MINUTE PARTICULAR

“Empire is no More”: Odin and Orc in America

Julia M. Wright

Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, Volume 26, Issue 1, Summer 1992, pp. 26-29 26 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY Summer 1992

1 the deed. Blake shows Lady Macbeth come out on the verso, perhaps be- I am indebted to Henry Wemyss of cause it was drawn with the paper laid Sotheby's, London, for letting me know of with the daggers standing over the the existence of the drawings in the United sleeping Duncan, who has gone to on a dirty surface, and some of the States and for letting me have photo- bed with his crown on. brownish wash also appears on the graphs. On the reverse there is a variant in reverse, presumably as the result of an 2 Martin Butlin, The Paintings and pencil alone of the same composition, accident. Drawings of William Blake (New Haven, The drawing, which is listed by Wil- CT: Yale UP, 1981) 38 no. 98, the engraving inscribed, again in the lower right-hand repr. pi. 103. In the rest of this article corner, "Lady Macbeth/King Duncan" liam Rossetti as indicated in my entry, references to my catalogue are given in the (illus. 6). Also on the reverse, with the seems to be one of the items in lot 165 form "B98." paper to be seen as an upright with the in the Tatham sale at Sotheby's on 29 3 Robert N. Essick, The Separate Plates of left-hand edge at the bottom, is a April 1862, "Lady Macbeth and Dun- William Blake (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1983) 33 no. 3D. can, Angels conducting the Souls of 4 slightly inclined profile facing right, G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books (Oxford: just possibly a study for the profile of the Just to Paradise, &c. in indian ink," Clarendon P, 1977) 162. Lady Macbeth. On the reverse she four items in all, bought by Palser for 5 Martin Butlin, "Six New Early Drawings stands on the right, leaning over Dun- thirteen shillings; the lot comes among by William Blake and a Reattributior," can in a much more threatening man- other drawings that can be identified Blake 23 (1989) 110-11, repr. fig. 6. 6 For the Cunliffe-Owens see the Dic ner than on the recto; he lies as before as pen and wash drawings of the tionary of National Biography. except that his left arm seems to lie 1780s. The recent history of the draw- 7 Robert N. Essick, "Blake in the across his chest. Pentimenti on the ing is no clearer than was indicated in Marketplace 1985," Blake 20 (1986) repr. p. 16, fig. 3. recto show that Lady Macbeth was my entry; all that can be said is that it 8 originally in the same stooping posi- has recently turned up in the trade. Andrew Wyld of Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd, told me about the drawing in London, tion as on the verso; Blake also drew Rossetti's dismissive description, "Not let me examine it and, again, supplied her in an intermediary position before carried far beyond the outline. Ordi- photographs. I am most grateful to my finally adopting the present upright nary" seems far from the mark. In fact friends among art dealers and auctioneers stance. The drawings therefore are a the drawing is one of the most in keeping me informed about works by particularly interesting example of how dramatic and boldly drawn of this Blake as they turn up. Blake improvised his compositions. whole group. Some of the forms of the recto have

