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Published quarterly under the sponsorship of the Department of English of the University of New Notes Mexico. Support for bibliographical assistance provided by the University of California, Berkeley. Martin Butlin, Five Blakes from a Nineteenth-Century Scottish Collection Morton D. Paley, Executive Editor* University of California, Berkeley. Geoffrey Keynes, William and Bart's

Morris Eaves, Managing Editor* University of New Mexico.

Michael Phillips, Associate Editor* University of Checklist Edinburgh. A Checklist of Recent Blake Scholarship, Michael Davies and Judith Wallick Page, Editorial August 1972-September 1973, compiled by Assistants for Production* University of New Mexico. Gregory Candela, Marta Field, and Foster Foreman Graham Conley, Editorial Assistant for Subscriptions, University of New Mexico. Foster Foreman, Bibliographer, University of Cali• Reviews fornia, Berkeley.

Manuscripts are welcome. Send two copies either to BBC Blake: Morton D. Paley on two Morton Paley, Dept. of English, Univ. of California, BBC films, Tyger, Tyger and 16 Berkeley, Ca. 94720, or to Morris Eaves, Dept. of English, Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M. 87131 Francis Wood Metcalf on the Brown University Press-New York Public Library facsimile of Subscriptions are $5 for one year, four issues; edited by Nancy Bogan 17 special rate for individuals, $4 for one year, surface mail; for those overseas who want to receive their issues by air mail, $8. U.S. currency if Deirdre Toomey on the first volume of possible. Make checks payable to the Blake News• William Blake: Book Illustrator by Roger letter. Address all subscription orders and related R. Easson and Robert N. Essick 19 communications to Morris Eaves, Managing Editor. Morris Eaves on the York Some back issues are available. Address Morris University videotapes about America Eaves, Managing Editor. Prices: whole numbers 14, and Visions of the Daughters of 15, and 21, $2 each. Whole numbers 17-18 (combined produced and directed by Janet Warner, issue containing Robert Essick's Finding List of John Sutherland, and Robert Wallace Reproductions of Blake's Art* 160 pages), $5. Whole number 20 (A Handlist of Works by William Katharine M. Briggs on The Sports Blake in the Department of Prints & Drawings of -the of Cruelty: Fairies3 Folk-songs, Charms, British Museum* edited by G. E. Bentley, Jr.), $3. and Other Country Matters in the Work of William Blake by John Adlard The ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) of the Blake Newsletter is 0006-453X. Copyright ©1974 by Morton D. Paley and Morris Eaves NOT€S FIV€ BLAK€S FROM

A 19TH-C€NTURY SCOTTISH COLL€CTION

Martin Dutlin

Five Blakes from the collection of Barron Grahame, includes "The Plague" immediately before "The Fire FSA, of Morphie, Scotland (or "N.B." for North of London," presumably meaning the plague of 1665. Britain, as it was called in other catalogues of David Bindman, in discussing this group of works in sales from his collection), sold at Sotheby's on 15 William Blake: Essays in honour of Sir Geoffrey March 1878, have recently re-appeared in Scotland. Keynes, 1973 ("Blake's 'Gothicised Imagination' and Two now belong to Donald Davidson, three to David the History of England," p. 46), tentatively J. Black, all five coming from the collection of suggests that the "Plague," "Fire" and "Famine" of Robert Carfrae junr., whose father seems to have which versions were painted for Thomas Butts, in and acquired them at the time of the Grahame sale, two about 1805, were originally an offshoot of the examples being inscribed on the back with some English history series; Mr. Davidson's watercolor variation of "B. Grahame sale London 1878" (see confirms this suggestion at least in the case of illus. 3). "Plague," of which there are in all no fewer than five versions, in which the composition evolves The Grahame sale included two lots containing from a rather labored neo-classicism in the manner works attributed to Blake. Lot 22 consisted of six of Benjamin West to a much more economical example "sketches in pencil, etc., of various subjects," of Blake's mature style. and Lot 23 of "God Appearing to Adam and Eve, indian ink, fine, and another, pen and ink." Both lots The recto of Mr. Davidson's other drawing were bought, for £2.11.0 and £5.7.6 respectively, by (illus. 2), in pen and wash, is similar in style and "Chalmers," possibly on commission for, or a general subject though rather larger, 7x8 11/16 pseudonym of, Robert Carfrae senr. Of the five in. (17.7 x 22.1 cm.). It shows an angel, borne up works now known one is in pen and watercolor, one by a heavy cloud, flying over a town square and in pen and ink wash alone, and three in pencil, the brandishing a partly erased sword which seems to first two being those belonging to Donald Davidson. have set alight the temple in the background within Three, including the "God Appearing to Adam and which cower a group of inhabitants; in the foreground Eve," are still missing. is a similar group, of father, mother and child, the last being apparently sick or dead. No other version The watercolor (illus. 1) is what seems to be of this composition is known today, but it is the earliest known version of "Pestilence" or tempting to see it as the first sketch for the lost "Plague," and is a sketch for the somewhat larger Royal Academy exhibit of 1784, no. 427, "War watercolor, at present untraced but known from a unchained by an Angel, Fire, Pestilence, and Famine reproduction in The Connoisseur, 93 (1934), 209, following." The date "June 1783" in the lower where it is said to measure 10 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. (27.5 right-hand corner (again partly lost through x 18.5 cm.). The newly re-discovered work, inscribed trimming) lends some support to this identification, "WB" in the lower right-hand corner (not necessarily though it is not definitely in Blake's hand. The by Blake and partly lost through trimming) and "Lord sketch is bolder and more accomplished than "The have m§J2 ["mercy"] on us" on the door shown on the Plague," though Blake's developing imaginative left, measures 5 7/16 x 7 5/16 in. (13.8 x 18.6 cm.), powers are not yet matched by his technique. the same size as the series of illustrations to English history of c. 1779, which it also resembles in style and technique. Blake's list of English On the reverse of this drawing in pen and wash history subjects, written in his Notebook in 1793, are a number of studies in pencil, much more assured but probably related to the project of c. 1779, in technique though less imaginative and individual

1 (top) "Pestilence," first version by Blake, Martin Butlin is Keeper of the British Collection c. 1779. Pen and watercolor 5 7/16 x 7 5/16 in. at the Tate Gallery, London, and a specialist on (13.8 x 18.6 cm.). Donald Davidson collection. the work of Blake and J. M. W. Turner. He is the author of William Blake: A Complete Catalogue of 2 Sketch for "War unchained by an Angel, Fire, the Works in the Tate Gallery and of many articles Pestilence, and Famine following" by Blake, dated on Blake that have appeared in the Newsletter. June 1783. Pen and wash 7x8 11/16 in. (17.7 x He is compiling a complete catalogue of Blake's 22.1 cm.). Donald Davidson collection. paintings, watercolors, and drawings. '*

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reverse, but with the fascinating addition of an extra figure on the left (that is, on the right had it been included in the engraving). It measures 6 5/16 x 13 3/8 (16 x 34 cm.). The engraved plate shows , Hyle and Skofield; the additional figure, to follow a suggestion of Morton D. Paley, is probably Hand. The paper shows signs of having been folded back twice, once to eliminate this extra figure, the other time to eliminate that of Skofield as well.

Another of the pencil drawings (illus. 5) is similar in style and scale to a number of drawings s associated with the illuminated books, particularly Jerusalem, but cannot be related to any one plate (see the drawing for Jerusalem pi. 37, repro. Sir Geoffrey Keynes, Drawings of William Blake, 1970, no. 55, and also his no. 50, for which see Frederic Cummings in exhibition catalogue, Romantic Art in 1 Britain, Detroit and Philadelphia, 1968, Anne T. Kostelanetz's review in the Blake Newsletter, 2 [1968-69], 5-6, and Frederic Cummings' reply in same, pp. 46-48). It is a variant of a recurrent and particularly expressive motif in Blake's art, the figure seen from the front but leaning forward 3 (left top) Verso of 2: studies by Blake for so far that the hair falls away from the neck the frontispiece to Benjamin Mai kin's A Father's enabling one to see the bare neck and shoulders; Memoirs of his Child, published 1806. Pencil on examples are on page 68 of Vala and the figure of sheet 8 11/16 x 7 in. (22.1 x 17.7 cm.). Eve in "The Body of Abel found by Adam and Eve" (repro. G. E. Bentley, Jr., William Blake: Vala or The Four Zoas, 1963, and Geoffrey Keynes, William 4 (left bottom) Study for Jerusalem plate 51 Blake's Illustrations to the Bible, 1957, pis. 15a by Blake. Pencil 6 5/16 x 13 3/8 (16 x 34 cm.). and 15b). The figure in this drawing is particularly David J. Black collection. close to that in "Theotormon Woven," perhaps also to be associated with Jerusalem (see Morton D. Paley, "The Figure of the Garment in The Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem" in Stuart Curran and Joseph 5 Study of Theotormon (?) by Blake. Pencil Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Blake's Sublime Allegory, 7 7/8x6 7/16" in. (20 x 16.3 cm.). David J. 1973, p. 128, repro. pi. 2). Black collection. In the upper right-hand corner of the sheet, which measures 7 7/8x6 7/16 in. (20 x 16.3 cm.), there is a rather indistinct sketch, which seems to resemble the girl at the bottom of the pen and wash drawing for in the collection of Robert N. Essick, "The Soul exploring the Recesses of the Grave" of c. 1805 (repro. Blake Studies, 4 [ 1972], cover), and the suggestion of masonry behind the main figure on the sheet also in style (illus. 3). They seem to relate to the recalls this composition. This variation on the frontispiece of Benjamin Heath Malkin's A Father's theme of the expressive exposure of the back of Memoirs of his Child, engraved by Cromek after Blake and published in 1806 (repro. G. E. Bentley, Jr., the neck is particularly close to the figure of Blake Records, 1969, pi. 23; there is another Grief in Fuseli's "Melancholy," an illustration to sketch, for the composition as a whole, but differ• II Penseroso painted for Fuseli's Milton Gallery ing considerably from the final engraving, in the between October 1799 and March 1800. This has been British Museum, 1867-10-12-201; Lawrence Binyon, destroyed but is known from the engraving in Sharpe's Catalogue of drawings by British Artists . . . in British Theatre, 1804 (see Gert Schiff, Johann the British Museum, I, 1898, no. 43 [5]). Two of Heinrich Fusslis Milton-Galerie, 1963, pp. 94, 161, the heads are close to that of the child shown the engraving repro. pi. 52). Fuseli repeated this taking leave of his mother and again in the medal• figure on its own for his painting of "Silence," lion above. Others seem to reflect an unused idea which was engraved by J. Burnet for the title-page for a putto flying down from the right. The of Fuseli's Lectures on Painting, published in sketches of feet, though not precisely followed by 1801 (repro. Schiff, pi. 53). It is often difficult the feet of the angel and the child, could well to establish priorities as between Fuseli and Blake, have been done in preparation for them. whom Fuseli found it "damned good to steal from," but in this case Fuseli was probably the first. Of the three pencil drawings belonging to However, it seems to have been Blake who added the David J. Black one (illus. 4) is a sketch for plate final emotive element of the bare neck to that of 51 of Jerusalem, very similar to it though in the hair hanging down to conceal the face. 8

