,
as several of the Specimens p r i n t s , second issue,
bound with i t . The chocolate brown wove paper on
which the copies i n the c o l l e c t i o n s of S i r Geoffrey
Keynes and Raymond L i s t e r are printed is s i m i l a r
i n color and texture to the stock used f o r the chalk
manner lithographs i n P. E. S t r o e h l i n g ' s Original
Sketches Drawn Upon Stone, published by V o l l w e i l e r
s h o r t l y before he l e f t London, and f o r the p r i n t s
i n Twelve Views in Scotland3 Delineated by a Lady
[F. Waring] in the Folyauto graphic Art of Drawing
Upon Stone, published by Rudolph Ackermann in 1803. 1 6
I know of no other p r i n t s by Blake, executed i n any
medium, p r i n t e d on these unusual types of paper.
F i n a l l y , a standard plate p r i n t i n g press of the early
nineteenth century could only have been adapted f o r
l i t h o g r a p h i c p r i n t i n g with considerable d i f f i c u l t y
because of the thickness of the stone. In a l l
p r o b a b i l i t y , Blake would have had to t u r n to someone
with the r e q u i s i t e equipment to p u l l good q u a l i t y
impressions from his stone. The only people i n
England so equipped u n t i l 1812 were Andre", V o l l -
w e i l e r , and Redman.17 Thus, the preponderance of
the evidence suggests t h a t Blake learned of l i t h o -
graphy from V o l l w e i l e r , rented or borrowed the stone
from him, delineated "Enoch" in an acid r e s i s t
s i m i l a r to the l i q u i d he had used f o r years f o r his
r e l i e f etchings, and returned the stone to V o l l w e i l e r
f o r p r i n t i n g . The f i r s t three of these steps could
have occurred only i n 1806 or early 1807, a f t e r
V o l l w e i l e r had taken over the London l i t h o g r a p h i c
business from Andre" and before he departed f o r
Germany. The p r i n t i n g could have been done by
Redman at a l a t e r time, but i t would have been to
the economic advantage of a l l concerned to proof
"Enoch" s h o r t l y a f t e r i t s execution and remove
Blake's work from the stone so that i t could be used
again for another drawing.
Blake could not have learned about Senefelder's
inventions u n t i l a good many years a f t e r he had
developed his own methods of r e l i e f etching on
copper. Even the most sophisticated manipulations
of r e l i e f etching and i t s i n t e g r a t i o n w i t h w h i t e - l i n e
etching/engraving are displayed as early as 1793 in
America. Yet Blake must have been very interested
in whatever he could learn about lithography from
V o l l w e i l e r or other p r a c t i t i o n e r s since e a r l y poly-
autography was so s i m i l a r , in i t s essential r e l i e f -
etched c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s , to his own techniques. The
plans to publish an account of Blake's inventions
(see my note 2) may have been stimulated by his
learning about r i v a l techniques such as Senefelder's
etching on stone and L i z a r s ' etching in r e l i e f on
metal or stone. Blake might have learned something
183
from contacts with V o l l w e i l e r that he could apply
to his own copperplate methods, although there i s
no evidence f o r t h i s in Blake's r e l i e f etchings
a f t e r 1806-1807. Senefelder had developed a method
of t r a n s f e r r i n g a t e x t or design w r i t t e n i n l i t h o -
graphic ink from gummed paper to a s t o n e , 1 8 and
V o l l w e i l e r may have known about t h i s technique.
This was most useful to a r t i s t s who, unlike Blake,
were not professional engravers and thus were not
p r o f i c i e n t at w r i t i n g or designing w i t h r i g h t and
l e f t reversed. I very much doubt t h a t Blake needed
to use a t r a n s f e r technique; i f he d i d , he must have
invented i t independently some years before his
contacts with V o l l w e i l e r . Although l i t h o g r a p h y ' s
influence on the i l l u m i n a t e d books could only have
been minimal and l a t e , "Enoch" does provide a unique
point of i n d i r e c t contact between William Blake and
Alois Senefelder, two of the greatest innovators i n
the graphic a r t s .
1
Laurence Binyon and Geoffrey Keynes, i n t r o d u c t i o n to Illustra-
tions of the Book of Job by William Blake (New York: Pierpont
Morgan L i b r a r y , 1935), p. 8 o f the f i r s t f a s c i c l e . The authors
c r e d i t Joseph Wicksteed w i t h the discovery t h a t the i n s c r i p t i o n
on the book held by the c e n t r a l f i g u r e i s "Enoch" i n Hebrew; the
i n s c r i p t i o n on the t a b l e t held by a f l o a t i n g f i g u r e on the r i g h t
i s "And Enoch walked w i t h God" (from Genesis V:24). Previous
a u t h o r i t i e s had believed t h a t the design p i c t u r e d "Job i n
P r o s p e r i t y , " the t i t l e given to i t by A. G. B. Russell i n The
Engravings of William Blake (Boston and New York: Houghton
M i f f l i n , 1912), p. 9 1 . The e r r o r i s understandable because the
design i s c l o s e l y connected w i t h Blake's development o f a com-
p o s i t i o n he also used i n h i s Job i l l u s t r a t i o n s , culminating i n
the lower h a l f of the c e n t r a l design on p i . 2 of the Job engrav-
ings. Apparently some scholars have not been convinced by
Wicksteed's f i n d i n g s ; S. Foster Damon, f o r example, describes the
p r i n t as '"Job i n P r o s p e r i t y ' . . . holding on his lap an open
book l a b e l l e d ( i n Hebrew) ' E n o c h ' . " See Damon, A Blake Dictionary
(Providence, R. I . : Brown U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1965), p. 126.
2
L e t t e r s between Cumberland and Blake of 1807-1808 and several
e n t r i e s i n Cumberland's j o u r n a l i n d i c a t e t h a t the two f r i e n d s
were discussing the p u b l i c a t i o n of Blake's "new Mode of Engrav-
i n g . " See Geoffrey Keynes, e d . , The Letters of William Blake
(London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968), p. 134; and G. E. Bentley,
J r . , Blake Records (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 187-88,
211 and n. 3, 212.
3
The i n s c r i p t i o n was f i r s t published on the verso of a s i n g l e
sheet of " A d d i t i o n a l items on e x h i b i t i o n , 13 January--28 March
1971," a supplement to William Blake: Catalogue of the Collection
in the Fitzurilliam Museum Cambridge, ed. David Bindman (Cambridge:
Heffer and Sons, 1970). The t e x t p r i n t e d here i s a new t r a n -
s c r i p t i o n from the o r i g i n a l (see also i l l us. 1 ) .
u
See Senefelder, Complete Course of Lithography (London: R.
Ackermann, 1819), f o r a f u l l d e s c r i p t i o n o f the process and i t s
i n v e n t i o n . The use o f white l i a s f o r l i t h o g r a p h y was f i r s t
suggested i n p r i n t by John Thomas Smith, Antiquities of West-
minster (London: J . T. Smith, 1807), p. 48. Charles Hullmandel,
The Art of Drawing on Stone (London: Hullmandel and R. Ackermann,
[ 1 8 2 4 ] ) , p. 2 , warns t h a t "the white l i a s , of Bath . . . i s too
s o f t and porous" f o r l i t h o g r a p h y . Michael Twyman, Lithography
1800-1850 (London: Oxford U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1970), p. 30, asserts
t h a t Blake subscribed to Smith's Antiquities; but i n f a c t the
" W i l l i a m Blake, Esq. Sunbury House, Middlesex" i n Smith's L i s t
o f Subscribers, p. 274, i s not the eponym of t h i s j o u r n a l .
- Senefelder, pp. 111-18, o f f e r s several formulae f o r his
"chemical i n k . " Most r e q u i r e wax, soap, s h e l l a c , and lampblack
( f o r c o l o r ) . The " s o f t " ink " f o r t r a n s f e r r i n g Drawings or
Writings from Paper on the Stone" (pp. 121-22) i s a less viscous
v a r i a n t o f the chemical i n k . For what we know o f the acid r e s i s t
Blake used f o r his r e l i e f e t c h i n g s , see Essick, William Blake,
Printmaker ( P r i n c e t o n : Princeton U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1980), pp.
87-88.
6
Senefelder, p. 10; Fisher, "The Process of Polyautographic
P r i n t i n g , " Gentleman's Magazine, 78 (March 1808), 194.
184
7
I have found i t q u i t e easy to p r i n t from varnish d e l i n e a t i o n s
on unetched surfaces; see Essick, William Blake, Printmaker, pp.
110-11 and f i g . 109. P r i n t i n g from asphaltum and linseed o i l
would be the same as long as the mixture were allowed to harden
thoroughly.
8 younger Basire. My purpose i n reproducing a d e t a i l from i t i n
Smith, Antiquities of Westminster, p. 50.
9
B r i t i s h L i b r a r y Add. MSS. 36501, f f . 360-61. Cumberland dated
the l e t t e r "22 Jan 1819" i n the upper r i g h t corner o f the f i r s t
page. Bentley, Blake Records, p. 214, i n c o r r e c t l y gives the date
as "January 22nd, 1809." In his l e t t e r , Cumberland r e f e r s to the
S i v e w r i g h t - L i z a r s a p p l i c a t i o n of t h e i r r e l i e f technique to copper
(as i n Blake's i l l u m i n a t e d books) and not to stone (as 1n
"Enoch").
10
Murray, "A Suggested Redating of a Blake L e t t e r to Thomas
B u t t s , " Blake: An Illustrated Quarterly, 13 (Winter 1979-80),
11
R u s s e l l , Engravings of Blake, p. 9 1 ; Binyon, The Engraved
Designs of William Blake (London: Ernest Benn, 1926), pp. 21-22;
Keynes, Engravings by William Blake: The Separate Plates ( D u b l i n :
Emery Walker, 1956), pp. 43-44. None o f these a u t h o r i t i e s gives
any s p e c i f i c reasons f o r b e l i e v i n g t h a t V o l l w e i l e r had something
to do with "Enoch."
12
The h i s t o r i c a l f a c t s recounted here are taken from Senefelder's
Complete Course, Twyman's Lithography, pp. 26-40, and F e l i x H.
Man, "Lithography i n England (1801-1810)," i n Prints, ed. Carl
Zigrosser (New York: H o l t , Rinehart and Winston, 1962), pp. 97-
13
Fisher, Gentleman's Magazine, p. 195, l i s t s the a r t i s t s who
c o n t r i b u t e d to the V o l l w e i l e r i s s u e , and Blake i s not among them.
lk
In William Blake, Printmaker, pp. 161-63. While I am on the
tedious subject o f c o r r e c t i n g my own e r r o r s , l e t me p o i n t out
t h a t f i g . 4 i n Printmaker, a d e t a i l from "View o f St Peter's
Church" a f t e r Thyne 0 ' N i e l l , was not engraved by Blake's master,
James Basire (1730-1802), but by his son and successor o f the
same name (1769-1822). My e r r o r was caused by a pencil
i n s c r i p t i o n on the verso of a trimmed impression i n my c o l l e c t i o n
i n d i c a t i n g t h a t the p r i n t was produced c. 1775, and thus
necessarily by the elder Basire. However, Professor Christopher
Heppner has very k i n d l y pointed out to me t h a t the p r i n t appears
on the Oxford Almanack o f 1809. The whole design, much reduced,
i s reproduced i n Helen Mary P e t t e r , The Oxford Almanacks (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 84, where i t i s noted t h a t the p a i n t i n g
was commissioned from Hugh O ' N e i l l (who apparently also used the
name "Thyne 0 ' N i e l l " ) i n 1806. Thus the p l a t e must be by the
Printmaker was to show t y p i c a l features o f the senior B a s i r e ' s
s t y l e , p a r t i c u l a r l y twisted l i n e s on rounded forms and worm
l i n e s i n landscapes, l a t e r used by Blake. The f i r s t technique
can be found i n j u s t about any arm or leg delineated by Blake's
master; the worm l i n e s appear i n a number of his book i l l u s t r a -
tions—see f o r example James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, The
Antiquities of Athens, v o l . I (1762), p i . 1 ; Vetusta Monumenta,
v o l . I I , p i . 24 ("View o f Richmond Palace" dated 1765); Jacob
Bryant, A New System, or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology
(1774-76), v o l . I , p i s . 2 , 3, 7, v o l . I I , p i . 1 (lower l e f t in
the upper p a n e l ) ; Archaeologia, v o l . I l l (1775), p i . 17 f a c i n g
p. 315; Richard Gough,Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain
(1786), p i . 14 f a c i n g p. 42. Some o f these examples are very
close to the worm l i n e s i n plates by the younger Basire and by
Blake, although both may have been d i r e c t l y influenced by W i l l i a m
W o o l l e t t ' s p r a c t i c e s . W o o l l e n was famous f o r his use o f heavy
worm l i n e s , or " n e e d l i n g , " and was apparently much admired by
the senior Basire since he gave his son Richard the middle name
of W o o l l e t t (see Printmaker, pp. 199-200).
15
"Lithography i n England" in Prints, p. 108. Man does not
give the source of his information or the whereabouts o f copies
o f these " c i r c u l a r s . "
16
Five o f the S t r o e h l i n g lithographs on brown paper are i n the
B r i t i s h Museum. In 1803, Ackermann could only have learned o f
lithography from Andr6, who very probably also provided Ackermann
w i t h the stones and p u l l e d the impressions. For a reproduction
o f the Keynes' impression o f "Enoch" on a brown background
s l i g h t l y l i g h t e r than the tone o f the o r i g i n a l paper, see
Keynes, Engravings by Blake: The Separate Plates, P I . 26.
17
According to Twyman, p. 34. Mann, p. 112, s t a t e s t h a t
"Enoch" i s " c l e a r l y recognizable as a V o l l w e i l e r p r i n t , " but
does not say why.
18
See Senefelder, Complete Course, pp. 121-22, 169-71, 256-64.

J O H N TRIVETT NETTLESHIP A N D
HIS " B L A K E D R A W I N G S "
AAORTQN D. PALEY
W hen J. T. Nettleship died in 1902, he was a
successful artist who had specialized in
wild animal subjects. According to The
Magazine of Art, "He took as his models the animals
which have not come under human domination, the larger
beasts of prey, fierce and untameable; and he sought
habitually to realise all their strenuous energy and
ferocity."1 From 1874 until 1901 he exhibited
regularly at the Royal Academy as well as at the New
Gallery and the Grosvenor Gallery.2 He also published
two books: Essays on Robert Browning's Poetry* and
George Morland and the Evolution from Him of Some
Later Landscape Painters.1* His daughter Ida had
married Augustus John. To his contemporaries
Nettleship could appear at the same time to be "our
later Landseer" and "a lord of Bohemia."5 Yet in
the early 1870s, at the beginning of his career,
Nettleship had created works of a much different kind
than those which made his reputation. "It is to be
regretted that none of the designs conceived in this
period was ever properly finished," wrote James
Sutherland Cotton, who had known Nettleship. "They
included Biblical scenes, such as 'Jacob wrestling
with the Angel,' and 'A Sower went forth to sow,'
which have been deservedly compared with the work of
William Blake."6 Nettleship's early work was indeed
heavily influenced by Blake, and when he came to
frequent the Rossetti circle, he brought his "Blake
drawings"
tfing! (as they came to be known in the Nettleship
famiily) with him.
According to William Michael Rossetti, Nettleship
may have been introduced to the Rossettis by mutual
185
friends--John Payne or Arthur 0'Shaughnessy, both
poets. "As he had not from the first been destined
for the pictorial profession," wrote Rossetti of
Nettleship, "he was older than most beginners,
twenty-seven. He was an intellectual young man, full
of abstract conceptions: such a subject as 'God
Creating Evil' had no terrors for him--or I should
rather say, not any such terrors as dissuaded him
from designing it." 7 Nettleship studied painting
at the Slade school, but the influence of Blake may
have come to him through "The Brotherhood," a group
that included John Butler Yeats and Edwin Ellis. 8
In this circle Nettleship would also have met
0'Shaughnessy, whose Epio of Women he illustrated in
1870. At any rate, by the time Nettleship met Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, he had already acquired a Blakean
pictorial vocabulary. According to Gale Pedrick, he
produced "sketches of a Blake-like kind [which]
amazed and delighted Rossetti with their audacity of
treatment."9 Until recently it was difficult to
assess the impact upon Rossetti and, later, upon W.
B. Yeats of Nettleship's "Blake drawings," as they
were the property of the Nettleship family. Now in
the collection of the University of Reading, their
importance as early examples of the influence of
Blake's art can at last be appreciated. 10
Nettleship's early drawings are varied in style
as in subject matter. Some are obviously indebted
to Blake, while others are more conventionally
Victorian. Among the former are a series involving
naked human figures and a huge serpent, reminiscent
of Blake's Los, Enitharmon, child Ore and Ore

serpent. This family group appears in nos. 4, 6,
and 9 i n the c h e c k l i s t appended to t h i s a r t i c l e
(see Appendix I ) , while some members of the group
appear in nos. 5, 8, and 16. Although the components
of the designs are derived from Blake, Nettleship has
not imitated any single design in them. In t h i s way
he is s i m i l a r to David S c o t t , 1 1 who also used a
Blakean vocabulary to create heroic scenes with t h e i r
own d i s t i n c t i v e f e e l i n g . Some other "Blake drawings"
are closer to s p e c i f i c sources. The d i v i n g f i g u r e
of no. 11 strongly resembles that of plate 14 in The
Book of Urizen, save that the a r t i s t has changed the
p o s i t i o n of the head a f t e r f i r s t drawing i t i n an
a t t i t u d e more s i m i l a r to Urizen's. "God with eyes
turned inward upon his own g l o r y " strongly suggests
the Urizenic head of Urizer. plate 22 and elsewhere.
On the whole, however, i t is not the i m i t a t i o n of
Blake that makes these drawings i n t e r e s t i n g but
rather N e t t l e s h i p ' s a s s i m i l a t i o n of Blake's s t y l e
with his own.
At about the same time that he executed the
"Blake Drawings," Nettleship did f i v e i l l u s t r a t i o n s
for Arthur W. E. O'Shaughnessy's Epic of Women and
Other Poems, the poet's f i r s t book, published by the
e n t e r p r i s i n g John Camden Hotten 1 2 in 1870. In these
designs the influence of Blake, though apparent, is
f u r t h e r subordinated to N e t t l e s h i p ' s own manner.
The t i t l e page shows a male nude in the foreground,
r e c l i n i n g in a garden-like s e t t i n g and s t a r i n g over
the sea to the r i s i n g sun. A t i t a n i c nude male
wearing a chaplet of stars leans down pointing from
the top of the p i c t u r e ; a female f i g u r e on the l e f t
with a chain fastened to her waist raises her arms,
hands clasped, upward. None of these figures is
copied from Blake, but the e f f e c t of the whole
suggests the i l l u s t r a t i o n s to Night Thoughts. Two
female figures in other designs r e c a l l Oothoon in
 187

16 A SEGLECTED HARP.

With that long bitterness

The stricken air still aches ;
Twas like the one true word that sings
Some poet whose heart breaks.

Visions of the Daughters of Albion. One of these

appears at the end o'f "A Neglected Harp," chained
round the waist to the harp and manacled by the
r i g h t ankle. She is almost a reversed-position
version of Oothoon in Visions 4, hovering in a flame-
l i k e wave while chained by the l e f t ankle. The nude
at the end of "A Troth f o r E t e r n i t y " resembles
Oothoon in visions 3, but N e t t l e s h i p , in accord with
O'Shaughnessy's poem, has replaced Blake's eagle 1 "God with eyes turned inward upon his own g l o r y . "
with a dagger. For the poem c a l l e d " E x i l e , " Photographic reproduction, from Thomas Wright's
Nettleship repeated the male f i g u r e of the t i t l e page Life of Payne. Appendix I , no. 27. [Thomas Wright,
foreground, and f o r " B i s c l a v e t " he drew a s t r i k i n g l y The Life of John Payne. London. T. Fisher Unwin.
o r i g i n a l design showing a sea of androgynous-looking 1919. Rep. facing p. 30.]
figures with strangely accentuated l i p s . Epic of
Women, according to both Richard Garnett and Edmund
2 Pencil drawing. Appendix I , no. 9.
Gosse, 13 was well received, and these pictures could
have meant the beginning of a promising career as a
3 Pencil drawing. Appendix I , no. 16.
book i l l u s t r a t o r f o r N e t t l e s h i p . Indeed, according
to Thomas Wright, Nettleship produced a drawing f o r
4 T i t l e page f o r Epic of Women by Arthur W. E.
O'Shaugnessy's next book of verse, but his new
publisher objected on the ground of indecency, saying O'Shaugnessy. London: John Camden Hotten, 1870.
"The B r i t i s h public has to be studied." 1 1 4 In any The Huntington L i b r a r y .
event, O'Shaughnessy's Lays of France (London: E l l i s
and Green, 1872) was published without i l l u s t r a t i o n . 5 I l l u s t r a t i o n f o r "A Neglected Harp" i n Epic of
Women. The Huntington L i b r a r y .
Nettleship did i l l u s t r a t e , or p a r t l y i l l u s t r a t e 6 I l l u s t r a t i o n f o r "A Troth f o r E t e r n i t y " i n Epic
one more book i n the 1870s--Emblems by Alice of Women. The Huntington L i b r a r y .
Cholmondeley, "Revised by J . J . Nettleship" [ s i c ]
and edited by Reginald Cholmondeley (London: Smith,
188

Elder & Co., 1875). I t is hard to know what is

meant by " r e v i s e d " : some of the pictures are in the
s t y l e of the "Blake drawings" while others could
conceivably have been designed by Mrs. Cholmondeley. 15
The plates bear no signatures, though some are
marked S E & Co i n t h e i r lower r i g h t hand corners.
There are short i n s c r i p t i o n s on most of them, as
noted in Appendix I I . Some of the Emblems are
imaginatively conceived, but most of them convey an
impression of 1istlessness, almost of s t a s i s . There
are glimpses of the i n t e r e s t in animals that had
already begun to dominate N e t t l e s h i p ' s a r t , but these
subjects are treated without imaginative force.
Nevertheless, N e t t l e s h i p ' s animal pictures were
bringing him the popular recognition that had been
denied the "Blake drawings." Of these Thomas Wright
says, "With a l l his endeavours success seemed
unattainable."16

William Butler Yeats was introduced to Nettleship

by Yeats' father some time i n the period 1887-91.
Yeats had previously been so impressed by one of the
animal paintings that he had w r i t t e n a poem e n t i t l e d
"On Mr. Nettleship's Picture at the Royal Hibernian
Academy":

Yonder the s i c k l e of the moon s a i l s on,

But here the Lioness l i c k s her s o f t cub
Tender and fearless on her funeral pyre;
Above, saliva dropping from his jaws,
The Lion, the world's great s o l i t a r y , bends
Lowly the head of his magnificence
And roars, mad with the touch of the unknown,
Not as he shakes the f o r e s t ; but a cry
Low, long and musical. A dew-drop hung
Bright on a grass blade's under s i d e , might hear,
Nor tremble to i t s f a l l . The f i r e sweeps round
Re-shining in his eyes. So ever moves
The flaming c i r c l e of the outer Law,
Nor heeds the o l d , dim protest and the cry
The orb of the most inner l i v i n g heart
Gives f o r t h . He, the E t e r n a l , works His w i l l . 1 7

Yeats did not r e p r i n t t h i s poem, and i t is easy to

see why: i t is too conventionally r h e t o r i c a l , the
analogy of the l i o n ' s eye to the c i r c l e of the outer
law and to the orb of the l i v i n g heart is too
obviously c o n t r i v e d , and the l a s t l i n e seems produced
by the w i l l to end with an emphatic f l o u r i s h . Yeats
was to change his mind, too, about the q u a l i t y of
N e t t l e s h i p ' s animal paintings--by the time he met the
a r t i s t , Yeats considered him "once inventor of
imaginative designs and now a painter of melodramatic
l i o n s . " 1 8 Yeats t e l l s of how he was impressed by
the courage and asceticism of N e t t l e s h i p , by then a
reformed alcoholic who incessantly drank cocoa.

He thought [Yeats w r i t e s ] that any weakness,

7 E. J . E l l i s , pencil drawing. Study f o r a design
published in Seen in Three Days. Appendix I , no. 1.
8 Autotype related to Mrs. Cholmondeley's Emblems.
Appendix I , no. 24.
even a weakness of the body, had the character
of sin and while at breakfast with his brother,
with whom he shared a room on the t h i r d f l o o r
of a corner house, he said that his nerves were
out of order. Presently, he l e f t the table and
got out through the window and on to the stone
ledge that ran along the wall under the window-
s i l l s . He sidled along the ledge, and turning
the corner with i t , got in at a d i f f e r e n t window
and returned to the t a b l e . 'My nerves,' he
s a i d , 'are b e t t e r than I t h o u g h t . ' 1 9
 N e t t l e s h i p , responding to the young poet's
admiration, showed Yeats some of his early drawings.
Yeats responded e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y :

. . . They, though often badly drawn, f u l f i l l e d

my hopes. Something of BlaKe they c e r t a i n l y
did show, but had in place of Blake's joyous
i n t e l l e c t u a l energy a Saturnian passion and
melancholy. God Creating E v i l , the death-like
head with a woman and a t i g e r coming from the
forehead which R o s s e t t i - - o r was i t Browning?--
had described as 'the most sublime design of
ancient or modern a r t ' had been l o s t , but there
was another version of the same thought, and
other designs never published or e x h i b i t e d . They
r i s e before me even now in m e d i t a t i o n , especially
a b l i n d T i t i a n - l i k e ghost f l o a t i n g with groping
hands above the t r e e - t o p s . 2 0

These pictures stimulated Yeats to w r i t e his f i r s t

piece of a r t c r i t i c i s m . I t is not clear what became
of t h i s essay. In The Dial Yeats says i t was rejected
by an e d i t o r " l i f t i n g what I considered an obsequious
caw in the Huxley, T y n d a l l , Carol us Duran r o o k e r y . " 2 1
Yet in his l e t t e r s to Kathleen Tynan Yeats gives a
d i f f e r e n t account. On 28 February 1890 he writes of
his work at hand: "Then comes an a r t i c l e on
N e t t l e s h i p ' s designs for the Art Review--great designs
never published before--and l a t e r an a r t i c l e on Blake
and his a n t i - m a t e r i a l i s t i c A r t , f o r somewhere"; but
on 1 July 1890 he reports " I am working on Blake and
such t h i n g s . The Art Review has come to an end and
so unhappily my a r t i c l e on N e t t l e s h i p ' s designs is
u s e l e s s . " 2 2 Like the o r i g i n a l "God Creating E v i l , "
Yeats's essay on Nettleship appears to have been l o s t .

