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The Figure of the Victim in the Poetry of William Blake

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The Figure of the Victim in the Poetry of William Blake STEMS OF GENERATION: THE FIGURE OF THE VICTIM IN THE POETRY OF WILLIAM BLAKE by LAWRENCE MACKAY MATHEWS B.A., Carleton University, 1969 M.A., Carleton University, 1971 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of English) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF .BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 1976 (c) Lawrence Mackay Mathews , 1976 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia 2075 Wesbrook Place Vancouver, Canada V6T 1W5 ABSTRACT In the major prophecies, Blake has much to say about human sacrifice ("Druidism") and about the figure of Jesus as Lamb of God. My purpose is to investigate Bilake's use of the motif of victijnhood in order to determine how its presence affects the meanings of individual poems, and how it evolved during the course of his poetic career. In the poems of the earlier period, from Poetical Sketches to the later minor prophecies, Blake explores the moral and psychological dimensions of the experience of victimhood -- though not in the content of ritual sacrifice -- and constantly questions its value. His presentation of the figure of the victim is characterized by an irony which illuminates two basic dramatic situations, which foreshadow his later preoccupation with Druidism and with Jesus. In one group of poems (some of the Songs of Innocence and earlier minor prophecies), the victim's suffering is associated in some significant way with a vision of an unfallen world, but this vision never becomes realized. In a second group (some of the Songs of Experience and later minor prophecies), Blake focuses on the relation of i ii the victim to the person or force responsible for causing him harm. In some of these poems, the victim is able to escape from his bondage, but finds that he can do this only by making some other character his victim. The central theme of the major prophecies is the bringing into existence of a world in which the role of victim need not.exist. Some of the lyrics of the Pickering Manuscript provide evidence that Blake's attitude towards victimhood undergoes a fundamental change after the period of the earlier poems: for the first time we find cryptic assertions about the efficacy of sacrificial suffering. In The Four Zoas, Jesus, in Night VIII, is revealed as the efficacious sacrificial victim par excellence. But Blake does not make any facile repudiation of his earlier presentation of the figure of the victim. Luvah undergoes a number of ironic experiences of victimhood which establish him as a parody of a Christ-figure; but in the apocalypse of Night IX, he escapes from his role as perennial victim only to become the torturer of the "Human Grapes" in his wine-press. In this way, his story is consistent with the ironic vision of victimhood presented in the earlier poems. Yet Blake has clearly discovered a positive meaning for victimhood in the Crucifixion, as Jesus descends "to Give his vegetated body / To be cut off & separated that the Spiritual body may be Jteveald." But he does not attempt to reconcile this new vision with the earlier one, and Luvah's story provides an ironic counterpoint to the Lamb of God's, i i i despite the poem's optimistic conclusion. In Mi 1 ton and Jerusalem, Blake presents his mature vision of Jesus as sacrificial victim. He also clarifies the relation of the Crucifixion to the multitudinous examples of Drui d sacrifi ce which have parodied it throughout fallen history. In both Mi 1 ton and Jerusalem, Jesus is the Lamb of God who voluntarily assumes the role of victim in a unique sacrificial act. The act is unique because it has the effect of bringing to an end the need for Druid sacrifice, understood not merely in terms of ritual slaughter but rather in terms of the psychology which prevents men from relating to each other in ways other than those of victim and tormentor. In both poems, the Crucifixion implies the restoration of the unfallen world for those men who respond to Jesus by acknowledging him as Saviour and Lord, and acting accordingly. The appropriate way. of acting is demonstrated by Milton, and Ololon in Mi 1 ton, and by Los and, ultimately, Albion in Jerusalem. Blake's Jesus and the Jesus of the New Testament are precise counterparts. They transform their respective worlds by participating as victims in a ritual sacrifice. In so doing, they resolve the major thematic issue in the wider literary context in which they appear (the whole Bible, Blake's total oeuvre). TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter One 23 Chapter Two 100 Chapter Three . • 176 Chapter Four 229 Conclusion 288 Bibliography . 296 i v INTRODUCTION Near the end of Blake's greatest prophecy, there is a dialogue between Albion and Jesus. Albion asks a question which Blake himself has, throughout his poetic career, been asking and trying to answer: "Cannot Man exist without Mysterious / Offering of Self for Another, is this Friendship & Brotherhood." Jesus replies at some length, in language quite free from the perplexing vocabulary of Blake's later myth: Jesus said. Wouldest thou love one who never died For thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not himself Eternally for Man Man could not exist.' for Man is Love: As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death In the Divine Image nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood' In a sense, the purpose of this dissertation will be to provide a context for this speech, to describe the mental landscape through which Blake had to trayel before he could arrive at the complete simplicity of the words of Jesus. The dialogue ushers in Jerusalem's apocalyptic conclusion. Albion, fearing that Jesus is in danger, demonstrates his readiness to die for his Friend by throwing himself "into the Furnaces of affliction," where he discovers that 1 2 All was a Vision, all a Dream: the Furnaces became Fountains of Living Waters flowing from the Humanity Divine And all the Cities of Albion rose from their Slumbers . (96:36-8, E253) In bringing Jerusalem to a close with an .apocalypse prefaced by a gesture of self-sacrifice which is itself a response to the greater self-sacrifice of Jesus, Blake is following a pattern established in his earlier major prophecies, Hilton and The Four Zoas. In Mil ton, as in Jerusalem., there are "Laws of Eternity" which dictate that "each shall mutually /.Annihilate himself for others good" (38:35-6, E138). Milton, the central character, learns about these iliaws by listening to the Bard's Song, which has for its climax a vision of Jesus as Saviour: "He died as a Reprobate, he was Punish'd as a Transgressor! / Glory! Glory! Glory! to the Holy Lamb of God" (13:27-8, E106). Milton responds to this vision by descending to "Eternal Death," a process which involves an act of self-sacrifice called "Annihilation of Selfhood," which he describes fully in his celebrated peroration: The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal Spirit; a Selfhood, which must be put off & annihilated alway To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination. (40:34-7, El 41) When Milton and his emanation, 01olon, have both performed this act, the way for apocalypse has been made ready. The Jesus of the parousia appears; at the poem's end, "All Animals upon the Earth, are preard in all their strength / To go forth to the Great Harvest & Vintage of the Nations" (42:39-43:1 , El4.3). The last pages of The Four Zoas describe this harvest in terms of a communion sacrifice. "Human Grapes" become "Human Wine" in "the wine presses of Luvah" (136:1-137:32, E'389-90). Urizen and his sons reap "the wide Universe" (132:7, E385), whose "wondrous harvest" is later made into "the Bread of Ages" (138:17, E391). Northrop Frye has suggested that the production of the bread and wine is here symbolic of the "reuniting of all nature in the body and blood of a universal Man. the great communion 2 feast in which human life is reintegrated into its real form." The Zoas who are engaged in this task — with the exception of Luvah, whose case, as we shall see, is somewhat problematic — are doing so as a demonstration of their commitment to Jesus, the "Divine Lamb" who, in Night VIII, has "died for all / And all in him died. & he put off all mortality" (107:37-8, E368). The result of the Zoas1 labours, inspired by the Lamb's sacrifice, is a regenerated heaven and earth: The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning And the mild moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night. And Man walks forth from the midst of the fires the evil is all consumd His eyes beholld the Angelic spheres arising night & day The stars consumd like a lamp blown out & in their stead behold The Expanding Eyes of Man behold the depths of wondrous worlds (138:20-5, E391) The appearance of this pattern --Crucifixion, gesture of self-sacrifice in response, apocalypse — in each of the major prophecies can hardly be coincidence.
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