The third pencil drawing (illus. 6), 6 5/16 x unknown in Blake provenances, and perhaps a 9 1/2 in. (16 x 24.2 cm.), is a version of the pseudonym or agent for Grahame. drawing in pencil, partly finished in watered or, in the British Museum with the tentative title of Joseph Hogarth acquired his Blakes from "Hamlet and the Ghost of his Father" (1874-12-12- (Bentley, Blake Records, p. 374), 130; Binyon Catalogue of Drawings* no. 43 [17], who had inherited the contents of Blake's studio where it is suggested that the watercolor may be from the artist's widow. An approximate date for by William Blake's younger brother Robert). The Hogarth's acquisition of his Blakes is suggested pencil drawing is more detailed and higher in by two features of the Barron Grahame drawings. In quality than that underlying the British Museum the first place the three pencil drawings are watercolor and the work seems to be a genuine, if mounted on paper watermarked "J WHATMAN 1843" or "J \iery early and immature, sketch by William. WHATMAN 1844". In the second place all five drawings are inscribed either on the back of the A clue to the identification of the subject of mount, or, in the case of the unmounted "War this drawing is tied up with the probable early unchained by an Angel . . .," on the back of the history of all the Barron Grahame Blakes. These, drawing itself, with a number in the 200's followed it will be remembered, numbered eight in all, though by "Jan/47"; an example can be seen in illus. 3, only five are known at present. A single lot in the verso of "War unchained. ..." Each the sale of the print-seller Joseph Hogarth at inscription is perhaps some kind of stock number Southgate and Barrett's, 7-30 June 1854, seems to followed by the date when Hogarth acquired the work have contained the same eight works. Lot 4624 on (as there were only seventy-nine Blakes in his sale the eleventh evening of the sale was described as it is probable that the count of over two hundred "The Destroying Angel, The Plague, Witch of Endor, included works by other artists). There is a etc. (8)" (meaning eight works in all). "The similar inscription on the verso of a drawing at Plague" could well be the Donaldson version; none McGill University, Montreal, which seems to be the of the others has a better claim. "The Destroying "Children at the Grave of their Parent" in lot 237 Angel" is a good description of the drawing here on the first evening of the Hogarth sale (the verso identified as a sketch for "War unchained by an is repro. as endpapers to Lawrence Lande, Credo and Angel. ..." Although the Witch of Endor is not an Open Letter to a Scientist* Montreal 1950). On herself visible the composition of both David the other hand there is evidence that Hogarth Black's drawing and the version in the British already had some Blakes by about 1843, so perhaps Museum fulfills much of her description of what it was he who mounted this group on acquiring them occurred when Saul asked her to evoke the ghost of from Tatham and "Jan/47" was merely the date of the Samuel: "I saw gods ascending out of the earth. . . supposed stock-taking. John Ruskin's largely An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a abortive purchase of a portfolio of Blake from mantle" (I Samuel 28:13-14). The titles in the Hogarth is the subject of a letter to George Hogarth sale catalogue are extremely inaccurate, Richmond, who had acted as intermediary, which can but even if the identification of the subject of be dated to about 1843 on account of Ruskin's the two drawings as "The Witch of Endor" is not reference to his father's generosity in buying absolutely certain, it is preferable to "Hamlet and works by J. M. W. Turner for him, an activity that the Ghost of his Father" and close enough to was at its height in the years 1842-44 (see E. T. reinforce the link between the Barron Grahame Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, The Works of John Blakes and the Hogarth sale. The eight works were Ruskin, XXXVI [1909], 32-33, and Luke Herrmann, bought, for 13/-, by "Cowieson," a name otherwise Ruskin and Turner [1968], pp. 20-22).

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6 "The Witch of Endcr: Saul and the Ghost of Samuel" (?) by Blake. Pencil 6 5/16 x 9 1/2 in. (16 x 24.2 cm.). David J. Black collec• tion. 9

WILLIAM BLAKG & BART'S

Geoffrey Keynes

The recent identification by Leslie F. Chard (Blake Sketches inscribed to him by Flaxman, who transmitted Studies, 1973) of two plates executed by Blake for another copy to Hayley through Long as intermediary Sir James Earle's Practical Observations on the (Keynes, Blake Studies , 1971, pp. 42, 44). Long was Operation for the Stone (London, for J. Johnson, also an amateur artist and tried to "improve" some 1793) has interested me for several reasons. Earle of Romney's pictures in his possession. was a predecessor of mine as Senior Surgeon at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (otherwise known as Bart's), I have examined the Bart's copy of the second founded in the year 1123 on its present site just edition of Earle's pamphlet, 1796, which has an outside the walls of the City of London. He was a Appendix and a third (folding) plate, giving further distinguished practitioner born in 1755 and elected illustrations of the instruments used in the to the surgical staff of Bart's in 1784, serving operation. I have not been able to see Professor there to within two years of his death in 1817. He Chard's article, but he no doubt noticed that this married the daughter of Percival Pott, an even more third plate too was certainly executed by Blake. distinguished surgeon on the staff of Bart's, and The engraving technique is the same as that of the wrote a Life of his father-in-law. He was appointed first plate, and the lettering below corresponds surgeon-extraordinary to King George III, and his with that done by Blake on the plates for George third son, Henry Earle, followed in his father's Cumberland's Thoughts on Outline, 1796. Comparison footsteps as surgeon to Bart's and as surgeon- of this edition with my copy of the first shows that extraordinary to Queen Victoria at her accession in the type was kept standing. The paper is of somewhat 1837. better quality and the text, apart from the title- page and the last page, has been printed from the Sir James Earle's slender monograph on the same formes. technique of "cutting for the stone," or lithotomy, is an interesting contribution to our knowledge of I now wish to suggest that Blake was also surgical practice in 1793. Blake's two plates, acquainted with Sir James Earle and so had good each signed Blake sc, are very well executed. The connections with my Hospital. In my Catalogue first is a stark representation in line engraving Raisonnee of Blake's Separate Plates, Dublin, 1956, of two instruments used for the operation; the I recorded as no. xxxvi a portrait of "Edmund Pitts second, wholly etched, is a beautiful rendering of Esq." executed in stippled lines. It is lettered four types of urinary calculi, or bladder stones; ad viv: del: J. Earle:Armig. Guliels Blake sculp. their intricate structure is well shown and Blake At that time I had no clue to the identity of was evidently working from good drawings, perhaps Edmund Pitts and could find in the reference books made by Earle himself. It is to be noted that the on artists only the name of James Earle, an American book was published by Joseph Johnson, Blake's portrait painter from Leicester, Massachusetts, who frequent employer for making book illustrations in had exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1787-96, and at the 1790's, and that Earle dedicated it to William the Society of Arts in 1791. This seemed to be a Long (1747-1818), a surgical colleague on the staff reasonable identification, the only puzzle being of Bart's, 1747-1807. This is of particular why he styled himself Armiger* that is, bearer of interest because it is probable that Blake was a coat of arms. Blake's association with Sir James acquainted with Long. In a letter to William Hayley Earle is evidence that Sir James was himself the written on 16 March 1804 Blake mentioned that he draughtsman, this probability being strengthened by was engraving a portrait of Romney, "which was lent the fact that Edmund Pitts was yet another Bart's by Mr. Long for the purpose of being engraved for the European Magne." No engraving of Romney published in the European Magazine or elsewhere is known, so that this reference has never been Sir Geoffrey Keynes, M.D., F.R.C.S., Consulting explained, but it strongly suggests that Blake and Surgeon (retired), is known by his years of work William Long met over this (apparently abortive) in textual criticism and bibliography to all transaction, if not before. The probability is students of Blake. Tribute was recently paid to supported by the facts that Long was a friend of him in a festschrift, William Blake: Essays in both Flaxman and Hayley and owned a copy of Poetical Honour of Sir Geoffrey Keynes (Oxford, 2973). 10

surgeon from 1760 until his death in 1791. Blake's The print is very uncommon and I know of only plate is skillfully executed by his subtle technique four impressions--those at the Royal College of of stippled lines, which can be exactly matched in Surgeons, in the British Museum, and in my collec• the frontispieces done by him for The Poems of tion, with one formerly in the W. E. Moss Collection Catullus, 2 vols., London, for J. Johnson, 1795. In sold at Sotheby's, 2 March 1937, lot 218, bought by spite of this good style of engraving the print Rosenbach. It has been called a "private plate" and indicates the hand of an amateur draughtsman rather the evidence detailed above suggests that, after than that of a professional, as can be seen in the Blake's contact with Sir James Earle over the litho• accompanying reproduction (the first that has been tomy plates he undertook to execute the portrait to made, as far as I know [see illus. above]). I have oblige his patron. Earle was a practiced writer and remarked elsewhere ("Blake's Engravings for Gay's had published, besides a number of medical papers, a Fables," The Book Collector* Spring 1972, p. 61) on Life of Peroival Pott and an account of Dr. William Blake's tendency to "improve" amateur work when Austin, a Bart's physician, 1786-93, prefixed to reproducing it on copperplates, and this portrait his lithotomy pamphlet. He might have contemplated of Edmund Pitts indicates that he has tried to do so writing a biography of his senior colleague, Edmund here, though the handicap was too great for the Pitts, to be illustrated by Blake's plate from his production of a convincing work of art. own drawing. This must remain a matter of conjecture, but I propose that the print should be attributed Sir James Earle was not knighted until 1802, to Sir James Earle as draughtsman and be dated c. when he was President of the Royal College of 1793. Surgeons, but is likely to h ave had the right to a coat of arms by reason of hi s birth, though this [I am indebted to Dr. Nellie Kerling, Archivist to is not mentioned in the DNB. The possibility that St. Bartholomew's Hospital, for verification of the American artist of the s ame name was related to dates, and to W. E. Thomson's "William Long, F. R. Sir James cannot be excluded and he may have been C," Annals of the College of Surgeons of England, working in England for at le ast four years before IX (1951) 58-63, for other details. I am informed the death of Edmund Pitts, s o that either Earle by Professor G. E. Bentley, Jr., that there is a could have made the drawing "from the life," though print of the portrait of Edmund Pitts at McGill the evidence seems to point to Sir James rather University. This may be the fourth example men• than to his namesake. tioned above.] 11

