on blake's side is the "william blake?" "william blake!" "william blake?" "william blake!" "what do you mean, william blake?" "i mean william blake!" exchange from bull durham
― horseshoe, Monday, 23 August 2010 17:44 (thirteen years ago) link
Blake's got Dead Man on his side too on the movie front.
― 'ray Clamence (Noodle Vague), Monday, 23 August 2010 17:46 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, i love that movie
― horseshoe, Monday, 23 August 2010 17:46 (thirteen years ago) link
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/8/11/1281546327184/Exhibtion-of-etchings-by--006.jpg
Everything is an attempt / to be human
― thomp, Monday, August 23, 2010 7:36 AM (4 hours ago)
I remember seeing this article recently about this picture in the Tate, and its caption...the image is from "The Book of Urizen." Blake had an awesome, complicated mythology that he invented himself. Over and over, he tells this sort of creation myth of humanity...I am going to do a terrible job of summarizing it but I'll try anyway. Basically that eternal spirits make themselves limited/mortal by signing on to having five senses/human bodies. The people in this picture are Los, on the right, an Eternal who is kind of the spirit of imagination & creativity, who has his brother Urizen, on the left, in shackles. Urizen is kind of a demiurge figure, over & over he gets man to sign on to laws & other limiting/structuring frameworks. Los, in this book, had to make Urizen take on a human form to get him to stop fucking things up. "An attempt to be human" in this context, and in Blake's works in general, is a sort of Miltonian fall. Which is bonkers, that these two tiny lines are at the same time a really beautiful sort of affirmation about the struggle of human existence, and the beauty of it; but also within this mythology a heartbreaking fall from cosmic potential.
This is why I voted Blake btw.
― full of country goodness and green pea-ness (Abbbottt), Monday, 23 August 2010 17:58 (thirteen years ago) link
Blake is one of those people whose vision (and strength of vision) keep me going, keep me believing in imagination, keep me trying to fight and create!
― full of country goodness and green pea-ness (Abbbottt), Monday, 23 August 2010 18:00 (thirteen years ago) link
Neither of these is a particular favourite. Apart from the short lyrics, some of which I love, Blake is too obscure for me. Even "Milton" frustrates me by its opacity and it's a model of clarity compared to most of the longer poems. I don't much like his very mannered pictures either although there must be a kind of genius in creating a personal style that's so immediately recognisable.
I remember reading a introduction in an old copy of Donne's collected poems (by Herbert Grierson from memory) that argued his most conspicuous weakness was that he didn't love beauty for its own sake. I'm sure this'd be considered a fusty and even impertinent criticism of Donne nowadays, but it gets to the heart of my problem with him: I prefer poets who are more in love with beauty for its own sake. The most obviously beautiful passage in Donne is the "for whom the bells" toll sermon, but I don't find that kind of beauty often enough in the poetry. The St Lucy Nocturnal is perhaps the most obvious exception.
Donne still edges this, though.
― frankiemachine, Monday, 23 August 2010 18:23 (thirteen years ago) link
not gonna choose
― max, Monday, 23 August 2010 20:33 (thirteen years ago) link
you cant make me choose
the morgan library had a blake exhibit up a few months ago, it was stunning
You have to choose.
Everyone has to choose.
How do you think I feel betraying the one true force-of-nature radical in English literary history for a minor Anglican divine of the 17th Century?
It hurts. But I did it.
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Monday, 23 August 2010 20:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Wait I forgot to vote. I did it now.
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Monday, 23 August 2010 20:43 (thirteen years ago) link
but max...it's a poll
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, 23 August 2010 21:15 (thirteen years ago) link
Marvell >>> Donne
― acoleuthic, Monday, 23 August 2010 21:16 (thirteen years ago) link
Nah, but nice try.
― 'ray Clamence (Noodle Vague), Monday, 23 August 2010 21:18 (thirteen years ago) link
And I'm geographically obliged to defend Marvell but nah.
― 'ray Clamence (Noodle Vague), Monday, 23 August 2010 21:19 (thirteen years ago) link
acoleuthic, Marvell hit some pretty high notes, but Donne has more range, more depth and more staying power. My guess is that you just haven't found the experience that will allow you to connect with Donne's anguish, yet.