Yeats made on e f f o r t to r e - e n l i s t Nettleship in

the service of visionary a r t . He commissioned the
a r t i s t to draw the f r o n t i s p i e c e f o r the f i r s t e d i t i o n
of The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and
Lyrics, published by T. Fisher Unwin in 1892. The
r e s u l t i n g p i c t u r e of C u c h i l l i n f i g h t i n g the waves
was so lacking in conviction that Yeats was not
encouraged to make a second attempt "to restore one
old f r i e n d of my f a t h e r ' s to the practice of his
y o u t h . " 2 3 England's second Landseer returned to his
animal p a i n t i n g . " N e t t l e s h i p , " concluded Yeats,
"had found his s i m p l i f y i n g image, but in his painting
had turned away from i t . . . . "2U

A P P E N D I X I: Nettleship's "Blake Drawings"

at the University of Reading

A l l are pencil drawings unless otherwise i n d i c a t e d .

MS 7 / 2 7 / 1 . 26 x 19 cm. This drawing i s a c t u a l l y by

E. J . E l l i s , apparently a study f o r a design pub-
lished i n E l l i s ' Seen in Three Days (London: sold
by Bernard Quaritch, 1893). In the published version
the male f i g u r e has been changed to an old man with
great wings and a long white beard. Both versions
are obviously indebted to Blake's designs f o r
Young's Night Thoughts.
190

\:

XfmJnc^j

..... . , w4tm mm <* * . » « » < « . / 4—tm~~ A . - A»w # « « « • . * * • <L mm

K|i
 191

C^f

THE BRIDGE IS STEEP THE RIVER DEEP

FEW CAN THEIR FOOTING KEEP.

LIFf IN ITS ECLIPSE

IN TMI • *• '' SHADOW V

 i9a

THROUGH ANGELS AR MS, BENEATH

■ NIGHfcP w( A PI RE THEIR WINGS, YOU PASS THE G A T E S Or DEATH

MS 7/27/2r and 2v. Pencil, India ink, water color.
13 x 17 cm. Both are drawings of a large feline,
possibly a lioness.
MS 7/27/3r. Pencil, pen, and ink. 25 x 18 cm. An
Overleaf (pp. 190-91):
11 Autotype ( u n t i t l e d ) . Appendix I , no. 18.
12 "Madness" Sepia colored autotype, dated 1870.
Appendix I , no. 24.
13 Autotype for Emblems by Alice Cholmondeley.
(London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1875).
14 Autotype f o r Emblems by Alice Cholmondeley.
Above:
15 Autotype f o r Emblems by Alice Cholmondeley.
16 Autotype for Emblems by A l i c e Cholmondeley.
angel with huge wings dancing with a young woman.
MS 7/27/3v. Two faintly sketched figures, one male,
one female.
MS 7/27/4. 25 x 36 cm. A male figure is about to
kill a supine figure with a sword. At the lower
right is the head (and knees?) of a woman whose hair
rises to twine about the swordsman's wrists and
thighs.
MS 7/27/6. 36 x 26 cm. The "family group." The
man, awkwardly holding a sword in his right hand,
severs the head of a giant serpent. The woman and
the boy support the man on either side.
MS 7/27/7. 26 x 36 cm. A powerful male figure
bound down as it were by the stems of vegetation.
MS 7/27/8r. 26 x 36 cm. A man drawing a sword and
a boy with a knife on a staircase.
MS 7/27/8v. A man and a boy, sketchily drawn.
MS 7/27/9. 26 x 36 cm. The "family group." Man

struggles with gigantic serpent, woman and (faintly
sketched) boy look on. Crescent moon at right.
MS 7/27/10r. 26 x 36 cm. An old man sits hunched
in a throne-like chair. A young woman sits at his
left. Behind him is a portrait of a mother and
child.
MS 7/27/10v. A lioness and parts of another.
MS 7/27/11. Pencil and ink. 35 x 26 cm. A powerful
male nude descending. Cf. The Book of Urizen, plate
14.
MS 7/27/12. Pencil and ink with water color wash.
16 x 9 cm. An upside-down figure falls from the
starry sky.
MS 7/27/13. Sepia ink drawing. 11 x 14 cm. A
kneeling nude male clasps his head with his right
hand and a helmet on the ground with his left.
MS 7/27/14. Etching. 14 x 10 cm. A huge man
wearing a cape embraces a skeletal woman while
holding a goblet high in his right hand. A leopard
stands in the foreground.
MS 7/27/15r. Pencil and ink. A sailor is about to
throw a bound man overboard. A woman wearing a
crucifix, possibly a nun, looks on.
MS 7/27/15v. A pensive-looking girl in a long dress.
MS 7/27/16. 35 x 25 cm. Two male figures, supine
woman, serpent. It isn't clear whether the standing
male is about to stab the fallen one or to rescue
him from the serpent.
MS 7/27/17r. 20 x 26 cm. Inscribed "Polyphemus
watching Galatea." The bearded, mountain-like
Polyphemus stretches his arms imploringly.
MS 7/27/17v. Sketch of a nude woman with her left
arm about a chiId.
MS 7/27/18. Autotype. Sheet 25 x 32 cm; design
area 17 x 24 cm. A naked man is towed through the
air by a larval female. This design does not appear
in Mrs. Cholmondeley's Emblems.
MS 7/27/19. Sepia colored autotype reproduction.
23 x 28 cm. Inscribed at the top "Madness" and
signed in the lower left hand corner: "Made in the
Summer of 1870 / J. T. Nettleship." Ms. note at the
bottom reads as follows:
The prostrate figure symbolizes a man who
near the summit of his career has been struck
down by madness; hands as of Earth-spirits come
out of the ground, lift the circlet from his
head, and begin to draw him in, as worms suck
in a straw. The male figures behind him (right
of the design) symbolize his past acts; they
stab themselves. The female figures symbolize
the emotions; they wait. The figures behind
him, up to the hill top (left of the design)
symbolize his future achievements; they throw
away crown and stars which were to be his
rewards. Every face in the drawing is bowed and
193
hidden, for shame's sake, x The design
embodies the prospective fear, in any sane
mind, that madness must mean an annihilation
of all individuality, of all the results of
past effort or love, and of all future hopes
of achievement. But the earth-spirits, while
they take the man to themselves, out of sight,,
perhaps renew him, but not as the same unity.
x
The figure next in front of the prostrate man
gives back to the male figure just behind him
some pledge that had been given to the future,
some unfinished work — useless now. The
embodiment of past acts and emotions makes
them as it were friends and lovers of the man,
identified with his aims.
J. T. Nettleship
22 April 1890 x
MS 7/27/20. Autotype. Sheet 25 x 31 cm.; design
area 16 1/2 x 24 cm. A sower, following a butterfly,
scatters his seed, which is devoured by geese follow-
ing him. This is identical, save in size, with the
much smaller version in Emblems. The same is true
of nos. 21 and 22 below. All three lack inscriptions
here. In Emblems this one bears the legend "SOWING
WILD OATS."
MS 7/27/21. Autotype. Sheet 25 1/2 x 33 cm.; design
area 16 1/2 x 24 cm. A naked child addresses a
serpent with an ear trumpet. The corresponding plate
in Emblems bears the printed legend "THE DEAF ADDER--
WITH AN EAR TRUMPET."
MS 7/27/22. Autotype. Sheet size 25 1/2 x 31 1/2
cm.; design area 17 x 24 cm. A naked man with a
sickle in a rural landscape. Legend in Emblems
only: "REAPING WILD OATS."
MS 7/27/23r. Autotype. Sheet 26 x 32 cm.; design
area 16 1/2 x 24 cm. A huge human skeleton and a
naked woman in the recess of an overhanging rock.
The skeleton points left, and the woman seems about
to crawl out in that direction. Not in Emblems.
MS 7/27/23v. Pencil drawing of an almost supine nude
woman. Possibly a study for the lower figure in no.
25 below.
MS 7/27/24. Autotype. 17 x 20 cm. From Emblems,
with printed text: "FIRST PLEASURE, NEXT AMBITION'S
CROWN / LAST DEATH ITSELF IS TRAMPLED DOWN." See
illus. 7.
MS 7/27/25 (2 copies). Autotype. Sheet size 31 x
25 cm.; design area 23 1/2 x 16 1/2 cm. A male
figure descends through the sky to a bound woman.
The corresponding, smaller plate in Emblems bears
the legend: "A FALLING STAR / THE LOST PLEIAD."
MS 7/27/26. Autotype. Sheet size 25 1/2 x 32 cm.;
design area 17 x 24 cm. A naked giant extends a
sword over a gorge. A long procession of small
figures goes from the left to the center. The first
ones walk over the sword as over a bridge, while
others swim in the water and are pursued by demonic-
looking creatures. The corresponding, smaller plate
in Emblems is legended: "THE BRIDGE IS STEEP, THE
194
RIVER DEEP / FEW CAN THEIR FOOTING KEEP." 16. T H R O U G H ANGEL'S ARMS, BENEATH / THEIR WINGS.
YOU P A S S T H E G A T E S O F D E A T H . The joining of the
MS 7/27/27. Photographic reproduction of "God with angels' wings to form a Gothic arch which is a
Eyes Turned Inward Upon His Own Glory." From Thomas passageway to death makes a link to Blake probable.
Wright's Life of Payne. See illus. 1.
17. A F A R E W E L L . A lady's hand waves a handkerchief
to a departing horseman.
APPENDIX II: Emblems by Alice Cholmondeley
1
Anon., "J. T. Nettleship, Animal Painter, "The Magazine of Art,
1903, p. 75.
1. THE BRIDGE IS STEEP, THE RIVER DEEP / FEW CAN 2
See Algernon Graves, Dictionary of Artists (New York: Burt
THEIR FOOTING KEEP. See Appendix I, no. 26. Franklin, 1970 [reprint of 1901]); The Magazine of Art, 1903, p.77.
77.
2. FIRST HEAVEN, NEXT AMBITION'S CROWN / LAST DEATH 3
London: Macmillan and Co., 1868.
ITSELF is TRAMPLED DOWN. See Appendix I, no. 24. 4
London: See ley & Co., 1898.
3. THE LAMP OF TRUTH. The lamp is phallic. 5
"Sigma" [Julian Osgood Field], Personalia (Edinburgh and London:
William Blackwood & Sons, 1903), p. 215; The Art Journal, 1907,
4. A F A L L I N G STAR / THE LOST PLEIAD. See Appendix p. 251.
I, no. 25. 6
DNB, Supplement 1901-11 (1927), s . v .
5. LA C R U C H E C A S S E E . T H E P I T C H E R T H A T W E N T T O T H E 7
Some Reminiscences of William Michael Rossetti (London: Brown,
W E L L T O O O F T E N . A Rossetti-ish lady and Landseer-ish Langham, 1 9 0 6 ) , I I , 326.
lions. 8
As suggested to me by Professor Ian F l e t c h e r , who f i r s t c a l l e d
the Nettleship drawings to my a t t e n t i o n and t o whom I an g r a t e f u l
6. THE LOST WAY, ALL ASTRAY / THE SPHINX AS GUIDE. f o r h i s valuable assistance and encouragement.
A male nude lacking the energy of his Blakean
counterparts. A doggie-like, leashed sphinx, rather 9
Life with Rossetti (London: Macdonald, 1964), p. 103.
ludicrous than enigmatic. 10
I wish to thank Dr. J . A. Edwards, A r c h i v i s t o f the U n i v e r s i t y
of Reading, f o r enabling me to see t h i s m a t e r i a l .
7. SOWING WILD OATS. See Appendix I, no. 20.
11
On S c o t t , see David I r w i n , "David S c o t t : I l l u s t r a t i o n s o f
8. R E A P I N G W I L D O A T S . The grotesque figure with Mysticism and the Supernatural," Studies in Romanticism, 15
(1976), 461-68.
his sickle may owe something to Despair with his
flaying knife in Blake's The House of Death. See 12
On Hotten, see my a r t i c l e "John Camden Hotten, A. C. Swinburne,
Appendix I, no. 22. and the Blake Facsimiles o f 1868," Bulletin o f the New York Public
L i b r a r y , 79 (1976), 259-96.
9. THE DEAF ADDER—WITH AN EAR TRUMPET. See 13
See Garnett, DNB, X L I I , 309; Gosse, Silhouettes (London:
Appendix I, no. 21. William Heinemann, 1925), pp. 173-79. Epic of Women went i n t o a
second e d i t i o n i n 1871, and Hotten r e p r i n t e d laudatory excerpts
10. No text. Two billing swans and their reflec- from e i g h t p e r i o d i c a l reviews i n the end papers.
tions. 14
The Life of John Payne (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1919), p. 44.
15
11. L'ANIMA IN MASCHERA. / MISREPRESENTED. The I have been able to learn l i t t l e o f Mrs. Cholmondeley. She
was not the A l i c e Cholmondeley (whose actual C h r i s t i a n name was
d e a t h - l i k e f i g u r e w i t h the scythe i s c o n v e n t i o n a l ,
Mary) who wrote under that name more than a generation l a t e r .
but the l i g h t l y draped lady on her swan-throne seems
16
d i s t i n c t i v e of N e t t l e s h i p , as does the a r t i s t who Life of John Payne, p. 21.
paints her. 17
F i r s t published in the Dublin University Review f o r A p r i l 1886,
p. 3. MS version c i t e d here from The Variorum Edition of the Poems
12. A CRESCENT LIFE IN ITS ECLIPSE / IN THE EARTH'S of W. B. Yeats, e d . P. A l l t and R. K. Alspach (New York:
SHADOW S L I P S . Serpent and crescent moon--cf. Blake's Macmillan, 1957), pp. 688-89. Reprinted by permission.
"Narcissa" engraving f o r Young's Night Thoughts. 18
"Four Years/1887-1891," The Dial, 71 (1921), 8 1 .
13. HIGHER, NOT NIGHER, WE ASPIRE. A literalized 19
"Four Years," p. 83.
version of " I want I want" i n Blake's Gates of
20
Paradise. "Four Years," pp. 81-82.
21
"Four Years," p. 82.
14. PLUCKING DAISIES (FROM GOETHE'S "FAUST") / "ER
L I E B T M I C H — E R L I E B T M I C H N I C H T . " A nude woman holds 22
The Letters of W. B. Yeats, e d . A l l a n Wade (London: Rupert
a daisy on a country road. Hart-Davis, 1954), pp. 150, 154.
23
"Four Years," p. 80.
15. No text. A diminutive, naked child leaps from
a frying pan (held by a girl) into the fire. 2
" "Four Years," p. 83.
 195

Rgmanticistii
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Prelude, Book i
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 19*
B L A K E A N D THE
M O U N T A I N S OF THE M I N D
NELSON HILTON
W h i l e the Romantics looked to nature's
mountains i n the form of Mont Blanc, the
Jungfrau, or Skiddaw to f i n d a v i s i b l e
e x t e r n a l i z a t i o n of t h e i r psychology, 1 Blake's
mountains r e f l e c t an i n t e r i o r v i s i o n of the mountains
of mythology and those, not f a r d i s t a n t , of the
B i b l e . These b e f i t a poet who saw his visions i n
the worlds o f thought and, from a l l accounts, never
saw a genuine mountain (much less a Welsh one) in
his l i f e . Mircea Eliade summarizes the mythological
dimension:
Mountains are the nearest thing to the sky, and
are thence endowed w i t h a twofold holiness:
on the one hand they share in the s p a t i a l
symbolism of transcendence--they are ' h i g h , '
' v e r t i c a l , ' 'supreme,' and so on--and on the
o t h e r , they are the especial domain of a l l
hierophanies of atmosphere, and t h e r e f o r e , the
dwelling of the gods.^
Their symbolic and r e l i g i o u s s i g n i f i c a n c e , he
continues, "is endless." One can see the sacred
q u a l i t y stemming from the f a c t that mountains
penetrate the upper, pure regions of the atmosphere
(aether) c a r r i e d on i n seventeenth-century poetic
d i c t i o n , where standard non-negative e p i t h e t s are
"cloud-touching, s t a r - b r u s h i n g . " 3 For the ancient
Greeks the upper a i r , source of meteors and other
meteorological events, was i n t e g r a l l y r e l a t e d to
mountains and "high ground"--ta meteora; t h e i r
conjunction o f f e r s "a spot where one can pass from
one cosmic zone to another" ( E l i a d e , p. 100). Blake
w r i t e s of the "Atlantean h i l l s " that "from t h e i r
b r i g h t summits you may pass to the Golden world"
(Am 10.6, 7).h The dwelling of Zeus--Dios, God of
the Bright Sky--was Mount Olympus, but "olympus"
was to be found a l l over mountainous Greece; the
word i t s e l f i s the pre-Greek term f o r "mountain."
The Romans, though lacking mountains, nonetheless
d i g n i f i e d " t h e i r own poor l i t t l e Capitol . . . w i t h
the t i t l e of 'Mons'" 5 and the cosmological zone of
the female body receives the same d i g n i t y . 6
In Mesopotamia, "temples were c a l l e d the
'mountain house,' the 'house of the mountain of a l l
lands, 1 the 'mountain of storms,' the 'bound between
sky and e a r t h , ' and so o n . " 7 The association of
meteora, high t h i n g s , and c e n t e r i n g , is again
expressed i n the widespread b e l i e f of various
cultures that t h e i r mountain l i e s d i r e c t l y under the
pole s t a r , and so presents the Axis Mundi. In the
Old Testament one of the names of God, El-Shaddai,
can be translated as "the God of the Mountain, the
God of the 'Height' or (as the highest) an a s t r a l
g o d , " 8 and i n the h i s t o r i c a l period of I s r a e l ,
"mountain house" became a common name for "temple." 9
The closeness o f God and the mountain i s
t y p i f i e d by the theophanies at S i n a i . As houses of
God, they are also places of s a c r i f i c e , h i g h - - L a t i n
a £ t a - - a l t a r s ; i n Genesis 22:2 God t e l l s Abraham to
o f f e r his son"for a burnt o f f e r i n g upon one of the
mountains which I w i l l t e l l thee o f . " So Los takes
Ore "to the top of a mountain" [BV 20.21) to chain
him down. The New Testament made great use of the
Old Testament symbolism, and i t s repeated descrip-
t i o n of Jesus' going eis to oros> "up the mountain"
or " i n t o the mountains," assumes a formulaic
dimension. 1 0 L i t t l e wonder that Blake should
characterize the two Testaments by t h e i r respective
dominant mountains:
Such is the Divine Written Law of Horeb & S i n a i :
And such the Holy Gospel of Mount O l i v e t &
Calvary
[J 16.68-69)

One mountain, however, serves to site and anchor
both Testaments: Mount Zion, "Beautiful for
situation, the joy of the whole earth" (Ps. 48:2),
"the holy Mountain" (Zech. 8:3) of the Lord and
synonymous with its city, Jerusalem. So Paul reminds
the Hebrews, "But ye are come unto mount Si on, and
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem" (12:22). Tiny Mount Zion is to "tower
over the other mountains" (Clifford, p. 157; cf. Is.
2:4, Mic. 4:1).
As Jerusalem is to Mount Zion, so she was and
will be to Albion; which is to say that Albion is--
or rather, was and will be--a holy mountain.
Holinshed, who begins his Chronicles discussing the
legend of the ancient denomination of England, refers
to speculation "whether Britaine was called Albion
of the word Alb, white, or Alp an hill." 11 The name
in fact is connected with the root of Latin Alpis,
Gaelic alp, and Irish ailp, meaning mountain. Blake
plays on this assonance and etymological connection,
imagining that Los's "voice is heard from Albion:
the Alps & Appenines / Listen" (j 85.16-17). As only
high mountains tend to be white (with snow), the
traditional association of Albion with albus could
also be seen to suggest that Albion was once a high
mountain, now islanded by the sea. This could be
confirmed by Albion's white cliffs, a word Blake
generally uses in its less common sense of "a steep
slope, a hill." The cliffs are the sides of Albion's
great mountain as it slips down below the surface of
the sea: " . . . Albion the White Cliff of the
Atlantic / The Mountain of Giants . . . " (J 49.6-7).
Mountains are necessarily related to the image
of the ocean deluge. Thomas Burnet's mytho-poetic
Sacred Theory of the Earth (1681) argued that the
weight of the floodwaters broke the crust of the
paradisal "mundane egg" into mountains. 12 In a
somewhat similar manner, when Eternity rolls apart
in The Book of Urizen what is left is "mountainous
all around," dominated by "ruinous fragments of
life / Hanging frowning cliffs & all between / An
ocean of voidness unfathomable" (5.7, 9-11). Earlier
cosmologies also focused on the creation of "land"
out of Chaos (if not Eternity)--the deep, the Semitic
Tehom. These traditions imagined that the mountains
were placed in Tehom to serve as foundations of the
world--they were the first dry land, like Mount
Ararat after the later flood. According to some
rabbinical similes, "God's mountains reach down to
the great Tehom" and "these mountains dominate Tehom,
lest it should rise and innundate the earth." 13 As
foundations, the mountains are seen as the "pillars
of heaven" (Job 26:11, cf. 9:6). So in Albion/
Jerusalem,
Pancrass & Kentish-town repose
Among her golden pillars high:
Among her golden arches which
Shine upon the starry sky.
(J 27.9-12)
The cosmological scope of this reference is clear
remembering that the "piHard hall & arched roof of
Albions skies" receive "the eternal wandering stars"
(FZ, II, 25.16, 32.9; E 310, 315). 14 Since the flood
represented the victory of Chaos, of Leviathan, some
rabbinical commentators held that the land of Israel
197
was not submerged by the Deluge, a belief which is
paralleled in Islam. A. J. Wensinck comments:
Why the Sanctuary is not attained by the
waters of the Deluge is clear: Deluge is the
reign of Tehom, of old a demonic power, familiar
from the creation stories. The Sanctuary is the
type and representation of Kosmos and of
Paradise and as such a power diametrically
opposed to Chaos; when the Semites maintain that
the Sanctuary was not reached by the Deluge,
this is not only due to the opinion that the
Sanctuary is the highest place in the world,
but also to the conviction that Chaos cannot
gain a complete victory over Kosmos, for behind
the latter is the creative power of the supreme
being.
(pp. 15-16)
This conception o f f e r s several analogies to
Blake's images, from that of the one sense through
which man may "himself pass out" {Ever i i i . 5 ) which
remained a f t e r the other senses "whelm'd i n deluge"
{Eur 10.10-11) over him, to the p i c t u r e of Albion as
the mountain remaining when "the A t l a n t i c Continent
sunk round Albions C l i f f y shore / And the Sea pourd
i n amain" {J 32[36].40-41). The "sea of Time & Space"
i s the p r i n c i p a l deluge. This may account f o r the
frequent graphic depiction of an action taking place
on a l o c a t i o n surrounded by water; i t i s an image of
England, but i t s i g n i f i e s also imaginative v i s i o n ,
not y e t drowned i n Time and Space (or Realism or
Naturalism). So when Reuben sleeps " l i k e one dead
i n the v a l l e y " - - t h e v a l e , or l o w - l y i n g , submersible
land--the notable thing i s that he i s thus "Cut o f f
from Albions mountains & from a l l the Earths summits"
(J 30[34].43,44). "Wild seas & Rocks" are to "close
up Jerusalem away from / The A t l a n t i c Moutains" {j
49.77-50.1). America t e l l s that
On those vast shady h i l l s between America &
Albions shore;
Now b a r r ' d out by the A t l a n t i c sea: c a l l ' d
Atlantean h i l l s
Because from t h e i r b r i g h t summits you may pass
to the Golden world
An ancient palace, archetype of mighty Emperies,
Rears i t s immortal pinnacles. . . .
(10.5-9)
One c r i t i c has c a l l e d t h i s passage " i c o n i c " and
remarked i t s " t a n t a l i z i n g q u a l i t y of meanings nearly
communicated yet w i t h h e l d . " 1 5 Without entering the
context of America or the " s u i t a b i l i t y of invoking
the myth of a l o s t , paradisal A t l a n t i s as a symbol
of transcendent u n i t y , " 1 6 I would simply emphasize
that the mythic s t r u c t u r e of the mountain sanctuary,
temple, palace i s i t s e l f a "meaning communicated."
The reader is t o l d something about the s i t u a t i o n ,
appearance, and function of the summit-structure
and i t takes i t s place among Blake's visionary
l o c a l e s - - t h e d e s c r i p t i o n engages our a t t e n t i o n by
c a l l i n g up l a t e n t (and several times removed)
mythological associations. The A t l a n t i c , one should
remember, is named not f o r A t l a n t i s , but f o r the
Titan A t l a s , seen i n c l a s s i c a l times as Mount A t l a s ,
the p i l l a r of heaven. A t l a s , Blake b e l i e v e d , was
the Greek name f o r A l b i o n , "Patriarch of the
A t l a n t i c " {DC, E 534; i t a l i c s added). Blake viewed
198
his Hesperian s i t u a t i o n q u i t e personally, as evident
i n the dedicatory poem to The Grave, which says that
his "designs unchangd remain":
For above Times troubled Fountains
On the Great A t l a n t i c Mountains
In my Golden House on high
There they Shine Eternally
("The Caverns of the Grave," 17-20)
These mountains r i s e out of the sea of time becoming
the " i n f i n i t e " and " e t e r n a l " mountains, the s i t e of
paradise: "the Garden of Eden . . . the golden
mountains" (J 2 8 . 2 ) , "the mountain palaces of Eden"
(j 4 1 [ 4 6 ] . 3 - 4 ) .
The s e t t i n g of Abraham's s a c r i f i c e and Jesus'
c r u c i f i x i o n leads to the very d i f f e r e n t image of
Albion " s l a i n upon his Mountains / And i n his Tent,"
1 Lucas van Leyden, "Calvary" (1517; 11 1/8 X
16 1/4 i n . ) Courtesy of the B r i t i s h Museum.
2 Hogarth, Industry and Idleness, p i . X I , "The Idle
'Prentice Executed at Tyburn" (1747; 10 1/2 X 13 1/4
i n . ) . Courtesy of the B r i t i s h Museum.
a formula which occurs three times [M 3.1-2; 19.20;
J 59.16). The Tent is the Sky [M 2 9 . 4 ) , and the
p l u r a l mountains reach back to the common mytho-
l o g i c a l idea of a central t e n t - p o l e , a x l e - t r e e
mountain, and four smaller poles making a square
around i t (the s o r t depicted, in c r o s s - s e c t i o n ,
dropping around plates 1 and 21 of Job). The image
also evokes "mountainous Wales," where Albion's
ancient inhabitants f l e d o r i g i n a l l y to escape the
Saxons, there f i n a l l y to be conquered by Norman
Edward I , who, as r e t o l d by Gray, put to death " a l l
the Bards that f e l l i n t o his hands"--the poetic beinq
of A l b i o n . 1 7
But from a l l i n d i c a t i o n s , something happened
e a r l i e r , something which "separated the stars from
the mountains: the mountains from Man" {j 17.31).
Somewhere i n the Druid past, Albion changed "From
w i l l i n g s a c r i f i c e of s e l f , to s a c r i f i c e of ( m i s c a l l ' d ]
Enemies / For Atonement," an a c t i o n , l i k e Abraham's,
located on the mountains. Albion concludes his
opening speech i n Jerusalem saying:
By demonstration man alone can l i v e , and not
by f a i t h .
My mountains are my own, and I w i l l keep them
to myself:
The Malvern and the Cheviot, the Wolds Plinlimmon
& Snowdon

