Durham E-Theses Job's Gethsemane: tradition and imagination in William Blake's illustrations for the book of job Minney, Penelope How to cite: Minney, Penelope (1997) Job's Gethsemane: tradition and imagination in William Blake's illustrations for the book of job, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4700/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Job's Gethsemgne: tradition and imagination in William Blake's Illustrations for the Book of Job' by Penelope Minney Thesis for M. Litt, University of Durham 1997 Blake created two versions of his Illustrations of the Book of Job, and it is now agreed that about twenty years separates his first watercolour series and the final engraved set of plates. The first chapter is biographical and technical: it establishes that the Butts w series of water-colours was the product of the tumultuous and creative years 1805-10, following a time when Blake experienced a strong sense of vision and Christian regeneration; whereas the engraved set was produced 1821-1826, at the end of his life. It also reviews all Blake's treatments of the Job theme. The friends-turned-accusers seem to have been a central pre-occupation. Blake's illustrations contain important elements which are not found in the Old Testament text. I have followed Bo Lindberg's principle that explanation should be sought in the artistic tradition, and in the work itself. The second chapter concentrates on the tradition available to Blake, following and supplementing Lindberg's examination of the influence of the apocryphal Testament of Job, and of the artistic tradition of seeing Job as alter Christus and as Christian. Chapters three to five, interpreting Blake's imaginative use of this material, are new both in focussing on the Butts set, and in exploring the importance to Blake of St.Teresa, Fenelon, Mme. Guyon, Hervey and other people of prayer. Also discussed are Joseph Hallett's radical biblical commentary, of which Blake owned a copy, variant proofs discovered by Robert Essick of the first and last engraved plates, and the thirteenth century Job wall- paintings discovered in 1800 in St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster. Blake's Job was unique in the corpus of his work. Previous studies have followed Wicksteed in concentrating on the engraved set, and no one has explored the implications of the earlier dating now agreed for the watercolour series. The thesis is essentially concerned with Blake's Christocentric theme, and Job's inner journey of prayer, in these illustrations. Conclusions drawn differ substantially from Wicksteed's. i The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the written consent of the author and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Job's Gethsemane: Tradition and Imagination in William Blake's Illustrations for the Book of Job by Penelope Minney Thesis for M. Litt, University of Durham, Departments of Theology and English 1997 v .'I 5 MAR 1998 11 Acknowledgements Above all I want to express my gratitude to my two supervisors, Mr. David Fuller of the Department of English, and Professor David Brown of the Department of Theology, for the stimulus of working under them, and for all the valuable questions asked and advice contributed. I am also most grateful to Professor J. R. Watson for his supervision during my first year, and ongoing advice and encouragement, and to Professor G. E. Bentley, Jr., who read the manuscript at an early stage with a critical eye, and gave me a great deal of encouragement. I also want to express my gratitude to the staff of Durham University Library for all their help, and in particular to the Archivist, Mr. Roger Norris, and to Paul Scott at Prontaprint, for his skill and care in reproducing the colour illustrations from the 1987 facsimile edition of the Illustrations. I am grateful also to the staff of the Bodleian and Ashmolean Libraries in Oxford, and of Westminster City Library. Finally, I want to thank my family, especially my husband, who has been an ongoing source of encouragement and support, and my son Hugo, for imaginative help to a parent educationally subnormal as regards computer technology. My thanks also to Dr. Ayaka Wada, fellow post-graduate student of Blake, to Dr. Gillian Boughton and Dr. Martin Peacock, for proof-reading and advice with the typescript, and to Dr. Marion Way, who made me welcome for so many months, and provided books, stimulus, and encouragement. Ill Job's Gethsemane: Tradition and Imagination in William Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job Table of contents iii List of abbreviations v List of illustrations vii Introduction x Ch.l. Blake's Job in relation to his life 1 i) Blake's life known to the public ii) Blake's hidden life iii) Christian vision in Night Thoughts and in revising The Four Zoas iv) Blake's single Job illustrations in the context of his life v) Blake's water-colour Illustrations to the Book of Job for Thomas Butts vi) The engraved set, and the versions immediately preceding it vii) 'Prayer' and 'praise' in Blake's Job: the discovery of variant proofs Ch.2. The Job tradition available to Blake, in words and art 26 Introduction: Ways in which Blake's Job differs from the biblical Job i) The Bible and its interpretation ii) The canonical Job seen as a developing text iii) The Testament of Job iv) Gregory the Great, Expositio in Job: Job as Christian and Job as Christ v) Medieval writers and the visions in the second part of Job vi) Supposed connections between Old Testament Patriarchs and Druids Ch. 3. The Butts set: sources for the imagery 64 Introduction i) Book and Scroll - Law and Gospel? ii) Job as priest and leader iii) Sun, moon, and stars iii) Blake's use of church, cross, and cromlech iv) God and Satan v) The meaning of the outstretched arms Ch. 4. Job's journey into night and participation in God 99 i) The Butts set: Job as a man of prayer ii) Guides and witnesses: Fenelon, Mme. Guyon, Hervey, Whitefield, Wesley, St. Teresa ii) Job and the dark night of the soul iv Ch. 5. The engraved set of Illustrations 134 i) Blake as an engraver ii) Angels, scrolls, and books, added in the engraved version iii) Trayer is the Study of Imaginative Art' on a proof of Plate I, iv) The theme of fire/purification in the marginal quotations v) The theme of illumination or vision vi) The theme of divine union v) Prayer and praise in Blake's Job: the Christian religion as Art not Morality Commentary on the plates 158 Bibliography 184 V Notes on Text and Abbreviations 1. All quotations from Blake are taken from The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, newly revised edition, edited by David V. Erdman, commentary by Harold Bloom. New York: Doubleday, 1988. First published in 1965 under the title: Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Quotations are identified by the title of the poem, followed by plate and line number, and page number in Erdman, thus: Jerusalem 62: 18-21, E 213 (line numbers are shown only where specified in Erdman). Where Blake's designs are discussed, the number of the design is specified as in Martin Butlin's The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981, thus : Butlin 524 (Butlin's commentary is referred to thus: Butlin [text] 524). 2. The following are frequently cited references: BB G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. BBS G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Books Supplement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. BIQ Blake: an Illustrated Quarterly, ed. Morris Eaves and Morton D. Paley, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico (Blake Newsletter 1967- 77). Bindman (1987) William Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job, 2 vols., ed. David Bindman, and others. London: William Blake Trust, 1987. Bindman (1978) The Complete Graphic Works of William Blake. Ed David Bindman and Deidre Toomey. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978. BR G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Records. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969. BRS G. E. Bentley, Jr., Blake Records Supplement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Butlin Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, 2 vols. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981. Damon S. Foster Damon, Blake's Job: William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job. Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University Press, 1966. vi E The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, edited by David V. Erdman, commentary by Harold Bloom. New York, Anchor Press, new, revised edn., 1988. Gilchrist Alexander Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, "Pictor ignotus." With selections from his poems and other writings. 2 vols. London and Cambridge: Macmillan, 1863. All quotations are from Volume 1.