A Prosodic and Phonological Approach to William Blake
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Y() .lt-5 3'ì- THE VOICE OF SONG: A prosodic and phono'logica'l approach to W'i I I 'iam Bl ake \ by Margaret Anne Hood, B.A.(Hons.) Department of English University of Adelaide 0vr-.ci rvo q o,n rJ. e ".{. ¡l'.. ì t I December, 1980 tl TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I INTRODUCTION II BACKGROUND TO BLAKE'S ''SONG'' 10 Effects on the Ear L4 Influences of the Environment 30 III ''SONG'' IN THE POETICAL SKETCHES 39 Metre 43 Cadence 58 Sy'l I abl e 60 Rhyme and other echoic effects 69 Other subtle "irregularities" 80 "A War Song to Eng'lishmen" 86 The "Mad Song" 90 The Shepherd songs 94 IV JEUX D'ESPRIT: THE SONGS FROM AN ISLAND IN THE MOON 98 V "SONG" WITHIN "SONG": THE SONGS 0F INNOCENCE AND' THE SONGS OF EXPERIENCE 116 'l " Pi pi ng Down the Val eys Wi'l d" I27 "A CRADLE SONG'' L28 The Nurse's Songs 148 The "Laughing Song" L57 VI ''SONG'' IN THE MINOR PROPHECIES 163 A Sonq of Liberty L69 The Song of Los t75 America 184 Europe 188 V I I '' SONG '' I N THE FOU R ZOAS 193 Women Sing 204 The Demons Sing 2LB Other Voices of Song 230 VIII MILTON: THE BARD'S VOICE OF SONG 245 The Bard's Song 249 The Vintage Song 273 The Songs of Beulah 274 The Song of Spring 280 IX JERUSALEM: THE FINAL SONG 286 The Song of the Saviour 289 The Song Los Chaunts 301 The Song of the Lamb, sung by the Slaves 310 The Song of the Spectre Sons of Albion 3I4 0ther "Song" 324 X CONCLUSION 340 XI BIBLIOGRAPHY 357 l_ l_ l_ SUMMARY füilliam Blake specifically designated certain passages of his poetry "Songi" and this thesis examines these from both a prosod.ic and phonologícal point of view, testing the contention that Blake possessed a critical "inner ear". Since Blake both raised and changed the "voice of song" throughout his Lifetime, it will be argued that Blake had, first, a developing sense of the aural- effect of his poetry and, secondly' that he had a growing a\¡/areness that "song" as he used it in his poetry could supply a "medium between that of conversing and singing ... the graces of cadence" which John Herries, his contemporary, saht as tacking in the expression of Blakets age. Blake is placed against a background of "sound": what the writers of his day said about poetry and its relation to musici which composers were influential in the London from which he was rarely al¡sent; and what elements of London speech and song may have influenced.the poet. The early "Songs " from the Poetical Sketches have a lyrical Elizabethan appeal, but Blake is seen as continually experimenting both prosodically and phonologically as he does in An Island in the Moon. However, in this latter work he who sings and he who Iistens emerge more clearly and "song;" is used as a connecting device in a piece of good theatre. This artificiality, in turn, gives way to the Sonqs of Innocence and of Experience wherein Blake transforms the tradition of the nursery rhyme and of the children's av hymn into "songs of happy chear", "melodies" and. cadences which "every child may joy to hear". Having achieved what many critics consider the "ultimate" in sorrgr Blake then began a new period of experimentation; in the minor prophecies he produced a variety of forms of "song:" and about the same time began The Four Zoas which, although not taken to the etched stage, contains some of the most lyrical of Blakels songs. Milton contains the longest song of all in the "Bardts Song" which. despite the crucial problem of multiple revisions, reveals that the voice of the bardic figure raised in song is effectual. Jerusalem develops this emphasis upon the voice, rather than upon the song as a returning measure - such as is seen in the broadside ballad or the conventional lyric; however, although Blake speaks in the Preface to Jerusalem of three kinds of poetry and writes in a variety of types of cadence he, nevertheless, begins and ends this prophetic work with mention of song. It may be concluded, therefore, that in a lifelong pursuit for the best voice, Blake never abandoned the concept of song as it could be used in poetry of many different forms and function but, rather, d.eveloped the medium to accord with the message. I¡Ihether it is in a song which is voiced, or in a voice which sings in the graces of cadence, Blake variously and gloriously raised the voice of song. v This thesis contains no material which has been previously submitted for any other degree in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief it contains no material previously published or written by any other person' except where acknowledgement is made. Sígned: M.A. HOOD December, 1980 vl- ACKNOhILEDGEMENTS The author is most grateful for the encouragement accorded her