A CH€CKLIST OF RCCCNT BLAKC SCHOLARSHIP

Compiled by Gregory Condelo, Morto Field, and Foster Foreman

This is our fifth checklist, and the aim and format tapes, and ephemera. We are parti cularly grateful are basically the same as for the checklists of the to authors who send offprints for the checklist, past two years. Again this year we have included because recent copies of journals can take a long entries for items that are not scholarly, and again time to reach the shelves of the 1 ibrary. Past we have listed items whose dates fall far outside experience shows that the categori es we are most our nominal August 1972-September 1973 boundaries. likely to miss are book reviews, s ections of books whose titles do not mention Blake, and material in As always, we would appreciate corrections and foreign languages. Please keep us in mind when you additions from our readers. But we would especially run across items that should be in the checklist. like to appeal for help in compiling the checklist for next year. We do our best to cover all journals and other periodicals, but our comprehensiveness Gregory Candela and Marta Field are graduate depends to a much greater extent on our readers than students at the University of View Mexico and edi• most of them realize, especially for out-of-the-way torial assistants for the Newsletter. Foster Fore• material. We want to list everything of interest, man is the bibliographer for the Newsletter at including newspaper articles, filmstrips, video• Berkeley.

The list is divided into these categories: New and Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem. Madison: Revised Books/Reprinted Books/Articles and Sections Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1973. $17.50. [38 of Books/Reviews/Films/Phonograph Records. illus.] The contents are as follows: Jerome J. McGann, "The Aim of Blake's Prophecies and the Uses of Blake Criticism"; Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., "Opening the Seals: Blake's New and Revised Books Epics and the Milton Tradition"; Ronald L. Grimes, "Time and Space in Blake's Major Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Prophecies"; Edward J. Rose, ", Pilgrim of "Facsimile of sixteen original plates etched Eternity"; Jean H. Hagstrum, "Babylon Revisited, by William Blake." London: Academy Editions, or the Story of and Vala"; Morton D. 1971. Paley, "The Figure of the Garment in The Four Blake, William. William Blake's Water-Colours: Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem"; John E. Grant, Illustrating the Poems of Thomas Gray. Intro. "Visions in Vala: A Consideration of Some and commen. by Sir Geoffrey Keynes. Chicago: Pictures in the Manuscript"; Mary Lynn Johnson J. Philip O'Hara, Inc., 1972. $25. and Brian Wilkie, "On Reading The Four Zoas: Blake, William. See also Bloom, Bredvold, Feldman. Inscape and Analogy"; Irene Tayler, "Say First! Bloom, Harold and Lionel Trilling, eds. The Oxford What Mov'd Blake? Blake's Comus Designs and Anthology of English Literature (General eds., Milton"; James Rieger, '"The Hem of Their Gar• Frank Kermode and John Hollander). 2 vols. ments': The Bard's Song in Milton"; W. J. T. cloth and pa.; 6 vols. pa. only. N.Y.: Oxford Mitchell, "Blake's Radical Comedy: Dramatic Univ. Press, 1973. 2 vol. ed., cloth $9.95 Structure as Meaning in Milton"; Roger R. each, paper $7.95 each; 6 vol. ed., $3.95 each. Easson, "William Blake and His Reader in [175 illus.; Blake is in Vol. 2, 10-124, 2 vol. Jerusalem"; Stuart Curran, "The Structures of ed.; Vol. 4, 6 vol. ed.] Jerusalem"; Karl Kroeber, "Delivering Bredvold, Louis, et. al. Eighteenth Century Poetry Jerusalem." and Prose. 3rd ed. N.Y.: Ronald Press, 1973. Duncan, Robert. The Truth and Life of Myth: An $11.50. [Includes Blake] Essay in Essential Autobiography. Fremont, Curran, Stuart and Joseph Anthony Wittreich, Jr., Mich.: Sumac Press, 1968. [Blake is discussed; eds. Blake's Sublime Allegory: Essays on The Blake's "Ezekiel's Vision" on cover] 12

Essick, Robert N., ed. The Visionary Hand. Los Memorable Fancies from MHH\ "I Saw a Chapel Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, 1973. $7.95 All of Gold"; . Pis. 15 paper. [A collection of essays on Blake's art; and 42: "Ghost of a Flea" and "." contents not available for listing at press- Blake also in Introduction] time] Tomory, Peter. The Life and Art of Henry Fuseli. Feldman, Burton and Robert D. Richardson. The Rise N.Y.: Praeger, 1972. $25. [Illustrated] of Modern Mythology, 1680-1860. Bloomington: Wagenknecht, David. Blake's : William Blake Indiana Univ. Press, 1972. [Anthology and and the Idea of Pastoral. Cambridge, Mass.: critical history that includes Blake] Harvard Univ. Press; Belknap Press, 1973. $12. Fletcher, Angus John Stewart. The Transcendental Wright, Andrew. Blake's Job: A Commentary. Masque: An Essay on Milton's Comus. Ithaca, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. $9. [23 N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1972. [Blake's illustrations] illus. to Comus in eight scenes inserted between pp. 256-57] Gaunt, William. The Restless Century: Painting in Britain, 1800-1900. New York: Praeger- Phaidon, 1972. $25; 56.5. [171 pictures] Reprinted B00K5 Gil lam, David George. William Blake. British Authors: Introductory Critical Series. London: Berger, P. William Blake: Poet and Mystic, Studies Cambridge Univ. Press, 1973. 53.70, $12.95; in Blake Series, No. 3. 1914; rpt. N.Y.: pa. £1.30, $4.95. Haskell House, 1969. Grimes, Ronald L. The Divine Imagination: William Berger, Pierre. William Blake: Poet and Mystic, Blake's Major Prophetic Visions. ATLA Monograph trans. D. H. Connor. 1914; rpt. Folcroft, Series, No. 1. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Pa.: Folcroft, 1973. Press, 1972. Binyon, Laurence. Followers of William Blake. Keynes, Sir Geoffrey. See Blake. 1925; rpt. N.Y.: Benjamin Blom, 1972. Kremen, Kathryn R. The Imagination of the Resurrec• Blake, William. Blake's Poetical Works. Ed. John tion: The Poetic Continuity of a Religious Sampson. 1905; rpt. Kennebunkpart, Me.: Motif in Donne, Blake, and Yeats. Lewisburg, Mil ford House, 1971. Penn.: Bucknell Univ. Press, 1972. $15. Blake, William. See also Campbell, Clarke, Keynes. [Illustrated] Bronowski, J. William Blake: A Man without a Nelson, Cary. The Incarnate Word: Literature as Mask. 1947(7); rpt. N.Y.: Haskell House, 1969. Verbal Space. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, Campbell, Kathleen W., ed. An Anthology of English 1973. $10.00. [Includes Blake] Poetry: Dryden to Blake. 1930; rpt. Freeport, Paley, Morton D. and Michael Phillips, eds. William N.Y.: Books for Libraries, 1971. Blake: Essays in Honour of Sir Geoffrey Keynes. Clarke, John H. William Blake on the Lord's Prayer: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. £10.50. [83 1757-1827, Studies in Blake Series, No. 5. illus.] The contents of this volume are as 1927; rpt. N.Y.: Haskell House, 1971. follows: Michael Phillips, "Blake's Early De Selincourt, Basil. William Blake. 1909; rpt. Poetry"; David Bindman, "Blake's 'Gothicised N.Y.: Cooper Square, 1972. Imagination' and the History of England"; De Selincourt, Basil. William Blake. 1909; rpt. Robert N. Essick, "The Altering Eye: Blake's Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat, 1971. Vision in the Designs"; F. R. Leavis, Dutt, Sukumar. The Supernatural in English Romantic "Justifying One's Valuation of Blake"; Poetry, 1780-1830. 1938; rpt. Folcroft, Pa.: Josephine Miles, "Blake's Frame of Language"; Folcroft Library Editions, 1972. Michael J. Tolley, "Blake's Songs of Spring"; Ellis, Edwin J. The Real Blake. 1906; rpt. N.Y.: Jean H. Hagstrum, "Christ's Body"; G. Wilson Haskell House, 1970. Knight, "The Chapel of Gold"; David V. Erdman Garnett, Richard. William Blake: Painter and with Tom Dargan and Marlene Deverell-Van Meter, Poet, Studies in Blake Series, No. 3. 1895; "Reading the Illuminations of Blake's Marriage rpt. N.Y.: Haskell House, 1970. of Heaven and Hell"; Janet Warner, "Blake's Gilchrist, Alexander. The . Figures of Despair: Man in his 's Ed. W. Graham Robertson. 1907; rpt. Folcroft, Power"; Morris Eaves, "The Title-page of The Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1972. Book of "; John Beer, "Blake, Coleridge, Gilchrist, Alexander. The Life of William Blake. and Wordsworth: Some Cross-currents and 2 vols. 1880; rpt. N.Y.: Phaeton, 1969. Parallels, 1789-1805"; Morton D. Paley, Keynes, Sir Geoffrey. Blake Studies: Notes on His "William Blake, The Prince of the Hebrews, and Life and Works in Seventeen Chapters. 1949; The Woman Clothed with the Sun"; Martin Butlin, rpt. N.Y.: Haskell House, 1971. "Blake, the Varleys, and the Graphic Telescope"; Keynes, Sir Geoffrey. William Blake's Engravings. Raymond Lister, "References to Blake in Samuel 1950; rpt. N.Y.: Cooper Square, 1972. Palmer's Letters"; Suzanne R. Hoover, "William Kortelling, Jacoming. Mysticism in Blake and Blake in the Wilderness: A Closer Look at his Wordsworth, Studies in Poetry Series, No. 38. Reputation, 1827-1863"; G. E. Bentley, Jr., 1928; rpt. N.Y.: Haskell House, 1969. "Geoffrey Keynes's Work on Blake: Fons et Lindsay, Jack. William Blake: Creative Will and Origoy and a Checklist of Writings on Blake by the Poetic Imagination. 1929; rpt. N.Y.: Geoffrey Keynes, 1910-1972." Haskell House, 1970. Sachs, Arieh, ed. The English Grotesque: An Norman, Hubert J. Cowper and Blake. 1913; rpt. Anthology from Langland to Joyce. Jerusalem: Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, Israel Universities Press, 1969. [Pp. 155-61: 1972. 13