― Aimless, Monday, 23 August 2010 21:25 (thirteen years ago) link
it's true that Marvell connected with me more as a student - his metaphor was grander, more bombastic, more instantly ingenious - perhaps Donne's subtlety and phrasing will win me over
― acoleuthic, Monday, 23 August 2010 21:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Marvell's "The Garden" and "To His Coy Mistress" are his only really memorable poems imo; he was second-tier.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 August 2010 21:31 (thirteen years ago) link
really really dig the Mower poems and A Dialogue Between The Body And The Soul
― acoleuthic, Monday, 23 August 2010 21:34 (thirteen years ago) link
I love Marvell, but c'mon...
― Un peu d'Eire, ça fait toujours Dublin (Michael White), Monday, 23 August 2010 21:34 (thirteen years ago) link
and On A Drop Of Water
― acoleuthic, Monday, 23 August 2010 21:35 (thirteen years ago) link
OK FINE I tried.
Blake, btw.
― acoleuthic, Monday, 23 August 2010 21:36 (thirteen years ago) link
I wd probably end up voting Donne as il miglior fabbro but then I will probably just not vote.
― 'ray Clamence (Noodle Vague), Monday, 23 August 2010 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
― acoleuthic, Monday, August 23, 2010 5:16 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
lol at you
― max, Monday, 23 August 2010 21:43 (thirteen years ago) link
― acoleuthic, Monday, August 23, 2010 5:28 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
still loling
"perhaps"
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 August 2010 21:48 (thirteen years ago) link
I am also on the Donne bandwagon - really the shining light of poetry of his time - and blake is certainly good but man Donne is so sneakily wicked and funny.
― gg eileen (jjjusten), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:00 (thirteen years ago) link
One of the best examples being the first poem, which is the greatest poem ever written to convey the concept of "Hey you, quit making excuses and LETS BONE."
― gg eileen (jjjusten), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:05 (thirteen years ago) link
One of my favorite movie moments is Emma Thompson and Eileen Atkins' pas de deux using "Death, Be Not Proud" in Wit.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:07 (thirteen years ago) link
To Christ is better than The Flea
― acoleuthic, Monday, 23 August 2010 22:20 (thirteen years ago) link
for a start it features more or less the best pun on a poet's own name in the entire history of verse
― acoleuthic, Monday, 23 August 2010 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
The release in the last line -- damn.
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for youAs yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bendYour force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,But am betroth'd unto your enemy;Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,Take me to you, imprison me, for I,Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
Was just thinking about this.
― Un peu d'Eire, ça fait toujours Dublin (Michael White), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:23 (thirteen years ago) link
Just on Marvell: I love him, & would say his range (in some senses) is surprisingly broad: he tries a fair bit, and pulls off nearly everything he tries brilliantly. (eg He can do politics in a way Donne can't or won't (largely circumstance, maybe): the Horatian Ode on Cromwell's Return is phenomenal. And his Satires are v good, but do pale against Donne's). But yeah, he does have a slightly narrow sensibility: can't resist the inside-out, upside-down or perspective-trick images, or the short-meter couplets. I think he's one of the oddest and most brilliant writers of a great age, but partly because of these limits, and partly because he didn't write that much, I don't think he'd have a place in the HEAVY HITTERS series.
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:27 (thirteen years ago) link
I like Marvell fine but he is rightly consigned to the 2nd tier. John Donne is life-changing.
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:40 (thirteen years ago) link
Blake in a heartbeat. But the artwork could be swaying that vote. I've never seen a Donne painting.― Karen D. Tregaskin, Monday, August 23, 2010 6:35 AM (9 hours agoBookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― Karen D. Tregaskin, Monday, August 23, 2010 6:35 AM (9 hours agoBookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
This is absolutely correct.