Are mine, here will I build my Laws of Moral
Virtue!
Humanity shall be no more: but war & princedom
& victory!
(J 4.28-32, my italics)
In less than ten lines, "Albions mountains run with
blood, the cries of war & of tumult" {J 5.6). These
sacrifices in turn react on their sites as
. . all the mountains and hills shrink up
like a withering gourd
As the Senses of Men shrink together under the
Knife of flint
In the hands of Albions Daughters, among the
Druid Temples
U 66.82-84) 1 8
Other of A l b i o n ' s f a l l e n mountains are l i s t e d i n
another catalogue: ". . . the Peak, Malvern &
Cheviot Reason i n Cruelty / Penmaenmawr & Dhinas-bran
Demonstrate i n Unbelief" {J 21.34-35). The single
appearance of "Dhinas-bran" may r e f e r to "Dfn Breon,
the Hill of Legislature," which "was the sacred mount,
where . . . the ancient judges of the l a n d , assembled,
to decide causes." 1 9
Blake was evidently impressed by the description
i n Ezekiel of the s a c r i f i c i a l feast the Lord i s to
The IDLE 1'KKNTICK Executed* Tyburn.
199
make of his enemies; a l l the beasts are i n v i t e d to
the "great s a c r i f i c e upon the mountains of I s r a e l ,
that ye may eat flesh and drink b l o o d ; " there "ye
shall eat f a t t i l l ye be f u l l , and drink blood t i l l
ye be drunken" (29:17, 19). In "the Song" sung a t
"The Feast of Los and Enitharmon" Blake transfers
the action to the mountains themselves--which begin
to emerge as s o l i d i f i e d giant forms w i t h B i b l i c a l
histories:
[The Mountain del.~\ Ephraim c a l l d out to [The
Mountain del.~\ Zion: Awake 0 Brother Mountain
Let us refuse the Plow & Spade, the heavy Roller
& spiked
Harrow, burn a l l these Corn f i e l d s , throw down
a l l these fences
Fattend on Human blood and drunk w i t h wine of
l i f e is better far
(FZ, I , 14.7-10, E 304, 746)
C l i f f o r d notes the suggestion that "the feast on the
mountain o f the bodies of the enemy is a transforma-
t i o n of the exchatological p i c t u r e of the 'joyous
f e a s t ' " as i n Isaiah 25:6-8. "Possibly," he
concludes, "the banquet f o r the v i c t o r i o u s on the
mountain and the s l a u g h t e r - s a c r i f i c e of the enemies
are one and the same" (pp. 176-77). This d u a l i t y
seems applicable to the Wedding Feast of Los and
Enitharmon, since they begin, with Urizen, "Rejoicing
200
i n the V i c t o r y " (12.35, E 303, c f . J 4.32 above).
Blake's i n t e r t w i n i n g vision of the Fall on the
mountains of Israel and England follows from his
conception of Druid practices and from hints in the
Old Testament—unified i n an image of "moral"
s a c r i f i c e on mountains ( c l a s s i c a l mountains, ora,
become moral emblems). His f i r s t use of the
negative power of Old Testament mountains is the
f i g u r e and s e t t i n g of "har," the Hebrew f o r
"mountain," i n p a r t i c u l a r , "the mountain" {ha-har)
where Moses received the Law ( c f . C l i f f o r d , p.
1 0 7 f f . ) ; as Blake would have read i n Bryant: "Har
and Hor s i g n i f y a mountain;'opos [oros] of the
Greeks." 2 0 So T i r i e l f i r s t enters "the pleasant
gardens of Har" {Tir 2.10)--reminiscent o f "Eden
the garden of God" located on "the holy mountain of
God" (Ez. 28:13-14)--and on his r e t u r n , "the
mountains of Har" ( 7 . 1 9 ) . 2 1 The French Revolution
imagines "the old mountains . . . l i k e aged men,
fading away" (9) which aptly s u i t s "aged Har" {Tir
8.6).
The Book of Joshua o f f e r s the D r u i d - l i k e image
of the I s r a e l i t e s s e t t i n g up "a great stone . . .
under an oak . . . by the sanctuary of the LORD"
(25.26) at Shechem, which l i e s between Mount Gerizim,
appointed by the Lord f o r a b l e s s i n g , and Mount Ebal,
appointed f o r a curse. Here, in the natural amphi-
theater of the two mountainsides, Joshua divided the
t r i b e s of Israel according to the words of Moses,
and while one hears l i t t l e of b l e s s i n g , twelve
shouted verses beginning "Cursed be . . . " (Jos.
27:1 I f f . ) f u r t h e r i l l u s t r a t e the nature of "barren
mountains of Moral V i r t u e " {J 45[31].19-20; c f . 4 . 3 1 ,
above). Jerusalem laments: "The mountain of
blessing i s i t s e l f a curse & an astonishment: / The
h i l l s of Judea are f a l l e n w i t h me i n t o the deepest
h e l l " {J 79.7-8). A passage repeated i n The Four
Zoas and Jerusalem shows Tirzah binding down the
Human Form c r y i n g :
Bind him down Sisters bind him down on Ebal.
Mount of cursing:
Mai ah come f o r t h from Lebanon: & Hoglah from
Mount Sinai
Weep not so Sisters! weep not so! our life
depends on this
Or mercy & truth are fled away from Shechem &
Mount Gilead
Unless my beloved is bound upon the Stems of
Vegetation
{j 68.3-4, 7-9; FZt VIII, 105.47-48, 51-53,
E 364)
The "Stems of Vegetation," a r e v i s i o n of The Four
Zoas' i n t r o d u c t i o n to t h i s passage reveals, are the
"stones" of the mountain a l t a r : "binding on the
Stones [stems del.'] / Their victims & w i t h knives
tormenting them" (105.28-29 and E 759). "Druid"
monuments tend to be associated with Salisbury P l a i n ,
but describing his p i c t u r e "The Ancient B r i t o n s , "
Blake wrote, "Distant among the mountains, are Druid
Temples, s i m i l a r to Stone Henge" {DC, E 536). Blake
was f o l l o w i n g good a u t h o r i t y . Borlase's Antiquities
. . . of Cornwall, f o r example, observed of the
Druids t h a t , " I t was a general custom to chuse f o r
t h e i r places of worship woods which stood on the
tops of h i l l s , and mountains, as more becoming the
d i g n i t y and sublime o f f i c e s of t h e i r devotions, and
of nearer neighbourhood (as they imagined) to the
habitations of t h e i r Gods." 22 Borlase remarks the
Old Testament p a r a l l e l s and describes " K a r n b r § - h i l l ,
which has a l l the evidences that can be desired of
having been appropriated to the use of the B r i t i s h
R e l i g i o n ; " these are "rock-basons, c i r c l e s , stones
e r e c t , remains of Croml£h's, Karns, a grove of Oaks,
a cave, and an enclosure" (pp. 116, 120). Thomas
Pennant, i n his Journey to Snowden (London, 1781),
writes that his f e l l o w - t r a v e l l e r climbed a local
h i l l "on whose summit was a c i r c u l a r coronet of
rude peppley stones . . . w i t h an entrance to the
east, or r i s i n g sun" (p. 6 3 ) . 2 3
Jerusalem shows "the Divine Vision l i k e a
S i l e n t Sun"
. . . s e t t i n g behind the Gardens of Kensington
On Tyburns River, i n clouds of blood, where
was mild Zion H i l l s
Most ancient promontory, and i n the Sun, a
Human Form appeared
(43[29].2-4)
"Zion H i l l s most ancient promontory" i s a formula
which appears twice elsewhere i n Jerusalem. Plate
12 asks a f t e r the burying-place of Etinthus and
suggests in f u r t h e r questions,
. . . near Tyburns f a t a l Tree? i s that
Mild Zion h i l l s most ancient promontory; near
mournful
Ever weeping Paddington? i s t h a t Calvary and
Golgotha?
(12.26-28) 2t+
This is glossed by 27.25ff where "ever-weeping
Paddington" is i d e n t i f i e d as "that mighty Ruin /
Where Satan the first v i c t o r y won" (my i t a l i c s ) ,
where also "the Druids" made "Offerings of Human
L i f e . " The general reference i s to Tyburn, London's
place of public hangings from as early as 1196 u n t i l
1783. By the time they were discontinued, Blake was
twenty-six and undoubtedly a l l too aware of the
eager crowds that appeared f o r each of the eight
public hanging-days--indeed, t r a d i t i o n made these
public holidays f o r a l l journeymen. 2 5 A
"Paddington Fair" was a public execution, so called
because Tyburn was less than a mile from the v i l l a g e
of Paddington, 2 6 in whose parish i t was eventually
included. There is a visionary c o n t i n u i t y j o i n i n g
the Druid monuments, Calvary, and Tyburn: Druid human
s a c r i f i c e s "generally consisted of such criminals as
were convicted of t h e f t , or any c a p i t a l crime"
(Borlase, p. 121) and Calvary--as the c r u c i f i x i o n of
two thieves with Jesus suggests—was, l i k e Tyburn,
a s i t e f o r the execution of common c r i m i n a l s .
I am suggesting that the passage from p l a t e
12 of Jerusalem quoted above answers i t s e l f : Mild
Zion h i l l s most ancient promontory is Tyburn's
f a t a l Tree ( " t h a t " of 1.26). Not because i t had
p a r t i c u l a r elevation ( i t is a mountain of the mind,
a mounting of the s c a f f o l d ) , but because i t possessed
a l l the a t t r i b u t e s of Calvary, s u c c i n c t l y r e -
summarized by Richard Cumberland in his long poem,
Calvary; or the Death of Christ (London, 1792):
"Without the c i t y wall there was a mount / C a l l ' d

CALVARY: The common grave i t was / Of malefactors"
( V I . 440-42). According to one a u t h o r i t y the Tyburn
gallows was i n f a c t s i t u a t e d "on a small eminence at
the corner of Edgeware-Road," 27 which road, toqether
with Park Lane was as l a t e as 1806 the western l i m i t
of London's urbanization and the l o c a t i o n of one of
i t s "gates," the Tyburn Turnpike. 2 8 Lucas van
Leyden's engraving of Calvary shows j u s t how small
an eminence can make a mount, or promontory ( i l l u s .
1 ) , and Sterne probably r e f l e c t s the general concep-
t i o n when he has Tristram remark that an a l t a r over
s i x t y feet high would have "been as high as mount
Calvary i t s e l f " (Tristram Shandy, V I I , 5 ) . Blake
described his residence at South Molton S t r e e t -
j u s t blocks down Oxford Street from the old
gallows--as located on "Calvarys f o o t / Where the
Victims were preparing f o r S a c r i f i c e " (M 4.21-22).
S i g n i f i c a n t also was the very instrument of
execution. Tyburn Tree was not a gibbet; r a t h e r ,
"The s c a f f o l d consisted of three posts, ten or
twelve feet h i g h , held apart by three connecting
cross-bars at the t o p . " 2 ^ I t was, i n e f f e c t , a
ruined version of a Druidic temple made of
t r i l i t h o n s - - o n e of the f a r - f e t c h e d hypotheses about
3 Milton, copy C, p i . 3. Courtesy of the Rare Book
D i v i s i o n , The New York Public L i b r a r y , Astor, Lenox
and T i l den Foundations.
201
Stonehenge was that i t had served as a monumental
gallows. In Jerusalem, plate 80, Vala attempts to
"weave Jerusalem a body" or "A Dragon form on Zion
H i l l s most ancient promontory": the "form" i s that
of the Druidic "Dragon Temples" (J 25.4, 47.6).
These motifs are i l l u s t r a t e d at the bottom of
Milton, plate 4 ( i l l u s . 3 ) ; there a rock-skull
emerges from the ground, overshadowed by three
t r i l i t h o n s on a mount, reminiscent of the three
crosses on Calvary (note Blake's reference to
Calvary on the same p l a t e , quoted above), while on
the r i g h t the three seem to have joined i n t o a
t h r e e f o l d t r i l i t h o n which suggests a Druid form of
the Tyburn g a l l o w s . 3 0 One might note also how
d i r e c t l y above t h i s s t r u c t u r e a spindle or body
hangs on high from the end of the l i n e held by one
of Blake's spinner-Goddesses. The r o c k - s k u l l
i d e n t i f i e s t h i s scene as Calvary or Golgotha,
"which i s , being i n t e r p r e t e d , the place of a s k u l l "
(Mk. 15:22, i n t e r a l . ) . This theme is f u r t h e r
developed i n Jerusalem, plate 28, where Albion "sat
by Tyburns brook, and underneath his heel shot up! /
A deadly Tree, he nam'd i t Moral V i r t u e " (14-15) —
the "Tree" here j o i n s the cross, Tyburn Tree ( c f .
OED, s.v. " t r e e , " B.4a,b), and the Tree o f Good and
E v i l , complete with a Serpentine form at i t s base. 3 1
Tyburn, then, i s Zion H i l l s promontory, "most
ancient" because a l l things begin i n Albion and t h i s
i s ' " t h e most ancient promontory' of s a c r i f i c e "
(Erdman, Prophet, p. 475), "the summit of the cosmic
mountain and at the same time the place where Adam
had been created and buried. Thus the blood of the
Saviour f a l l s upon Adam's s k u l l , buried precisely at
the foot of the Cross, and redeems him" 3 2 ( i l l u s . 4 ) .
The use of the word "promontory," as Tolley notes,
is s i n g u l a r — i t serves perhaps to bring i n several
associations. The promontory i s a visionary scene
( l i k e the A t l a n t i c mountains of America), a "head-
land" o f f e r i n g a v i s t a on the Sea of Time and Space
( c f . 3 Henry VI, I I I . 1 1 . 1 3 4 - 3 6 ) ; i t is the s t e r i l e
earth to which Hamlet equates i t (11.11.311); and
f i n a l l y , i t i s the covering of the f a l l e n mind: i n
Paradise Lost the angelic host defeats the rebels
and "on t h i r heads / Main Promontories f l u n g " (6.653-
54; c f . J. 71.55 c i t e d below). Ultimately the most
ancient promontory i s the reader's s k u l l (Golgotha/
Golgonooza), "Once open to the heavens and elevated
on the human neck" {Eur 10.28), but now imagining
and enclosing a l l these mountains of and i n the
mind.
Los, who i s himself an ancient B r i t o n , reaches
back to the unfallen state of the mountain imagery,
praying "0 Divine Saviour a r i s e / Upon the Mountains
of Albion as i n ancient time (J 44[30].21-22). This
image, together with the evocation of "those f e e t
i n ancient time / . . . upon Englands mountains
green" [M 1 ) , r e c a l l s the twice-repeated B i b l i c a l
p r a i s e , "How b e a u t i f u l upon the mountains are the
feet of him t h a t bringeth good t i d i n g s , t h a t
publisheth peace" ( I s . 52:7, Nah. 1:15). Considering
the plate geology of r e l i e f e t c h i n g , one could say
t h a t Blake's message also i s published on the
mountains. The f i n a l e of Jerusalem presents a
v i s i o n of "the Sun in heavy clouds / Stuggling to
r i s e above the Mountains" (95.11-12): a s t r u g g l e ,
perhaps, because mountains are the " r i s i n g s " of the
e a r t h , the objects of increasing Romantic adoration.
202

That Sun w i l l r i s e over d i f f e r e n t mountains, the
natural ones being removed and cast i n t o the sea
by f a i t h and " f i r m perswasion" i n imagination [MHH
12; c f . Mt. 21:21). Once
Jerusalem coverd the A t l a n t i c Mountains & the
Erythrean,
From b r i g h t Japan & China to Hesperia France
& England.
Mount Zion l i f t e d his head i n every Nation
under heaven:
And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the
whole Earth
(«7 24.46-49)
and though at present "Jerusalem l i e s i n r u i n s : /
Above the Mountains of A l b i o n , above the head of
Los" (J 71.54-55), i n the words of I s a i a h , " i t
shall come to pass i n the l a s t days, that the
mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established
i n the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted
above the h i l l s ; and a l l nations shall flow unto
i t " (2:2).
1
On the development of t h i s t r e n d , see Marjorie Hope Nicolson,
Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory: The Development of the
Aesthetics of the Infinite, The Norton L i b r a r y (1959, r p t . ; New
York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1963). We may note here t h a t
"mountains" do, i n f a c t , appear more f r e q u e n t l y i n Blake's
imagery (161 times i n the poetry) than i n Wordsworth's or
S h e l l e y ' s . This i s , to be s u r e , hardly true of mount/mountain
imagery at l a r g e ; one f i n d s at once t h a t Blake uses no a d j e c t i v a l
combinations such as "mountain gloom" or " g l o r y . " But the
"mountains" themselves are more numerous, and more strange.
2
Mircea E l i a d e , Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans.
Rosemary Sneed, Meridian Books (New York: World P u b l i s h i n g ,
1963), p. 199.
3
Joshua Poole, English Parnassus; or, A Help to English Poesie,
c i t e d i n Nicolson, p. 35. Such e p i t h e t s show how mountains
become q u i n t e s s e n t i a l l y "sublime" or sublimen, j u s t "below the
t h r e s h o l d " (of heaven).
u
References to Blake are from E: The Poetry and Prose of William
Blake, ed. David V. Erdman, 3rd ed. w/rev. (Garden C i t y , N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1968). Cf. FZ, I I , 3 2 . 8 f f . , E 315: "a Golden World
whose porches round the heavens / And pi H a r d h a l l & rooms
receivd the e t e r n a l wandering s t a r s . "
5
W i l f r i d Noyce, Scholar Mountaineers, Pioneers of Parnassus
(London: Dennis Dobson, 1950), p. 1 1 .
6
Cf. Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, V . i . 7 5 - 7 7 ; Ahania urges
Urizen i n a Blakean double-entendre "To a r i s e to the mountain
s p o r t , / To the b l i s s of eternal v a l l e y s " {BA 5 . 7 - 8 ) . Mountains
also represent the woman's bosom; see i n p a r t i c u l a r Blake's
i l l u s t r a t i o n no. 4 t o M i l t o n ' s L'Allegro, "The Sunshine H o l i d a y . "
7
E l i a d e , Patterns, p. 376; c f . Thomas Fawcett, The Symbolic
Language of Religion: An Introductory Study (London: SCM Press,
1970), p. 153. According to Richard J . C l i f f o r d , The Cosmic
Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, Harvard Semitic Mono-
graphs, v o l . IV (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1972),
" . . . many modern scholars seem d i s i n c l i n e d to use the concept
of the Weltberg t o describe Mesopotamian speculation about the
cosmic center. Nonetheless, there is a cosmic c e n t e r , where
heaven and earth are u n i t e d . The cosmic center appears i n some
t e x t s to be commerorated by a shrine or temple" ( p . 25).
8
Ad de V r i e s , A Dictionary of Imagery and Symbolism (Amsterdam:
North-Holland P u b l i s h i n g , 1974), S. v.* "mountain."
4 Albrecht Du'rer, "Crucifixion," from the Small
Passion (1509-11; 127 X 97 mm.). Courtesy of the
British Museum.
203
9
W. Foerster i n Gerhard K i t t e l , e d . , Theological Dictionary of
the New Testament, t r a n s . Geoffrey W. Bromiley, v o l . V, (Grand
Rapids, M i c h . : Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1968), s . v . "to oros."
10
Cf. Mt. 5 : 1 , 14:23, 15:29; Mk. 3:13, 6:46; Lk. 6:12, 9:28;
Jn. 6 : 3 , 6:15. Thomas Fawcett n i c e l y summarizes t h i s important
theme:
In a d d i t i o n to being a n t i t y p i c a l , many events i n
C h r i s t ' s l i f e are associated w i t h the cosmic mountain. The
one i n f a c t i n e v i t a b l y brought i n the other by a s s o c i a t i o n .
When Jesus i s made i n Matthew's gospel to give his new law
from the mount, there i s both a f u l f i l m e n t of the Sinai
r e v e l a t i o n i n view, and underlying t h i s , the symbolism of
the mountain as the place of God's d i s c l o s u r e to men. The
m o t i f appears on several occasions. The n a r r a t i v e opens
w i t h a s t o r y of temptation i n which C h r i s t formulates his
message i n c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h the Devil and i n r e l i a n c e on
the word of God, a p p r o p r i a t e l y located on a mountain. The
moment o f d i s c l o s u r e to the d i s c i p l e s o f Jesus' nature and
mission takes place on the mount of T r a n s f i g u r a t i o n . At
the summit of the mountain they see him converse w i t h the
saints o f the past. His c r u c i f i x i o n was l a t e r held to have
taken place upon a h i l l , and Calvary became the focal
mountain f o r much C h r i s t i a n theology, because a t t h i s moment
above a l l i t came t o be held t h a t God had revealed himself
to man. F i n a l l y the ascension i s said to have taken place
on the mount of Olives i n such a way t h a t the symbolism of
the summit as the p o i n t of meeting between man and God i s
c l e a r l y shown. His ascension from t h i s p o i n t implies a
summit i n which the two worlds of mythology are j o i n e d .
{Symbolic Language, p. 227)
11
Holin8hed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland in
6 vol. (London: J. Johnson et a l . , 1807-1808), I, 6.
12
Cf. Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth, i n t r o .
Basil W i l l e y , Centaur Classics (Carbondale, 1 1 1 . : Southern
I l l i n o i s Univ. Press, 1965), Bk. K, ch. 5, p. 63.
13
A. J . Wensinck, The Ideas of the Western Semites Concerning
The Navel of the Earth; Verhandelingen der K o n i n k l i j k e Akademie
van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Adeeling Le Herkunde, Nieuue
Reeks, Deel X V I I , no. 1 (Amsterdam: Johannes M i i l l e r , 1916), p. 2.
lk
Cf. K i t t l e , e d . , Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,
s . v . stulos, "pillar": "The word stulos has cosmological
s i g n i f i c a n c e i n some hymnal passages i n the OT. . . . The primary
thought here i s t h a t the earth i s a house which God has b u i l t "
( v o l . V I I , p. 733). The mountains are the p i l l a r s of t h a t house.
Compare Christopher Smart's use of the image: "For he [God] hath
f i x e d the earth upon arches & p i l l a r s , and the flames of h e l l
flow under i t . " {Jubilate Agno, ed. W. H. Bond [Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Univ. Press, 1954], p. 6 7 ) .
15
Vincent A. De Luca, " A r i s t o n ' s Immortal Palace: Icon and
Allegory i n Blake's Prophecies," Criticism, 12 (Winter 1970),
5-6. For a recent and suggestive r e a d i n g , c r i t i c a l of the
i m p l i c a t i o n s of the " a r c h e t y p e , " see Deborah Dorfman, " ' K i n g of
Beauty' and 'Golden World' i n Blake's America: The Reader and
the Archetype," ELH, 46 (Spring 1979), 122-35.
16
De Luca, p. 6 ; note t h a t nowhere i n his work does Blake ever
s p e c i f i c a l l y mention A t l a n t i s .
17
According to M a l l e t , however, "the ancient i n h a b i t a n t s of
B r i t a i n have been dispossessed by the Saxons of the greatest and
most pleasant p a r t of t h e i r i s l a n d , and constrained to conceal
themselves among the mountains i n Wales, where, to t h i s day, they
r e t a i n t h e i r language, and preserve some traces of t h e i r ancient
manners;" Northern Antiquities, trans. (London, 1770), I , 70.
18
The mountains s h r i n k i n g " l i k e a w i t h e r i n g gourd" suggests
God's a c t i o n on the gourd tree s h e l t e r i n g Jonah; He "prepared a
worm . . . and i t smote the gourd t h a t i t w i t h e r e d " (Jonah 4 : 7 ) .
One may t h i n k also of the comparison of the earth to an apple,
w i t h e r i n g i n t o mountainous r i d g e s .
19
Davies, Myth and Rites of the British Druids (London, 1809),
p. 6. Damon suggests the obscure "Dinas Bran," a h i l l i n north
Wales topped by the r u i n s of an ancient camp. Unconvinced
h i m s e l f , he adds, "Blake might r e a l l y have had i n mind Dinas
Penmaen, and ancient B r i t i s h f o r t which could hold twenty
thousand men. I t was on the summit of Mount Penmaenmawr" {A
Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, r p t .
[New York: Dutton, 1971], p. 103; c f . J 18.38 where Hand and
 204
Hyle are " B u i l d i n g Castles in desolated places, and strong Answered," Blake Newsletter, 4 (August 1970), 3-6; and David V.
F o r t i f i c a t i o n s " ) . One argument against "Dhinas-Bran" as a Erdman, Prophet Against Empire, rev. e d . , Anchor Books (Garden
"camp" i s t h a t a l l the others are s p e c i f i c mountains or mountain C i t y , N. Y.: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 4 7 4 f f .
ranges; but t h i s remains u n s a t i s f y i n g at best.
25
20 Georqe Rude", Hanoverian London, 1714-1808, The H i s t o r y of
Jacob Bryant, A New System or, An Analysis of Ancient London (Berkeley and Los Angeles: U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a
Mythology, e t c . , v o l . I (London, 1774), p. 94. The Greek root Press, 1971), p. 94.
appears i n the word " o r o l o g y , " which the OED c i t e s from 1781 as
"the science o f mountains." 26
1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. A Dictionary of Buckish
21
Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence, fore. Robert
Harold Bloom remarks, "As Har means 'mountain' i n Hebrew, the Cromie, rpt. from 1811 original (Chicago: Follett Publishinq,
very phrase 'vales o f Har' i s an i r o n y " [ ? ] (E 8 6 3 ) ; Damon n.d. [71971]), s.v.
i n t e r p r e t s the name and s i t u a t i o n of Har as, "He who was a
27
mountain now l i v e s i n a v a l e , cut o f f from mankind" [Blake John Timbs, Curiosities of London, A New E d i t i o n (London,
Dictionary, p. 174). 1867), p. 809.
22 28
W i l l i a m Borlase, Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of See, f o r example, the map accompanying B. Lambert, The History
the County of Cornwall. Consisting of Several Essays on the and Survey of London and Its Environs (London, 1806), v o l . IV.
First Inhabitants, Druid-Superstition, Customs, and Remains of
29
the most Remote Antiquity e t c . , 2nd ed. (London, 1769), p. 116. Peter Linebaugh, "The Tyburn Riot Against the Surgeons," i n
The p r a c t i c e was not confined to England; John Toland believed Albion'8 Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century
t h a t "Abundance of such heaps remain s t i l l on the mountains i n England, Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, John G. Rule, E. P.
France, and on the A l p s ; " A Critical History of the Celtic Thompson, Cal Winslow (New York: Pantheon Books/Random House,
Religion e t c . (London, n . d . [ 1 7 4 0 ? ] ) , p. 102. The c r o s s - c u l t u r a l 1975), pp. 65-117, p. 66. The s t r u c t u r e i s v i s i b l e , f o r example,
associations can extend even f u r t h e r . In his Ode to Superstition i n Hogarth's p r i n t , The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn,
(1786), Samuel Rogers w r i t e s : Industry and Idleness, XI ( i l l u s . 2)—complete w i t h a C a l v a r y - l i k e
crowd of s p e c t a t o r s . Timbs reports t h a t "The gallows subsequently
On yon hoar summit, m i l d l y b r i g h t consisted of two uprights and a cross-beam" (p. 809)--an equally
With purple e t h e r ' s l i q u i d l i g h t D r u i d i c , i f less impressive, s t r u c t u r e .
High o ' e r the w o r l d , the w h i t e - r o b ' d Magi gaze
30
On dazzling bursts o f heav'nly f i r e . . . . Cf. Erdman, The Illuminated Blake, Anchor Books (Garden C i t y ,
(II.3) N. Y.: Doubleday, 1974), p. 220.
A note adds: '"The P e r s i a n s , ' says Herodotus, ' r e j e c t the use
31
o f temples, a l t a r s , and s t a t u e s . The tops of the highest Erdman a s t u t e l y observes t h a t "To correspond to the serpent
mountains are the places chosen f o r s a c r i f i c e s ' " [The Pleasures i n the Garden of Eden the typography of Hyde Park supplies the
of Memory with other Poems, new & enlarged ed. [London, 1799], p. Serpentine River, which Blake i n his deviousness never r e f e r s to
by i t s own name . . . " [Blake: Prophet Against Empire, r e v . ed.
[ P r i n c e t o n : Princeton Univ. Press, 1 9 6 9 ] / p . 465); one antiquary
23
The imaginative power which i n c r e a s i n g l y associated mountain- notes that the f a t a l tree was "opposite the head o f the Serpentine
tops and Druids i s exemplified by a mid-nineteenth-century . . . i t s e l f being formed i n the bed of the ancient stream, f i r s t
c l i m b e r ' s d e s c r i p t i o n of the top of "Glyder Fach": "The scene c a l l e d Tybourn. . . " (Timbs, p. 809).
before us, i n f a c t , resembled the ruins of some vast D r u i d i c a l
temple--a mountain Stonehenge--which has been overthrown ages 32
Mircea E l i a d e , Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal
ago by some awful convulsion o f nature. Indeed, so strong was Return, t r a n s . W i l l a r d R. Trask, Harper Torchbook's, Bollingen
our impression t h a t we were i n the midst of venerable D r u i d i c a l Library (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 14; see a l s o , George
remains, t h a t i t was some time ere we could convince ourselves Every, Christian Mythology (London: Hamlyn P u b l i s h i n g , 1970),
t h a t what we saw was i n r e a l i t y a chaotic mass of stones thrown "The place o f the s k u l l , " pp. 5 1 f f . Erdman w r i t e s ( f o l l o w i n g
i n t o inconceivable convulsion" (John H. C l i f f e , quoted i n Edward Timbs), " I t was r e c a l l e d t h a t a f t e r the Restoration the bodies
C. P y a t t , Mountains of Britain [London: B. T. B a t s f o r d , 1966], of Cromwell, I r e t o n , and Bradshaw had been d i s i n t e r r e d , hanged,
P. 6 7 ) . and beheaded, and then reburied [under Tyburn g a l l o w s ] - - a n o t h e r
denial of the Resurrection" [Prophet, p. 474).
24
See also Michael J . T o l l e y , "Jerusalem 12:25-29--Some Questions
i
)