Rossetti, William Michael. Lives of Famous Poets. 1970. [Chapter 5, "Blake and Yeats"; Blake 1878; rpt. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library mentioned throughout] Editions, 1971. Bly, Robert. "Looking for Dragon Smoke." The Rudd, Margaret. Organized Innocence: The Story Seventies, No. 1 (Spring 1972), 3-8. of Blake's Prophetic Books. 1956; rpt. Brogan, Howard 0. "Relevance in Literary Study." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973. CEA Critic, 33 (May 1971), 23-24. Singer, June K. The Unholy Bible. 1970; rpt. Butlin, Martin. "A 'Minute Particular' Particular• N.Y.: Harper, 1973. $2.95. paperback rpt.] ized: Blake's Second Set of Illustrations to Symons, Arthur. William Blake. 1907; rpt. N.Y.: Paradise Lost." Blake Newsletter, 6 (Fall Cooper Square, 1970. 1972), 44-46. Wicksteed, Joseph H. Blake's Vision of the Book of Butlin, Martin. "William Blake in the Hubert P. Job, Studies in Blake Series, No. 3. 1924; Home Collection." Blake Newsletter, 6 rpt. N.Y.: Haskell House, 1970. (Summer 1972), 19-21. Chaffee, Alan J. "The Rendezvous of Mind." Words• worth Circle, 3 (Autumn 1972), 196-203. Chayes, Irene. "Brief Riposte." Blake Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 23-24. Curran, Stuart. "Blake and the Gnostic Hyle: A Articles Double Negative." Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 117-33. SEE ALSO THE COLLECTIONS OF ESSAYS LISTED ABOVE DiSalvo, Jackie. "William Blake on the Unholy UNDER CURRAN, ESSICK, AND PALEY. Alliance: Satanic Freedom and Godly Repression in Liberal Society." Wordsworth Circle, 3 Anon. "The Tate Gallery, London, Exhibit." Art (Autumn 1972), 212-22. and Artists, 6 (Jan. 1972), 46-47, 49. Doherty, F. M. J. "Blake's 'The Tyger1 and Henry (Designs to Gray's poems] Needier." Philological Quarterly, 46 (Oct. Anon. "Two Shows at Yale." Art Journal, 31 (Spring 1967), 566-67. 1973), 303. [Designs to Gray's poems] Eaves, Morris. "A Reading of Blake's Marriage of Anon. "William Blake's Watercolour Designs Heaven and Hell, plates 17-20: On and Under Illustrating Gray's Poems--and Mr. Paul Mellon." the Estate of the West." Blake Studies, 4 Connoisseur, 179 (Jan. 1972), 10-14. (Spring 1972), 81-116. Baine, Rodney. "Blake and Defoe." Blake Newsletter, Essick, Robert N. "Blake and the Tradition of Repro• 6 (Fall 1972), 51-53. ductive Engraving." Blake Studies, 5 (Fall Baine, Rodney. "Thel's Northern Gate." Philological 1972), 59-103. Quarterly, 51 (Oct. 1972), 957-61. Essick, Robert N. "A Preliminary Design for Blake's Baird, Julian. "Swinburne, Sade, and Blake: The Grave." Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 9-13. Pleasure-Pain Paradox." Victorian Poetry, 9 Firestone, Evan R. "John Linnell and the Picture (Spring-Summer 1971), 49-75. Merchants." The Connoisseur, 182 (Feb. 1973), Beer, John B. "Blake, Mr. Tolley and the Scholarly 124-34. Imagination." Southern Review: An Australian Fletcher, Ian. "The Ellis-Yeats-Blake Manuscript Journal of Literary Studies, 4 (1971), 247-55. Cluster." The Book Collector, 21 (Spring Beer, John. "Brief Riposte." Blake Newsletter, 6 1972), 72-94. [4 plates] (Summer 1972), 19-23. Freiberg, S. K. "The Fleece-Lined Clock: Time, Bentley, G. E., Jr. "Blake's Job Copperplates." Space, and the Artistic Experience in William Library, 26 (Sept. 1971), 234-41. Blake." Dalhousie Review, 49 (Autumn 1969), Bentley, G. E., Jr. "A Handlist of Works by William 404-15. Blake in the Department of Prints and Drawings Gage, S. "Blake's ." Journal of Warburg and of the British Museums." With supplementary Courtauld Institute, 34 (1971), 372-77. notes. Blake Newsletter, 5 (Spring 1972), 223- Garnett, David. "The Appendix." The Book Collector, 58. 21 (Spring 1972), 54-58. [On Sir Geoffrey Bentley, G. E., Jr. "A 'New' Blake Engraving in Keynes] Lavater's Physiognomy." Blake Newsletter, 6 Gibson, William A. and Thomas L. Minnick. "William (Fall 1972), 48-49. Blake and Henry Emlyn's Proposition for a New Bentley, G. E., Jr. "The Thorne Blake Collection at Order in Architecture: A New Plate." Blake the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York." Apollo, Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 13-17. NS 94 (Nov. 1971), 416. Grant, John E. "On Mary Ellen Reisner's Locations of Bishop, Morchard. "The Poet and the Attorney: The Copy U of Songs of Innocence and Copy D of Songs Story of a Legacy." The Book Collector, 21 of Experience from Blake Newsletter 19." Blake (Summer 1972), 245-54. [A discussion of a paint• Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 22. ing by Romney whose subjects are Flaxman, Hayley, Grant, John E. "The Visionary Perspective of Ezekiel. and Hayley's son; the article mentions Blake, Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 153-57. who was working for Hayley while Hayley was Harper, George M. (Florida State). "The Odyssey of arguing with the attorney Thomas Greene for the Soul in Blake's Jerusalem." [A paper read at possession of the painting] the 1971 South Atlantic Modern Language Blake, William. "From the Note-Book" [pp. 68, Association convention and reported in PMLA, 68-69, 69-70, 82-87]. Tree:!, Winter 1970. Sept. 1972, p. 642] [Christopher Books, 1819 Sycamore, Canyon Rd., Hart-Davis, Rupert. "A Little Injudicious Levity." Santa Barbara, Ca.] The Book Collector, 21 (Spring 1972), 51-53. Bloom, Harold. Yeats. N.Y.: Oxford Univ. Press, [On Sir Geoffrey Keynes] 14

Helmstadter, Thomas H. "Blake and the Age of Reason: Art Gallery Bulletin, 33 (Oct. 1972), 23-36. Spectres in the Night Thoughts." Blake Studies, Sandler, Florence. "The Iconoclastic Enterprise: 5 (Fall 1972), 105-39. Blake's Critique of 'Milton's Religion.'" Blake Hoover, Suzanne R. "Pictures at the Exhibitions." Studies, 5 (Fall 1972), 13-57. Blake Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 6-12. Sharp, Dennis. "Blake Into Print." The Royal Horovitz, Michael. "Blake and the Voice of the Bard Institute of British Architects Journal, 80 in Our Time." Books, 10 (Winter 1972), n.p. (Feb. 1972), 80. [Designs for Gray's poems: Horovitz, Michael. "The Need for the Non-Literary." Tate Gallery exhibit] Times Literary Supplement, 29 Dec. 1972, pp. Siemens, Reynold. "Boarders in Blake's The Little 1582-83. Girl Lost-Found." Humanities Association James, G. Ingli. "Blake's Woodcuts, Plain and Bulletin, 22 (Spring 1971), 35-43. Coloured." Times Literary Supplement, 18 May Sutherland, John. "Blake: A Crisis of Love and 1973, p. 564. Jealousy." PMLA, 87 (May 1972), 424-31. Ketters, David. "New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Tannenbaum, Leslie. "Blake's Art of Crypsis: The Imagination, Science, Fiction, and American Book of Urizen and Genesis." Blake Studies, 5 Literature." Mosaic, 5 (Fall 1971), 37-57. (Fall 1972), 141-64. Keynes, Geoffrey. "Blake's Engravings for Gay's Tayler, Irene. "Blake's Comus Designs." Blake Fables." The Book Collector, 21 (Spring Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 45-80. 1972), 59-64. [12 plates included] Todd, Ruthven. "The Battle of Ai ." Paul Grinke King, James. "The Meredith Family, Thomas Taylor, (London) Catalogue Five, 1972, pp. 17-19. and William Blake." Studies in Romanticism, [Illus.] 11 (Spring 1972), 153-57. Todd, Ruthven. "A Recollection of George Richmond Kjellberg, P. "Le primier coup d'audace des peintres by His Grandson." Blake Newsletter, 6 (Summer anglais." Connaissance Arts, 240 (Feb. 1972), 1972), 24. 87. Toomey, Deirdre. "The States of Plate 25 of Leary, D. J. "Shaw's Blakean Vision: A Dialectical Jerusalem." Blake Newsletter, 6 (Fall 1972), Approach to Heartbreak House." Modern Drama, 46-48. 15 (May 1972), 89-103. Walling, William. "The Death of God: William Blake's Lister, Raymond. "A Fragmentary Copy of Songs of Version." Dalhousie Review, 48 (Summer 1968), Innocence and of Experience ." Blake Newsletter, 237-50. 6 (Summer 1972), 19. Welch, Dennis G. "America and Atlantis: Blake's Lister, Raymond. "Two Blake Drawings and a Letter Ambivalent Millenialism." Blake Newsletter, from Samuel Palmer." Blake Newsletter, 6 6 (Fall 1972), 50. (Fall 1972), 53-54. Whittaker, Edward Keith. "Sorrow and the Flea." Lister, Raymond. "The Writings of Samuel Palmer." Tri-Quarterly, 19 (Autumn 1970), 35-55. Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 81 (April 1973), 253- [Dahlberg compared to Blake] 56. Wilton, Andrew. "Blake and the Antique." [A lecture Lodge, David. "'Crow' and the Cartoons." Critical given at the Victoria and Albert Lecture Quarterly, 13 (Spring 1971), 37-42, 68. Theatre, 16 Nov. 1972] Wittreich, Joseph Anthony, Jr. "Blake and Tradition: Merewether, Mary A. "The Burden of Tyre and Brennen's A Prefatory Note." Blake Studies, 5 (Fall 1972), Poems (1913)." Southerly, 30 (1970), 267-84. 7-11. [A poem cycle showing influence of Blake] Wittreich, Joseph Anthony, Jr. "'Sublime Allegory': Metcalf, Francis Wood. "Reason and 'Urizen': The Blake's Epic Manifesto and the Milton Tradition." Pronunciation of Blakean Names." Blake News• Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 15-44. letter, 6 (Summer 1972), 17-18. Wittreich, Joseph Anthony, Jr. "William Blake: Meynell, Francis. "A Reminiscence." The Book Collector, 21 (Spring 1972), 50. [On Sir Illustrator-Interpreter of Paradise Regained." Geoffrey Keynes] In Calm of Mind: Tercentenery Essays on Minnick, Thomas L. See Gibson. Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistis. Moss, John G. "Structural Form in Blake's Visions Cleveland: Case Western Reserve Univ. Press, of the Daughters of Albion." Humanities 1971. Pp. 93-132. [Also Appendix A, "Illustra• Association Bulletin, 22 (Spring 1971), 9-18. tors of Paradise Regained and their Subjects: Ower, John. "The Epic Mythologies of Shelley and 1713-1816," pp. 309-29; Appendix B, "A Catalogue Keats." Wascana Review, 4 (1969), 61-72. of Blake's Illustrations to Milton," pp. 331-42] Raine, Kathleen. "Blake and the Education of Child• Won, Ko. "The Symbolists' Influence on Japanese hood." The Southern Review, 8 (Spring 1972), Poetry." Comparative Literature Studies, 8 253-72. (Sept. 1971), 254-65. Raine, Kathleen. "Blake: Maker of Myths." In Man, Myth and Magic: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Supernatural. Ed. Richard Cavendish. N.Y.: Marshall Cavendish Corp., 1970. II, Reviews 278-85 [Color illus. included; see also I, 3] Adams, Hazard. William Blake: A Reading of the Rose, Edward J. "Goodbye to Ore and All That." Shorter Poems. Reviewed by Henri Lemaitre, "A Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 135-51. propos de William Blake," Etudes Anglaise, 20 Rose, Edward J. "Wheels within Wheels in Blake's (July-Sept. 1967), 289-96. Jerusalem." Studies in Romanticism, 11 (Winter Adams, Hazard, ed. William Blake: Jerusalem, 1972), 36-47. Selected Poems and Prose. Reviewed by Thomas H. Rosenblum, Robert. "German Romantic Painting in Helmstadter, Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), International Perspective." Yale University 163-66. 15