― SYNTAX ERROR (remy bean), Monday, 23 August 2010 22:53 (thirteen years ago) link
really appreciate the evidence here, particularly the precis of blake's worldview, abbott
― schlump, Monday, 23 August 2010 23:00 (thirteen years ago) link
The article with the picture thomp posted is a pretty satisfying intro to how challenging/rewarding it is to talk about Blake. One thing I love about him is how real everything was to him, he had absolute faith in artistic vision, his own and those he admired. Por ejemplo, on Milton: “If historical facts can be written by inspiration Miltons Paradise Lost is as true as Genesis or Exodus." All the couplets people love in "Auguries of Innocence" about seeing eternity in a grain of sand, I think that was real to him. And so was all the messy, multivalent meltdown in his long works like Jerusalem. I think Los was as real to him as Milton anyone else in his life – Milton being another character in his poetry.
Soapboxing this much about Blake...ILX has never felt so much like my real life.
― full of country goodness and green pea-ness (Abbbottt), Monday, 23 August 2010 23:57 (thirteen years ago) link
I also love that Blake dethroned his idols (Swedenborg & Milton's treatment in "Marriage of Heaven & Hell"), that he never attended a church but had such a powerful (and original) relationship with Christ.
― full of country goodness and green pea-ness (Abbbottt), Monday, 23 August 2010 23:59 (thirteen years ago) link
Can I show you guys how out of control the Blake Archive "image by theme" search is?
― full of country goodness and green pea-ness (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 00:03 (thirteen years ago) link
A quick question, Abbott; if you knew nothing about Blake but the text of his poems, would you derive as much pleasure from them? It seems to me you are elevating the poet, but often on grounds apart from his poetry. This is legitimate enough, but it is worth recognizing as a different thing than loving his poems through their own life as poems.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 00:16 (thirteen years ago) link
― acoleuthic, Monday, August 23, 2010 5:16 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
i didn't read the rest of this thread after this point, so maybe this has been covered, but you're a crazy person
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 00:53 (thirteen years ago) link
haha looks like everybody already covered this; good job, guys
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 00:54 (thirteen years ago) link
― Aimless, Monday, August 23, 2010 8:16 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
i can speak to this, actually; i am visually kind of dumb, so that i appreciate Blake's images and work hard to incorporate them into my experience of reading his poetry, but the language alone is what first struck me and it's still the essence of my reading experience.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 00:55 (thirteen years ago) link
everything Abbott said about Blake otm
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 00:56 (thirteen years ago) link
he's a hero
hi there not to be "that undergrad guy" but the visuals are as much a part of the text of (many of) blakes poems as the words! which is to say that loving the visuals is as important a component of"loving his poems through their own life as poems" as loving the (word-part) language is!
― max, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 01:12 (thirteen years ago) link
but hey i am one of those people who thinks people should pay closer attention to the length and direction of the dashes emily dickinson use[s/d]
― max, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 01:13 (thirteen years ago) link
that's totally true; sometimes undergrads know what's up
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 01:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Dryden's the one major poet from this period whose work I barely know.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 01:57 (thirteen years ago) link
By the wayside, Dryden was the heir to a mighty heritage, but his aims, methods and means are no longer seen sympathetically, even when they are viewed understandingly. Those who love him are a vanishingly small minority.
I would count myself among those who may understand him, but cannot love him. Whatever I value most in him is the least characteristic of his work. Just the way it is.
― Aimless, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 03:07 (thirteen years ago) link
When I read Blake it is usually from the Johnson/Grant-edited Norton Crit edition, or less often the Erdman Complete Poetry & Prose, far more often than facsimiles of his amazing & beautiful handmade books (which I do love & cherish, but sometimes you just want to be able to read black ink on a white page). I mean why I prefer the Norton, too, is it's just easier too lug around and crack open (I took the damn thing camping with me 3x this summer, the time I didn't I felt lonely w/out it).
I think his images are really important, but they are also the #1 way Blake fucks with you. He rearranged the order of his pages, of his images, changed colors, changed themes, from book to book. If you have some idea that you have it figured out, that you know what X text means based on the placement of Y image, there's such a chance he switched it around, or changed it just enough to blow your theory, in another version. (I love this too, about Blake, that you never really know where to stand with him, or where he stands – I think this is why locas like me get these sorts of feelings about the dude.)