^
106
MINUTE
PARTICULARS
BROMION'S "JEALOUS DOLPHINS"
Rodney M . Baine
T he dolphin evidently never appears i n Blake's
i l l u m i n a t i o n s and only once in his verse, i n
a l i n e spoken i r o n i c a l l y by Bromion i n
Visions of the Daughters of Albion a f t e r he has
"enjoyed" Oothoon: "And l e t the jealous dolphins
sport around the lovely m a i d . " 1 To understand some
of i t s implications l e t us look b r i e f l y at the
dolphin symbol and at some e x h i b i t s of the Galatea
legend i n music and a r t .
According to Oliver Goldsmith, "The dolphin was
celebrated i n the e a r l i e s t time f o r i t s fondness to
the human race . . . . " 2 In c l a s s i c a l legend the
dolphin was a p a r t i c u l a r f r i e n d to man and often
preserved a mortal from drowning, or at least wafted
the body to shore f o r proper b u r i a l . The rescue of
the musician A r i o n , f o r example, had been popularized
by Theocritus and Ovid {Metamorphoses X I I K 7 3 8 , f f . )
and had been taken over i n t o emblem l i t e r a t u r e , most
recently by Caesare Ripa's English adapter George
Richardson. 3 In t h i s extensive l i t e r a t u r e the
dolphin became a symbol of safety and help i n time
of need. 4 From i t s c l a s s i c a l usage and i t s popular-
i z a t i o n as an emblem, i t became a symbol popular also
with the English poets. Both Spenser and Shakespeare
referred to the Arion legend {FQ I I I . 1 v . 3 3 . 1 and IV.
x i . 2 3 . 6 ; Amorettiy 38; Twelfth Night I . i i . 1 5 ) ; 5 and
Milton must have had t h i s legend in mind, doubtless
among others, when i n "Lycidas" he entreated f o r the
body of Edward King, "0 ye Dolphins, waft the haples
youth" ( 1 . 164). 6 Oothoon c e r t a i n l y needed dolphins
to rescue her from the l i k e s of Bromion and Theotor-
mon.
But why are Bromion's dolphins "jealous"? In
addition to serving as symbols of safety and h e l p ,
dolphins were also symbols of love. According to
Goldsmith, the dolphin was distinguished by the
e p i t h e t "the boy-loving" ( V I , 223). Doubtless
Goldsmith had in mind p a r t i c u l a r l y the enamoured
dolphin of Hippo whose love f o r a boy was related by
Pliny the Younger i n his E p i s t l e IX. According to
Ovid and Aulus G e l l i u s , moreover, dolphins were
reputed to be very amorous; and they were often
depicted as a t t r i b u t e s of Aphrodite or Eros. In his
Metamorphoses Ovid related that Poseidon changed
himself i n t o a dolphin i n order to woo Melantho
( V I . 120); and according to Spenser, Hippomedes
"turnd him s e l f e i n t o a Dolphin f a y r e " {FQ I l l . x i .
42.6) i n order to win Deucalion's daughter. 7 Even
more p e r t i n e n t f o r Blake's purpose, dolphins,
according to Ovid {Fasti 11.81-82), t r a d i t i o n a l l y
assisted l o v e r s . According to legend, a dolphin had
discovered the f l e e i n g Amphitrite and had persuaded
her to return to her l o v e r , Poseidon; and the g r a t e -
f u l seagod had proclaimed the dolphin sacred and had
set his image i n the heavens i n the c o n s t e l l a t i o n
Delphinus. 8 Also, according to Erasmus, a dolphin
"rescued the v i r g i n Lesbia with her l o v e r . " 9 More-
over the dolphin has also symbolized s p i r i t u a l
salvation and Christ the s a v i o r . 1 0 The early
C h r i s t i a n s , f o r example, often employed the dolphin
rather than the f i s h as a symbol f o r C h r i s t ; and at
the Royal Academy Blake may have noticed t h i s symbol
as he looked over the t r e a t i s e s on the Roman
catacombs. This emblematism might be an additional
irony intended by the m a t e r i a l i s t i c Bromion. At
least i t a n t i c i p a t e s the s p i r i t u a l salvation which
Oothoon a t t a i n s during the course of the poem.
But the dolphin-related legend which most close-
l y f i t s the s i t u a t i o n i n Visions of the Daughters of
Albion i s that of the nymph Galatea and her lovers
Acis and Polyphemos. When the Polyphemos-like
Bromion speaks of "jealous d o l p h i n s , " he doubtless
voices his own possessive view of love as well as
t h a t of the mute Theotormon; he a t t r i b u t e s jealousy
also to any p o t e n t i a l rescuer. Though i n the Galatea
legend Polyphemos is yet to be blinded by Odysseus,
he i s already blinded by his jealousy, l i k e the
s p i r i t u a l l y b l i n d Bromion and Theotormon. Moreover,
Bromion's cave, i n which we see the bound "adulterate
p a i r " ( 4 . 2 ) , may well echo the cave of Polyphemos.
The dolphins rescue Galatea from her would-be r a p i s t ;
they are i r o n i c a l l y summoned too l a t e to protect
Oothoon. Yet i n the f i n a l analysis the triumph of
Oothoon even exceeds that of Galatea, who is likewise
deprived of her lover. Both s t o r i e s , moreover, are
extended laments: as Galatea relates her t r a g i c
love story to Scylla and the other nymphs, so Oothoon
relates hers to the daughters of Albion.
Blake and his contemporaries could have been
f a m i l i a r with the Galatea legend from i t s continued
p o p u l a r i t y i n more than one medium. I t was a
f a v o r i t e i n English musical drama. I t had been
developed by John Lyly in 1592 i n his Gallathea and
revived twice in the eighteenth century, f i r s t by
P. A. Motteux i n 1701, with music by John Eccles,
and next by John Gay in 1718-19, w i t h lovely music
by Handel. Since the Gay-Handel version was
frequently performed from 1777 throughout the rest
of the century, Blake could e a s i l y have seen a
performance. 1 1 In February of 1786 even a b a l l e t
version was introduced, at the King's Theater. 1 2
Blake was even more l i k e l y to have been f a m i l i a r
with the Acis and Galatea legend i n a r t , e s p e c i a l l y
the p i c t o r i a l representation of "The Triumph of
Galatea," where the dolphins draw her and sport
around the lovely maid as she escapes from Polyphemos
and turns her lover Acis i n t o a stream. Blake surely
knew Raphael's famous painting of t h i s s t o r y , f o r
G o l t z i u s , among o t h e r s , had engraved i t . 1 3 The story
had also been depicted by many other a r t i s t s whom
Blake admired: Durer, G i u l i o Romano, Nicolas
Poussin, several of whose sketches were in Windsor
Castle, and by Goltzius h i m s e l f . 1 4 In some of these
versions Polyphemos s i t s d i s c o n s o l a t e l y , l i k e the
jealous Theotormon, on a rock. In one of Poussin's
sketches he a c t u a l l y watches Galatea and Acis having
sexual i n t e r c o u r s e . 1 5

Raphael's "Triumph of Galatea, as engraved by
Goltzius.
The legend u pon which Blake seems to have drawn
helps us to focus attention on his theme—the tragic
effects of jealousy. Though Blake was doubtless
attacking physica 1 as well as spiritual slavery, no
hint of any negroid features seems to appear to
characterize Ooth oon or Theotormon in any of the
plates. Their ab sence and the affinities in the
Galatea legend wh ich Bromion's "jealous dolphins"
evoke serve also to emphasize the major theme of
possessiveness.
1
William Blake'8 Writings, ed. G. E. Bentley, Jr. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1978), I, 104.
2 12
Oliver Goldsmith, The History of the Earth, and Animated
Nature (London, 1774), VI, 223".
3
George Richardson, loonology, or a Collection of Emblematical
Figures (London, 1777-79), II, 67.
'* Arthur Henkel and Albrecht Schone, Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst
des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1967), cols.
683-84.
5
The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1974), p. 409.
207
' The Works of John Milton, ed. Frank Allen Patterson (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1931-38), I, 82.
7
The Works of Edmund Spenser, ed. Edwin Greenlaw, Charles
Grosvenor Osgood, Frederick Morgan Padelford, et al. (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1932-49), III, 164. For the designs of
Aphrodite or Eros on the dolphin see Nelson Glueck, Deities and
Dolphins (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1965), pp. 31-
35, and Eunice Stebbins Burr, The Dolphin in the Literature and
Art of Greece and Rome (Menasha, Wis.: George Banta, 1929), pp.
83-84.
8
Sir James George Frazer, Commentary, Ovid, Fasti, ed. Frazer
(London: Macmillan, 1929), II, 304.
9
Desiderius Erasmus, Adades, trans. Margaret Mann Phillips
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964), p. 244.
0
See H. Leclercq, "Dauphin," in Dictionnaire d' Archeologie
Chretienne et de Liturgie, IV, cols. 283-95.
11
The London Stage, 1660-1800. Part V: 1776-1800, ed. Charles
Beecher Hogan (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
1968), III, 9 et passim.
Ibid., II, 864.
3
Hendrick Goltzius, The Complete Engravings and Woodcuts, ed.
Walter L. Strauss (New York: Abaris, 1977), II, 514.
* Andor Pigler, Barockthemen, eine Auswald von Verzeichnissen
zur lkonographie des 17 und 18 Jahrhunderts (Budapest: Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 1956), I, 9-10; 85-87.
5
The Drawings of Nicolas Poussin, ed. Walter Friedlaender,
Anthony Blunt, et al. (London: Warburg Institute, 1939-1974),
Pt. iii, No. 160.
208

W . J . L I N T O N ' S TAILPIECES I N GILCHRIST'S LIFE

OF W I L L I A M BLAKE

R o b e r t F. G l e c k n e r

I n his Bibliography of William Blake Sir

Geoffrey Keynes made an attempt to i d e n t i f y
a l l of Blake's designs from which W. J .
Linton made his wood engravings for the 1863 e d i t i o n
of Alexander G i l c h r i s t ' s Life of William Blake,
"Piator Ignotus": i n Volume I four f u l l - p a g e cuts
(three from the Job series and "Plague") and f i f t y -
six smaller cuts i n the t e x t ; i n Volume I I seven
small wood engravings i n the t e x t . 1 L o g i c a l l y
assuming from the G i l c h r i s t t i t l e p a g e statement,
" I l l u s t r a t e d from Blake's own works, in f a c s i m i l e
by W. J . L i n t o n , " that a l l of these cuts (other
than those " i n photolithography" and the "few"
Blake " o r i g i n a l p l a t e s " ) were based on, or engraved
a f t e r , Blake o r i g i n a l s , Keynes nevertheless l i s t s
ten i n Volume I and three i n Volume I I as u n i d e n t i -
f i e d (he ignored the one on page 111 of Volume I I ) - -
a l l rather miniscule chapter t a i l p i e c e s . In Blake
Books (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) G. E. Bentley,
J r . makes no comment about Linton's c o n t r i b u t i o n s to
the Life, and Robert Essick i n his "Finding L i s t of
Reproductions of Blake's A r t , " Blake Newsletter, 5
(1971), 1-160, l i s t s only L i n t o n ' s f u l l - p a g e c u t s - -
properly so given the purpose of the l i s t .

In my recent research toward an a r t i c l e on

Linton and Blake (forthcoming i n the Bulletin of
Research in the Humanities) I re-examined a l l of
L i n t o n ' s contributions to G i l c h r i s t ' s Life and have
managed to i d e n t i f y a l l but three of the t a i l p i e c e s
u n i d e n t i f i e d by Keynes. They form an i n t e r e s t i n g
p a t t e r n , one that r e f l e c t s c e r t a i n problems Linton
had w i t h Dante Gabriel Rossetti over the i n c l u s i o n
i n the G i l c h r i s t of photolithographed reproductions
of the Job designs. Of the t h i r t e e n t a i l p i e c e s
(fourteen including the one on page 111 of Volume 1 Tailpiece from G i I c h r i s t , Vol. I , p. 126, a f t e r
I I ) the sources of which Keynes could not i d e n t i f y , Job 12.
nine are from the border design of Plate 12 of the
Job series (see i l l u s . 3): 2 Tailpiece from G i l c h r i s t , V o l . I , p. 233 a f t e r
Job 12.
Volume I , page 11: the s i x t h f i g u r e from the
top r i g h t of Job 12, reversed. 3 Job 12.
Volume I , page 42: figures at bottom r i g h t .
Volume I , page 118: figures at bottom l e f t .
Volume I , page 126: figures at top center.
Linton added t o , and changed, Blake's s t a r s , except for the corner angels), the top half of the
designing them in his own c h a r a c t e r i s t i c a l l y border design of Plate 18, and the circular part of
spiky manner (see i l l u s . 1). the main boxed design of Plate 15. From Rossetti's
Volume I , page 233: f i f t h f i g u r e from top correspondence with Anne Gilchrist (who had taken
r i g h t , reversed, again with Linton's spiky over the editing of the Life at the death of her
stars (see i l l u s . 2 ) . husband) as the volumes were nearing completion,
Volume I , page 248: t h i r d f i g u r e from top l e f t . we learn that, despite their plans to include photo-
Volume I I , page 97: t h i r d f i g u r e from bottom lithographs of the entire Job series, Linton (who
r i g h t , turned sideways. had been a part of the project as early as 1861°
Volume I I , page 111: f i g u r e j u s t above center and, one would presume, knew about the photolitho-
graphy idea) went ahead and executed his own wood
right.
engravings of the entire series.1*
Volume I I , page 116: f i g u r e at upper-right
corner of main design box. 2
It is not clear what led to this confusion, for
Elsewhere i n G i l c h r i s t we have L i n t o n ' s wood in February 1863 Linton had written to Rossetti
engravings of Job Plates 5, 8, and 14 ( a l l f u l l - "about the illustrations" and Rossetti had even
page, the l a s t excluding Blake's border designs taken the trouble of visiting Linton to consult with
209
210
him about them^ At about the same time Rossetti e n t i r e role i n the G i l c h r i s t p r o j e c t , as well as
received from Mrs. Gilchrist the Job photolithographs his own fascinating B l a k e - l i k e career, deserve
which he said pleased him "much--being, thouqh considerably more scholarly and c r i t i c a l a t t e n t i o n
blurry, wery full of colour, and not losing perhaps than they have been accorded to date.
by reduction but getting concentrated in a pleasant
way." 6 Taken together, these letters suggest that
the plan to photolithograph the Jobs was one of
long-standing. The only problem with Linton
involved a design he engraved for the titlepage, the
original of which Rossetti apparently had not seen,
for upon receiving it (or, more likely, a proof of
it) from Mrs. Gilchrist he returned it to her for
some "amendment," saying he would venture "to write
a word to Mr. Linton suggesting the removal of the
cut, which surely is no facsimile from anything of
Blake's, but a sort of design by some one else."
Then, as if doubting his authority, he added a post-
script to this letter: "Would you perhaps send the
Titlepage on to Mr. Linton--to explain better what
I mean." 7 But Rossetti, perhaps reinforced by Mrs.
Gilchrist in a letter not extant, did nevertheless
"advise" Linton to omit "that insane cut in the
title page." 8 With all this to-do there is no
evidence in the letters of Rossetti or Mrs. Gilchrist
to suggest any misunderstanding about the Job
series. When Linton sent Rossetti the (apparently)
final list of illustrations to the volumes, then,
and included in it all his copies of the Jobs,
Rossetti was in a quandary about what to do with
them since the photolithographs were ready to go.
He quickly wrote Mrs. Gilchrist: "I see he still
includes the Job Plates which he copied, in spite
of the photolithographs which might be considered
to supersede them."9 What finally emerged is
clearly a kind of compromise, Linton no doubt
\
insisting that at least some of his Jobs be included
even along with the full photolithographed set,1*)
Rossetti urging Mrs. Gilchrist (in the letter just
s
..V-
- v- —
quoted) that "it seemed a pity to leave them out after — —
the trouble and expense." 10 Why all the rest of — ! S— » ' ^
Linton's Jobs that were included, piecemeal, as tail- -_-—: -=Hm -«^.
pieces turn out to be one, Plate 12, I cannot say.
Perhaps that plate was, simply, one of his favorites; /« „ - \

perhaps, even more simply, it was the only other one

that he actually engraved.

Of the other five tailpieces Keynes could not

identify, I can be certain of only one, that on
page 269 of Volume I, which is the lower-left
figure on the titlepage of Visions of the Daughters
of Albion. That on page 160 of Volume I (see illus
if
4) may be a version (reversed) of the r e c l i n i n g
f i g u r e i n the center of Plate 4 of Europe, or
possibly of the second f i g u r e from the bottom r i g h t
of Job 12, or even more l i k e l y to my eye, the f i g u r e
to the l e f t of the word "Albion" on the t i t l e p a g e of
Visions of the Daughters of Albion--thouqh I have no
great confidence in these sources since a l l of the
other t a i l p i e c e s are exact r e p l i c a s . For those on
pages 304 and 367 of Volume I , and 24 of Volume I I
(see i l l u s . 5, 6, 7 ) , I cannot f i n d even good
analogues. Perhaps these l a s t were taken from the
excised t i t l e p a g e design; or they are examples of
L i n t o n ' s idea of a Blakean f i g u r e or design; or they
are taken from other of L i n t o n ' s own voluminous work
4 From G i l c h r i s t , Volume I , p. 160.
(the one on I I , 24, f o r example, is strongly
reminiscent of d e t a i l s in several o f L i n t o n ' s wood 5, 6, 7 U n i d e n t i f i e d t a i l p i e c e s from Volume I , pp.
engravings f o r H a r r i e t Martineau's A Description of 304, 367; Volume I I , p. 24.
the English Lakes, 1858). In any case, L i n t o n ' s

