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AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY VOLUME 25 NUMBER 3 WINTER 1991/92 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRA TED QUARTERL Y Winter 1992/92 AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY Volume 25 Number 3 Winter 1991/92 CONTENTS ARTICLES 104 "Sunclad Chastity" and Blake's "Maiden Queens": Comus, Thel, and "The Angel" By Eugenie R. Freed 117 A Relief Etching of Blake's Virgil Illustrations By RoBert N. Essick 127 The ChaMBer of Prophecy: Blake's "A Vision" (Butlin #756) Interpreted By Christopher Heppner MINUTE PARTICULARS 133 Blake and the Edinburgh Literary Gazette—with a Note on Thomas De Quincey David Groves 135 Six Illustrations by Stothard Alexander S. Gourlay 136 A Reprinting of Blake's Portrait of ThoMas Alphonso Hayley Jenijoy La Belle 137 Blake and Bonasone Alexander S. Gourlay Cover: Illustrations to Thornton's Virgil, executed as a relief etching. Essick collection. © 1992 Copyright Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley Winter 1991/92 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRA TED QUARTERL Y Subscriptions are $40 for institutions, CONTRIBUTORS EDITORS $20 for individuals. All subscriptions are by the volume (1 year, 4 issues) and begin with the summer issue. Sub- ROBERT N. ESSICK, Professor of Editors: Morris Eaves, University of scription payments received after the English at the University of California, Rochester, and Morton D. Paley, Uni- summer issue will be applied to the 4 Riverside, is now co-editing, with Mor- versity of California, Berkeley. issues of the current volume. Foreign ris Eaves and Joseph Viscomi, a volume Bibliographer: Detlef W. Dorrbecker, addresses (except Canada and Mexico) in the new Blake Trust series of repro- Universitat Trier, West Germany. require a $6 per volume postal sur- ductions of Blake's illuminated books. charge for surface mail, a $15 per Review Editor: Nelson Hilton, Uni- EUGENIE R. FREED is a Senior Lec- volume surcharge for air mail delivery. versity of Georgia, Athens. turer in English at the University of the U.S. currency or international money Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Associate Editor for Great Britain: order necessary. Make checks payable Africa. The present article emanated David Worrall, St. Mary's College. to Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly. Ad- from a book-length project, recently dress all subscription orders and re- Production Office: Morris Eaves, completed, on Blake's "Miltonic lated communications to Patricia Neill, Department of English, University of vision" of women Blake, Department of English, Univer- Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627. sity of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627. ALEXANDER S. GOURLAY is an Assis- Telephone: 716/275-3820. tant Professor of English at the Rhode Many back issues are available at a Fax: 716/442-5769- Island School of Design. reduced price. Address Patricia Neill Morton D. Paley, Department of Eng- for a list of issues and prices. DAVID GROVES' latest book is an lish, University of California, Berkeley, edition of James Hogg's 1824 novel, Manuscripts are welcome. Send two CA 94720. The Private Memoirs and Confessions copies, typed and documented accor- of a fustified Sinner (Edinburgh: Detlef W. Dorrbecker, Universitat Trier, ding to the forms suggested in The Canongate, 199D. FB III Kunstgeschichte, Postfach 3825, MIA Style Manual, to either of the 5500 Trier, West Germany. editors: Morris Eaves, Dept. of English, CHRISTOPHER HEPPNER teaches University of Rochester, Rochester, English at McGill University and writes Nelson Hilton, Department of English, NY 14627; Morton D. Paley, Dept. of about Blake's art, and, sometimes, University of Georgia, Athens, GA English, University of California, other things. 30602. Berkeley, CA 94720. Only one copy JENHOY LA BELLE is Professor of David Worrall, St. Mary's College, Straw- will be returned to authors. Literature at California Institute of berry Hill, Waldegrave Road, Twick- International Standard Serial Technology. enham TW1 4SX, England. Number: 0l60-628x. Blake/An Illus- trated Quarterly is indexed in the Modern Language Association's Inter- national Bibliography, the Modern INFORMATION Humanities Research Association's Annual Bibliography of English Lan- Managing Editor: Patricia Neill guage and Literature, The Romantic Movement: A Selective and Critical Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly is Bibliography(ed. David V. Erdman et published under the sponsorship of al.), American Humanities Index, the the Department of English, University Arts and Humanities Citation Index, of Rochester. and Current Contents. 