on high my spirit soars; allusions to Norse mythology that can "Empire is no More": Sometimes an eagle screaming in the be used to explore the complexity of Odin and Ore in sky, sometimes a lion, this revolutionary figure as he is con- Stalking upon the mountains, & structed in America. America sometimes a whale I lash The raging fathomless abyss, anon a In his discussion of the first quarter serpent... of the Preludium, Harold Bloom writes Julia M. Wright On the Canadian wilds I fold. (1.12-17) that "The mythic world suggested is These figures have been associated the Northern one of Odin and Thor, the Eddie literature known to Blake re appears in a number of Blake's with various sets of symbols of power, through Mallet's Northern Antiquities poems, but his character in as Rodney M. Baine suggests that the O . . . and the poems and translations of America (1793) is uniquely drawn. A shapes are all images of regal power Thomas Gray" (118). Bloom empha- howling, flaming figure in Europe over nature (130), while David V. Erd- sizes the references to iron, and his (1794) and a chained infant in The man identifies some of the animals as identification of the female as the [First] Book of Urizen (1794), the Ore revolutionary emblems (259). Although the female later claims that Ore courts daughter of a Thor-like smith (118-19), of America is described in a wealth of while Erdman finds in the action of the her in these shapes, they are quite detail that is matched only by The Four poem an allusion to Paul Henri 1 violent in Ore's speech: the shapes are Zoas (1797). The details that are pro- Mallet's explanation of human sacri- "screaming," "stalking," "lashing," vided, however, differ. In both The fice "as a harvest rite" (251). Both Ame and, by "folding," encircle and bind, Four Zoas and America, for instance, rica and Blake's notes for his designs like the serpent of Blake's Laocoon. Ore claims that his spirit can leave his for the 1790 edition of Gray's Poems The Ore of America thus chooses a chained body, but the Ore of The Four indicate a knowledge of Gray's free diversity of shapes that are not only Zoas represents his spirit as "A Worm translation of an Icelandic lay, The De unbound but associated with aggres- compelld" (80.3D, while that of Ame scent of Odin, and a familiarity with sive power. This characterization of Ore rica chooses figures of power: Norse mythology that extends beyond is reinforced and elaborated through Summer 1992 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRATED QUARTERLY 27 that poem. Blake's notes, for instance, ratorial authority for Ore's transforma- than by saying he rendered them blind refer to "The Serpent who girds the tions in America, as there is in The and deaf; that he would appear like a Earth" (680), which is not mentioned FourZoas. In eighteenth-century anti- wolf all desperate" (84). Mallet's combi- in Gray's poem, as well as "The Ser- quarian discourse, Odin is persistently nation of "terror," battle, a wolf, blind- pent & the Wolvish Dog. two terrors in constructed as a confidence-man rather ness, and difficulty with hearing, occurs the Northern mythology" (680), which than a god, a human being whose in the reaction of Albion's Angel to recall Ore's form as a serpent and the rhetorical and poetic abilities allowed Ore's speech: "Loud howls the Eternal "eternal Wolf" (9.2). Ore, moreover, him to convince his followers, through Wolf!... / America is darkned; and my like Lok in Gray's Descent, is riveted by speech alone, that he was a god.4 punishing Demons terrified ... clouds a "tenfold chain" (1.12; Gray 65), as America is the only poem of the early obscure my aged sight" (9.2-3, 9.12). has been noted by Mark Schorer 1790s in which Ore is articulate, and he In America, Blake constructs an Ore (406n) and Erdman (262n).2 While not only speaks, but speaks eloquent- that specifically recalls the Norse god: critics have indicated the Norse back- ly in a voice that "shook the temple" both are associated with the shape of ground for this poem and others by (5.7) and "In thunders ends" (7.1). In a wolf during war, "inflame" warriors, Blake, however, there are close cor- Odin and America's Ore, then, we have blind opponents, have remarkable respondences between America's two compelling orators who claim to oratorical abilities, and claim to pos- Ore and Odin that have not been ad- have the ability to change their shape sess extraordinary powers