If you mean I am reading to much into his bio, well, that's (one reason) why everyone else in my lit classes hated me. I don't know why "death of the author" has been such a forceful center of thought for so long, but I could never really swallow it. Especially with Blake! since in "Milton A Poem" he makes himself a central character, and throws in his wife & his dead brother too. If you can't think about an author's life when considering their work, especially if they make a work that sort of intimately invites you into their life...I don't know, man. I really admire the dude, as a person, as an artist, as a spirit, you know? I think that's ok. But even if he was "MYSTERY AUTHOR" of "ANONYMOUS" who juust put a guy called William Blake in a poem, just like he put a guy called Milton in a poem – if we had no images, or anything, I would still love him! Even if we just had some bonkers thing like "Four Zoas." Though I think this is kind of a silly question, because we DO have his images and we have so many delightful bios of him that are basically rorschachs of their era.
― full of country goodness and green pea-ness (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 04:19 (thirteen years ago) link
hey abbott if anyone gives you shit for bringing an authors bio into readings of his or her work i got your back
― max, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 04:21 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't know why "death of the author" has been such a forceful center of thought for so long, but I could never really swallow it.
otm. fwiw i think it's less of a center of thought these days.
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 04:58 (thirteen years ago) link
includes me. But it's complicated – I wrote my doctorate on him back in the day. Will probably ramble a little abt him once I've woken up.
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 07:47 (thirteen years ago) link
So yeah, I do love Dryden, but it's a complicated relationship. I lived with him for abt 5 years, so when I go back now, it's for pleasure, but I'll likely bump into something that makes me think 'I got that wrong' or trips an academic switch in my head. Can make me a little tense.
I do love him, though - dunno if I can say why, clearly. I think the core of it is his delight in it all - in making verse, in trying things out, in building strange ornate structures or rushing along a story, and above all in arguing - love his rhetorical energy and versatility, how he bounces around flipping between reasoned argument and jokes and magpie allusiveness and mock-modesty to win a scrap.
There's all sorts of detail that I enjoy, too - his knack for a good word, the metrical command, how naturally and easily he can hit rhymes in couplets, the syntactical deftness that lets him carry you over multiple lines.
Almost all of this would apply to Donne too, but that shows up the limits of Dryden: Donne's immediate presence & emotional vitality isn't there in Dryden - where Dryden's moving, it tends to be indirect, reserved; and Dryden belongs to this world. Very little spiritual or anguished about him
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 10:28 (thirteen years ago) link
Dryden was the heir to a mighty heritage, but his aims, methods and means are no longer seen sympathetically, even when they are viewed understandingly.
You can say this about Pope, Swift, Coleridge, Arnold – hell, any English poet.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 12:24 (thirteen years ago) link
I think it's more a case with Dryden than almost any of the others that you mention there, tbh. Pope has his catchy couplets, still in popular usage on occasion, but also his po-mo Dunciad (if you will - I won't, but you see what I mean), Swift has Gulliver and his 'savage indignation' (A Modest Proposal), even the madness of A Tale of a Tub sits quite nicely with the literature of doubt and uncertainty, Romantic post-Romantic stuff tends to be fairly easily swallowed, we're still living in an age which values inspiration/newness/individuality etc.
I've always found, despite recognising much of the virtues tos/woof describes, him extremely resistant to sympathetic reading. I like what he does, but I often find myself impressed rather than affectionate towards him. All the others you cite, I find more sympathetic, if not actually 'better'.
― Hide the prickforks (GamalielRatsey), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 12:33 (thirteen years ago) link
you're in luck Abbott - as far as I know reading & paying close attn to the author's bio is very much back in use as a valid strategy
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 13:13 (thirteen years ago) link
Was a bit unsure about the 'mighty heritage' myself - didn't know whether that meant English or Classical. If the former, the (then) perceived-as-major poets in the generation before him are now massively unfashionable - Waller, Denham and Cowley. Jonson prob the heaviest hitter who's a direct ancestor; Donne & the metaphysicals already suffering from that 'great wit, awkward verse' rep that afflicts them through to the revival in the last century. The latter's nearer the mark, but he's building, emulating and stealing to create an English trad as much as inheriting.
(btw Abbott, awesome repping for Blake.)