1
(New York: The G r o l i e r Club, 1921), pp. 328-31. Keynes
erroneously l i s t s a Linton cut on I I , 1 , and I I , 2; they are on
I I , i x (unnumbered page), and I I , 1 , r e s p e c t i v e l y . The f r o n t i s -
piece of L i n n e l l ' s 1827 p o r t r a i t o f Blake i s apparently the only
engraving not done by L i n t o n : i t i s by C. H. Jeens.
2
None of these appears i n the 1880 e d i t i o n o f G i l c h r i s t ' s Life.
S-On 20 A p r i l 1861 Rossetti had w r i t t e n to Alexander G i l c h r i s t
to suggest a f r i e n d o f his to work on the Blake i l l u s t r a t i o n s :
" I have been t h i n k i n g t h a t i f you are s t i l l unprovided w i t h a
s a t i s f a c t o r y copyist (or a s u f f i c i e n c y of such) f o r the B l a k e s , - -
Mrs. Edward [Burne] Jones would be very l i k e l y to succeed. This
occurred to me s h o r t l y a f t e r seeing you the other day, but I d i d
not see her t i l l today, when I mentioned the matter to her. I apparently l a t e r than those already c i t e d , i n Letters,
hope I d i d not do wrong, but she i s too i n t i m a t e a f r i e n d to make
i t awkward f o r me i f you and Linton cannot e n t e r t a i n the i d e a " —
Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, ed. Oswald Doughty and John
R. Wahl (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), I I , 396. This seems to
suggest t h a t Linton o r i g i n a l l y may have planned (or been h i r e d )
only to supervise (and/or execute a few o f ) the engravings f o r
the Life. In any case, nothing seems to have come of the matter.
4
This i s an assumption on my p a r t . R o s s e t t i ' s words, i n the
l e t t e r to Mrs. G i l c h r i s t quoted below, are "the Job Plates which
he [ L i n t o n ] c o p i e d . " I t i s p o s s i b l e , t h e n , t h a t these plates are
the f i v e I have already noted—though L i n t o n ' s p i l l a g i n g of the
border design of Plate 12 argues that he did more than f i v e .
5
L e t t e r from Rossetti to Mrs. G i l c h r i s t , dated only "Feb. 1863,"
i n Letters, I I , 477. There i s a h i n t , however, t h a t there was
some e a r l i e r d i f f i c u l t y over the Job p r o j e c t . On 13 December
1862 W i l l i a m Michael R o s s e t t i , who was also very much a p a r t of
DISCUSSION
WITH INTELLECTUAL SPEARS A LONG WINGED ARROWS OF THOUGHT
THE DEAD ARDOURS REVISITED
David Bindman
B
efore "The Dead Ardours Perry" enters the
canon of Blake's writings [see David V.
Erdman, "Leonora, Laodamia, and the Dead
Ardours," Blake 54, Fall 1980, pp. 96-98] and becomes
part of the intellectual heritage of the English-
speaking peoples it might be of interest for me to
describe what I can make of the words on the drawing
with it in front of me. To begin with, the letters
'W B1 on the left are below the level of the disputed
text, therefore David Erdman*s assumption that they
belong with it is doubtful: more to the point,
perhaps, is that the letters 'W B' do not look as if
they are in Blake's hand, and they are not in the
same type of script as the other text. There can be
no doubt about the initial words 'The dead' nor, I
believe, that they are in Blake's own formal script,
but it is still not even clear how many words follow.
I agree with Erdman that 'bad-doers' does not work
but I would dispute it because there appear to be
Ill
the G i l c h r i s t Life e n t e r p r i s e , wrote to Mrs. G i l c h r i s t : " I am
t r u l y sorry t h a t so much anxiety to you has been involved i n the
Job a f f a i r " — L e t t e r s of William Michael Rossetti, ed. Clarence
Gohdes and Paull F. Baum (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1934), p. 11.
I can f i n d no other reference t o an apparent problem—though, of
course, Linton may have been the cause. Dante Gabriel once said
of him, "He keeps stomach-aches f o r you" even i f he was the best
engraver around—Oswald Doughty, Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A
Victorian Romantic (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1949), p. 215.
6
Another l e t t e r o f February 1863 from Rossetti to Mrs. G i l c h r i s t ,
i n Letters, I I , 477.
7
L e t t e r from Rossetti to Mrs. G i l c h r i s t , dated only "1863" but
I I , 482.
8
L e t t e r of 1863 from Rossetti to Mrs. G i l c h r i s t , i n Letters, II,
483.
9
Letters, I I , 489. This " l i s t " was perhaps t h a t from which the
" L i s t o f I l l u s t r a t i o n s " ( G i l c h r i s t , Life, I , x i i i - x i v ) was to be
made, f o r e a r l i e r Rossetti had w r i t t e n to Mrs. G i l c h r i s t t h a t
"Mr. Linton has sent me a l i s t of the i l l u s t r a t i o n s [ n . b . : not
his} which must come i n somewhere. I w i l l see w i t h the P r i n t e r "
(Letters, I I , 488). I have been unable to learn whether the l i s t
has s u r v i v e d .
10
The l i s t i n g o f L i n t o n ' s Job plates i n the " L i s t o f I l l u s t r a -
t i o n s " f o l l o w i n g the contents pages of the Life i s accompanied
by the n o t a t i o n : "Two only the centres the same size as the
o r i g i n a l s [ i . e . Job 5 and 1 4 ] , and one reduced to show border
[ i . e . Job 8 ] . These Plates are given i n d u p l i c a t e i n the Series
rendered by Photolithography." There i s no n o t a t i o n accompanying
the l i s t i n g of L i n t o n ' s engravings of Job 15 and 18.
four letters where he reads the 'ard' of 'ardours';
in fact I see a faint 'b' or another letter with a
long vertical stroke before his conjected 'ard'.
That final 'd' is certain, the 'ar' at least possible,
in which case we are left with 'bard', which makes
sense but can only be regarded as a tentative
suggestion. The four letters read by Erdman as
'ours' may complete the word as he suggests (in
which case it would be unlikely to begin with
'bard'); there could be a hyphen between them and
the previous word (as in 'bad-doers'), or they could
form a separate word. What makes it especially
difficult is that they seem to have been gone over
and altered in pencil, most likely by Blake himself.
As for the word read by Erdman as 'Perry' it looks
very much to me and to others who have looked at it
as if it begins with an elaborate '1' and it could
end with a 'g' and not a 'y'. I can make nothing of
the letters in between. I should also say that it
seems very improbable that Blake would have brought
in the name of such an obscure engraver in this way,
in the same formal script as the title, even if there
were other evidence to connect it with the Leonora
engravings.
I am sorry to have thrown the question open
again, but anyone who wants to have another try is
always welcome to look at the drawing in London.
David V. Erdman's response will appear in the summer
1981 issue. Eds.
aia
REVIEWS
Frank Lentricchia. A f t e r t h e N e w
C r i t i c i s m . Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1980. xiv + 384 pp. $ 2 0 . 0 0 .
Reviewed by Nelson Hilton.
F
rank L e n t r i c c h i a ' s study of the l a s t twenty
odd years of l i t e r a r y c r i t i c i s m i n America,
After the New Criticism, should be of
i n t e r e s t to any reader of Blake who has been i d l i n g
" w i t h i n a s t r u c t u r e of higher education where
f o r t r e s s l i k e walls i s o l a t e the various areas of
humane learning from one another" (pp. 135-36) and
who would l i k e to get briefed on the decade's
coming t i t l e f i g h t . The t i t l e , as Humpty-Dumpty
explains to A l i c e , concerns "who is to be master,"
o r , i f the reader prefers Obi Wan Kenobi, who i s to
possess "the f o r c e " ; and the contenders are the
devouring empire of s t r u c t u r a l i s t and p o s t s t r u c t u r -
a l i s t c r i t i c i s m , w i t h i t s a n n i h i l a t i n g v i s i o n of
the s u b j e c t , and Blake, with his p r o l i f i c , s e l f -
annihilated subject. I t w i l l be a f i t t i n g conclusion
( i . e . , synthesis i n t o thesis) f o r a h i s t o r y which
begins with "The Place of Northrop Frye's Anatomy
of Criticism," or r e a l l y even e a r l i e r , since
Lentricchia reports that readers of "Fearful Symmetry
know that that book had forecast the whole of
[ F r y e ' s ] l i t e r a r y theory as well as the furious
r e b i r t h of i n t e r e s t in a problematic w r i t e r , " and
also t h a t , " I t s general c r i t i c a l claims a s i d e , the
Anatomy gave the Blake r e v i v a l i s t s t h e i r proper
poetics" (p. 4 ) . L e n t r i c c h i a ' s opening round is
directed against the conception of a r t i n
"apocalyptic humanism" which "reminds us ( i f ever
we needed reminding) of Frye's Blakean commitments"
(pp. 96, 23). That conception surfaces again
towards the end of the book, i n a discussion of
Harold Bloom, where Lentricchia notes "the portentous
(and n o s t a l g i c ) f i r s t sentence of The Visionary
Company" that when Blake d i e d , " ' t h e f i r m b e l i e f i n
the autonomy of a poet's imagination died w i t h h i m ' "
(p. 323). So one may even read Blake i n t o the
o r i g i n or center ( i f one f o r the nonce believes i n
such things) of L e n t r i c c h i a ' s h i s t o r y and enter the
l i s t s f o r his name's sake {in hoc signes . . . ) .
"The d i f f i c u l t term ' h i s t o r y , ' " Lentricchia
t e l l s us i n his Preface, "plays a decisive r o l e " i n
his argument, which has as one fundamental concern
the exploration and c r i t i q u e of the "subtle denial
of h i s t o r y " he finds in "vast areas of contemporary
c r i t i c i s m . " The t h r u s t of t h i s concern appears in
the t i t l e s of chapters four and f i v e - - t h e book's
most s i g n i f i c a n t s e c t i o n s , and, according to the
Preface, the ones which present the author's
perspective most o v e r t l y - - " u n c o v e r i n g History and
the Reader: S t r u c t u r a l i s m , " and "History or the
Abyss: P o s t s t r u c t u r a l i s m . " Lentricchia opposes
"conceptions of a ' h i s t o r y ' which would generate
i t s e l f as a unity and a t o t a l i t y while r e s i s t i n g

forces of heterogeneity, c o n t r a d i c t i o n , fragmenta-
t i o n , and difference . . . which would deny
' h i s t o r i e s ' " (p. x i v ) . So i t would seem we are
offered a " h i s t o r i e s of c r i t i c i s m , " and indeed the
f i r s t h a l f of the book--"A C r i t i c a l Thematics,
1957-77"--also devotes chapters to Frye, "Versions
of E x i s t e n t i a l i s m , " and "Versions of Phenomenology."
There i s , however, a consistent base perspective
worked up out of early Barthes, Jameson, Said,
Foucault, and, o s t e n s i b l y , non-Yale-co-opted
Derrida ( L e n t r i c c h i a claims "no o r i g i n a l i t y " [ p . x i ] )
which c o n t i n u a l l y d i r e c t s us to acknowledge "worldly
determinates," "the real state of sublunary n a t u r e , "
" h i s t o r i c a l l i f e , " "ensnaring r e l a t i o n s , " "enormous
c o n s t r a i n t s , " the "ineffaceable h i s t o r i c i t y of
discourse": "the force that defines and appropriates
t r a d i t i o n and knowledge and encloses our cognitive
reach w i t h i n t h e i r boundaries" (pp. 10, 24, 26,
100, 143, 175, 154). We seem to glimpse t h i s ground
i n the f o l l o w i n g discussion of Heidegger's
e x i s t e n t i a l i s m , which, says L e n t r i c c h i a , " i s an
escape from the real implications of his master
metaphor of the world as workshop. For the metaphor
demands that the world be placed not i n an
e x i s t e n t i a l context but w i t h i n a frame of economic
and p o l i t i c a l power." This statement could be
pressed, to f o l l o w a common Lentricchian s t r a t e g y ,
to an apparent c o n t r a d i c t i o n (ergo, the reader of
the book w i l l understand, cognitive n u l l i t y ) : how
can the world be placed w i t h i n one frame? and how
do economic and p o l i t i c a l power d i c t a t e a s i t u a t i o n
where metaphors make demands? As f o r Heidegger,
his metaphoric f a i l u r e is another i n d i c a t i o n that
his "philosophy i s fundamentally nostalgic and
world-weary"--an improvement, at l e a s t , over Frye's
"thoroughly despairing and alienated understanding
of the p o s s i b i l i t i e s of h i s t o r i c a l l i f e " (pp. 100,
26).
Lentricchia o f f e r s a wonderful mine of
summaries and r e c a p i t u l a t i o n s which i n themselves
make his book useful and deserving of our thanks.
But since After the New Criticism w i l l stand or f a l l
according to the reader's response to the conception
of h i s t o r y that Lentricchia urges not only for the
practice of l i t e r a r y h i s t o r y , but f o r l i t e r a r y
c r i t i c i s m as w e l l , that conception deserves f u r t h e r
consideration. In p a r t i c u l a r , a reader of t h i s
journal would want to ask, how would Lentricchia
b e n e f i t the study of Blake? We are t o l d of "the
powerful c o n s t i t u t i v e forces of the h i s t o r i c a l
process ( p o l i t i c a l and economic contexts, class
d i f f e r e n c e s , and so on)" that C u l l e r ' s idea of the
reader ( i n Structuralist Poeties) "somehow . . .
blocked o u t , " and we are offered f o r r a t i f i c a t i o n
Saussure's s i t u a t i o n of "discourse, l i t e r a r y and
otherwise, in i t s true home i n human h i s t o r y " and
the concommitant "recognition of the powerlessness
of the i n d i v i d u a l s u b j e c t , his passive and repressed
status . . . and . . . of the vast and f r i g h t e n i n g
force of human c o l l e c t i v e s to seize discourse f o r
the ends of power" (pp. I l l , 119-20). We are asked
to approve L e n t r i c c h i a ' s admiration f o r the early
work of Barthes and i t s conclusion that ' " l i t e r a r y
h i s t o r y is possible only i f i t becomes s o c i o l o g i c a l ' "
but to r e j e c t the " i n t e r t e x t u a l i t y or W r i t i n g " of
the l a t e r Barthes as s o l i p s i s t i c fantasies of "a
seeker of pleasure i n i s o l a t i o n from s o c i a l ,
c o g n i t i v e , and e t h i c a l dimensions of selfhood" (p.
213
145). For the student of Blake, a p a r t i c u l a r l y
moving and gripping example of the power of the
Foucaultian "discursive formation" to control what
is ' " w i t h i n the t r u t h ' {dans le vrai)" i s offered
by L e n t r i c c h i a ' s remarks on Frost:
. . . i f one would not w r i t e poetry in a void
as did Robert Frost (when he achieved magazine
p u b l i c a t i o n only f i v e times between 1895 and
1912, a period during which he wrote a number
of poems l a t e r acclaimed), then one had b e t t e r
assent to the rules of discursive p o l i c y by
placing oneself w i t h i n the confines of those
systems that determine b i o l o g i c a l or poetic
t r u t h f o r one's time. To refuse to conform i s
to accept a place, whether one intends to or
not, alongside s o c i e t y ' s more dramatically
v i s i b l e outcasts: the c r i m i n a l s , the insane,
r a c i a l m i n o r i t i e s , and the i n d i g e n t , who are
b r u t a l l y and u n h e s i t a t i n g l y subjected to the
power that divides and s i l e n c e s , (p. 197)
W e l l , Lentricchia would no doubt reprove our
presumption, but perhaps we should "commit ourselves
to this v o i d , and see whether providence is here
also" {MHH 17). X I t i s c e r t a i n l y a wonderful irony
(unintended or not) to read i n t h i s book, published
by the University of Chicago Press, that "to be
c r i t i c a l l y dans le vrai in 1980 is to speak under
the imprimatur of c e r t a i n preferred presses and
j o u r n a l s " (p. 198). 2 This sniping could be continued
at length to show how Lentricchia wishes to replace
what we might c a l l imagination with the pre-pleasure-
seeking Barthes' conception of semiological systems
"put i n t o o p e r a t i o n , put i n t o force by force" (p.
132). But f o r a l l t h i s , we might remember (as
Lentricchia never does) even the supremely p r i v i l e g e d
Derrida's observation that "the force of the work,
the force of genius, the f o r c e , t o o , of that which
engenders i n general . . . i s the proper object of
l i t e r a r y c r i t i c i s m . " 3 F i n a l l y , on the force of
L e n t r i c c h i a ' s own h i s t o r i o g r a p h y , we might note his
remark that Foucault's "naked statement o f his
goals as a h i s t o r i a n is not evidence of what could
be (and has been) termed old-fashioned h i s t o r i c i s t
naivete, but of a passionate b e l i e f that genuine
h i s t o r y w r i t i n g i s not only p o s s i b l e , but i s made
possible by Derrida's revision of t r a d i t i o n a l i s t
thought i n general and of s t r u c t u r a l i s m i n
p a r t i c u l a r " (p. 191, L e n t r i c c h i a ' s emphasis again).
Seeing as how Foucault i s c i t e d only i n t r a n s l a t i o n
(indeed, The History of Sexuality seems to have
a r r i v e d j u s t i n time to dominate the " A f t e r w o r d " ) ,
Lentricchia was perhaps unaware of Foucault's
"passionate" and s t i n g i n g c r i t i c i s m of Derrida and
his "system" appended to the second e d i t i o n of
Histoire de la folie ( P a r i s : Gallimard, 1972).
The Derridean " r e v i s i o n of t r a d i t i o n a l i s t thought"
that Foucault sees i s "a petty pedagogy that has
been powerfully determined by h i s t o r y , which. . . .
teaches the student that there is nothing outside
the t e x t . . . . A pedagogy which . . . gives to the
voice of the master-teacher t h a t unlimited
sovereignty which authorizes i t s unending r e t e l l i n g
of the text.' , 1 +
" S t r u c t u r e , Sign, and Play i n the Discourse of
the Human Sciences"--"an elegant attack on the
t r a d i t i o n a l i s t p o s i t i o n i n general" (p. 1 6 0 ) - - i s the
214
most c i t e d of Derrida's works i n After the New
Criticism. As Lentricchia often reminds us, that
warhorse (now fourteen years o l d ! ) introduced "the
s t r u c t u r a l l y of s t r u c t u r e " and the concept of "the
center . . . the creation of the ' f o r c e o f d e s i r e . '
In something l i k e an ultimate act of w i s h - f u l f i l l -
ment, desire attempts to establish the center beyond
f i c t i v e status as objective r e a l i t y . " Lentricchia
adds, "The impact of Derrida on the t r a d i t i o n a l i s t
p o s i t i o n can be measured most p r e c i s e l y , I t h i n k ,
by his singular success i n s t i r r i n g up that old
unmasterable anxiety about the center" (p. 165).
Lentricchia rides these concepts f a r : through
S a r t r e , through Stevens, through "systems of l a s t -
ditch humanism" (p. 33), but most e f f e c t i v e l y when
he introduces a quotation from Anatomy of Criticism
to show "How uncannily Frye anticipates and, then,
c r u c i a l l y r e j e c t s " the future Derridean p o s i t i o n :
" ' C r i t i c i s m as knowledge . . . recognizes the f a c t
that there is a center of the order of words. Unless
there is such a center, there i s nothing to prevent
the analogies supplied by convention and genre from
being an endless series of free associations . . .
never creating a real s t r u c t u r e ' " (p. 14). Frye's
conception of human d e s i r e , Lentricchia notes,
"causes form or s t r u c t u r e to come i n t o being while
remaining i t s e l f unconditioned by law"; i t i s "the
sure ground, the guarantee of Frye's ultimate
humanism" (p. 15). "Over and over," Lentricchia
t e l l s us that Frye t e l l s us, "the l i t e r a r y universe
i s a representation not of the way things a r e , but
of the ways of human d e s i r e " (p. 19). I t would be
inappropriate to ask Lentricchia what he would do
with Blake's p r i n c i p l e that "The desire o f Man being
I n f i n i t e the possession is I n f i n i t e & himself
I n f i n i t e " (M7?b), but we can remark the s t r i k i n g
absence from After the New Criticism of any concern
for one who has f o r the l a s t decade presented desire
i n another perception to the American c r i t i c a l scene,
Jacques Lacan (mentioned only once, in passing).
The second, ante-climactic part of After the
New Criticism i s devoted to "The American Scene:
Four Exemplary Careers." The "subjects" are "Murray
Krieger's Last Romanticism," "E. D. Hirsch: The
Hermeneutics of Innocence," "Paul de Man: The
Rhetoric of A u t h o r i t y , " and "Harold Bloom: The
S p i r i t of Revenge." One may ponder the f a c t that
two of these c r i t i c s grappled with Blake i n books
at the e a r l y state of t h e i r careers, and a t h i r d is
reported to have remarked that "Blake was a de-
constructor before deconstructionism." Despite some
reservations about a "retrograde and a n t i - i n t e l l e c -
tual . . . desire . . . to be an o r i g i n a l t h e o r i s t , "
Lentricchia i s most sympathetic to that revengeful
s p i r i t , Harold Bloom. And e a r l y in his discussion
i t i s remarkable to see Lentricchia become f i x a t e d
on the idea of " f i r m b e l i e f " which appears i n the
opening l i n e of The Visionary Company ( c i t e d above,
f i r s t paragraph). A f t e r quoting the l i n e ,
Lentricchia carps, "Yet . . . only a few sentences
a f t e r speaking of Blake's ' f i r m b e l i e f in the
autonomy of a poet's i m a g i n a t i o n , ' [Bloom] w r i t e s
of skepticism and d i s c o n t i n u i t y " (p. 323). Nonethe-
l e s s , "Bloom's v a c i l l a t i o n s aside, what is essential
to his romantic l i n e is a f u l l commitment to the
mythopoetic imagination. I t is a commitment earned
(Blake's ' f i r m b e l i e f ) only because i t takes irony
i n t o account and transcends i t ; a commitment with
large extrapoetic sources and i m p l i c a t i o n s " (p. 323).
Lentricchia does not dwell on the power of his own
i n s i g h t here, but begins the following paragraph
w i t h : " S t i l l , the notion of ' f i r m b e l i e f i s a
redundant phrase which may, and i n t h i s instance
does, betray subversive perceptions" (p. 324). The
student of Blake realizes with a shock t h a t because
of Bloom's i n d i r e c t reference Lentricchia evidently
considers " f i r m b e l i e f " to be one of Bloom's
"Blakean indulgences," a q u a l i t y he merely
"celebrates in Blake" (pp. 343, 325). I t i s an
i n t r i g u i n g comment on influence and anxiety t h a t ,
through Bloom, Blake has e l i c i t e d such a t t e n t i o n .
There can, I t h i n k , be l i t t l e doubt as to the
absolute value of the work of the two men Lentricchia
urges that we "return t o , " Derrida and Foucault
( i n that order, i t seems). And few w i l l question
L e n t r i c c h i a ' s understanding of t h e i r sense that
they, and we, "are at the end of an era" (p. 208).
Yet i t i s a curiously "undecidable" phenomenon t h a t ,
i n America, the same "discursive formation" that has
published L e n t r i c c h i a , prompted t h i s review,
translated Foucault, and summoned Derrida to Yale
and C a l i f o r n i a to l e c t u r e i n English has also ever
more strongly brought forward the figure/presence/
texts/study of William Blake.
Then I asked: does a f i r m perswasion that a
thing is so, make i t so? He r e p l i e d . A l l
poets believe that i t does, & in ages of
imagination t h i s f i r m perswasion removed
mountains; but many are not capable of a f i r m
perswasion of any t h i n g . [tBB 12)
1
On the question o f Blake in the v o i d , see Morris Eaves,
"Romantic Expressive Theory and Blake's Idea o f the Audience,"
PMLA, 95 (Oct. 1980), 784-801; on Blake and Foucault, see
Daniel Stempel, "Blake, Foucault, and the Classical Episteme,"
forthcoming i n PMLA.
2
Doubly i r o n i c (unintended or not) because of L e n t r i c c h i a ' s
f a s c i n a t i o n w i t h the s i g n i f i c a n c e of imprimatur: "[Joseph]
Conrad's perception w i l l not explain why the MIA granted i t s
imprimatur to C u l l e r " ( i . e . , the James Russell Lowell Prize f o r
Structuralist Poetics), o r , to r e a l i z e t h a t Poulet and phenomen-
ology had caught on i n the l a t e s i x t i e s , "we need only r e c a l l
the imprimatur o f the Harvard U n i v e r s i t y Press on Sarah Lawall's
e x p o s i t i o n , Critics of Consciousness (1968)" (pp. 104, 6 4 ) .
3
Jacques D e r r i d a , "Force and S i g n i f i c a t i o n , " i n Writing and
Difference, t r a n s . , i n t r o . , add. n o t e s , Alan Bass (Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 20.
** The o r i g i n a l reads, ". . . j e d i r a i que c ' e s t une p e t i t e
pe"dagogie historiquement bien determine'e. . . . P£dagogie qui
enseign a l'Glfcve q u ' i l n'y a r i e n hors du t e x t e . . . . Pgdagogie
qui . . . donne a l a voix des maUres c e t t e souverainete" sans
l i m i t e qui l u i permet i n d ^ f i n i m e n t de r e d i r e le t e x t e " ( p . 602).
Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant, eds.
B l a k e ' s P o e t r y a n d D e s i g n s . New York
and London: W. W. Norton, 1 9 7 9 . xlviii +
61 8 pp., 1 1 3 illus. (32 color plates).
$9.95.
Reviewed by Michael Fischer.
A fter laying down rules for textbooks in
"Choosing Textbooks for Blake Courses: A
Survey & Checklist," Blake Newsletter, 10
(Summer, 1976), 9-26, Mary Lynn Johnson has decided
to play the game. The result--the Norton Critical
Edition of Blake (edited with John E. Grant)—is one
of the best Blake textbooks in print.
The selections from Blake's work are well-
organized, accessible, and generous, so generous, in
fact, that it is easier to list what the editors
excerpt {Poetical Sketches, the Notebook, The Four
Zoas, Jerusalem, A Descriptive Catalogue, A Vision
of the Last Judgment, the Marginalia, and the Letters)
than what they include in its entirety (virtually
everything else of importance, including Milton).
Thirty-two color plates from the illuminated books
let students know what they are missing when they
concentrate on Blake in print. Numerous monochrome
reproductions interspersed throughout the text are
less spectacular but still helpful in indicating how
Blake designed his work. The prefaces and notes are
also useful: their tone is sympathetic but not
canonical, their relation to the text about right.
They seldom overshadow or complicate the lines that
they try to explain; they identify terms and
characters without allegorizing them. When the
editors make difficult editorial decisions—and with
Blake's punctuation they of course must—they always
explain their reasoning and refer us to other sources,
especially the editions-of David Erdman and Geoffrey
Keynes. A chronology, maps of Britain, London, and
the Holy Land, an extensive bibliography, a list of
key terms with page numbers pointing to definitions
and examples in the text, commentary by some of
Blake's contemporaries (Coleridge, Robinson, and
Lamb, among others), and several essays by twentieth-
century critics—these useful accessories complete
the volume. The critical essays, I should add, are
adequate, if predictable, including contributions
by Northrop Frye, Jean Hagstrum, David Erdman, and
Harold Bloom, among others. T. S. Eliot's "William
Blake" and Irene Tayler's "The Woman Scaly," however,
come as pleasant surprises. Eliot introduces a
dissenting voice in what threatens to be a chorus of
unqualified approval; Tayler takes on one of the most
important and least understood issues in Blake—his
treatment of the sex roles and sexuality.
No book is perfect, not even this one. While
Blake's Marginalia is a welcome addition to a book
of this kind, the editors' omission of the passages
216
to which he i s reacting robs many of his statements
of t h e i r humor, f o r c e , and t r u t h . A sentence l i k e
"Execution i s the Chariot of Genius" sounds l i k e an
odd exercise in hyperbole--unless one has been
reading Reynolds on execution and genius. The
editors r i g h t l y note that "Blake could have been a
masterful c o n t r o v e r s i a l i s t , or even a h e c k l e r , " but
t h e i r presentation of his annotations won't allow
students to discover why. Although the c r i t i c a l
essays do not ignore Blake's drawings—in f a c t ,
Hagstrum and Erdman devote a great deal of a t t e n t i o n
to them--they nevertheless r e f l e c t the i n t e r e s t s of
the l i t e r a r y c r i t i c s who w r i t e them. An essay by an
a r t h i s t o r i a n might have placed Blake in a r t h i s t o r y
and revealed what a t t r a c t s visual a r t i s t s to his
work. Even more i m p o r t a n t l y , a f u l l e r discussion of
Blake's methods as an engraver would have been
u s e f u l . F a m i l i a r i t y with these techniques allows us
to see Blake's c r i t i c a l ideas as he saw them--as
p r a c t i c a l p r i n c i p l e s anchored i n his everyday l i f e
as an a r t i s t . F i n a l l y , many of the c r i t i c a l essays
contain page references to Keynes and Erdman which
w i l l force the student to get another book or go
digging through t h i s one. When possible, the editors
should have correlated these references with
c i t a t i o n s to t h e i r own e d i t i o n .
But these are minor problems. The highest
t r i b u t e one can pay to a book l i k e t h i s is to use
i t , and I plan to i n the next undergraduate course
I teach on Blake. Or so I dare to hope, for
d e c l i n i n g enrollments i n upper-level l i t e r a t u r e
classes have made such courses rare. Textbooks l i k e
t h i s one are consequently in danger of disappearing
with small colleges, tenure-track c o n t r a c t s , and
other r e l i c s of an e a r l i e r day. In "Choosing
Textbooks" (1976), Johnson could w r i t e that "more
and more people are preparing to teach Blake for
the f i r s t time, or teach more of Blake than they did
l a s t year, to a growing audience of new readers."
Today some of us are hoping to teach him one more
time.
Of course l i t e r a t u r e textbooks are s t i l l
published but, I would suspect, at a slower r a t e .
And even many of those books that do see p r i n t
r e f l e c t the l i m i t e d functions that they now serve.
I f tested by the needs of students, The Oxford
Anthology of English Literature: Romantia Poetry
and Prose, f o r example, would probably f a i l . Harold
Bloom's i n t r o d u c t i o n explains that "the major
Romantic questers, whether we see these as the
poets themselves or as the quasi-autobiographical
heroes of t h e i r poems, are a l l engaged i n the
extraordinary enterprise of seeking to re-beget
t h e i r own selves, as though through the imagination
a man might hope to become his own f a t h e r , or at
least his own heroic precursor." The headnote to
the section on Wordsworth s i m i l a r l y describes modern
poetry as "the poetry of the growing inner s e l f . "
Although that s e l f "was a Protestant c r e a t i o n , "
"before Luther i t was prefigured i n Catholic
thinkers as diverse as the furious reformer
Savonarola and the meditative Thomas a Kempis, who
wrote The Imitation of Christ." Blake, t o o , "was
p r i m a r i l y an i n t e l l e c t u a l r e v i s i o n i s t , even as
Nietszche, Marx, Freud, i n the lonqest perspective,
seem most important as r e v i s i o n i s t s of the
European Enlightenment."
Whatever t h e i r other m e r i t s , I agree w i t h Johnson
that these statements seem out of place i n a t e x t -
book. Instead of enlightening students, Bloom's over-
w r i t i n g deepens t h e i r suspicion that they are missing
out on some mystery that no one w i l l explain—some
"extraordinary" a f f a i r i n v o l v i n g men t r y i n g to become
t h e i r own f a t h e r s , "daemonic" i n t e l l e c t u a l
r e v i s i o n i s t s , and " f u r i o u s " f i f t e e n t h - c e n t u r y
I t a l i a n monks (the strongest students have looked
up Savonarola i n t h e i r Random House D i c t i o n a r y ) .
One can imagine the f r u s t r a t i o n of these students
when they confront so many unexplained terms and
names—or, more p r e c i s e l y , one has to imagine i t
because in the absence of courses on Romanticism,
The Oxford Anthology never faces t h i s kind of t e s t .
I s o l a t i o n from a classroom audience may explain why
so few readers have objected to the book's i n s u l a r i t y .
These readers have become professional c r i t i c s and
the book another episode i n Bloom's c r i t i c i s m .
Constructed with the needs of non-specialists
i n mind, Blake's Poetry and Designs i s a welcome
exception to the trend I have been d e s c r i b i n g .
Either the marketplace i s f l e x i b l e enough to allow
the p u b l i c a t i o n of seemingly obsolete books, or
t h i s kind of textbook i s not yet obsolete. I hope
that both p o s s i b i l i t i e s are t r u e . In e i t h e r case,
Grant and Johnson have made i t easier ( i f not easy)
f o r us to teach Blake's poetry and prose.