that allow dressed. and travel widely. There are, however, them to change shape and journey ex- In asserting that he can transform his even closer correspondences between tensively. Why, then, does America spirit into the shapes of a whale, a the language with which Mallet have an Ore who echoes Mallet's Odin serpent, an eagle, and a lion, Ore describes Odin and that with which in so many specifics while, for in- evokes a distinguishing feature of Blake describes Ore in America stance, the contemporaneous Europe Odin. In the Ynglinga Saga, Snorre Odin is the "God of War" (Mallet 91), does not? The answer, I would argue, Sturlason writes that Odin "could and it is as such that he excites "terror" lies in the difference between the po- transform his shape: his body would (Mallet 84) and bears the epithet, "The litical situations that are represented. lie as if dead, or asleep; but then he terrible and severe God" (Mallet 91), Unlike Europe and the other poems in would be in shape of a fish, a worm, a recalling the persistence with which which Ore appears, America is con- bird, or beast" (11), the four categories Ore is associated with forms of the cerned specifically with oppression as of Ore's avatars.3 The Heimskringla, of word "terror," and his appearance "like imperial rule—and so is Mallet's dis- which the Ynglinga Saga is the first the planet red" (5.2), which is named cussion of Odin. Mallet indicates that part, was not published in an English for the Roman god of war, Mars.5 Odin, Odin was considered a nationalist he- translation until 1844, although the as a martial deity, is called upon by his ro in material available to him: closeness of Sturlason's description of devotees to embolden them in battle, Several learned men have supposed that a Odin's transformative abilities to Ore's and Percy's translation of Mallet makes desire of being revenged on the Romans description of his metamorphic pow- this point in language that appears in was the ruling principle of his whole con- ers invites speculation that Blake had America, noting that "[Odin] often de- duct. ... He had no other view, according access to unpublished or as yet un- scended to intermix in the conflict to them, in running through so many dis- identified information. Through Mallet's himself, to inflame the fury of the com- tant kingdoms, and in establishing with so much zeal his sanguinary doctrines, but to Northern Antiquities, however, which batants" (92). Ore's inspiration of the spirit up all nations against so formidable "is almost certainly Blake's source for American rebels is repeatedly de- and odious a power. This leaven, which he Norse mythology" (Bloom 441), Blake scribed in terms of flame: "And the left in the bosoms of the northern people, would have had access to a more ge- flame folded roaring fierce within the fermented a long time in secret; but the neral knowledge of the saga, since it is pitchy night / Before the Demon red, signal, they add, once given, they all fell as it were by common consent upon this un- both discussed and paraphrased in who burnt towards America . . . gath- happy empire; and after many repeated that work. Bishop Percy's translation 'ring thick / In flames as of a furnace shocks, entirely overturned it. (82-83) of Mallet's text was published in 1770, on the land from North to South" (12.8- and it notes Odin's ability to transform 9, 12.11-12). This depiction of Ore as "Stiff shudderings shook the heav'nly his shape and to travel widely: "[Odin] flaming appears elsewhere in Blake's thrones" (16.16): Odin inspires rebels persuaded his followers that he could works, but other details regarding to overthrow the Roman Empire, the run over the world in the twinkling of Ore's non-inflammatory participation "enemies of universal liberty" (Mallet an eye, that he had the direction of the in the revolution do not. In paraphras- 82), while Ore inspires rebels to over- air and tempests, that he could trans- ing the Ynglinga Saga, Mallet writes throw the British Empire, crying, "Em- form himself into all sorts of shapes" that Odin was a great warrior who pire is no more" (6.15). (83). Like Mallet's Odin, Ore merely "inspired his enemies with such terror, A poet who inflamed the rebels that claims such abilities; there is no nar- that they could not describe it better, freed Northern Europe from Roman 28 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRA TED QUARTERL Y Summer 1992