Beer, John B. Blake's Visionary Universe. Reviewed Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 33-34. by Michael J. Tolley, "A Superficial Vision, Lister, Raymond. British Romantic Art. Reviewed Southern Review: An Australian Journal of in Times Literary Supplement, 4 May 1973, pp. Literary Studies, 4 (1971), 242-46. 499-500. Bentley, G. E., Jr. The Blake Collection of Mrs. Paley, Morton D. Energy and Imagination. Reviewed Landon K. Thorne. Reviewed by Robert Essick, by John E. Grant, English Language Notes, 9 Blake Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 26-28. (Mar. 1972), 210-16; Daniel Hughes, "The Luck Bentley, G. E., Jr. Vala or The Four Zoas. of William Blake," Massachusetts Review, 13 Reviewed by Henri Lemaitre, "A propos de (Autumn 1972), 717-25; J. Janssens, Dutch William Blake," Etudes Anglaise, 20 (July-Sept. University Review (1972-73), 103. 1967), 289-96. Raine, Kathleen. Blake and Tradition. Reviewed by Bindman, David. William Blake: Catalogue of the C. Gellhar, Pantheon, 30 (July 1972), n.p.; Collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Reviewed Ants Oras, "Kathleen Raine, The Ancient by Morchard Bishop, The Book Collector, 21 Springs, and Blake," Saturday Review, 80 (Spring 1972), 133-34; Robert R. Wark, Blake (Winter 1972), 200-11; D. Weeks, Journal of Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 160-62. Aesthetics, 29 (Spring 1971), 424-25. Blake, William. See Adams, Bentley, Bindman, Bogan Raine, Kathleen. William Blake. Reviewed by J. C. Butlin, Keynes, Stevenson, Wittreich. Battye, Art and Artists, 6 (July 1971), 68; Bogan, Nancy, ed. The Book of Thel: A Facsimile Michael Tolley, Blake Newsletter, 6 (Summer and Critical Text. Reviewed by Andrew Wright, 1972), 28-31. Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 162-63. Singer, June K. The Unholy Bible: A Psychological Boutang, Pierre. William Blake. Reviewed by Interpretation of William Blake. Reviewed by Simone Pignard, Blake Newsletter, 6 (Fall Robert L. Corey. Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 55-56. 1972), 167-68. Butlin, Martin, ed. Blake-Varley Sketchbook of 1818. Stevenson, W. H., ed. The Poems of William Blake. Reviewed by D. Irwin, Burlington Magazine, 113 Reviewed by Anne Kostelanetz Mel lor, Blake (June 1971), 341-42. Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 32-33. Butlin, Martin. William Blake: A Complete Catalogue Tayler, Irene. Blake's Illustrations to the Poems of Works in the Tate Gallery, 2nd ed. Reviewed of Gray. Reviewed by Hugh Honour, New York by Michael J. Tolley, Blake Newsletter, 6 Review of Books, 25 Jan. 1973, pp. 34-35; Daniel (Summer 1972), 28-31; Robert R. Wark, Blake Hughes, "The Luck of William Blake," Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 160-62. Massachusetts Review, 13 (Autumn 1972), 717-25; DeMott, Benjamin. Blake and Manchild [tape record• W. J. T. Mitchell, Blake Studies, 4 (Spring ing]. Reviewed by Morris Eaves, Blake News• 1972), 159-60; Morton D. Paley, Criticism, letter, 6 (Summer 1972), 25-26. 14 (Winter 1972), 93-96. Denvir, B. "Sensibility and Cybernetics: Some Todd, Ruthven. William Blake The Artist. Reviewed Recent Books about Art." Art International, by K. Bazarov, Art & Artists, 7 (May 1972), 16 (Feb. 1972), 64-66. [Some recent studies 56-57; H. R. Wackrill, Blake Studies, 4 (Spring on Blake noted] 1972), 168-69. Erdman, David V. and John E. Grant, eds. Visionary Tomory, Peter. The Life and Art of Henry Fuseli. Forms Dramatic. Reviewed by Daniel Hughes, Reviewed by Hugh Honour, New York Review of "The Luck of William Blake," Massachusetts Books, 25 Jan. 1973, pp. 34-35; Times Literary Review, 13 (Autumn 1972), 707-25. Supplement, 4 May 1973, pp. 499-500. Gill ham, D. G. William Blake. Reviewed in Times Vogler, Thomas A. Preludes to Vision: The Epic Literary Supplement, 18 May 1973, p. 564. Venture in Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, and Hart Hagstrum, Jean H. William Blake, Poet and Painter: Crane. Reviewed by Andy P. Antippas, Blake An Introduction to the Illuminated Verse. Newsletter, 6 (Summer 1972), 34-36; Jenijoy Reviewed by Henri Lemaitre, "A propos de LaBelle, Blake Studies, 4 (Spring 1972), 163-64. William Blake," Etudes Anglaise, 20 (July-Sept. Wittreich, Joseph Anthony, Jr. The Romantics on 1967), 289-96. Milton: Formal Essays and Critical Asides. Hirsch, E. D. Innocence and Experience: An Reviewed by Andy P. Antippas, Blake Newsletter, Introduction to Blake. Reviewed by Henri 6 (Fall 1972), 55. Lemaitre, "A propos de William Blake," Etudes Anglaise, 20 (July-Sept. 1967), 289-96. Keynes, Geoffrey, ed. ; There Is No Natural Religion (Trianon Press for the Films William Blake Trust). Reviewed by Kay Parkhurst Easson, Blake Studies, 5 (Fall 1972), 168-75. Tyger, Tyger. BBC-TV, London, 1969. 30 minutes, Keynes, Geoffrey. Blake Studies: Essays on His 16 mm. Released in the U.S. by Time-Life Life and Work, 2nd ed. Reviewed by Robert F. Films. Gleckner, Blake Studies, 5 (Fall 1972), 165- 68. Keynes, Geoffrey, ed. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul. Reviewed by John E. Grant, Records Philological Quarterly, 47 (Oct. 1968), 571-80. Keynes, Geoffrey, ed. William Blake's Water-Col our Vaughan Williams, Ralph. . England: Designs for Gray's Poems--A Commemorative Cata• Argo ZR6 732. [Robert Tea, tenor, Philip logue. Reviewed by Morton D. Paley, Blake Ledger, piano, and Neil Black, oboe] 16