by the Faculty of the Department of Eng1ish, University of Adelàide and, in partícular, her supervisor, Dr. M.J. Tolley. I She also gratefully acknowledges the support of her family I I without whose co-operaÈion the research would not have been possible. t. rl I ¿t AN INTRODUCTION TO THE VOICE OF SONG vüilliam BLake, early in his poetic career, spoke of the charity children in St. Paulrs as raising to heaven the voice of song, and in so doing he was echoing a phrase found in other eighteenth century I Iiterature,'and one which is carried over into Èhe title of this thesis to d,escribe both Èhe poet himself and the poetry which he designated as song. Blake is commonly assoc iated with the Songs of Innocence and of Experience,2 but it is less frequently realised that in aII his poetic works, from the juvenilia through the middle years and in the later prophetic books, Blake consistently used the term song to describe cerÈain poems or passages, although the early Songs seem very different from the dramatized voices with which Bl-ake's prophetic personae sang. Therefore, this thesis presents a new critical approach in a close examination of aII the pieces which Blake specifically designated, song to see in what circumstances the poet chose to define his work as song and how he raised this voice of song' I John Herries, The Elements of Speech (London: L773) r PP. 190-91. Herries, Iamenting the lack in his age of a voice for pronouncing verse, an art which had flourished in ancient times wrote, for example: ".. The voice of conversation they distinguished by the term CONTINUED ... more even and uniform, and more confined in its gradation; the voice of song was variable and extensive ... the voice of oratorical declamation ... is almost unknown." 2 The use of combined elements from Blake's o\n/n title pages follows the practice of the oxford university Press edition of Blake: Sonqs of Innocence and of Experience (Oxford: Paperbacks, L972), title page. 2 Incidental references to song are not considered, and it ís also GrS acknowledged that passages not actually spoken of^song may be so considered, although they comer in this instance, outside the scope of this thesis. Moreover, since this practice of using the term song exÈends throughout the B]akean canon, such a study also provides an excellent opportunity to test the broad generalisation of the early eminent Blakean critic S. Foster Damon as far as the song passages are concerned,: Though Blake is supposed to have been a carelessr even an auÈomatic wriÈer, in reality, he was one of the great technicians. He had atl the tricks at his finger tips' and we cannot doubt that every line he ever wrote was tested aÈ least semi-consciously by his inner ear' 3 This thesis then, first hypothesises that Blake never abandoned the use of song as one medium in which he could give expression to the poetic voice; it is also hypothesised that Blake had, in general, ín the passages he designated as song a developing sense of the aural effect of his poetry and, in particular, a growing awareness that song as he used it in his poetry could supply that medium between that of conversinq and sinqing the graces of cadence that Herries4 saw as lacking in the expression of his age. Accordingly, the passages of song are comparedf not with "control" passages - although that is one methodology that could have been used - but with one another to show a development or expansion in the use of song as the Poetical Sketches were followed bY the Songs of Innocence and of Experience and 3 S. Foster Damont tlilliam Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols (Bostoni Houghton Mifflin, L924), p. 45 4 Herriesr pp.19I, L94. 3 Iater by the minor and major prophetic works, in each of which group of works Blake rai sed an individual voice of song. Blake raised, and changed, the voice of song from the days of his early imitation of the Elizabethan song in the Poetical Sketches till the close of Jerusalem. For instance' in "I love the jocund dance" a very recent article claims that Btake has the speaker displace the inherited catalogue of rural pleasures, aII drawn from 5 tradition, in favour of personal (and implicitly sexual) experiences' song gained brief mention in Tiriel, was gi en two voices - piper and bard - in Songs of Innocence and of Experience, subsumed two entire poems in The Song of Los and described many and often lengthy passages in other minor prophecies and in The Four Zoas Milton and Jerusalem, distinguishing these songs from utterances of lamentation, repJ-y, answer, saying, crying or howling- As other critics have dealt ably with the liberal and conservative prosodic traditions at the time at which Blake was writin9,6 and with the events of the age in which he livedr7 ah"".