rule, Odin appears to be an ideal figure a representative of the aboriginal gained the ground from which they with which to affiliate the articulate peoples would, moreover, be consis- fought against their own subjugation Ore who inflames the rebels that free tent with the iconography of loyalist to imperial rule. Ore's violence does the American colonies from British rule. engravings, in which, as Stephen C. not erode the legitimacy of the rebellion, Mallet's Odin, however, is more com- Behrendt points out, Britannia is rep- against Urthona or Albion's Angel, and plex than this. According to eighteenth- resented as a matriarch and her need not be legitimized as a means to century antiquarians, Odin was not a "'daughter' [is] the emblematic Ame- that end, but stands as a reminder that Norse god, nor even a Northern rican Indian" (32). The evidence link- to engage the struggle for power is to European, but an exile from Asia (War- ing the female with the Amerindians is be contaminated by the means of that ton xx; Bell 233) who escaped into tenuous, but it is congruous with a struggle. Northern Europe after participating in parallel between the female and this a failed Scythian revolt against the Ro- elided group to which I wish to draw mans (Mallet 79). Mallet maintains that attention. There exists, I would sug- Works Cited Odin's real name was Sigge, and vili- gest, a homomorphism between the fies him for imposing a violent reli- situations of the American revolution- Baine, Rodney M. The Scattered Por- gious and political system on Northern aries, Ore, and Mallet's Odin, in terms tions: William Blake s Biological Sym- Europeans through deceit and violence: of their relationships to martial power, bolism. Athens, GA: privately printed, Sigge assumed the name of the deity a homomorphism in which the female 1986. Odin, "a title so proper to procure him occupies the same position as the Behrendt, Stephen C. "This Ac- respect among the people he meant to Amerindians, and the Northern Euro- cursed Family": Blake's America and subject," and "marched towards the peans, in being the object of violence the American Revolution." The north and west of Europe, subduing, and conquest for a revolutionary fig- Eighteenth Century 21 (1986): 26-51. we are told, all the people he found in ure who fights on behalf of the op- Belljohn. Bell's New Pantheon. 1790. his passage" (80). "[Almbitious" (80), pressed. Wars between the colonists 2 vols. New York: Garland, 1979. Vol. 2. Mallet's Odin is not only a catalyst for and the first nations began before the Blake, William. The Complete Poetry the expulsion of the Roman Empire American Revolution, and continued and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David from Northern Europe, but a conqueror in the context of the Revolution, since V. Erdman. Rev. ed. Toronto: Double- of Northern Europe himself, and Mal- most of the aboriginal peoples of the day, 1988. let only offers the characterization of northeast, including the Iroquois Con- Bloom, Harold. Blake's Apocalypse: Odin as an anti-imperialist hero in or- federacy and the Delaware, sided with A Study in Poetic Argument. Ithaca: der to refute it. the British. The revolutionaries were Cornell UP, 1963. Blake's allusions to Mallet's Odin, an thus in the ideologically contradictory Doskow, Minna. "William Blake's anti-imperial conqueror, can thus pro- position of trying to conquer one America: The Story of a Revolution vide a schema through which to ad- group while crying for liberty from Betrayed." Blake Studies8 (1979): 167- dress two questions raised by America: another. Ore is placed in a similarly 86. why is the champion of the oppressed contradictory position, identifying Erdman, David V. Blake: Prophet A- in the Prophecy depicted raping the himself with animals engaged in gainst Empire. Rev. ed. Garden City: female in the Preludium? And why are violent activities and seizing another Doubleday, 1969. indigenous Americans so thoroughly against her will, and then speaking on Ferber, Michael. "Blake's America removed from the Prophecy's conflict? behalf of the oppressed Americans of and the Birth of Revolution." History (By "Prophecy," I mean the text within European descent. and Myth: Essays on English Romantic Americath'dt is labelled as such, rather In America, through the figure of Literature. Ed. Stephen C. Behrendt. than the whole work.) While critics Odin, Blake narrows the scope of his Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1990. 73-99. have legitimated the rape, and so sus- rebel to anti-imperial rebellion, a focus Gray, Thomas. The Descent of Odin. tained Ore's status as the poem's hero, that is not especially relevant to the 1768. The Works of Thomas Gray in Blake's language suggests both vio- other works in which Ore appears. Prose and Verse. Ed. Edmund Gosse. lence and illicit conquest: "[Orel siez'd Like Odin, Ore's colonists liberate a 4 vols. New York: AMS P, 1968. 1: the panting struggling womb" (2.3).6 nation from imperial rule, but it is a 59-65. While the female is not explicitly iden- nation that they have themselves Lempriere, John. Classical Diction- tified with Amerindians, she declares "siez'd." Thus, in his celebration of the ary of Proper Names Mentioned in An- herself to be the proprietor of Ameri- American Revolution, Blake, like Mal- cient Authors Writ Large. 1788.3rded. can land (2.10),7 and Erdman suggests let, does not elide the investment of New York: Routledge, 1984. that, in the illustration for plate 1, she the revolutionaries in violence and Mallet [Paul Henri]. Northern Anti- "appears in her American Indian form" conquest, the violence and conquest quities. Trans. Bishop Percy. 1770. (259). Viewing this "daughter" (1.1) as through which they, like Mallet's Odin, Additional notes and text by I. A. Black- well. London: Bohn, 1859. Summer 1992 BLAKE/AN ILLUSTRA TED QUARTERL Y 29