all verbs changed to past tense. Cut to a school• Reviews room: Teacher—What's he done to the poem? Small girl--Ruir\ed it. DDC Blake J. G. Davies remarks that the "deeps or skies" are not a reference to hell and heaven. Stuart Hall Tyger3 Tyger. BBC. Written and directed by sees the poem as a process in which God moves from Christopher Burstall. Black and white, 50 the creation of to the recognition of it minutes. as an independent creature, and Adrien Mitchell contrasts the authority of Blake's "daydreams or William Blake. BBC. Narrated by Jacob visions" with the "spurious authority" of drug Bronowski. Color, 50 minutes. experiences. A bevy of children's drawings of tygers is seen in juxtaposition to Blake's. In all, the Reviewed by Morton D. Paley result is highly successful, reminding us of the universality of the poem's appeal and refreshing our Two films about Blake made by the BBC are available own responses to it. in the United States. One, "Tyger, Tyger", written and directed by Christopher Burstall, is a black- The Bronowski film, produced by Adrien Malone, and-white film about fifty minutes long; the other, is sub-titled "As a Man Is—So He Sees." Dr. "William Blake," is narrated by Jacob Bronowski, who Bronowski sees molten metal, a great deal of it, is virtually the protagonist of the film, which is pouring through troughs and into cauldrons. The in color and is also about fifty minutes long. first appearance of this image is striking and Information about both may be obtained from Time- apposite, but after frequent repetition it loses its Life Films, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, power. When we descend to find Bronowski, hard hat N. Y. 10020. on head, declaiming in the slag heap, it becomes ludicrous. The view of Blake presented contains a "Tyger, Tyger" is subtitled "An enquiry into partial truth, but through reiteration and repetition the power of a familiar poem," and it is just that. the partial truth becomes a positive distortion. People of many sorts are asked to discuss their Perhaps Blake was "the first modern poet," and we feelings about the poem, with the camera cutting may well agree that "The decay of the craftsman in from one to another and back. The results are often an industrial society was acted out in Blake's own delightful, always engaging, sometimes hilarious; life," but the line between truth and truism is and the production has a feeling of authenticity, ready to give way with "The young rebel became the that indefinable something which does so much to old revolutionary and became for us the new man." command the viewer's attention. Among those What can this mean? interviewed are Robert Graves, George Goyder, Richard Hoggart, students of various ages including Parts of the film re-enact events in Blake's some wery young children, a taxidermist (standing life, with awkward results. The effects are like in front of an enormous stuffed tiger) who turns out those of the films about the Washingtons and the to be George Richmond (great-grandson of the Lincolns we had to sit through in grammar school: painter), a zoo keeper, Adrien Mitchell, a housewife, boring pieties unconvincingly represented. Besides, a civil servant, the theologian J. G. Davies, a this Blake really does seem daft—raising his arms psychiatrist, Stuart Hall, and Kathleen Raine. The in invocation every time he sees some green turf, views are, as one would expect, various. Richard pushing a plough furiously about an empty field, Hoggart says that "The Tyger" is not an invocation leaping into the pulpit of Westminster Abbey. but has "a rapt, trance-like quality"; George Goyder Besides the silliness of all this, there is the very emphasizes its spiritual dimension; Graves says it real possibility of misinforming the potential was "written in a fit of extreme schizophrenia." audience. This film is unlikely to be shown to The zoo keeper points out that tigers are often audiences familiar with Blake and it is likely to placid. Kathleen Raine says that the tyger was made give others the idea that Blake really was given to by Satan or the demiurge, and she relates a vision declaiming the Preface to Milton in the Abbey when of her own in which a hyacinth was transformed no one was around. Also, no effort is made to before her eyes. A small boy says he believes God distinguish Blake's own works from the engravings must have made the tyger because Blake was a and other prints which are used to illustrate the Christian. Now and again a real tiger snarls in a social conditions of Blake's time. This again seems real forest. an invitation to confuse matters. The most valuable thing about this film is the presentation of some For all this, the movement of the film is not of Blake's own work in color. It's a more time haphazard. It proceeds from one stanza to another wasn't spent on this and less on the Bessemer process. and raises some particular questions along the way. Why did Blake draw a toy tyger? "I haven't a clue," says Hoggart. Notebook revisions are discussed by school children and by Robert Graves (who makes the Morton D. Paley (University of California, Berkeley) interesting suggestion that "what dread feet" may, recently coedited with Michael Phillips William as revised, refer to the smith who works the bellows Blake: Essays in Honour of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, with his foot). Graves's simplified version of the published by the Clarendon Press. He is Executive poem is read: two stanzas have been eliminated and Editor of the Newsletter. 17

William Blake: The Book of Thel—A Facsimile Bogen's new interpretation of Thel is and a Critical Text. Edited and with an essentially that the heroine is a sympathetic Introduction and Appendixes by Nancy Bogen. character whose point of view is Blake's own, and Providence: Brown University Press and the who is "a young girl, not a disembodied soul, who New York Public Library, 1971. Pp. xiv + is not hypocritical or even self-deceiving but is 82, 11 plates. $10 as virtuous and transparent as the creatures with which she associates. . . . She seeks and Reviewed by Francis Wood Metcalf eventually finds a meaningful role in life" (p. 21) as a "protester" (p. 30).

Nancy Bogen's facsimile and critical text of The The basis for this interpretation is "a survey Book of Thel is a handsome and useful work which of some of the literary traditions to which the will find a home on the shelf of many a Blakist. poem appears to be related" (p. 21). Six such Not only does it offer a good likeness of the copy traditions are considered, and if a similar of Thel in the Berg Collection of the New York approach in the section on prosody were not such a Public Library, it also provides a new interpretation critical failure, I might greet this survey without of the poem, a new ordering of extant copies more suspicion. As it is, I am uneasy with Bogen's accurate than that of Keynes and Wolf, a running reliance upon her technique of forging links to gloss on the designs which includes cross-references various traditions and individual works in order to other copies, abundant notes, and an attempt at to illuminate Thel indirectly. Specifically, I a standardized text and punctuation. The one bad wonder whether she has been too selective, apple in this cornucopia of bookish delights is a presenting as prime cuts a few supportive points section on prosody whose taint has infected the from her vast, butchered corpus of traditions, but interpretive section to some extent also. Since shunning as offal what might contradict her theory. much of what follows will deal with these blemishes Also I wonder whether one should so easily assume and therefore seem to indict the work as a whole, that Blake's response to the traditions he used I would like to affirm here its overall merit, was free of irony or reversal. However, I mean which is based largely upon the success of its only to warn the prospective reader, not to damn major part, the facsimile. Bogen's work without substance. Her new reading of Thel will be acclaimed by many, I am sure, and The two most noticeable differences between the rest will find it a challenge worth a spirited original and facsimile are the latter's greater reply. intensity of color (mostly blue) and the generally darker tone of its "blank" spaces, or "ground." Several specific readings in her analysis of The original's ground is truly blank, its light the poem itself seem dubious, however, and tan color that of the aged and perhaps never contribute to my uneasiness with her interpretation brilliant paper on which the designs were printed. as a whole. The one point I shall deal with here The facsimile's ground is not blank, however, but concerns the first half of Thel's motto: "Does colored to resemble the blank original. This the Eagle know what is in the pit? / Or wilt thou colored ground creates a powerful contrast with the go ask the Mole." According to Bogen, "the Eagle brilliant white of the surrounding page that is not and the Mole of the motto probably symbolize present in the original and that constitutes a double vision and 'Single Vision.' Double vision major perceptual difference between the two is represented by Thel, who sees more than meets versions. The darker tone of the facsimile's the eye; single vision is represented by the other ground may stem from this contrast more than from creatures of , whose reality seems limited to its actual pigmentation. themselves and their milieu. Therefore, the motto's first question is, Does Thel or one of the other The greater intensity of blue in the facsimile creatures know what is in the pit? Since -pit can is not bothersome and may well be more "original" signify both the grave and hell, the answer seems than the somewhat faded blue of its model. This to be Thel, for she alone has visited the 'land raises a paradox of corruptible form. Which version unknown.' But that land is also the interior of is more original: the present one, faded and the Clod's house, and Thel's experience there darkened by its voyage of two centuries; or some results from the Clod's invitation; so the real theoretical reconstruction of its pristine state? answer is that both Thel and the Clod know what is I have no knowledge of the printer's calculations in the pit, but their knowledge is of different in this regard, nor of the techniques of color- orders" (p. 30). reconstruction, but I hope the makers of facsimiles have considered this point before This argument's premise, that the Eagle and embalming bones of corruption. Mole "probably symbolize double vision and 'Single Vision,"' is supported by a note to the famous Some of the blue areas of the facsimile suffer letter to Butts of 22 November 1802. It would from an unfortunate grainy or mottled effect, a seem unwise, however, to leap forward across smudgy contrast within the color that is not as thirteen years of crucial intellectual development pronounced in the original. There is also a darkness, heaviness, and diffusion of line, but with very little loss of fine detail. In its total Francis Wood Metcalf is writing a Ph.D. disserta• impression the facsimile transcends these minor tion at New York University on rhetoric and style faults, however, and appears the image of pragmatic in the Prophetic Books and has contributed prev• fidelity: pleasant, useful, and cheap. iously to the Mews letter. 18

in an effort to legitimize a reading retrospectively. Bogen next considers, by a rough count, Since apparently Blake had not evolved his concept eighteen separate non­Blakean works and genres as of imaginative levels at the time he wrote Thel, possible prosodic influences. I admire the breadth Bogen's interpretation seems groundless. At the of her research, but wish she had been as diligent very least she ought to have explained why the to analyze and evaluate her material as she was motto's nearly contemporaneous echo in Visions of to acquire it. For example, she speculates that the Daughters of Albion-­"Does not the eagle scorn "prose works of a rhythmical or lyrical nature the earth & despise the treasures beneath? / But may also have had some influence on Blake's the mole knoweth what is there, & the worm shall development of the long line" (p. 12); and "among" tell it thee" (5:39­40)—1s not of interpretive such works, six are listed. The evidence for a value though obviously related in concept. prosodic connection is this: "Hervey and Sherlock are referred to in An Island in the Moon; and Bogen supports a "no" answer for the rest of Blake's diction in Thel is similar in many respects the motto by means of the following logic: "As to the diction of these works" (p. 13). What have for the second question of the motto­­'Can Wisdom diction and prior reference to do with prosody? be put in a silver rod? / Or Love in a golden Does the likelihood that Blake read a work in one mode constitute evidence that he somehow transferred bowl?'­­from the way it is phrased the answer must its form to another? Bogen's authority to suggest be no. If Blake had wanted an affirmative answer formal parallels was weakened by her inaccuracy he would have asked, Can Wisdom not be put in a with regard to Blake's own works; here, unsupported silver rod nor Love in a golden bowl?" (pp. 30­31). by evidence, her suggestion is critically worthless. I agree with her notion of the proper answer, but marvel that she did not apply similar logic to the preceding distich. On this basis, if Blake A singular instance of poor judgment occurs had wanted an affirmative answer he would have when Bogen attempts to link the long line with asked, Does the Eagle not know what is in the pit? biblical style as discussed and translated by As it is, the motto states in paraphrase that no, Robert Lowth. In quoting a passage from his of course the Eagle doesn't know what is in the Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, she pit because that's the Mole's turf, as it were. claims that Lowth "contended" (p. 13) what in fact Bogen's claim that the answer is yes, the Eagle he said by extrapolation "may at least be (Thel) knows what is in the pit, and the Mole reasonably conjectured" (3rd ed. [London, 1835], p. (the Clod) knows too, "but their knowledge is of 214); and the quotation itself—indeed her whole different orders," rings with the special pleading treatment of Lowth—supports a connection between the of an argument stretched on the iron couch of a Bible and Blake of an almost desperate remoteness. fixed theory. Amazingly, Bogen has found here the needle of irrelev­ ance in a haystack of material that may link Blake and The weakness of the section on Thel's the Bible after all. The essential content of Lowth's prosody derives mainly from failures of judgment few remarks on Hebrew meter is that we know next to and accuracy. An example of the former occurs nothing about it. His great discovery, which raced like when in tracing harbingers of Thel's long line in chilly fire through the crypts of clerical Europe, earlier Blakean works, Bogen observes that in was that inasmuch as Hebrew prosody could now be King Edward the Third "several fourteen­syllable deciphered, it was based on a characteristic lines may be found" (p. 12); three, according to resemblance of sense­units, or parallelism. As the notes. Since ^jery many of this play's 642 Lowth put it, "in this peculiar conformation, or lines deviate wildly from the decasyllabic norm, parallelism, of the sentences, I apprehend a I question the value of her observation. To seize considerable part of the Hebrew metre to consist; upon the three lonely heptameters in this exotic though it is not improbably that some regard was also paid to the numbers and feet. But of this company and to prick them out as precursors of particular we have at present so little information, Thel's long line, suggesting not a random but a that it is utterly impossible to determine, whether developmental connection, is surely to display it was modulated by the ear alone, or according to myopic judgment. any settled or definite rules of prosody" (Lowth, Bald inaccuracy joins bad judgment in Bogen's p. 214). It is therefore strange that Bogen next sentence: "Blake's early attempts at gleans a few scattered crumbs about "numbers and measured prose might also be mentioned: Samson, feet" while ignoring the feast of parallelism The Couoh of Death, Contemplation, and the Prologue spread before her. It is also strange that she to King John in ; and the two overlooks the connections between Blakean style unfinished pieces in manuscript, beginning 'Woe and biblical parallelism drawn by other scholars, one of whom she mentions at some length in her cried the muse' and 'then She bore Pale Desire.'" 2 Analysis refutes the vague assertion that these notes. To include parallelism in a section on works' rhythmic form relates to Thel's heptameters. The Prologue to King John, for example, contains 1 Alicia Ostriker, Vision and Verse in William Blake (Madison: thirteen pentameter periods, including seven in a Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1965), p. 127; and Murray Roston, row, but only a few heptameters. In "Woe cried Prophet and Poet: '!">;■ aid the Growth of Romant: a ■• the muse," sixteen of the first twenty rhythmic (Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 164­66. Roston units are pentameters; two are heptameters. There overstates the importance of parallelism in Blake: "parallelism forms the unifying metre of [the] later books" (p. 166); but is considerable rhythmic variation in and among the there is much truth in his view that "to read modern critics other works in Bogen's list, but I am certain that discussing the metres of Blake's prophetic books is to find no analysis would support the claim that they oneself back in the seventeenth­century examination of biblical anticipate the septenary line. poetry before the discovery of parallelism" (p. 165). 19