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 13:26 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't know why "death of the author" has been such a forceful center of thought for so long
It's not this so much for me as, in reading poetry as a poet, I always want to find out what I can learn or derive inspiration from in what I am reading. Therefore, while it is interesting for me to know the poet's biographical details and connect them to the imagery, ideas or tone of the poem, I can't really learn how to be that poet, as a means of incorporating what is good in their work into my own. Their lives are their exclusive property and I can't filch bits of their identity. (Of course, many a young writer tries this tactic, but they look pretty ridiculous trying to be Pound, Kerouac or Edna St. Vincent Millay.)
― Aimless, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 17:05 (thirteen years ago) link
William Blake would not want you to be him anyway! Inspiration not memory.
― sharkless dick stick (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 20:44 (thirteen years ago) link
I mean, I think since he was criticizing Shakespeare & Milton for taking on Greek & Latin influences, and hoping for a day when "the Daughters of Memory" would become "the Daughters of Inspiration," that is why I think that. I didn't call him or anything.
― sharkless dick stick (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 24 August 2010 20:50 (thirteen years ago) link
haha you seem to be very tuned to him!
― horseshoe, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
Agree about Dryden. I used to know an Eng Lit lecturer who (like woof) wrote his doctoral thesis on Dryden and was a massive enthusiast. He got very disheartened that because his students routinely avoided Dryden despite his best advocacy and because the reasons they gave always seemed so utterly predictable and unfair. I doubt he'd have had similar problems with any other "major" poet (post-medieval, anyway). My own (admittedly half-hearted) attempts to engage with Dryden were not a success.
Batter my heart three personed god perfectly illustrates some of my problems as a (partial) Donne dissenter. For me it's too much bravura display. It's all about Donne, really, not God. Herbert, for example, may not match Donne for fireworks but is so much better at conveying religious feeling.
― frankiemachine, Wednesday, 25 August 2010 10:05 (thirteen years ago) link
It's all about Donne, really, not God. Herbert, for example, may not match Donne for fireworks but is so much better at conveying religious feeling.
Guess as a starting point I'd tentatively agree. Would say, however, that I prefer fireworks to, for instance, The Collar which I think is brilliantly successful in its intent (and indeed is a great poem). So then you start getting into the question of what religious feeling is, and then when I get there, then I start saying that Donne was one of the greatest explorers and configurers of what religious feeling is, pushing the limits and exploring the boundaries of that feeling, that there has ever been, and so, while I'd agree with the premise, I'd end up saying that even there, Donne is the better poet.
― GamalielRatsey, Wednesday, 25 August 2010 10:18 (thirteen years ago) link
Still haven't voted btw. Finger hovering over Donne, but then I think 'The fire, the fire is falling!', and remember the intensity with which I enjoyed Blake as a teenager.
― GamalielRatsey, Wednesday, 25 August 2010 10:22 (thirteen years ago) link
Pairing Herbert and Donne would have caused some real torment.
― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 25 August 2010 10:56 (thirteen years ago) link
Remember being awe-inspired when I first read the Nocturnal Upon St Lucy's Day - love, darkness, rhythmic brilliance, brilliance of imagery in detail and in the whole, and yes, the convoluted wit, in this case reminding me slightly of some of Ben Jonson's poetry. I know it turns some off, but the way that the perspectives turn and slot into place, like an astrolabe, or the right viewing of a masque, is just utterly brilliant.
― GamalielRatsey, Wednesday, 25 August 2010 11:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Saturday, 28 August 2010 23:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Sunday, 29 August 2010 23:01 (thirteen years ago) link
donne by a burning bright tiger whisker. always was fond of donne. blake i don't know so well. someday!
― scott seward, Monday, 30 August 2010 00:04 (thirteen years ago) link
i refused to vote in this poll it was impossible
― horseshoe, Monday, 30 August 2010 00:17 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah i didnt vote either
― max, Monday, 30 August 2010 00:27 (thirteen years ago) link
the real winner.................................................
..........................................................................................was poetry
Hilarious beatdown:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1981/12/03/there-is-no-penance-due-to-innocence/
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 24 October 2020 07:50 (three years ago) link