Goran Malmqvist, ed. and trans. En 6 pa
M d n e n . Uppsala: Brombergs bokfdrlag,
1 9 7 9 . Facsimile of the manuscript,
transcription, Swedish translation, 14
reproductions. $ 1 4 . 5 0 .
Reviewed by Erik Frykman.
A S author of Songs of Innocence and of
Experience and as visionary a r t i s t Blake has
had a f a i r amount of a t t e n t i o n i n Sweden,
and i n d i v i d u a l short poems have been t r a n s l a t e d . As
visionary poet he i s less well known outside academic
c i r c l e s , and even intra muros he i s c e r t a i n l y not a
f a m i l i a r name to most students. In these days of
soaring book prices and some d i f f i d e n c e on the part
of publishers i t i s pleasing t h a t a comparatively
small but e n t e r p r i s i n g f i r m , Messrs. Bromberq of
Uppsala, should have ventured to bring o u t , b e a u t i -
f u l l y produced, a Swedish t r a n s l a t i o n w i t h p a r a l l e l
English t e x t of An Island in the Moon. In a country
with the f i r m e s t of b e l i e f s i n s p e c i a l i z a t i o n , i t i s
equally pleasing that the t r a n s l a t o r - e d i t o r i s not
an Eng. L i t . man but a professor of sinology. Goran
Malmqvist of the University of Stockholm i s widely
known not only as a scholar but also as an assiduous
t r a n s l a t o r of Chinese verse and prose. As these
things w i l l sometimes happen, his i n t e r e s t i n Blake
i s said to have been aroused during a v i s i t to
Peking.
For t h i s volume—which includes some well-chosen
black-and-white i l l u s t r a t i o n s — P r o f e s s o r Malmqvist
provides a lengthy i n t r o d u c t i o n where, w i t h obvious
zest and an e n t i r e l y convincing knowledge of the
period concerned and of Blake scholarship, he o u t l i n e s
the i n t e l l e c t u a l and social background of Blake's
217
burlesque. It is to be regretted that he did not
take time—or perhaps was not granted the space—to
say a little more about Blake as poet and artist,
the more so since An Island in the Moon provides more
than one early glimpse into Blake's firmly held
tenets and, of course, presents not only the way-
wardly burlesque songs but also three of the Songs
of Innocence. How one wishes that the volume could
also have contained the text and translation of, for
instance, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell\ the
Swedish reading public would then have had more of
an introduction to Blake's thought and genius.
However, there is every reason to be grateful to
Professor Malmqvist, the more so because as trans-
lator of an often intriguing text he succeeds
excellently, even with those difficult, bafflinqly
allusive songs.
He offers an independent, conjectural inter-
pretation of the enigmatic word "wickly" (in Chapter
5) which he translates as if it were a deliberate
corruption of "videlicet." It has much to say for
his skill as translator that the only passage that
leaves him resourceless is Blake's elaborate pre-
Joycean pun, "An Easy of Huming Understanding, by
John Lockye, Gent."
A mock-serious appendix by the translator is
one large joke at the expense of the government-
218
imposed leveling-down tendencies i n the Swedish
educational system of these l a t t e r days. However,
as a Swede one feels a s l i g h t consolation a f t e r
having listened to a lecture at the recent I.A.U.P.E,
conference in Aberdeen, where Professor George S.
Rousseau of UCLA gave his somber view on the lack of
Andrew Wilton. B r i t i s h Water-colours
1 7 5 0 t o 1 8 5 0 . Oxford: Phaidon, 1977.
208 pp., 170 plates (53 in color). £12.95.
Reviewed by William Vaughan.
T he r i s e of watercolor painting as an
independent a r t form is i n t i m a t e l y connected
w i t h the character and fortunes of B r i t i s h
a r t i n the decades around 1800. An impressive number
of the f i n e s t painters of the time--such as John
Robert Cozens, Thomas G i r t i n and John Sell Cotman —
chose i t as t h e i r p r i n c i p a l medium. Many other major
a r t i s t s — n o t a b l y William Blake and J . M. W. T u r n e r -
used i t frequently and with great o r i g i n a l i t y . In
view of t h i s i t might be expected that the subject
would be given an important place i n any study of
B r i t i s h Romantic a r t . Yet on the whole i t has tended
to be treated as a theme a p a r t , relegated to
s p e c i a l i s t s , most of whom approach i t from the view-
point of the connoisseur. Such commentaries have of
course been invaluable i n b u i l d i n g up our knowledge
of the i n d e n t i t y of i n d i v i d u a l p r a c t i t i o n e r s and f o r
charting the h i s t o r y of the organizations that grew
up as the practice of watercolor painting expanded.
But they have tended to be less informative about
the broader context. There is l i t t l e treatment of
the question of why watercolor should step from i t s
modest p o s i t i o n as an a n c i l l a r y sketching medium (as
which i t had been used by great masters of a l l
i n t e r e s t taken in eighteenth-century l i t e r a t u r e by
American u n i v e r s i t y students. Some of his colleagues
from both sides of the A t l a n t i c chimed i n , but a l l
showed determination to do something about i t . The
academic world everywhere is i n sore need of daring
enthusiasts; Goran Malmqvist i s c e r t a i n l y one of them.
ANDRKW Wll.TON
British Watercolours
1750 to 1850
countries since the middle ages) to that of a method
s u i t a b l e f o r f i n i s h e d p i c t u r e s . The change involved
the development of new a t t i t u d e s to the study of
natural e f f e c t s , spontaneity and the i n t e r e s t i n
local scenery, a l l of which are connected with the
emergent Romantic movement. There are social
questions as w e l l . Watercolor was a favored medium
of amateurs and drawings masters. Not a l l of these
were i n s i g n i f i c a n t f i g u r e s . John Ruskin is a
distinguished example of the former and John Sell
Cotman of the l a t t e r . But more important than t h i s
from a h i s t o r i c a l point of view is the f a c t that
w a t e r e d o r i s t s were active in social groups where
o i l painters had l i t t l e purchase. Often they cut
q u i t e a f i g u r e . Thackeray t a l k s of "gay, smart,
watercolour p a i n t e r s " ; and there are examples in
contemporary novels of the impact they could have
in the homes of gentlemen.
Andrew W i l t o n ' s book—which covers the heyday
of the B r i t i s h w a t e r c o l o r i s t s — i s to some extent
aware of these wider issues. However, he i s
p r i n c i p a l l y concerned with providing a c l e a r and
readable account of the leading l i g h t s of the school

The book i s based on a series of l e c t u r e s , and the
chapters appear to f o l l o w these c l o s e l y . Each i s
centered on a major a r t i s t (though incorporating
thumbnail sketches of associates) and each i s of
s i m i l a r l e n g t h . There i s , of course, nothing remiss
i n publishing l e c t u r e s . Some of the most a t t r a c t i v e
and memorable books have been formed i n t h i s way.
Mr. W i l t o n ' s work has c e r t a i n l y retrained much of
the engaging atmosphere of a successful lecture
s e r i e s . But I cannot help wishing that he had made
a few more concessions to the more enduring format
t h a t his t e x t has now achieved. In p a r t i c u l a r an
i n t r o d u c t i o n would have been welcomed. As i t is we
are plunged s t r a i g h t i n t o the work of Paul Sandby,
"the father of English watercolour," without any
p r e l i m i n a r i e s . At the other end of the book we
emerge with Turner and a sharp vertiginous v i s t a of
abstractions to come i n the twentieth century. An
epilogue or conclusion of some kind would, I f e e l ,
have been preferable.
Perhaps Mr. Wilton f e l t that such f o r m a l i t i e s
could be dispensed w i t h because his perspective on
the subject was e s s e n t i a l l y t r a d i t i o n a l . Certainly
his handling of t h i s viewpoint i s an accomplished
one. His experiences as a museum curator have been
put to very good use i n his description of the
techniques of i n d i v i d u a l p a i n t e r s — p a r t i c u l a r l y those
who produced landscapes. The author is perhaps best
known f o r the studies he has made i n t o the watercolors
of Turner, and the essay i n t h i s book provides a
f i n e and concise summation of his views on t h i s t o p i c .
Mr. Wilton i s less at home when dealing with the
f i g u r a t i v e t r a d i t i o n , and appears to avoid i t where
he can. We are not reminded of the attempts to make
watercolor a vehicle f o r h i s t o r y p a i n t i n g , although
these—as can be seen i n the works of Joshua
C r i s t a l l - - w e r e not always d i s g r a c e f u l . When
Bonington i s discussed, more i n t e r e s t is shown i n
his landscapes than i n his h i s t o r i c a l sketches. Most
of the f i g u r a t i v e work discussed—such as that by
Rowlandson and John Frederick Lewis—can be f i t t e d
i n t o the general theme of the observation of nature
and i n t e r e s t i n topography. There is only one who
cannot—William Blake.
219
Blake i s hardly l i k e l y to f i t comfortably i n t o
any general survey of B r i t i s h a r t of the Romantic
era. Here he stands o u t , not only because his
subject matter i s so r a d i c a l l y d i f f e r e n t from that
of the other w a t e r c o l o r i s t s , but also because his
view of watercolor i t s e l f seems to be d i f f e r e n t . He
c e r t a i n l y used watercolor a lot—more, in f a c t , than
any other painting medium—but he is d e f i n i t e l y
not w i t h i n the B r i t i s h watercolor t r a d i t i o n . For
him i t was p r i n c i p a l l y a designing medium, as i t had
been f o r the great European masters before him. He
produced many b e a u t i f u l works treated i n a highly
o r i g i n a l manner, most notably the Dante i l l u s t r a t i o n s
with t h e i r touches of pure c o l o r . But he would
rather have been at work on frescos, i f circumstances
had allowed. Despite t h i s Wilton t r i e s to make
watercolor the focus of his career, even going so f a r
as to characterize his color p r i n t i n g as "another
manifestation of his inventive use of watercolour."
Blake's p o s i t i o n does pinpoint a problem w i t h i n
the book as a whole—the degree of commitment to
watercolor as a medium f e l t by the a r t i s t s under
discussion. Some made i t t h e i r career, some used i t
sporadically f o r convenience or as a means of making
preparatory s t u d i e s . Wilton t r e a t s both categories
equally without discussing the d i s t i n c t i o n . Thus
Constable—who was no enthusiastic w a t e r e d o r i s t —
is given the same b i l l i n g as such masters of the
medium as G i r t i n , Cotman and Turner. This also leads
to the discussion of much material that seems
extraneous to the h i s t o r y of watercolor i n the case
of those a r t i s t s for whom the technique was not a
r u l i n g passion.
There i s , however, much t h a t i s a t t r a c t i v e about
the book. Apart from the r e a d a b i l i t y of the t e x t ,
there i s also the selection of p l a t e s . This i s f a r
from being a simple rerun of classics—although some
of the most breathtaking examples (such as G i r t i n ' s
"White House") have properly been included. It
brings to l i g h t many l i t t l e known gems—such as W.
H. Hunt's " L i t t l e G i r l Reading." The biographies
of the a r t i s t s and notes on the plates are highly
i n f o r m a t i v e . So much so, i n f a c t , t h a t i t seems a
shame that t h i s section could not have been extended,
and a broader i n t r o d u c t i o n provided by the main t e x t .
 aao
David Alexander and Richard T. Godfrey.
P a i n t e r s a n d E n g r a v i n g : The
Reproductive Print f r o m Hogarth to
W i l k i e . An exhibition at the Yale Center
for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, 26
March through 22 June 1 9 8 0 . Exhibition
and catalogue (73 pp., 14 illus.).
Reviewed by Robert N. Essick.
I n about 1810, Blake c a l l e d upon "Englishmen"
to "rouze yourselves from the f a t a l Slumber
i n t o which Booksellers & Trading Dealers
have thrown you Under the a r t f u l l y propagated
pretence that a Translation or a Copy of any kind
can be as honourable to a Nation as An O r i g i n a l . " 1
This appeal has been so thoroughly answered by
twentieth-century c o l l e c t o r s , connoisseurs, and
curators as to overthrow completely the aesthetic of
the l a s t two centuries which highly valued reproduc-
t i v e graphics. The triumph of o r i g i n a l printmaking
has transformed our sense of what to value i n p r i n t s
and, less h a p p i l y , has tended to obscure the impor-
tance of copy engraving as the predominant form of
the c r a f t throughout Blake's l i f e t i m e . The recent
e x h i b i t i o n , Painters and Engraving, at the Yale
Center f o r B r i t i s h A r t was a worthy and generally
successful attempt to restore a more balanced
h i s t o r i c a l view and investigate—but not necessarily
advocate—the values of the reproductive p r i n t .
The 150 works i n the e x h i b i t i o n , including a
few paintings accompanied by t h e i r graphic t r a n s l a -
t i o n s , were displayed with appropriate r e s t r a i n t on
the t h i r d f l o o r of the handsome new Yale Center.
A l l the p r i n t s were f i n e , early impressions and f o r
the most part i n e x c e l l e n t c o n d i t i o n . Many of these
works were o r i g i n a l l y intended f o r the c o l l e c t o r ' s
p o r t f o l i o or display i n intimate domestic s e t t i n q s ,
and thus I had to compensate f o r the public and
i n s t i t u t i o n a l context of the e x h i b i t by moving from
p r i n t t o p r i n t and studying each at close range.
Rich b u r r , mossy t i n t s , and clean strokes must be
appreciated at a distance not to exceed twenty
Painters The
and Reproductive
Engraving Print
From Hogarth
to Wilkie
inches. A scholarly e x h i b i t of t h i s type never
draws the crowds swarming over the MOMA Picasso
f i e s t a on the same weekend I v i s i t e d the Center.
Left frequently alone, except f o r an occasional guard
who feared I was fogging up the g l a z i n g , I could
study the p r i n t s with considerable convenience.
Three v i s i t s of about two hours each made f o r a calm
and decorous experience with a proper eighteenth-
century balance of d e l i g h t and i n s t r u c t i o n .
The e x h i b i t i o n had a narrow focus, f o r i t dealt
not with the f u l l range of reproductive printmaking
i n England from c. 1720 to c. 1830 (as the s u b - t i t l e
i m p l i e s ) , but rather with the s p e c i f i c f i e l d of
p r i n t s copied a f t e r paintings executed as f i n i s h e d
works in t h e i r own r i g h t . Further, almost a l l of
the p r i n t s were based on eighteenth or early nine-
teenth-century B r i t i s h p a i n t i n g s , and book i l l u s -
t r a t i o n s were generally excluded. This f i e l d was i n
turn divided i n t o fourteen sections. Reciting them
i s a b i t tedious, but an e f f i c i e n t way of giving a
sense of the e x h i b i t ' s contents and an o u t l i n e of
the h i s t o r y of eighteenth-century English copy
engravings a f t e r p a i n t i n g s .
1. Hogarth and His Predecessors (Le Blon, J . B.
Jackson, K i r k a l l 2 )
2. The Mezzotint and Subject Painting 1735-1760
(Faber, Houston, McArdell)
3. The Revival of Line 1740-1770 (Ravenet, Woollett)
4. The I r i s h Mezzotint Engravers i n London 1750-1775