104 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRA TED QUARTERL Y Winter 1991/92 "Sun-Clad Chastity" and Blake's "Maiden Queens": Comus, Tbel, and "The Angel" By Eugenie R. Freed ... To him that dares contemplate a sketch of his own (illus. The pencil sketch shows two nude Arm his profane tongue with 1) which had been suggested by a figures, seen full-frontal, walking hand contemptuous words Against the sun-clad power of chastity; passage from Book 4 of Paradise Lost in hand toward, and looking directly Fain would I something say, yet to what .. into their inmost bower at, the viewer: a long-haired Eve, and end? Handed they went; and eased the a curly-haired Adam, much as they (Milton, A Masque Presented at Ludlow putting off appear in Blake's earliest extant Milton Castle, 1634 [Comus] 779-82) These trouBlesome disguises which we illustrations.4 wear, Blake covered the page facing this Straight side by side were laid, nor drawing (NoteBook 103) with drafts of n her discussion of Blake's illustra- turned I ween Itions to Milton's Comus, Pamela Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the poems (illus. 2). Three poems that ap- Dunbar comments: rites pear here were to be etched as Songs Mysterious of connuBial love refused. .. of Experience: "The Chimney Sweep- Blake was a tireless critic of the "douBle (PL 4.738-43) er," "Holy T h u r s d a y ," and "The Angel." standard" of sexual morality and of the repression of "natural desire." It is there- fore not surprising that he should have transformed Milton's "sage/ And serious doctrine of virginity" (785-86) into a sterile and destructive dogma, and his virtuous Lady into a coy, deluded and self-denying miss.. .. (10) The work in which this "sage / And serious doctrine" was mounted was the suBject of the earliest of Blake's commissioned series of Milton illustra- tions. Blake executed them for the Re- verend Joseph Thomas in c. 1801;' but he had long reflected on the theme of Milton's masque, with wit and suBtlety arming his "profane [read: 'icono- clastic'] tongue with contemptuous words" against it in the poems I discuss in this essay (to mention only two), years before he made Comus the suB- ject of a series of paintings. Comuswzs demonstraBly one of the works on Blake's mind while he was sketching motifs for The Gates of Paradisein his NoteBook during 1790- 93, for he jotted down quotations from it on pages 30 and 36 of the NoteBook.2 Characteristically, it was Milton's vir- tuous Lady who came contrarily into his mind when, while copying and drafting poems into the NoteBook at some time during this period,3 Blake 1. "Adam and Eve," from Blake's NoteBook, page 102. By permission of the British Library. opened it at page 102, and paused to Winter 1991/92 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY 105 The first two of these arise from "Songs that "Opposition is true Friendship,"5 I dreamt a dream what can it mean of Innocence" having the same tides. the principal Miltonic influence in this And that I was a maiden queen Guarded by an angel mild The third, "The Angel," was inspired in poem emanates not so much from the Witless woe was ne'er beguiled part by the design that presented itself vindication—with which Blake con to his eye on the opposite page of the curred—of sexual love in Paradise And I wept both night & day Notebook. Blake obviously recalled the Lost, as from the defence in Comus of And he wiped my tears away context in Paradise Lost of the lines he chastity, which he opposed. Having And I wept both day & night And hid from him my hearts delight had illustrated, and affirmed for him deliberately enrolled himself in the self Milton's indignant condemnation Devil's party, Blake in effect seconds So he took his wings & fled there of "hypocrites" who "austerely the urging of Comus: "List Lady be not Then the morn blushd rosy red I dried my tears & armd my fears talk / Of purity . and innocence, / coy, and be not cozened / With that With ten thousand shields and spears Defaming as impure what God de same vaunted name virginity . ." clares / Pure . ." {PL 4.74447). How {Comus 73637), and in "The Angel" Soon my angel came again ever, in the spirit of his own dictum ironically dramatizes such "cozening": I was armd he came in vain [But del] For the time of youth was fled And grey hairs were on my head (Notebook 103. The version engraved for *+*< £**. is*>A the Songs of Experience differs only in , c punctuation.) '*rt?ri^i^vni*w*^ •stp^* **n**H '.:?*.Jkf*, Ww The speaker of "The Angel," in her s dreamlife a "maiden queen," rebuffs her angellover because of her own ■ fears and inhibitions, keeping him in a ■ state of tantalized frustration both in her subconscious and her waking life. 14* V/'+*'< '"* ' Soon it is too late to recant: ~\ '. a5 u*6 -~ * /I '• ! I was arm'd, he came in vain, fl£± foe*-**- • *«• Tfffo tv ,/<<•-< ' ^ For the time of youth was fled, And grey hairs were on my head. tfitS At* y~. '/» /£***t* .y~-+-l^.- *&*$ Z A/ ■ (1416, E 24)6 This petrified virgin inhabits a fallen \* + and timebound world in which her imagination, corrupted by the "de uU ir*tir*t /..^/.v..:^>> <*,•'iy * ?"♦:."•'*?"."•'*'' famation" of sexuality perpetrated by ^truA- c*^Tuf<cni^Tufr 4<r$ sf*-+u m, **+**"*+£+</' ■ St.- 4& those Milton calls "hypocrites," creates A .