BUT HE TALKED OF THE TEMPLE OF MAN’S BODY BUT HE TALKED OF THE TEMPLE OF MAN’S BODY BLAKE’S REVELATION UN-LOCKED BY ELIZA BORKOWSKA But He Talked of the Temple of Man’s Body: Blake’s Revelation Unlocked, by Eliza Borkowska This book first published 2009 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2009 by Eliza Borkowska All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-0329-4, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-0329-8 Jesus … said onto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. (John, 2:19-21) TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS----------------------------------------------------------- IX LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS--------------------------------------------------------- XI INTRODUCTION--------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 PART I: THE TEMPLE OF RATIONALISM CHAPTER ONE: LOCKE’S SCIENCE AND ITS LANGUAGE ---------------------15 1. Locke’s Science and the Senses--------------------------------------15 2. The Sense-Word Knot-------------------------------------------------20 3. Defining the Sense of the Word--------------------------------------33 CHAPTER TWO: LOCKE’S RELIGION/MORALITY AND ITS LANGUAGE------50 1. Religion -----------------------------------------------------------------51 2. Morality -----------------------------------------------------------------58 PART II: DESTROYING THE TEMPLE - RENDING THE VEIL CHAPTER THREE: BLAKE’S REJOINDER TO LOCKE’S SCIENCE AND ITS LANGUAGE ------------------------------------------------------------------------71 1. Blake on the Senses----------------------------------------------------71 2. The Sense-Word Knot and the World-Temple ---------------------77 3. Re-definition: Crushing the Word-Bricks---------------------------80 CHAPTER FOUR: BLAKE’S REJOINDER TO LOCKE’S RELIGION/MORALITY AND ITS LANGUAGE ------------------------------------------------------------ 108 1. Rending the Veil of Religion --------------------------------------- 109 2. Rending the Veil of Morality --------------------------------------- 131 viii Table of Contents CHAPTER FIVE: “SATAN”: BLAKE ON LOCKE’S THREE BRANCHES OF SCIENCE-------------------------------------------------------------------------- 163 1. Morality --------------------------------------------------------------- 165 2. Science ---------------------------------------------------------------- 168 3. Language-------------------------------------------------------------- 173 PART III: REBUILDING THE TEMPLE CHAPTER SIX: BEYOND LOCKE ----------------------------------------------- 181 1. Golgonooza: the Poet’s World-------------------------------------- 181 2. Albion: the Poet’s Man---------------------------------------------- 192 3. “Jerusalem”: the Spiritual Flight----------------------------------- 204 4. “Jerusalem”: the Revelation of the Temple/temple-------------- 219 EPILOGUE: JERUSALEM: THE POET’S WORK --------------------------------- 235 NOTES---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 241 BIBLIOGRAPHY------------------------------------------------------------------ 268 INDEX ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 280 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank Professors Grażyna Bystydzieńska, Małgorzata Grzegorzewska, Tadeusz Sławek and Jerzy Wełna for their opinions and advice at various stages of my work on this text, and Professor Aniela Korzeniowska for language consultation. I also thank my husband, Piotr. I am grateful for your advice and opinion, patience and support. You know and I know that, though I wrote this book, in many senses we made it together. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS William Blake BA, followed by Plate and line number: The Book of Ahania BL, followed by Plate and line number: The Book of Los BU, followed by Plate and line number: The [First] Book of Urizen E, followed by page number: Erdman’s edition of The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake (1988) EG, followed by page number in Erdman’s edition: The Everlasting Gospel FZ, followed by Page and line number: The Four Zoas GP, followed by page number in Erdman’s edition: For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise Jer., followed by Plate and line number: Jerusalem MHH, followed by page number in Erdman’s edition: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Mil., followed by Plate and line number: Milton NNR, followed by page number in Erdman’s edition: There is No Natural Religion Songs, followed by page number in Erdman’s edition: Songs of Innocence and of Experience VDA, followed by Plate and line number: Visions of the Daughters of Albion VLJ, followed by page number in Erdman’s edition: A Vision of the Last Judgement John Locke Essay, followed by book, chapter, section number: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Essays, followed by page number: Essays on the Law of Nature “Of Ethics”, followed by page number: “Of Ethics in General” Reasonableness, followed by section number: The Reasonableness of Christianity Some Thoughts, followed by section number: Some Thoughts Concerning Education Two Tracts, followed by page number: Two Tracts on Government Two Treatises, followed by section number: Two Treatises of Government All the emphases in quotations from these and other publications of Locke are mine. Locke’s own italicisation is not retained for the reasons Yolton provides while apologising for the retention of Locke’s italicisation in his edition of the Essay, xiv. INTRODUCTION In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke repetitively emphasises that the most vital function of language is to let man communicate his thoughts to other men.1 This, he says, is “the end of speech in general” (Essay, 2.18.7). But at the same time he is forced to admit that, if truth be told, language is quite an imperfect tool to serve this end. To take one example he provides in Book Three Of Words: words are “doubtful and uncertain” (3.9.1). Since there is no natural connection between the sound and the idea it refers to – as words, in Locke’s famous phrase, “stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them” (3.2.2) – the same word may signify different ideas for different users. As words for complex ideas may combine a great number of simple ideas, it is impossible that in every man’s mind the ingredient ideas will be perfectly the same and of the same number. The result is that, in fact, these words “have seldom in two different men the same precise signification, since one man’s complex idea seldom agrees with another’s, and often differs from his own, from that which he had yesterday or will have tomorrow” (3.9.6). These imperfections generate corresponding abuses. For example the type of imperfection we have just looked at is responsible for the abuse Locke calls “the first secret reference”, whereby users “suppose their words to be marks of the ideas in the minds also of other men, with whom they communicate” (3.2.4; see also 3.3.3). As Moore explains it, “Locke means we not only act as if our words were marks of ideas in the minds of others, but also as if they were marking the same ideas in their minds as they mark in ours” (Moore 1994, 14). Thus, the context Locke draws in his Essay around the subject of language, speaker and communication is that speech is a necessary tool for humans to communicate, but it is imperfect, and men tend to abuse this tool. Locke himself discerns the vicious knot all this ties itself up in, and it is precisely his concern to disentangle it that suggests to him a need for a linguistic reform that will sort things out and set them in order. He puts it forward in the last Chapter of the Essay’s Book Of Words, and calls it proudly: “Of the Remedies of the Foregoing Imperfections and Abuses”. But though the title implies that the “remedies” will concern both “the imperfections” and “the abuses”, the moment one starts studying the details it turns out that the reform is not so much concerned with the 2 Introduction “noise and jamming” of the channel but with man’s “negligence and fraud”. Locke’s language reform ultimately turns out to be solely the programme of a reform of language users. It is they that must be mended and taught the terms of the propriety of speech. Among different precepts, there are four especially crucial commandments they must keep to: I. Do not use any word without a distinct, determinate idea annexed to it. (3.11.8-9) II. Apply words to “such ideas as common use has annexed them to”. (3.11.11) III. “Declare” the meaning in which you use them. (3.11.12) IV. Use the same word “constantly in the same sense”. (3.11.26) It must be admitted that Locke turns principle into practice, since his Essay, both in form and content, is an embodiment of correctness – of intention, thought and expression. This is manifest in “the ‘precision’ of words and the ‘sensible’ rhythm of Locke’s prose” (Caffentzis 1989, 121), in phrases like “and therefore I think it is not an insignificant subtlety, if I say that we are carefully to distinguish between ...” (Essay, 2.17.7), where he aims at determinate