(Frye, Fisher, Watson, Dixon)
5. English Mezzotint Engravers 1760-1775 (Spilsbury,
Green, Earlom, Pether)
6. Benjamin West and the Market f o r Prints a f t e r
History Paintings (Green and Woollett again,
H a l l , Strange)
7. Reynolds and the Great Age of the P o r t r a i t
Mezzotint 1775-1785 (Watson, J . R. Smith,
Sherwin)
8. An Expanding P r i n t Market: The New Techniques
of Stipple and Aquatint (Ryland, B a r t o l o z z i ,
Knight, Schiavonetti)
9. The Painter as P r i n t Maker: The Prints of
George Stubbs and James Barry.
10. The Painter and the Search f o r the Best S e l l i n g
P r i n t 1775-1800 ( B a r t o l o z z i , Woollett & Ernes,
Sharp)
11. The Widening Range of Mezzotint 1780-1810
(Earlom, J . R. Smith, Ward)
12. The Ambitions of t h e , P r i n t Publishers (Heath,
Skelton, Sharp, Tomkins, Anker Smith; and the
publishers Macklin, B o y d e l l , and Bowyer)
13. The English P r i n t Trade and the French
Revolutionary Wars (Orme, Bromley, Heath)
14. Conclusion: The Early Nineteenth Century
(Raimbach, Cousins, John M a r t i n , Lucas'
p r i n t s a f t e r Constable)
This l i s t indicates the extent to which mezzotints,
the c h i e f means f o r rendering o i l paintings i n t o
repeatable images, dominated the e x h i b i t . A l l were
highly competent and representative examples, but
the long rows of mezzotint p o r t r a i t s and genre scenes
showed how r e g u l a r i t y and the extreme of high f i n i s h
can grow i n t o monotony. The more e x c i t i n g mezzotints
were those a f t e r paintings with Caravaggesque l i g h t
e f f e c t s , such as P h i l i p Dawe's plate of 1768 a f t e r
Henry Robert Morland's "The Ballad Singer" (both
painting and p r i n t exhibited) and the great plates
by Green, Earlom, and Pether a f t e r Wright of Derby's
"A Philosopher Shewing an Experiment on the A i r
Pump," "The Blacksmith's Shop," and "The F a r r i e r ' s
Shop." For one as lodged in Blake and his c i r c l e
as I , i t was a s l i g h t disappointment not to f i n d i n
the e x h i b i t some of the s t r i k i n g mezzotints a f t e r
F u s e l i , such as J . R. Smith's "Belisane & Percival
under the Enchantment of Urma" (1782) and "The
Weird S i s t e r s " (1785).
Although no works by or a f t e r Blake were i n the
show, i t did o f f e r an e x c e l l e n t chance f o r experienc-
ing a t f i r s t - h a n d the context of styles and tech-
niques in which, and often against which, Blake
pursued his own unique course as a printmaker.
Blake's natural a l l i e s were Woollett and Strange,
the great p r a c t i t i o n e r s of t r a d i t i o n a l l i n e
engraving who opposed the newer schools of mezzotint,
crayon manner, s t i p p l e , and a q u a t i n t . That he
221
attacked these two men, at l e a s t i n his private
Notebook j o t t i n g s o f c. 1810, and set his own career
w i t h i n an older t r a d i t i o n of o r i g i n a l graphics, shows
the extent of his d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n with the aesthetics
and economics of the printmaking industry represented
in this exhibit. In his e a r l i e r years, Blake seems
to have been more w i l l i n g to channel his talents
i n t o conventional copywork. His major source of
employment throughout his career was book i l l u s t r a -
t i o n , but some o f his separate plates would have
f i t t e d comfortably i n t o the Yale e x h i b i t . Blake's
two plates of 1782 a f t e r Watteau, "Morning Amusement"
and "Evening Amusement," p a r t i c u l a r l y the Keynes,
B u t l i n , M c G i l l , and Essick impressions p r i n t e d i n
sanguine or t e r r a c o t t a , 3 are t y p i c a l of the s t i p p l e
plates presented i n section 8 of the e x h i b i t .
Ryland's "Maria" a f t e r Angelica Kauffmann (no. 76 i n
the e x h i b i t i o n catalogue) and B a r t o l o z z i ' s "Presenta-
t i o n of King John of France to Edward I I I " (no. 84)
are very close to Blake's work. I f the two extant
productions ("Zephyrus and Flora" and " C a l i s t o , "
both a f t e r Stothard) by the partnership o f Blake and
Parker are representative of t h e i r i n t e n t i o n s , then
i n 1784 the two former apprentices of James Basire
were attempting to produce and market p r i n t s that
met the contemporary demand f o r d e l i c a t e l y s t i p p l e d
"fancy" p r i n t s . A few years l a t e r , Blake even
became involved i n the h i g h l y popular business of
producing s t i p p l e p r i n t s a f t e r George Morland's
picturesque views of country l i f e . "The Industrious
Cottager" and "The Idle Laundress," both o r i g i n a l l y
published by J . R. Smith i n 1788, are of the same
genre as J . D. Soiron's two plates a f t e r Morland,
"St. James's Park" and "A Tea Garden" of 1790,
exhibited at the Yale Center (nos. 85 and 86).
Soiron's p l a t e s , l i k e three extant impressions of
Blake's p r i n t s a f t e r Morland, 4 were p r i n t e d i n colors
a la poupee—that i s , w i t h each color of ink i n d i v i d -
u a l l y applied to the appropriate areas of the copper-
plate w i t h a rag dabber or stump brush and p r i n t e d
i n one o p e r a t i o n . 5 Blake's own color p r i n t i n g of
the i l l u m i n a t e d books appears to have been an
extension of t h i s technique to r e l i e f plates and a
s u b s t i t u t i o n o f opaque glue or gum-based pigments f o r
colored i n k s .
The Yale e x h i b i t included two important p a i n t e r -
printmakers, Barry and Stubbs, whose work is l e g i t i -
mately a part of reproductive engraving, since t h e i r
p r i n t s were copied a f t e r p a i n t i n g s , but who are also
i n the t r a d i t i o n of o r i g i n a l graphics because the
paintings they "copied" (and frequently a l t e r e d ) were
t h e i r own. Blake shared much with these a r t i s t s who
also took singular approaches to the execution
and p u b l i c a t i o n of t h e i r designs "without the i n t e r -
mediary of engraver and p u b l i s h e r . " 6 In his early
years Blake seems to have had the i n t e n t i o n of pre-
paring a series of designs on subjects from B r i t i s h
h i s t o r y , and l a t e r on B i b l i c a l subjects, f o r eventual
execution as copperplate l i n e engravings. From t h i s
resulted only the "Edward and Elenor," "Job," and
"Ezekiel" separate plates and perhaps "The History
of England, a small book of Engravings" known only
through t h e i r advertisement i n the 1793 prospectus
"To the P u b l i c . " 7 This pattern f o r an a r t i s t - p r i n t -
maker was established by Barry, whose "King Lear and
Cordelia" (nos. 102a and 102b i n the e x h i b i t )
represents his energetic approach to the copper.
Prints on h i s t o r i c a l and l i t e r a r y subjects were the
 22a
most respected, having the same p o s i t i o n in graphics
as the epic i n the hierarchy of l i t e r a r y genres, and
eighteenth-century decorum called f o r t h e i r execution
i n t r a d i t i o n a l l i n e etching/engraving. Barry and
Blake set t h e i r sights on t h i s l o f t y f i e l d ; n e i t h e r
achieved the popular and f i n a n c i a l successes of the
painters West and Reynolds or the copy engravers
Woollett and Strange. Further, Barry tended to
experiment with inking and p r i n t i n g techniques to
such an extent that each impression i s unique. This
divergence from the uniform r e p e a t a b i l i t y sought by
the established printmaking industry was carried to
an extreme i n Blake's r e l i e f etchings and color
p r i n t e d drawings.
Given his e x p l i c i t admiration f o r B a r r y , 8 the
p a r a l l e l s between Blake's career (or at least his
early intentions f o r i t ) and his predecessor's are
not s u r p r i s i n g . The associations between Blake and
Stubbs come less r e a d i l y to mind, p a r t i c u l a r l y given
the differences i n the subjects of t h e i r p r i n t s other
than large f e l i n e s . The Yale e x h i b i t , however, makes
t h e i r general r e l a t i o n s h i p c l e a r e r . Godfrey t e l l s
us i n the catalogue that "no p r i n t s are less
spontaneously executed than those of Stubbs, whose
d e l i g h t i t was to p a t i e n t l y rework and rethink f o r
the graphic medium an image that he had already
defined i n p a i n t , perhaps decades before" (p. 46).
Blake's career a f t e r 1804 shows t h i s same tendency,
f o r he returned to his early plates to r e v i t a l i z e
"Job," " E z e k i e l , " "The Accusers," "Joseph of Arima-
thea among the Rocks of A l b i o n , " and "Albion rose"
with new c u t t i n g , burnishing, and i n s c i p t i o n s . And
Blake seems to have f i d d l e d with "Chaucers Canterbury
Pilgrims" and The Gates of Paradise i n t o his l a s t
few y e a r s . 9 The great Job plates have a very high
f i n i s h in t h e i r central panels, display some of the
minute f l i c k and s t i p p l e work to create r i c h and
varied textures so t y p i c a l of Stubbs' p l a t e s , and
are reworkings of designs Blake executed almost
twenty years e a r l i e r f o r Thomas B u t t s . Like Barry
and Blake, Stubbs also "manifested to a remarkable
degree that natural d e l i g h t i n purposeful technical
experiment." 1 0 When viewed from t h i s special
perspective offered by the Yale e x h i b i t and cata-
logue, one might even begin to speak of the "School
of Barry, Blake, and Stubbs." There are of course
s i g n i f i c a n t differences among them, but a l l three
a r t i s t s struggled against the modes o f s e n s i b i l i t y
and production dominating l a t e eighteenth-century
printmaking. Their works embody t h a t u n i t y of
conception and execution so much a part of Blake's
aesthetic and of our modern taste i n graphics.
Certainly Blake's major attempt at producing a large
engraving a f t e r one of his p a i n t i n g s , "Chaucers
Canterbury P i l g r i m s , " would have f i t t e d n i c e l y i n t o
the Stubbs and Barry section of the Yale e x h i b i t i o n .
I t i s s u r p r i s i n g that the organizers did not take
advantage o f available resources to do t h i s : across
the s t r e e t at the Yale University A r t Gallery they
would have found Blake's o r i g i n a l copperplate of the
"Canterbury" and an impression of the rare t h i r d
s t a t e . 1 1 The Center i t s e l f has a good impression of
the second state and, f o r contrast and context, a
f a s c i n a t i n g etched proof (yet with i n s c r i p t i o n s and
an i m p r i n t , dated 1 August 1810, i n d i c a t i n g i t was
published) of the Schiavonetti-Heath plate a f t e r
Stothard's "Canterbury P i l g r i m s " p a i n t i n g .
A scholarly e x h i b i t i o n deserves a good catalogue
to perpetuate i t s memory and extend i t s impact beyond
the lucky few who attended the show. Although the
physical appearance of the catalogue authored by
Alexander and Godfrey is not very promising, with
few i l l u s t r a t i o n s and typewriter typography, t h e i r
double-column t e x t i s packed with valuable informa-
t i o n , some of i t taken from previously unpublished
l e t t e r s and engravers' r e c e i p t s . Although not the
focus of any one section of the catalogue, the class
struggle between engravers and p a i n t e r s - - t h e l a t t e r
always asserting t h e i r s u p e r i o r i t y to the former yet
desperately needing t h e i r t a l e n t s — i s c l e a r l y
documented. The conventional entries on i n d i v i d u a l
works are preceded by an i n t r o d u c t i o n by Alexander,
b r i e f descriptions of printmaking techniques by
Godfrey, and a most informative overview by Alexander
of how eighteenth-century p r i n t s were published.
The second of these sections o f f e r s i n t e r e s t i n g
material on the use o f drypoint (hard to detect i n
eighteenth-century plates because the burr was always
removed before p r i n t i n g ) and on the sale of unfinished
proofs, but also raises a few doubts. Godfrey c a l l s
woodcut a "planographic process" (p. 8 ) . Surely i t
is r e l i e f ; the f i r s t planographic technique was
lithography, and even that was a r e l i e f technique
i n i t s e a r l y h i s t o r y i n England. Godfrey also states
that the etching ground was wax, the usual method of
b i t i n g the plate was to b u i l d a dike of wax around
i t s edges and pour acid into the shallow vessel
formed thereby, and the most common mordant was
d i l u t e n i t r i c acid or the "Dutch Bath" o f hydro-
c h l o r i c acid mixed with chlorate of potash (p. 7 ) .
A l l three observations are subject to question. The
eighteenth-century etching manuals i n French and
English recommend the " s o f t varnish" which indeed
contained " v i r g i n wax" ( i . e . , p u r i f i e d beeswax) but
also asphaltum and other substances. 1 2 Pure wax
would be too s o f t and would probably d r i p o f f the
plate i f one t r i e d to smoke i t with a candle. Blake
used the dike method for b i t i n g his r e l i e f p l a t e s ;
but the handbooks give equal i f not more a t t e n t i o n
to a slanted p a l e t t e , w i t h a trough at the bottom,
on which the plate was placed and acid poured over
i t , and to the "Cochin Rocker"--an a c i d - f i l l e d t r a y
in which the plate was gently rocked back and f o r t h
to keep the acid moving and thereby prevent bubbles
that cause underbiting and l i f t i n g of the ground.
To support his reference to the dike method, Godfrey
refers to item 9 in the e x h i b i t , a p r i n t from The
Universal Magazine of October, 1748, showing (among
other printmaking a c t i v i t i e s ) a copperplate r e s t i n g
in an acid bath tended by a young boy with a feather
to whisk away bubbles. This scene is even more
disconcerting to me than i t should have been to
Godfrey, f o r I have never found an eighteenth-century
d e s c r i p t i o n of etching that recommends t h i s pro-
cedure, now standard in an age without cheap
apprentice labor to pour acid or rock t r a y s . Perhaps
i t is only a Cochin Rocker temporarily at rest and
the boy a lazy apprentice. F i n a l l y , the standard
mordant was probably Abraham Bosse's so-called aqua-
fortis, a mixture of vinegar, sal-amoniac, sea s a l t ,
and v e r d i g r i s . Only Dossie ( I I , 146-50) objects
n o i s i l y to t h i s mordant and writes that true aqua-
fortis is n i t r i c a c i d . None of the manuals I have
seen says anything of the Dutch Bath, although
Bosse's formula has a s i m i l a r combination of acids
and s a l t s and i n my experience bites copper i n a
 223
s i m i l a r l y g e n t l e , non­bubbling manner. But these c o l l e c t i o n at Parke­Bernet, 17 A p r i l 1941, l o t 154 ($150), and i s
technical matters seem to be subject to endless now i n the c o l l e c t i o n of L u c i l e Johnson Rosenbloom, P i t t s b u r g h .
dispute, and I suspect that neither Godfrey nor I 5
An e x h i b i t a t the Yale Center from 20 A p r i l through 25 June,
have heard the end of i t . 1978 d e a l t s p e c i f i c a l l y w i t h c o l o r p r i n t i n g . See the i n f o r m a t i v e
catalogue by Joan M. Friedman, Color Pri nti ng In England 1486-1870
(New Haven: Yale Center f o r B r i t i s h A r t , 1978).
The catalogue, l i k e the e x h i b i t i o n i t s e l f , is
worthy of i t s i n s t i t u t i o n a l sponsor. I hope that 6
Richard T. Godfrey i n the catalogue to the e x h i b i t i o n , p. 46.
the Yale Center and i t s guardian angel, Mr. Paul
7
Mellon, w i l l continue to serve scholars i n s p e c i a l ­ See Erdman, ed., Poetry and Prose of William Blake, p. 671.
ized f i e l d s , such as English copy engraving, where 8
See the annotations to Reynolds (Erdman, pp. 626, 6 3 1 , 6 4 0 ) ,
few other museums or l i b r a r i e s can a f f o r d to labor. the "Public Address" (Erdman, pp. 565, 570), and the reference
These e f f o r t s w i l l surely add to Yale's reputation to "Barry, a Poem" on p. 61 o f Blake's Notebook.
as a center f o r the study of B r i t i s h a r t and c u l t u r e . 9
I have discussed a l l these revisions i n some d e t a i l and argued
f o r t h e i r l a t e date i n Wi lli am Blake, Pr
i ntmaker (Princeton:
1 Princeton U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1980).
"Public Address" in David V. Erdman, e d . , The Poetry and Prose
of Wi lli am Blake (Garden C i t y , New York: Doubleday, 1965), p. 10
565. Godfrey i n the e x h i b i t i o n catalogue, p. 47.
2 11
For each section I l i s t only the more important printmakers The only other impressions o f the t h i r d s t a t e (as described
presented, not a l l those e x h i b i t e d . i n K eynes, Engravi ngs by Blake: The Separate Plates, pp. 46­47)
I have been able to l o c a t e are i n the Huntington L i b r a r y and the
3 c o l l e c t i o n of Douglas Cleverdon, London.
S i r Geoffrey K eynes' impression of "Morning Amusement" i s
reproduced in sanguine i n his Engravi ngs by Wi lli am Blake: The
12
Separate Plates ( D u b l i n : Emery Walker, 1956), p i . 39. See W i l l i a m Faithorne, The Art of Gravei ng and Etchi ng (London,
1662), section 19; and Sculptura i H stor
i co-Teohn i ca, Fourth
"♦ An impression of "The I d l e Laundress" c o l o r ­ p r i n t e d i n b l u e , E d i t i o n (London, 1770), pp. 82­83, f o r standard formulae. [Robert
b r i c k r e d , brown, b l a c k , and o l i v e green i s i n the K eynes Dossie], The Handmai d to the Arts, Second E d i t i o n (London, 1764),
c o l l e c t i o n . A p a i r o f these companion p r i n t s c o l o r ­ p r i n t e d i n I I , 83­89, o f f e r s e i g h t d i f f e r e n t r e c i p e s , none o f which i s pure
b l u e , green, b r i c k r e d , and black was sold from the A. E. Newton wax.
224
Simon Stuart. N e w P h o e n i x W i n g s :
R e p a r a t i o n i n L i t e r a t u r e . London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1980.
$23.00.
Reviewed by Thomas R. Frosch.
T he confrontation of psychoanalysis and
literary Romanticism is a particularly
challenging and intriguing one. On the one
hand, with its interest in subjectivity, its attrac-
tion to memory, fantasy, and dream, its intuitive
grasp of unconscious process, its fascination with
the primitive and with extreme states of mind and
feeling, and its commitment to the theme of human
desire and its vicissitudes, Romanticism would seem
to demand exactly the kind of illumination a psycho-
analytic approach offers. On the other hand, perhaps
nothing is more effectively and meaningfully hostile
to the idealizations of Romanticism than the
characteristic demythologizing force of Freudian
analysis; the psychoanalytic description of the
neurotic is often a telling negative portrayal of
the Romantic hero. Indeed, Freud's work can easily
be seen as both the culmination of a century of
Romanticism and a reaction against it. For the
literary critic who finds psychoanalytic models valid
and compelling and who is at the same time intellec-
tually and emotionally sympathetic to Romanticism,
the problem is to bring Romanticism and psychoanalysis
together in a way that respects both. Such a project,
exemplified in the work of Harold Bloom, Thomas
Weiskel, Richard Onorato, and others, seems to me
the most important recent development in Romantic
studies.
When it comes to Blake, the problem is
especially difficult. First, Blake offers an
abundance of diverse Romantic attitudes; his
characters include both "good" and "bad" Romantics:
the Sunflower, Thel, Ore, Oothoon, Los, the Devil of
New
PhoenixWings
REPARATION IN LITERATURE
SIMON STUART
The Marriage , the poet's own persona at different
moments, even Urizen constitute together a virtual
encyclopedia of Romanticism. Blake's poetic universe
is powered and pervaded by a general Romanticism, a
desire for paradise; and his on-going poetic
adventure centers upon his attempts to refine and
shape that desire. It is easy for psychoanalysis to
help Blake criticize the neoative Romanticism, but
how is it to handle the positive? Second, Blake's
own systematic charting of the psyche, precisely
because it has numerous points of similarity to
Freud's, is a formidable defense against attempts to
apply psychoanalytic models to his work. And sure
enough, most psychoanalytic references in Blake
studies show how Blake embodies or anticipates
Freud's theories, rather than how psychoanalytic
techniques of interpretation can ooen up an
unconscious dimension in Blake's own words. A third
difficulty is that Blake does not lay himself bare,
like Wordsworth, who virtually begs to be analyzed.
As compatible as Blake may be thematically with an
ethic of subjectivity and self-expression, poetically
he belongs primarily to an older, more openly
literary tradition; he is a writer of calculated
guises, of ironies and dramatizations.
Simon Stuart's New Phoenix Wings is a psycho-
analytic study of literature that respects poetic
idealization (customarily identifying idealization
with sentimentality and falsification, the author
writes, we tend "to pass over that area in which an
idealised view can penetrate an essential reality")
and that includes an extensive chapter on Blake.
Stuart's approach is based on the striking and

controversial work of Melanie Klein, whose theories
have been highly influential in England, more so than
in the United States. Klein believed that infants
in their first six months experience toward the
object that dominates their lives, the breast, not
only positive feelings but also intense feelings of
aggression, and she identified these sadistic
impulses with the death-instinct. Culminating
during the experience of weaning, the agqression is
expressed primarily in unconscious destructive
fantasies (the derivatives of which can be observed
later) toward the internalized image of the breast,
as well as the internalized image of both parents.
Furthermore, in his fantasies of hatred and assault,
the infant fears that the object of his fury will
retaliate in kind. This is the paranoid-schizoid
stage, schizoid because of the conflict between the
satisfying, pleasure-giving image of the breast and
the frustrating, hostile image of the breast. It
is the persecuting inner object, rather than actual
parental discipline, that for Klein is the source
of the Superego.
Tormented by fears both of his own aggressive
impulses and of the persecuting enemy those impulses
have created, the infant enters a stage of severe
depression, in which he is dominated by a sense of
loss. But the depression is countered by the growing
realization that the external parents do not behave
like the internal fantasy parents, that despite his
own aggression and the sadism of the internal parents,
the external ones still remain loving. The infant
is then moved to rebuild his inner world, which has
been shattered by sadism, and he passes into a stage
of reparation, dominated by fantasies of healing the
damaged parents. This impulse of reparation, Stuart
emphasizes, is the source of art; to create is to
recreate, to rebuild the lost or fragmented internal
object.
Crucial to the process of reparation is a new
ability to form symbols, substitutes for what the
infant has lost. In Klein's treatment of sublima-
tion, when the image of the breast becomes over-
whelmingly fraught with conflict and anxiety, the
infant forms a symbolic substitute for it; the
anxieties of the depressive stage thus drive the
subject to sublimations which, ideally, resolve the
anxieties, leading to new interests and activities.
In this way, the death-instinct becomes the power
behind the creation of "life-enhancing, life-
preserving activities." The alternative to repara-
tion and symbol-formation is stultification,
pathological withdrawal, impotence of all types;
"We must construct our symbols," writes Stuart,
"or die."
Stuart examines these issues in the work of a
mythopoeic poet, Blake; a subjective, confessional
poet, Wordsworth; a novelist, Dostoevsky; and a
dramatist, Shakespeare. But first he explores
Kleinian patterns in less sophisticated forms, in
nursery rhymes and in compositions written by his
own sixth-form students. This chapter—for me, the
best part of the book—features an engaging
discussion of his method of teaching "Goosey, goosey
gander." From the innocence of children's
literature, he moves to Blakean Innocence and
Experience, juxtaposing "A Little Boy Lost" to a
225
student fantasia about a homosexual rape on an altar
by a father-priest, to show the Oedipal intricacies
within Blake's theme of religious and social
oppression. But where is the reparation in this
poem? It appears, Stuart claims, in the spectrum
of colors surrounding the poem on Blake's
illuminated plate, a covenantal rainbow, which both
recalls the lost oneness at the source of the
spectrum and also is emblematic of the restitution
made by aesthetic form itself. The latter point
becomes a major theme in the book. Whereas comic
literature manifests reparation in both content and
form, tragic literature does so purely in form. For
Freud, the formal properties of literature offer a
kind of forepleasure, which bribes us to accept the
author's fantasy. For Bloom, concentrating on the
writer, rather than the audience, formal properties,
as ratios of misreading, are aggressive transforma-
tions of a prior text. For Stuart, we experience a
feeling of reparation in our appreciation of rhyme,
meter, sound, and verbal patterning. Successful
poetry doesn't incite us to fulfill the forbidden
impulses it takes as its subject matter but trans-
ports us to a state of Thomistic contemplation of
aesthetic wholeness and universal meaning. For
Stuart, formal elements embody the Ego's ordering
of "crude Id impulses"; but he typically underplays
the magical fantasy involved in that ordering.
Formal elements can often be seen as rooted in primal
experiences and impulses; the Thomistic stasis can
be regarded as a reincarnation of the infant's
experience of the good object; it may also be that
some need for obstacle, resistance, or counter-
pressure enters into the artist's own experience of
form: witness Frost and his tennis net. In
different ways, Vico, Buber, and Northrop Frye have
pointed out that magic, fantasy, and, in effect, Id
impulses play a part in the process of poetic
structuring, as well as in the material to be
structured. In any event, Stuart does not convince
me that "A Little Boy Lost" is not, in the terms of
Stephen Dedalus' Thomistic aesthetic, primarily a
pornographic poem, one which is calculated to incite
us to outrage, one in which the function of aesthetic
form is to sharpen the point.
Stuart's major section on Blake begins with a
reading of The Four Zoas Night Vila as an account of
the origins of the creative imagination. The Night
opens with the Oedipal entanglements of Ore and
Urizen, in which it becomes clear that no hope for
redemption can any longer be expected from the Id,
hero of The Marriage but now as crippled as the
Superego that oppresses it. The world of Ore and
Urizen is the paranoid-schizoid world, ruled by the
death-instinct. A way out can be found only through
Los, or the Ego, but only if the Ego accepts the
annihilation of its current, limited concept of
itself as a wholly conscious, rational entity by
acknowledging its own "forgotten, denied, split off,
despised aspect," and especially its envy and
jealousy, prime Kleinian effects in the early phases.
The Spectre of Urthona, who both represents the
despised aspect and argues for its acceptance,
receives a more favorable presentation in Stuart
than I have seen elsewhere. Once Los is inwardly
healed, he turns with Enitharmon to the reparative
work of creating "embodied semblances," or symbols,
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f o r the other spectres of the f a l l e n w o r l d ; that i s ,
Los and Enitharmon become the good i n t e r n a l i z e d
parents cooperating i n the process of c r e a t i o n ,
r e b u i l d i n g the world shattered by Ore and Urizen and
by t h e i r own depressive a n x i e t i e s , and the world of
symbols they build i s Golgonooza. In the v i s i o n of
the Lamb of God clothed in Luvah's robes of blood
that enteres the episode at the end and that Anne
Mellor has attacked as a conventional r e l i g i o u s
i n t r u s i o n , Stuart sees an e f f e c t i v e symbol of the
process of r e p a r a t i o n , i n which the dead spectres,
the shattered pieces of the w o r l d , are reborn; the
Lamb i s , i n e f f e c t , a culminating symbol of the
process of symbol-formation i t s e l f .
A l l t h i s may sound somewhat formulaic, but i t
is much less so i n S t u a r t ' s t e x t than i n my synopsis,
and so f a r I f i n d i t a f i n e reading. At t h i s p o i n t ,
however, Stuart makes the claim that Blake himself
f a i l s to achieve i n the poetic form of V i l a the
embodied semblance, the process of giving s t r u c t u r e
to the broken, that i n his n a r r a t i v e i s presented as
the triumph of the l i f e - i n s t i n c t s . Indeed, he
relates Blake's epic s t y l e to the i n f a n t ' s sense of
omnipotence, which, as a manic defense against
depression, is an obstacle to true r e p a r a t i o n . In
Jerusalem, he concludes, Blakean form becomes even
looser and more n a r c i s s i s t i c ; and he s i m i l a r l y
censures Visions of the Daughters of Albion f o r i t s
embodiment of a world-view and a poetics dominated
by mere magic and an exaggerated sense of the worth
of a l l the i n d i v i d u a l ' s products. Blake i s at his
best, by c o n t r a s t , i n the Songs, where he is w r i t i n g
i n t i g h t , t r a d i t i o n a l forms, shaping his impulses
in the terms of a l a r g e r , a n t e r i o r enterprise (he
c a l l s "A L i t t l e Boy Lost" a "great poem"). This i s
a stunningly retrogressive p o i n t , and T. S. E l i o t ' s
s t r i c t u r e s on Blake, as well as his general
a e s t h e t i c , are brought back to l i f e to support i t .
Working with categories of Ernst K r i s , Stuart
develops opposed concepts of the a r t i s t as craftsman
and as magician, the l a t t e r equated w i t h the "bad
a r t i s t " and the n e u r o t i c , and w r i t e s that the
presence of the Romantic, i n s p i r e d , and prophetic
Bard " v i t i a t e s " many Blakean passages. At such
times Blake lacks "classical i m p e r s o n a l i t y . "
S t u a r t ' s aesthetic categories and sympathies
are remote from his Blakean m a t e r i a l . Organic form
has i t s abuses and f a i l u r e s — s o too does c l a s s i c a l
or " t r a d i t i o n a l " form, as Blake was fond of p o i n t i n g
out--and Blake did not e n t i r e l y escape such f a i l u r e s ;
but I doubt i f S t u a r t ' s argument w i l l give much
pause f o r reconsideration to anyone who is convinced
that Blake's epic s t y l e was a conscious, a r t f u l
expansion of form accompanying and even necessitated
by an expansion and deepening of statement and
v i s i o n . More important, S t u a r t ' s sense of t r a d i t i o n
i s l i m i t e d , f o r the epic s t y l e i s indeed quite
t r a d i t i o n a l ; i t belongs to a t r a d i t i o n of prophetic
poetry, which has i t s own formal features and which
includes the Bible and Paradise Lost, Blake's
f a v o r i t e books. There are references in Stuart t h a t
imply a p a r t i a l acknowledgment that Blake's epic
s t y l e i s t r a d i t i o n a l i n i t s own way; but i f a
psychology of a r t i s t r u l y required by i t s p r i n c i p l e s
to r e j e c t an e n t i r e t r a d i t i o n of s t y l e that w r i t e r s
themselves have found useful throughout the h i s t o r y
of l i t e r a t u r e , then the psychology needs to be
revised. We may accept t h a t c e r t a i n powerful and
s k i l l f u l works of a r t exemplify n a r c i s s i s t i c ,
omnipotent, and magical conceptions of the s e l f and
the world--however, we then might question not
whether such a r t is therefore rendered i n v a l i d b u t ,
as Bloom has done, whether poetic excellence i s the
same thing as the wisdom of d a i l y l i f e . Romantic
magic and imagination and the character of the
Romantic poet-prophet require a cooler psychological
analysis than Stuart gives them.
Stuart proceeds to analyze the Songs as
successful embodied semblances. He reads the
" I n t r o d u c t i o n " to Innocence a t t r a c t i v e l y as a poem
that represents the poetic process i n terms of
conception (piping down the valleys w i l d ) , gestation
(from piping to singing to w r i t i n g ) , and b i r t h (the
c h i l d , at f i r s t inside the p i p e r , w i t h the cloud
above his head as both a placenta and a thought-
bubble, vanishes when the song i s externalized in a
book). Procreation and poetic process are i d e n t i f i e d
with i n c a r n a t i o n , since the c h i l d , the song, the
song's subject (the lamb), Innocence, and, by
i m p l i c a t i o n , Jesus are j o i n t l y conceived and brought
i n t o the world i n the poem. In "The L i t t l e Boy Lost"
and "The L i t t l e Boy Found," dew and mire represent
both the material w o r l d , i n t o which, in a Neoplatonic
reading, the soul descends, and also the urine and
feces of the c h i l d ' s assault against the parents.
Losing involves destroying. But the real parents,
as opposed to the inner ones, continue to be ever
nigh and c a r i n g , and reparation is achieved. It
would appear t h a t since the new father i s a sublime
one (God) the concept of reparation needs to be
supplemented here by the concept of Family Romance.
"The Chimney Sweeper" of Innocence receives the
most provocative of these readings. The essence of
the poem f o r Stuart is not i t s social protest but
i t s portrayal of the inner experience of oppression.
The shaving of Tom's head i s c a s t r a t i o n ; cleaning
chimneys and sleeping i n soot i s an "anal d i v e r s i o n "
opposed to the genital s t r i v i n g s expressed in the
dream of r i s i n g to the clouds. Tom learns to endure
temporarily an onslaught of the d e a t h - i n s t i n c t
without being emotionally destroyed by i t ; his genital
potency remains i n v i o l a t e despite the attacks on i t .
But a f u l l e r reading would have to account f o r the
element of pathetic r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n in the poem, as
well as the f a c t that the sweeps' entering the
chimneys implies active homosexuality, not passive
l i k e the a l t a r fantasia to which Stuart compares the
poem. We can expand upon S t u a r t ' s reading as f o l l o w s .
F i r s t , the poem begins with the death of the mother;
that i s , when the c h i l d i s weaned, he enters a state
of persecution. The poem ends with the promise o f
p h a l l i c l i b e r a t i o n ; in the meantime, the c h i l d under-
goes a severe detainment at the anal stage. Second,
while cleaning other people's chimneys might well be,
symbolically, the nadir of h u m i l i a t i o n , i t could also
represent a destructive homosexual assault against
the f a t h e r ; l a t e n t aggression appears w i t h i n the
portrayal of helpless s u f f e r i n g . T h i r d , in Klein
the c h i l d i s fascinated by the contents of the
mother's body, which i n his fantasies include other
c h i l d r e n , penises, and excreta ( i n the paired poem
the c h i l d himself is "a l i t t l e black t h i n g , " a piece
of s o o t ) , and the anus is frequently in the c h i l d ' s
fantasies the place of b i r t h ; the sweeps thus enact

