DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31843#0053
THE LATER PROPHETIC BOOKS
strange conception of Blake's, of the “ vegetative man/' declined to a
lower stage of existence, “ enrooting " and putting forth fibres out of his
limbs, may at first sight puzzle or repel.
Milton is the most personal of the books, for in the poem the spirit o
Milton enters into Blake himself, and his relations with Hayley are set
forth in symbol. The pages reproduced (Plates 62-64) give an idea o
the change which had come over Blake's pictorial design since the earlier
books, and of the new effects of mystery and twilight which his later
methods of engraving could achieve.
Jerusalem is, from the point of view of imaginative design, the greatest
of the Prophetic Books. A great poem it is not, nor would it be, even were
it planned and shaped with the order and coherence we demand of great
poems. The fact that Blake could himself paginate Chapter II of certain
copies in a different order without making any perceptible difference m
the continuity of the narrative, is sufficiently eloquent testimony to t e
poem's lack of organization. But the actual texture of the verse as
degenerated so far as to lose all continuity of rhythmical form. Only w en,
at moments, Blake forgets his intense preoccupation with the doctrine he
is expounding, and yields himself to a lyric impulse, does any natura wave
of rhythm lift the dislocated sentences into poetry. It is as if Urizen, wit
his freesing breath, was striving to overtake his enemy, and lunng im,
all against his will, into an energy of argued and dogmatic exposition, even
while Abstract Reason was the demon he forever contended against.
Whatever may be thought of it as a poem, however, Jerusalem is, with
the Job, the grandest of Blake's engraved works. His peculiar imagination
is here at its most impressive. For what he had to say, the language o
form, the language of light and dark, was more expressive than any wor s
could be. And whatever the faults of the verse, the theme is grand and
inspiring. We may not know what some of these images mean, even
when they have been interpreted in the light of mystic ideas, they remam
much more eloquent than the interpretation. They are sometimes, no
doubt, images that appeared to Blake in waking vision, and were transcri e
in perfect confidence that significance was in them, even if he cou no
himself explain it: for as he wrote on the title-page of The Uaug ters oj
Albion, ** The Eye sees more than the Heart knows. And t ey wa
in us emotions such as music, mysterious in its origin and effluence, awa es,
because of the power with which the images are thrown upon t e page.
Never before had Blake made his forms so plastic. Except m certain
pages the " lay-figure " anatomy, the stereotyped attitudes, are forgotten ;
D
33
strange conception of Blake's, of the “ vegetative man/' declined to a
lower stage of existence, “ enrooting " and putting forth fibres out of his
limbs, may at first sight puzzle or repel.
Milton is the most personal of the books, for in the poem the spirit o
Milton enters into Blake himself, and his relations with Hayley are set
forth in symbol. The pages reproduced (Plates 62-64) give an idea o
the change which had come over Blake's pictorial design since the earlier
books, and of the new effects of mystery and twilight which his later
methods of engraving could achieve.
Jerusalem is, from the point of view of imaginative design, the greatest
of the Prophetic Books. A great poem it is not, nor would it be, even were
it planned and shaped with the order and coherence we demand of great
poems. The fact that Blake could himself paginate Chapter II of certain
copies in a different order without making any perceptible difference m
the continuity of the narrative, is sufficiently eloquent testimony to t e
poem's lack of organization. But the actual texture of the verse as
degenerated so far as to lose all continuity of rhythmical form. Only w en,
at moments, Blake forgets his intense preoccupation with the doctrine he
is expounding, and yields himself to a lyric impulse, does any natura wave
of rhythm lift the dislocated sentences into poetry. It is as if Urizen, wit
his freesing breath, was striving to overtake his enemy, and lunng im,
all against his will, into an energy of argued and dogmatic exposition, even
while Abstract Reason was the demon he forever contended against.
Whatever may be thought of it as a poem, however, Jerusalem is, with
the Job, the grandest of Blake's engraved works. His peculiar imagination
is here at its most impressive. For what he had to say, the language o
form, the language of light and dark, was more expressive than any wor s
could be. And whatever the faults of the verse, the theme is grand and
inspiring. We may not know what some of these images mean, even
when they have been interpreted in the light of mystic ideas, they remam
much more eloquent than the interpretation. They are sometimes, no
doubt, images that appeared to Blake in waking vision, and were transcri e
in perfect confidence that significance was in them, even if he cou no
himself explain it: for as he wrote on the title-page of The Uaug ters oj
Albion, ** The Eye sees more than the Heart knows. And t ey wa
in us emotions such as music, mysterious in its origin and effluence, awa es,
because of the power with which the images are thrown upon t e page.
Never before had Blake made his forms so plastic. Except m certain
pages the " lay-figure " anatomy, the stereotyped attitudes, are forgotten ;
D
33