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A Critical Edition of William Blake"S America; a Prophecy

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A Critical Edition of William Blake A critical edition of William Blake's America, a prophecy Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Stockton, Dolores Francesca Colson, 1939- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 05/10/2021 09:07:06 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/317868 A CRITICAL EDITION OF WILLIAM BLAKE"S AMERICA; A PROPHECY by Dolores Stockton A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1 9 6 5 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED : P o l e n g f , , -Stockto'yT- APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: Cd/JLbL,\i£tfJruisrYKr.____________ k 5 CARL H. KETCHAM 7 Date Associate Professor of English CONTENTS HdXS JL OF ooooooooaooooooooeoooooooa 2.V INTRODUCTION X o Til© oooooooooooaooooooooooooo X 2 o J&Xl Ri^0^@SXS ooooooooooooooooooooaoo 3 3 o Th© Riiy tZhin ooooeoooeooeooeoooeeooeo 29 4 o At SyilfcllSS 5.S oooeaooeooooaooooeooooe 39 5 o The TeSStZ ooooooeoeooooeeeoeeoooeoe 45 AMHRICA c A E^RO^E[RC% ooooaooooooaooooooooooo 51 APPENDIX A Tesct of the Cancelled Plates of America ...... 66 APPENDIX B Text of the sfThiralathaie Fragment ...... 70 A SE EJECTED B IBZaX OCRA PH^ oao©oooo©oo©ooooooooo 71 iii LIST OF TABLES Table Page A 1. Occurrence of 4 Line Rhythmic Patterns „ . „ ......... 35 2. Lines Illustrating the Nature of the Patterns ....... 35 iv ABSTRACT A brief explanation of Blake8s myth insofar as it pertains to America. including a summary of salient points of his philosophy, is followed by an extended exegesis of the poem with expository and criti­ cal commentary. Blake’s rhythm is studied by reducing each line of America to musical notation and examining it for pattern and emotive effect. The quality of the poem and Blake’s poetic method are then evaluated. Following a discussion of the texts of America, the can­ celled plates of America % and the "Thiralatha” fragment (including an attempt to explain why the cancelled plates were abandoned), the text of America. collated from two facsimile copies, and the texts of the cancelled plates and fragment, from Keynes’ Nonesuch Edition, are given, with cross-references to lines recurring elsewhere in Blake. v INTRODUCTION 1 o The Myth My naked simple life was X„ That act so strongly shined Upon the earth, the sea, the sky. It was the substance of my mind. The sense itself was I. I felt no dross nor matter in my soul. No brims nor borders, such as in a bowl We see, my essence was capacity. That felt a 1,1 things. The thought that springs Therefrom*s itself. It hath no other wings To spread abroad, nor eyes to see. Nor hands distinct to feel. Nor knees to kneel: Butt being simple like the Deity In its own centre is a sphere Not shut up here, but everywhere. Thomas Traherne Who will justify him that sinneth against his own soul? and who will glorify him that dishonoureth his own life? Ecclesiasticus Men have struggled to achieve unity within themselves and with­ in society since societies began. The conception of inner unity has taken different forms in different cultures ? it has been called oneness with God or with the universe, rebirth, englightenment, nirvana. But whatever its conscious form, without identity all men are miserable; they are monsters, less than wholly themselves, and as they are dis­ torted so will their societies be distortions, waiting to deform the children as they come. 1 Blake, perhaps most of all English poets, was aware of the in­ dividual’s mortal need to know himself, be himself, and to grow in that way peculiar to himself and to no one else and yet of his essential sameness with all men: . every particular Form gives forth or Emanates Its own peculiar Light . This is Jerusalem in every Man, A Tent & Tabernacle of Mutual Forgiveness. This light, peculiar to every man and yet possessed by every man is the faculty to love, where love is synonymous with create. Blake sometimes calls this faculty the Poetic Genius and sometimes imagination, the di­ vine, active awareness that sees the spiritual realities of the physi­ cal world. As one uses and develops this faculty so is he alive and human} as one represses or denies it so is he dead and less than human, that is to say less than divine, since Blake believed that God’s exist­ ence lay in the expression of the humanity of man: "All deities reside in the human breast."2 All around him Blake saw and suffered from men denying the di­ vinity in themselves and in their fellows. His society, from the time of his puberty, was one of war, famine, and slavery under the oppres­ sion of a mad king frantically trying to forestall a revolution by a crippling censorship of speech and the press. As Blake said: Over the doors "Thou shalt not," & over the chimneys "Fear" is written: With bands of iron round their necks fasten’d into the walls 1. William Blake, "Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion," The Complete Writings of William Blake with All the Variant Readings, ed. Geoffrey Keynes (London, 1957), p. 684. All subsequent page references to Blake’s works will be from this edition. 2. Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell," p. 153. The citizens, in leaden gyves the inhabitants of suburbs Walk heavy| soft and bent are the bones of villagers.3 Self-realization as opposed to self-mutilation is Blake’s theme, re­ peated with power and care from the Songs of Innocence to Jerusalem. The songs are masterpieces of delicate irony, statements of man’s in­ herent beauty that painfully expose his ability to destroy it; the prophecies are wild pleas to know the God in oneself and honor it in others. Trembling 1 sit day and night, my friends are astonish’d at me. Yet they forgive my wanderings. I rest not from my great task! To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination.^ Blake teaches that there were four major, unified principles in original man, Albion, who is at once each man and all men, the history of the whole creation being repeated in the history of each individual. These four principles roughly correspond to man’s ability to love, rea­ son, create and act, and are characterized in the four eternals, Luvah, Urizen, Urthona and Tharmas. Albion fell when he ceased to recognise the integrity of these principles. To be divided within oneself, to be less than an integrated, "organiz’d" man is at once the sin and the punishment, so that each of the four eternals divided as did their di­ visions until there was chaos. The finite world was then created as an act of mercy to provide a limit tothis chaos of disunity. Attempts to unify society have usually been divided between im­ posing a unity of act and instilling a unity of feeling. Whether a 3. Blake, "Europe: A Prophecy," p. 243. 4. Blake, "Jerusalem," p. 623. uniformity of action is imposed by lawgivers utilizing fear or by an­ archistic rationalists through the idea that all men must necessarily reason inflexibly alike if they will only reason^ it is a psuedo-unity bought at the price of the individual„ of his emotional integrity, and of his creativity. Jesus tried to show that if only men forgave each other their sins, that is, if love prevailed, there would be unique harmony among human beings. The curiosity is that while an imposed unity of action necessarily represses emotion and individual crea­ tivity, unity of emotion--and love is the only unifying emotion— encourages immense diversity of action. As Schorer says, Blake9s meth­ od of achieving universal order is not to deny any of the elements in human nature but to assert their totality and its integrity.^ Through love then, specifically through the forgiveness of sins, and by the progressive defining and casting out of error through the dialectical struggle of contraries (love and hate, energy and reason, etc.) men will eventually know themselves, be themselves, and Albion will once more arise. Only two of the original eternals appear in America: Urthona and Urizen. The name "Urthona" is, I conjecture, from the Greek opQwvw "I raise, I erect." He represents that part of the psyche which cre­ ates, unites, coalesces into form. "Urizen" is probably from opiZV "1 define, limit, order," and opfZwv "horizon" or "boundary.Urizen can 5.
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