Roger R. Easson and Robert N. Essick. William but in the context of the books for which they were Blake: Book Illustrator: A Bibliography and executed. Catalogue of the Commercial Engravings. Normal, Illinois: The American Blake The editors main purpose is, however, as they Foundation, 1972. Volume I: Plates Designed have said, "the complete reproduction of Blake's and Engraved by Blake. Pp. xvi +58+82 pis. commercial book illustrations" and their "prime concern is to assist the student of Blake's art." Sadly the reproductions themselves are, for the most Reviewed by Deirdre Toomey part, of rather low quality, and this may tend to modify the usefulness of William Blake: Book William Blake: Book Illustrator, Volume I, is the Illustrator as a work of reference. Some of the first in a series of three publications which will reproductions are highly inaccurate: those of the reproduce and catalogue all of Blake's commercial Night Thoughts engravings are particularly bad. engravings. The first volume deals with designs Here the values are distorted to such an extent that invented and engraved by Blake, the second will deal some pages, in particular 33, 35 and 72, look as if with designs invented but not engraved by Blake and they have been re-engraved by John Jackson. The the third with engravings by Blake after other thick black shadows that appear everywhere in the artists. The editors, Roger R. Easson and Robert Night Thoughts reproductions are most unpleasing. N. Essick, have been cautious in their acceptance This tendency towards excessive blackness is also of attributions: thus doubtful works such as the apparent in Thornton's Virgil and in the Cowper engravings in Bryant's Mythology, Gough's Sepulchral plate, in both cases obscuring areas of fine detail. Monuments, Vetusta Monumenta and The Seaman's The other reproductions are less positively bad, Recorder have not been included in the first volume. tending to omit detail rather than distort values. They have also been cautious in their classifica• Thus in "The Hiding of Moses" whole areas of detail tions: "Laocoon," the Wedgewood engravings and the are missing from the left-hand side of the design. non-pastoral engravings in Thornton's Virgil have The same is true, to a lesser extent, of the fine all been excluded from the first volume on the detail in the Wollstonecraft illustrations. It is grounds—perhaps debatable in the case of the indeed most unfortunate that so useful a work should "Laocoon"--that they are not "original," being be marred by technical defects, and that such "essentially copies of another artist's work." scrupulous and thorough editors as Roger Easson and These have been relegated to the third volume. Robert Essick should be so badly served by their reproductions. Yet, even with these defects William Blake: Book Illustrator remains a valuable work of Clearly William Blake: Book Illustrator in its reference and I look forward to seeing the next two final form will be a very useful work of reference volumes. for Blake scholars. The unusually large amount of bibliographical data is helpful and this blending of "The descriptive bibliography and the print cata• logue" is quite successful, although the seven pages of bibliographical description which accompany the Deirdre Toomey is writing her doctoral thesis at one plate of Herries' Bible are, at first sight, the University of London. Her most recent contri• somewhat daunting. It is enlightening to see the bution to the Newsletter was "The States of Plate commercial engravings, not just as isolated prints, 25 of Jerusalem" in §22.

prosody would force a minor stretch of definition, nodding at this nonsense? but Lowth himself set precedent for this. Despite the weakness of the prosody section-- Almost the final third of the section is which is, after all, only four pages long--Bogen's devoted to the Sternhold-Hopkins metrical psalms, book will be helpful to the student of Thel who which Bogen favors as a prosodic influence on the needs a good facsimile. We need more such works basis of negligible evidence. In this instance, of respectable quality and moderate cost, and at least, she acknowledges both her bias and her according to David Erdman's Foreword, Brown lack of support for it: "to discover a positive University Press and the New York Public Library connection between the long line of Thel and the will help to provide them. Ideally, perhaps, a Sternhold-Hopkins fourteener would be gratifying, facsimile's concreteness and permanence should be but perhaps a closer comparison of the two is left uncompromised by the more subjective and needed first" (p. 14). If this is so, and aside fallible types of criticism. But since the Spectre from the dubious critical values involved, an of completeness haunts us all, including publishers, ethical question appears. Should one save for the I suggest that these future editions be produced rhetorically strong end-position of one's by the collaboration of two or more scholars, commentary, and give the fullest treatment to, each working in his area of greatest competence. what is an admittedly flimsy pet notion? If not If this had been the case with Bogen's Thel, its the specialist, will the defenseless "general weakness might have been avoided, and its reader," trusting the printed word, be left sagely strength maintained. 20

Janet Warner, John Sutherland, and Robert Daughters of Albion, it is convenient to start at the Wallace, producers and directors. Blake's starting-place and describe the tape and its problems. "America." Toronto: York University, 1970. Videotape, 50 minutes. The first thing that you notice is the stiff• ness that characterizes the movement of the tape. Janet Warner, John Sutherland, and Robert The camera seems to have a severely limited range of Wallace, producers and directors. Blake's movement, and thus, for instance, the plates of "Visions of the Daughters of Albion." Toronto: America are consistently shown from awkward York University, 1971. Videotape, 50 minutes. distances. When the producers try to compensate for a general lack of movement by using modern documen• In the United States both videotapes are tary techniques, the result is usually a flurry distributed in all popular formats by Great of still photos that unfortunately happens to create Plains National Instructional Television a stasis of its own. In fact, a difficult problem Library, University of Nebraska, P. 0. Box in making a moving-picture about a work that doesn't America, 80669, Lincoln, Nebraska 68501, and in Canada move, such as or about an age that precedes and elsewhere by the Department of Instructional cinema, such as the eighteenth century, is that you Aid Resources, York University, 4700 Keele are forced to find movement somewhere besides the Street, Downsview, Ontario. subject of the film being made. With enough re• sources you can make the whole business move by dramatizing it, and get a BBC Forsyte Saga. But Reviewed by Morris Eaves otherwise you are left with a fairly small repertory of documentary techniques invented and used by At least in Blake studies, the two videotapes that professionals on small budgets. The techniques are have issued from York University in Toronto are based largely on precise and complicated film- pioneer efforts to make audiovisual aids for the editing, and videotapes are notoriously difficult classroom where Blake is being taught. In my to edit. That, I assume, was the corner the trio opinion the results of these two experiments are at York University was in when they started working mixed, but my review is written on the assumptions on Blake 's "America. " that television has a place in the classroom, and that Blake could be well served by it. Nothing that I have seen in the Warner-Sutherland-Wallace So the tapes are, both of them, always tending videotapes has given me reason to doubt my assump• to grind to an everyday halt or wind up to a wild tions. When the tapes were shown in 1971 at the fury of static dynamism, equally monotonous. Blake Festival (Illinois State University) and at the MLA Annual Meeting in Chicago, I heard two kinds Finally the America tape falls back on the of objections that struck me as being of little use basic, time-proven and time-worn technique of all in evaluating the tapes. The first was theoretical educational film-making, still photos with voice- and asked unanswerable questions, as for instance, over narration. But with that comes another problem: whether Blake's infinite vision is reduced to fini- the suave, fatuous voice of the narrator whose tude by television. The second was critical and professional unction has greased our sleepy way queried the tapes as though they were articles in a through a thousand newsreels and travelogues. The scholarly journal. In this review I have tried to voice has the facile competence that can read Mrs. be relentlessly practical, and, while looking at the Browning one minute, Shakespeare the next, and Blake tapes only as what I am sure they are designed to be, the next, but none of them with character, and classroom tools, I have asked the same question over always with the condescending tone of a lecturer. and over: how useful will they be in a classroom? The script alternates explanatory narration with readings from America, and they become another I have seen each tape four times, twice outside obstruction, since the verse has a way of tricking the classroom, twice inside. I have shown the tapes a reader into his worst performance. The reader's to two different kinds of undergraduate classes: a voice rises immediately to its highest, most intense, class in Blake only, and a class in Romantic litera• and most melodramatic pitch, never to fall again. ture, in which Blake was one of six or seven writers read. The reactions in each class were essentially The method of the tape is to use the plates of the same, though more emphatic in the Blake class. America and readings from them as a basic structure I state the opinions below as mine, but they were to depart from and return to after intervals of corroborated in every case (without prompting, of explanation. The plan sounds orderly, but the ef• course) by the students who saw the tapes. Each fect in practice is not so lucid for several class was intellectually mixed, both in abilities reasons. and interests (the Blake class, for instance, was not weighed down with English majors), and tempera• There are four kinds of explanatory material mentally sunny--not at all disposed to grumble and interspersed with America itself: images and words pass harsh judgments on things presented to them for from the period of the Revolutionary War; images evaluation.