the epistomophilic and destructive fantasy of
entering the mother's body, exploring i t , and robbing
( l i b e r a t i n g ) i t s contents, while they also s u f f e r
the r e t a l i a t o r y fantasy of being swallowed and
destroyed by t h a t body, assimilated to the fragments
of d i r t w i t h i n i t , locked i n c o f f i n s of black. But
the l i b e r a t i o n of the sweeps, the resurrection of
the dead, i s also a bringing f o r t h of l i f e from
excrement, which I r v i n e S c h i f f e r in The Trauma of
Time describes as one of the radical fantasies of the
a r t i s t i c process. The poem thus gives us a
comprehensive v i s i o n of psychic c o n f l i c t i n the mode
of a n a l i t y ; but i t goes even f u r t h e r to merge
psychology and social c r i t i c i s m , suggesting how a
concept of reparation can be exploited and how
symbol-formation, i n the transcendent genital
paradise, can be overly d r a s t i c . I f the c h i l d behaves
well under the oppressive regime, he w i l l be
rewarded a f t e r death. In t h i s poem, the l i f e -
i n s t i n c t , having transformed the d e a t h - i n s t i n c t , is
then subtly co-opted by i t s adversary.
For S t u a r t , Innocence and Experience represent
not childhood and maturity but the idealized breast
and the persecuting breast, "the two contrary states
of the human s o u l . " While the Songs of Innocence
are set i n the stage of depressive anxiety and
t y p i c a l l y conclude i n r e p a r a t i o n , the Songs of
Experience paradoxically focus on the e a r l i e r
paranoid-schizoid stage, which does not contain the
p o t e n t i a l i t y of r e p a r a t i o n ; here the l i f e - i n s t i n c t ,
with i t s conversion of d i s i n t e g r a t i o n i n t o beauty,
i s present i n poetic form alone. In "The Sunflower"
Stuart sees the obverse of the successful process
of creation he discerns i n "Piping down the valleys
w i l d . " He reconciles the apparently contradictory
impulses dramatized i n the poem toward sexual
f u l f i l l m e n t and transcendence by arguing that sexual
desire is treated i n Blake as the "symbolic enact-
ment of a quest which supersedes i t . . . erection
[ i s the image] of r e s u r r e c t i o n . " He expands upon
t h i s by reference to Donne's "The Ecstasy," i n which,
as Stuart has i t , a psychosexual r e a l i t y appears
behind the concepts of Platonic Ideal and Christian
Incarnation and i n which soul and body f i n d a saving
r e c i p r o c i t y ; in S t u a r t ' s reading, "as the physical
uses the . . . immaterial f o r physical ends, so the
immaterial must use the physical f o r ends transcend-
ing the p h y s i c a l . " "The Sunflower" records a f a i l u r e
to understand the r e l a t i o n of the physical to the
s p i r i t u a l , a f a i l u r e , then, of symbol-formation, of
i n c a r n a t i o n . This i s a good reading, but to under-
stand the uniquely Blakean treatment of the r e l a t i o n -
ship between the physical and the s p i r i t u a l , one
would have to take i n t o account, f i r s t , Blake's
theme that the visionary i s not a separate realm
from the bodily (as in Plato and orthodox
C h r i s t i a n i t y ) but an expansion of the b o d i l y , and,
second, a psychological, as opposed to thematic,
analysis of Blake's deeply complex a t t i t u d e s toward
s e x u a l i t y , woman, and nature.
S t u a r t ' s Wordsworth chapter is clearer and
smoother than his Blake s e c t i o n , not only because
the material i s more r e a d i l y amenable to his approach
but even more because his discussion here a c t u a l l y
begins w i t h a psychological analysis of the poet's
t e x t rather than with a concept of the poet's work
(the transcendent Blake) to which a psychological
22?
analysis i s , i n e f f e c t , adapted. Chiefly interested
i n the way Wordsworth can "transform the substance
of despair i n t o c r e a t i v i t y , " Stuart asks how the
poet can claim that such traumatic Oedipal episodes
as the stolen boat scene i n The Prelude, Book I ,
u l t i m a t e l y contribute to his growth and sense of
w e l l - b e i n g . Onorato's answer ( s t i l l the best one
f o r me) i s t h a t Wordsworth's imagination i s driven
by a need to deny traumatic e f f e c t , s p e c i f i c a l l y
that caused by his parents' deaths; but according
to S t u a r t , Wordsworth's e a r l i e s t experience, his
pre-Oedipal innocence, his i n t e r n a l i z a t i o n of the
good parents, i s so f i r m and p o s i t i v e that the l a t e r
c o n f l i c t s of Experience can be not only survived
but used to enriching e f f e c t . "So f e e l i n g comes i n
aid / Of f e e l i n g . . . i f but once we have been
s t r o n g . " I t is i n t h i s way t h a t looking back at the
past restores us. What also helps Wordsworth survive
the depressive stage i s his genius f o r symbol-
formation. In his treatment of the Spot of Time i n
which Wordsworth v i s i t s the murderer's gibbet,
Stuart shows how anxiety drives the poet from symbol
to symbol in a series of sublimating equations —
from the visionary dreariness of the childhood
landscape to the golden glow perceived by the adult
returning to the scene, f o r example, or from the
l e t t e r s of the murderer's name (torn b i t s o f the
mother's body) to the g i r l w i t h the p i t c h e r to "the
loved one by my s i d e . " The capacity to f a b r i c a t e
embodied semblances i n t h i s way resolves the anxiety
and leads to authentic growth.
Stuart also compares "Tintern Abbey" and the
"Intimations Ode" as, r e s p e c t i v e l y , an unconvincing
and a successful attempt to resolve depressive
anxiety over the loss of the good o b j e c t . In
"Tintern Abbey" anxiety and aggression are magically
denied; the sense of persecution that emerges in
other depressive passages—in, f o r example,
Wordsworth's r e f l e c t i o n s on the Reign of T e r r o r — i s
smothered beneath "The s t i l l , sad music of humanity."
In the Ode, however, the source of depression i s
faced: the c h i l d perversely destroys his own
happiness and i n t e g r i t y ; we "provoke . . . the
i n e v i t a b l e yoke." Such an acknowledgment validates
the poem's movement from depression (the thought of
g r i e f , forgetfulness) to reparation (the timely
utterance, remembrance).
In the f i n a l chapter i t becomes apparent that
S t u a r t ' s ultimate purpose i s the forging of a
synthesis of psychoanalysis, a r t , and r e l i g i o n , and
i t is on the t h i r d term t h a t he now concentrates.
Apparently sharing the yearning of E l i o t f o r r i t e s
and symbols t h a t are grounded in human r e a l i t y and
psychologically developing t h a t d e s i r e , he looks
through Christian myth and r i t u a l to i t s pagan roots
and, beyond, to the inner events of depressive
mourning f o r the l o s t object and r e s t i t u t i o n , "an
eternal rhythm of death and resurgence, impotence
and potency, destruction and r e p a r a t i o n . " Both a r t
and, in i t s symbolic rather than magical aspect,
r e l i g i o n embody "the struggle of the l i f e - i n s t i n c t s
to f i n d forms to celebrate t h e i r ever recurrent
mourning o f what is l o s t and rediscovery thereby of
new l i f e . " He analyzes structures of r e b i r t h i n
Crime and Punishment (studying the r e l a t i o n between
Raskolnikov and S v i d r i g a i l o v ) and Much Ado About
Nothing, adding, in the l a t t e r case, a touch here
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and there to previous discussions of r e b i r t h i n
Shakespearean comedy: Hero i s the destroyed and
restored o b j e c t ; Don John manifests the i n f a n t ' s
envious wish to spoil the power and greatness of the
good o b j e c t ; the renunciation of s e l f - s u f f i c i e n c y
and s u p e r i o r i t y that brings Beatrice and Benedick
together has i t s roots i n the i n f a n t ' s r e l i n q u i s h i n g
of the breast, a renunciation that is the basis of
enriching sublimations. But the center o f the
chapter remains the quest f o r an e f f e c t i v e symbol,
"a hyper-verbal communication [ t h a t ] may resort to
words," as the soul does to the body i n Donne, but
that is f i n a l l y a transcendent r e a l i t y .
N ew Phoenix Wings demonstrates that the impor-
tant work of Melanie Klein is worth the
a t t e n t i o n of students of l i t e r a t u r e ; and
Stuart i s not a mere mechanical adapter of her
theories but a reader whose approach to l i t e r a t u r e
does show fineness and s u b t l e t y . His s t y l e , however,
despite some eloquent passages is too often an
obstacle: f o r example, " ' I n t r o d u c t i o n ' with 'Earth's
Answer' Experience, l i k e Coleridge's Dejeation
or Wordsworth i n The Prelude I , records the d i s -
j u n c t i o n of that bisexual process without the
temporary conjunction of which the record could not
e x i s t . " In his argument Stuart does n o t , i n my view,
use psychoanalytic c r i t i c i s m to maximal e f f e c t , tend-
ing to use i t to open up a w r i t e r ' s v i s i o n of
humanity and to demonstrate i n general terms the
Creative Process at work rather than to open up our
v i s i o n of the p a r t i c u l a r s e n s i b i l i t y constituted by
the w r i t e r ' s words. Did the creative process have
precisely the same meaning f o r both Blake and
Shakespeare? Are the anxieties and the i m p l i c i t
a t t i t u d e s toward parental images revealed i n t h e i r
texts i d e n t i c a l ? Except i n the case of the openly
subjective Wordsworth t e x t s , I miss a sense of the
i n d i v i d u a l i n f l e c t i o n of the universal process.
I t may be that d i f f e r e n t followers of Freud bear
a special r e l a t i o n s h i p to d i f f e r e n t authors.
Ferenczi seems close to Wordsworth, f o r example, and
the h e r e t i c a l Jung has been successfully used i n
conjunction with many w r i t e r s i n the romance mode.
In K l e i n , the handling of aggression and i t s
conversion i n t o c r e a t i v i t y i s c e n t r a l . I would l i k e
to see Kleinian analyses of w r i t e r s as divergent as
Pope—with his aggressive s a t i r e , his v i r t u a l l y
magical concern with form and c r a f t , and perhaps his
enemy-parents, Dulness and Tibbald-Cibber--and
S h e l l e y - - w i t h his massive transformations of aggres-
sion and his Prometheus devastating the world through
J u p i t e r and then r e b u i l d i n g i t . As f o r Blake, anger
and aggression c e r t a i n l y f i g u r e s a l i e n t l y i n both
his s t y l e and his poetic s i t u a t i o n s . But because of
S t u a r t ' s bias against the epic work, New Phoenix
Wings doesn't f u l l y answer the question of Klein's
relevance. What about the study of jealousy and the
b a t t l e against the d e a t h - i n s t i n c t (Covering Cherub,
Selfhood, E r r o r , Satan) in Jerusalem! What about
the bringing together of the parents (Milton and
Ololon, Albion and Jerusalem) that dominates both
Milton and Jerusalem! Here, f a r more than in the
Songs, would come the t e s t of Klein as a guide to
Blake. I am g r a t e f u l to Stuart f o r provoking such
questions, and I do think his book makes a c o n t r i b u -
t i o n to Blake studies. S t i l l , i t is important to
observe how psychoanalysis can be used merely to
give formidable a u t h o r i t y to a n t e r i o r aesthetic
judgments. Here, surrounded by references to E l i o t
and Donne and by a Thomistic concept of form, Blake
i s subsumed i n t o a poetic and r e l i g i o u s t r a d i t i o n
a l i e n to his own, w i t h predictable results i n terms
of aesthetic e v a l u a t i o n . Stuart has brought Blake
and psychoanalysis together by taking him out of the
Romantic, visionary l i n e of English l i t e r a t u r e ; more
than analyzing Blake's Romanticism, he has eliminated
it.
A broader issue is the exact nature of the
voyage from impulse and experience to symbol and a r t .
In Freud, that voyage involves a s a c r i f i c e ; t h i s i s
reaffirmed by Lacan. In Bloom, a r t is not a
reparation f o r aggression, but aggression i t s e l f i s
at the source of the creative process; and i n Bloom,
t o o , denials and defenses are generators of the
poetic imagination. Does poetry s t a r t w i t h a
reparation for a catastrophe or with the catastrophe
i t s e l f ? Throughout New Phoenix Wings Stuart stresses
that i n reparation the i n t e r n a l parents are recreated
and brought together i n sexual union; a r t i s t i c
creation involves an i n t e r n a l l y bisexual process, in
which male and female elements, father and mother,
are married. We might say that while i n the
paranoid-schizoid stage the i n f a n t s u i c i d a l l y
destroys his own c r e a t o r s , i n reparation he recreates
himself by a f f i r m i n g his o r i g i n s ; he inwardly repeats
his own c r e a t i o n . This i s Coleridge's Primary
Imagination, the " r e p e t i t i o n i n the f i n i t e mind of
the eternal act of creation i n the i n f i n i t e I AM."
New Phoenix Wings has much to o f f e r on t h i s phase o f
the poetic process. What i t lacks i s a v i v i d
complementary account of the Secondary Imagination,
which "dissolves, d i f f u s e s , d i s s i p a t e s , i n order to
r e c r e a t e , " in which aggression plays a r o l e and the
subject seeks not to repeat his o r i g i n s but to remake
them, even, in the most highly Romantic formulations,
to be his own creator. For such an account, we
would have to pass from reparation to the Oedipus
Complex and the Family Romance.

NEWSLETTER
A T THE BRITISH A R T CENTER:
T U R N I R A SHAKESPEARE
The following is a press release from Yale University:
Turner and the Sublime, a major loan exhibition
exploring the relationship of J. M. W. Turner (1775-
1851) to theories of the sublime, will open at the
Yale Center for British Art on Wednesday, 11 February
1981.
The sublime as an aesthetic concept has been
discussed by numerous writers, and Turner's own
interest in the theory, as propounded in the
eighteenth century by Edmund Burke and others, has
often been noted. But Turner, far from being bound
by any theoretical conceptions, used these as the
starting point for a whole series of technical and
artistic innovations. In pursuit of the sublime,
Turner made many very large watercolors which
emulated the grandeur and importance of oil paintings.
Several of these, together with their no less
impressive full-scale preparatory studies, will be
included in this exhibition, some being shown for the
first time. The most significant of Turner's paint-
ings in the genre of the sublime will be represented
by fine impressions of prints, often engraved under
the close supervision of Turner himself.
This exhibition, the first to examine a specific
aspect of Turner's art, will include 123 watercolors,
prints and drawings executed between 1793 and 1845.
Of these works, sixty constitute an unprecedented
loan from the resources of the Turner Bequest,
deposited in the British Museum in London; in addition,
a sizable number of works come from the Center's own
holdings, and others from private collections.
Turner and the Sublime has already received
considerable attention at the Art Gallery of Ontario
in Toronto where it opened on 1 November 1980. After
closing in New Haven on 19 April 1981, it will travel
to the British Museum in London where it will be on
view from 15 May through 20 September 1981.
The 192-page catalogue accompanying the exhibi-
tion, published by British Museum Publications and
available at the Center's Sales Desk, includes 32
color plates and 108 black and white reproductions.
Written by Andrew Wilton, a leading authority on
Turner watercolors and Curator of Prints and Drawings
through December 1980, the catalogue discusses
Turner's training and early career in the light of
traditional attitudes to the sublime and considers
the mature Turner's use of them for his own needs.
Shakespeare and British Art, an exhibition bringing
together for the first time the University's
extensive holdings of Shakespearean art, will open
at the Yale Center for British Art on Thursday, 23
229
April and remain on view through Sunday, 5 July 1981.
William Shakespeare was one of the most important
literary inspirations for British artists in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Nearly 1400
works based upon scenes or characters in his plays
were shown at the Royal Academy exhibitions between
1769 and 1900. One of the most significant events
in the development of an English School of history
painting was Josiah Boydell's Shakspeare Gallery,
a group of paintings, illustrating the plays of
Shakespeare, which were commissioned in the last
quarter of the eighteenth century and engraved for
subscription. Illustrated editions of Shakespeare's
works proliferated, especially during the nineteenth
century when over three hundred were in print.
This exhibition surveys the literary and visual
sources of Shakespearean illustration, from the first
illustrated edition of 1709 to Victorian interpreta-
tions of this theme. It draws on the large collection
of Shakespearean material in the British Art Center,
including a number of paintings from the Boydell
Shakspeare Gallery and others of important eighteeth
century actors in major roles, such as Benjamin
Wilson's David Garrick and George Anne Bellamy as
Romeo and Juliet and Pieter Van Bleeck's Mrs. Cibber
as Cordelia. Nearly thirty paintings and over 120
drawings and prints from the Center's collection will
be on view. Among the artists represented by impor-
tant drawings and watercolors are Francis Hayman,
George Romney, Henry Fuseli, Richard Parkes Bonington,
Francis Danby and Frederic Lord Leighton. The Lewis
Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut will be
lending five watercolor drawings by H. W. Bunbury
as well as fifteen engravings. Finally, a number of
prints and rare, illustrated editions of Shakespeare
from the collections of Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library and Sterling Memorial Library will
be on display.
The exhibition has been organized by Geoffrey
Ash ton, Librarian of the Garrick Club and former
resident fellow of the British Art Center, who is a
specialist in theatrical and Shakespearean art. It
will be accompanied by a catalogue with 110 illustra-
tions and detailed entries on all 190 objects in
the exhibition.
In conjunction with Shakespeare and British Art,
the Center will offer a range of special programs.
On Friday, 24 April at 4 p.m., The Lord Annan, Vice-
Chancel lor the the University of London, will deliver
a lecture, sponsored by the British Studies Program,
entitled "How Should We Produce Shakespeare?" On
Saturday, 25 April from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.,
there will be a symposium, Shakespeare in the
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Topics under
discussion will include: the relationship of
Shakespeare's plays to visual depictions of them,
the importance of Shakespearean drama as a subject
for art, and performances of the bard's works during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The program
will feature the following talks:
10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
The Coral Reef: Some Morning Thoughts on Shakespeare
--Maynard Mack, Sterling Professor Emeritus of
English, Yale University.
230
Confrontation and Complexity in Shakespeare 's Scenes
--George Hunter, Professor of English, Yale University
University.
Acting Shakespeare--Eugene Waith, Douglas Tracy Smith
Professor of English Literature, Yale University.
Boydell's Shakespeare--G. E. Bentley, Professor of
English, University of Toronto.
2:30-4:30 p.m.
Shakespeare and the Artist in the Nineteenth Century
--Geoffrey Ashton, Librarian, Garrick Club, London,
England.
Turner's "Juliet and her Nurse"—Ronald Paulson,
Thomas E. Donnelly Professor of English, Yale
University.
Shakespearean Paintings and Nineteenth-Century Art
Criticism—K\chard D. Altick, Professor of English,
The Ohio State Univeristy, Columbus.
Honor and Dejection: Holman Hunt's Problem with a
Problem Play--Mark Roskill, Professor of Art History,
University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
On Sunday, 26 April at 3 p.m., Ann Carter-Cox,
a soprano who has given solo recitals at Carnegie
Hall, Town Hall and Abraham Goodman House in New York
and appeared regularly at the Medieval Faires held
at the Cloisters each summer, will perform at the
Center. Accompanying herself on the lute and
dulcimer, she will sing songs of medieval and
Renaissance England, including lyrics from
Shakespeare's plays. The following Sunday (3 May),
also at 3 p.m., students in the Yale School of Drama
will present scenes from Shakespeare as performed
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
As part of the Center's "Art in Context" series
Tuesdays at 12:30 p.m., Judith Colton, Associate
Professor of the History of Art, will present an
informal lecture on the oil painting by Adrien
Carpentiers entitled "Roubiliac Modeling his
Monument to Shakespeare" on 21 April, and Patrick
Noon, Acting Curator of Prints and Drawings, will
discuss "The Reconciliation of the Montagues and
the Capulets," a watercolor by Frederic Lord Leighton,
on 21 April.
Gallery talks by members of the Department of
Academic Programs are scheduled for the following
Thursdays at 2 p.m.: 23 and 30 April; 7 and 21 May;
4, 18 and 25 June. Special tours of the exhibition
may be arranged by contacting Teri Edelstein at
203/436-3013.
A summer film series, featuring Shakespearean
films made in the United States, Great Britain, and
Germany displaying a variety of cinematic techniques
and concepts, is scheduled for the following Saturdays
at 2:30 p.m.: 13 June--Macbeth', 27 June--4 Midsummer
Night'8 Dream; 18 J^y—Othello; 1 August--Romeo and
Juliet; 15 August--Hamlet. All programs are open to
the public without charge.
B L A K E A N D T H I EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
A T T H I 1980 M L A
That the 1980 MLA Special Session on "Blake and the
Eighteenth Century" was probably the longest such
meeting of the convention does not alone explain the
fact that the audience seemed to increase rather than
diminish in numbers during the presentation of the
four papers and a response. This was an eternity in
love indeed with its temporal productions. Leo
Damrosch, Jr. spoke first on "Blake and the Recovery
of the Lyric," arguing that Blake "recovers" the
lyric through poems "totally committed to meaning in
its deepest sense" and that the fullness of this
commitment is what separates Blake most decisively
from the tentative lyric poetry of the eighteenth
century. But at the same time, it is this "total
moral commitment to works of art that point beyond
themselves" that leads to Blake's later work and its
concern with "the gap between what art claims and
what it can perform." Jim Borck offered an illumi-
nated discussion of "Blake and the Topography of the
Human Imagination," and suggested that "Blake's
interest in London corresponds to other contemporary
interests in anatomy texts and cartographic develop-
ments during his life." Blake "must transform the
landscape from which his map has been drawn, an
external re-mapping which will cause distinctly new
interior maps to spring forth"--in particular, the
London that Blake "wishes to re-construct is an
artistically remapped London based upon anatomical
details." Jim's illustrations pointed to Vesalius'
Fabrica, an important anatomical text, as a source
for the poses of some Blake figures. In "UnLocking
Blake's Crystal CabiNet," Tom Vogler related some of
the significant details and the poetic argument of
that poem to Blake's understanding and detestation
of Lockean epistemology and metaphysics. Referring
to Barker's famous Panorama of 1787 and to Bentham's
proposed Panopticon, Tom characterized the speaker
of the poem as one who has entered "the tower of
observation, or the Lockean stage of self-reflection,
in which he can see himself seeing, while we see him
seeing himself and describing what he sees." Here,
however, "the power of observation does not unlock
the epistemological prison but rather constitutes it
and expands it." The speaker's attempt to '"seize
the inmost Form' reveals that there is nothing there
that can be seized, perceived, or comprehended by
natural vision." In his remarks on "Classical Line
and Romantic Identity," Morris Eaves argued against
the recent tendency to use Blake's favorite aesthetic
opposition—line vs. color--to align him with artistic
neoclassicsm and eighteenth-century attitudes toward
art. For Morris, "Blake--characteristically--reestab-
lishes Enlightenment principles on romantic grounds.
In the case of artistic line, he shears off certain
conventional associations (of line with reason and
nature, for instance), retains others (of line with
intellect), and adds still others (of line with
imagination). The result is a thoroughly romantic
cluster of metaphors." The Session closed with a
response in the spirit of true friendship from
Stephen Carr; addressing each of the preceding papers,
Steve's meta-critical effort attended to some charac-
teristic problems of placing Blake within standard
categories and sequences of literary history. "Read-
ing Blake forces us to explore, to question, and in

some sense to deconstruct received categories and
methods of literary history and criticism . . . con-
sequently a first stage or gesture in approaching
this topic is to subject ourselves to a much more
rigorous scrutiny than is usually the case." As the
four papers and the response wonderfully demonstrate,
we still have much to learn about Blake and the
eighteenth century.
A petition urging the MLA to consider the
creation of a Blake Discussion Group was signed by
forty-three members of the audience. The petition
was forwarded to the MLA, where it was promptly
rejected, NELSON HILTON, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA.
JOSEPH JOHNSON'S I M P R I N T S
In his review of G. P. Tyson's book on Joseph Johnson
G. E. Bentley noted that the publication of a list of
Johnson's imprints would be of value to Blake
Scholars.
231
Readers may be interested in knowing that such
a list has been completed by Leslie F. Chard,
Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati.
Professor Chard describes the list as follows.
The list contains over 2800 imprints (4800 separate
entries when counting multiple editions) by some
1100 authors. Many of these imprints and authors
probably influenced Blake; many of course are already
known to have done so. More broadly, the list will
help us understand more clearly the intellectual
climate in which Blake worked.
The list has also been computer analyzed, so
that students of the book trade in Blake's time can
learn a good deal of firm information about the
intricacies of publishing. This, too, should shed
some light on Blake, notably in his dealings with
publishers as an engraver.
If any of the readers of Blake would like to
make preliminary inquiries about the contents of the
list before it is published, Professor Chard would
be happy to assist them.