Schorer, Mark. William Blake: The Politics of Vision. New York: Holt, 1946. Snorre Sturlason. Ynglinga Saga. Heimskringla: The Norse King Sagas. Trans. S. Laing. 1844. Rev. ed. New York: Dutton, 1951. 7-43. Warton, Thomas. "Of the Origin of Romantic Fic- tion in Europe." 1774. The History of English Poetry. 3 vols. Additional Notes by Ritson, Ashby et al. Lon- don: Tegg, 1840. 1: i-lvi.

All quotations of Blake's writings are taken from Erdman's edition, and will be from America unless otherwise noted; quotations of the poetry will be cited by plate and line number, and references to the prose will be cited by page number.

1 I cite the dates on Blake's title pages rather than rehearse bibliographical debates regarding the dating of these texts. 2 See Erdman (262n) and Schorer (405-06n) for other correspondences between Gray's translation and Blake's poetry. 3 In eighteenth-century terms, these classifications are legitimate: the whale was referred to as a fish well into the nineteenth century. 4 See, e.g., Lempriere and Mallet. Odin is identified as a poet by Lempriere (417) and Mallet (83), the inventor of poetry by Mallet (83), and the inventor of writing by both Warton (xx) and Mallet (83). 5 It is the martial Odin that appears in Blake's other works by name (Song of Los 3-30; Milton 25.52-53; Jerusalem 83.19). Sotha, linked to Odin in The Song of Los (1795), also appears in a canceled plate for AmericaQo.lX). 47 collated artworks of WILUAM &LME Illustrate This additional connection between Odin and America is the Major Arcana In this unique and striking deck, suspect, however, because of the question of dating, since which reinterprets both Blake and Tarot. The Song of Los was printed two years after America, and , the date of the canceled plate is unknown. 24 linen-finish Cards 5± V&t" printed in red and 6 The rape has been described as "desire fulfilling itself" blue inks, with a 16-page Interpretive Booklet. (Doskow 176), "patriots . . . making love to good earth" (Erdman 26l), and Ore's attempt to "give his voice, and his passion, to silent nature" (Bloom 120). More recently, Limited First Edition: Michael Ferber has acknowledged the problem of "iden- Price: $1935 at some bookstores. tifying the actions of the American colonists . . . with a violent act" (95), but resolves it by characterizing the rape Mail-order Price: $22.95 postpaid as "a reclamation of the usurped land by those who (with matching raw-silk wrap: $27.95) deserve her" (96). This reclaimed "land," however, com- plains at the end of the Preludium of "eternal death" (2.17), "limb rending pains" (2.15), "howling pains" (2.16), and Collector's Edition (250 copies only): "torment" (2.17), and the bard of the canceled lines echoes Gilt-edged, wrapped in raw silk; her "cry" (2.6) with "sick & drear lamentings" (2.21). The only reference to joy is limited to the womb—"It joy'd" numbered, signed & dated by the author: (2.4), not "she," or "he" for that matter. Even if the rape has $43.95 postpaid positive consequences, as fertilization or as the release of the female's voice, the act itself is one of violence and conquest, and the final lines of the Preludium draw atten- Send pre-paid mall orders to: tion to the negative implications of that violence, not a TAROT justification of it. 7 The phrase, "my American plains" (2.10), could be Tools And Rites Of Transformation used to identify the female as a personification of those F0 8ox720 plains (see, e.g., Doskow and Erdman), but the detail that concerns me is the word "my": whether the plains are Nevada City, CA 95959 external to her body or are tropologically equated with it, she asserts that they are hers.