The first effort of the Warner-Sutherland- Morris Eaves (University of New Mexico) is Managing Wallace group was a videotape on America produced in Editor of the Newsletter. An essay on The Book of 1970. I am sure that by now they regard their early Urizen recently appeared in William Blake: Essays work as inferior to their later work. But since in Honour of Sir Geoffrey Keynes, and a review- many of the characteristics of the America tape essay on Blake's Job series in Eighteenth-Century carry over into the second tape, on Visions of the Studies. 21 and words from recent history; works of graphic tape--such as the portraits of Blake that keep art from various periods; and interpretive commentary appearing for no apparent reason—are cut away in the on America. second tape, on Visions of the Daughtevs of Albion ("an interpretation by Janet Warner and John The effect of the modern material—the hippies, Sutherland"), and with them goes at least one source war protesters, rioters, and starving Biafrans-- of unnecessary confusion. Overall the second tape is to date the film rather than to establish a is a giant step ahead of the first. The camera and solid point of comparison between the 1770's and hence the camerawork are more flexible, the the 1970's. Contemporary events are not contempor• comparative graphics are clearer, and because more ary for long, and five-year-old history is not weight is given to significance than to pizzazz, a quite history either, and therefore an unstable lot of fat is turned to lean. gray area is what we get in the videotape. Judging from the reactions of my students, some of whom The historical documents are still present, but were just entering high school when the modern they are fewe*\ more interesting, and further from film footage in the Ameviaa tape was being shot, the cliche, at least for the American viewer. Excerpts effect is like seeing reruns of the television news. from Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women are read over pictures of eighteenth-century The other kind of history used in the tape is women in costume, and The Havlot's Pvogvess is used more effective, at least when used to illuminate as a graphic depiction of the exploitation of women-- the iconography of Ameviaa, which is to say,,when not wildly original, but not "The Star-Spangled history becomes a part of art history. This sort Banner" and the Spirit of '76 either. of lesson in image-making is novel to students and instructive. But the rest of the historical There is a much firmer sense of direction in material, the drummer boys and the Don1t-Tread-on- the comparative graphics. The comparative principle Me's, are left to fend mostly for themselves as the on which the tape is constructed is explicitly stated unresurrected cliches of elementary-school American and explained, and the comparisons are more often history. Even the most interesting parts of the solid and direct than merely suggestive. Clear use historical graphics, the American emblems and is made, for instance, of Stedman's Narrative. There portraits of Revolutionary-War soldiers, become is less reading from the text of the work, which is almost ludicrous when they are shown to the tune of a relief, the music is usually more appropriate, and Blake's Ameviaa. The wild gnashing and groaning of there is more sense of the presence of a controlling the verse simply cannot be easily combined with interpretation. those tame materials. But there are also several large problems left The best part of both tapes is the lesson in over from the Ameviaa tape, and a couple of new ones. iconography that they try to teach with comparative The offensive male voice of the narrator off camera graphics. When they are clear, as they sometimes in Ameviaa has been replaced by a slinky female who are, they are striking. Most of the comparisons occasionally appears on camera. Her voice is are left implicit rather than made explicit, and slightly less offensive than the male's, but some• many sound, implicit comparisons are woven into the how the appearance of a would-be twentieth-century tape, as, for instance, between the postures of Oothoon whose clothes and furniture seem to be crouching and rising figures. But often the point Vogue's vision of life rather than her own loses her of the comparisons is not clear, as it is not in a more points than the bit of character in her voice series of statues shown while lines are being read can gain for her. The losses are doubled by a weak about an eagle in Mexico and a lion in Peru. chorus that tries to imitate the Daughters of Moreover, when a plate from Ameviaa is compared to Albion. other works by Blake, say a plate from The Marriage, many students would be hard put to say where one begins and the other leaves off. After it appears The comparative graphics begin to lose their several times in the course of the tape, you might force when we are shown a series of yery slickly think that "Albion rises" is a plate from Ameviaa. executed modern nudes in Oothoon poses that take us Finally, the comparisons are sometimes so loose back to Vogue, Mademoiselle, and matching narrator. that they seem gratuitous, as in the use made of Moreover, the producers seem to have noticed the Goya's Disasters of War series. preponderance of still pictures in their Ameviaa tape, and one of the attempted remedies in the The narrator's interpretive commentary on Visions tape comes off as silly. The attempt to Ameviaa is mostly psychoanalytical. Ore is defined animate still pictures by moving them in front of as the representative of adolescent sexual energies, the camera almost never works for anyone except the usually repressed, and plate 5 is called a diagram professional's professional. Here it makes even of the psyche, with the superego at the top, ego in slicker the slick Vogue nudes, and makes ridiculous the middle, and id at bottom. But the tack of the the line " rent her" while a statue pulses in commentary doesn't matter much because it gets lost front of the camera. The Visions tape wants to in the other kinds of material on the tape. The move—something that can't be said of the Ameviaa narrator says at one point, for instance, that the tape--but attempts to make still photos move only designs in Ameviaa repeat motifs of the four elements, remind the viewer of the limitations of the tape. but this observation is never followed up in the This is also true of sound effects. In the Ameviaa commentary on any of the plates. tape the rising wind and the puny trumpets playing the charge to the voice of Albion's Angel shouting Many of the amateurish excesses in the first "Play, play my war trumpets" were jarring, and so 22

The Sports of Cruelty: Fairies, Folk-songs, upon my knee" (p. 1 of the Keynes edition), is Charms, and Other Country Matters in the Work almost a quotation. of William Blake by John Adlard. London: Cecil and Amelia Woolf, 1972. 63.15 The fairy element is not the only feature of the book in which every folklore reference by Blake Reviewed by Katharine M. Briggs is minutely examined by a scholar who shows a wide and far-ranging knowledge of his subject. Blake's John Adlard has written several articles on folklore journals, letters, and conversation are analyzed beliefs underlying some of Blake's references, as, to provide a clue to cryptic passages. For instance for instance, "Mr. Blake's English Fairies" in The the germ of that passage in Amerioa--about the Bulletin of the Modern Language Society 2, LXV (Helsinki, 1964). He has now written at greater length about Blake's attitude to folklore generally, Katharine M. Briggs is Vice-President of the Folk• and in particular to the fairies, by whom Blake lore Society (London). Her published writings appears, sometimes at least, to symbolize the cool include The Anatomy of Puck (2959), Folktales of provocativeness of a flirtatious woman, who England (with Ruth L. Tongue, 1965), The Fairies in titillates desire without fulfilling it. This Tradition and Literature (1967), The Personnel of interpretation, as John Adlard points out, is a Fairyland (1969), Englische Volksmarchen (1970), development of Pope's treatment of the sylphs in and contributions to A Dictionary of British Folk• The Rape of the Look. One passage, "A fairy leapt tales in the English Language (1970-7:).

are the reverberation effects used in the Visions semi trance. tape. These kinds of effects require caution to keep them from being laughable. Reverberation is The only way to keep that from happening is to used more skillfully in soap operas. make the tape as lucid and substantial as possible. The only way to get that to happen is to have an But finally, about halfway through visions we absolutely firm sense of purpose. The York tapes slip back into the unfortunate groove of the America get lost in their search for an audience. Sometimes tape--a drone of readings accompanied by an endless they seem intended to teach students how to read stream of pictures, one more or less like another in poetry as well as how to read Visions of the unexplained juxtaposition and sequence. The lesson Daughters of Albion* and yet other times they seem in iconography that I assume is intended is lost, aimed at a much higher level. The level must be and the graphics at last seem to function like the sought, found, and kept. Then continuity must be music, as a merely "appropriate" background. established and maintained without fail. The method of the York tapes in practice is too often Something I learned from showing the York interruptive and disruptive. Comparative material videotapes to students is that, despite McLuhan, from art and history must be used with maximum television in the classroom is not an attention- efficiency. Otherwise the effect of these audio• getter. Rooms are large, television screens are visual "aids" is to display Blake's work in a small, and students are restless. And he who will diminutive context. As the use of comparative have television will also have its technical material is decreased, the use of Blake material distractions--hum, hiss, click, roll, and wave. The should be increased. One of the ways to make America videotape reel will be warped, or the machine will more interesting is to look more closely at it; the be on the blink. Hence the videotape must be way of the York tapes is often to shift attention aggressive. Long stretches of monologue, even the from America to other things. By "look more closely" noisy hysterical kind in the America tape, shouted I mean, for example, explore Blake's use of his over pictures of battles, engravings from here, medium more closely, the graphic and literary statues from there, and reclining nudes, all movement of the narrative, the music (in the serious, accompanied by routine music, only encourage the large sense) of his verse, the techniques of relief viewer to tune in to the TV hum and drift away in a etching and watercoloring. And finally, the tapes mysterious palace built in Atlantean hills by Ariston for his stolen bride—might well have sprung from Cumberland's meeting with Thomas Johnes of Haford, who had built among the Welsh Hills a castle, almost a palace, for his wife Jane, where they founded an idyllic community to surround a house and gardens embellished with every beauty which his imagination could conceive. The ruin of the house is still left, and in a recent article in Country Life the place was described. John Adlard further explores Blake's references to dragons, folk customs and beliefs, folk songs, and dialect. The book should be of great use to Blake scholars, but the scattered and diffused matter on which it works has made it difficult to draw the whole subject into a unity, so that it reads rather like a series of excursions into literary detective work than a finished book. This, however, will not deter the specialist.

should be shorter, not only because that would make them more effective, but also because they are now too long for the average classroom "hour." Forty- five minutes is the outer limit, and forty would be better. Nothing ever goes quite right when you use a videotape in a classroom, and if you use one as seldom as I do, the time sacrificed to technological logistics will astound and amaze you. Warner, Sutherland, and Wallace have been extraordinarily brave, I think, to experiment with the teaching of Blake in a difficult new medium. And usually, I think, that is the way teaching improves: not with elephantine grants from government agencies whose support will be snatched away just as you start to get somewhere, but with small reserves of money and large reserves of talent and energy. The York University team will have to go further before we can tell how much talent they have, but they obviously have large reserves of energy to support whatever talent their work in videotape production eventually shows. I regard their first two tapes as a pair of instructive failures. Since the second is less a failure than the first, I am encouraged, and I hope they are, too, and will try yet again. If they just can't rouse themselves for another go, then I hope someone else will pick up where they left off after a slow but still promising start.