great chain
William Blake was a member of a social class with a long history of radical dissent. The Artisan class which he, as the son of a hosier, was born into and consequently remained in as an engraver later in his life, had opposed in turn first the landed mercantile aristocracy in the late eighteenth century and then the emerging industrial capitalism of the early nineteenth. However, in order to determine whether Blake's visionary world had any relevance to the political realities of the period it is necessary to briefly outline what these were. Whilst history usually records these as the emergence of rationalism, utilitarianism, science in a form we now recognise, and political economy, it is precisely because these forces were destined to eventually become the core values of contemporary society that we must beware of recording them as the only significant movements of the time-victors always have the privilege of writing history to suit themselves. In the London of the 1780's that Blake lived in there was, in reaction to the spread of the aforementioned values, an explosion of anti-rationalism with a re-emergence of illuminism, masonic rituals, animal magnetism, millenarian speculation and mysticism with the formation of severa
Blake's style of writing also had a real relevance to the political situation of the day. Many of his fellow craftsmen felt threatened by the increasing power of the major industrialists and feared, rightly, that they would lose the 'masterless freedom' they then enjoyed. His use of the popular oral form in his Sonqs and his later use of Los the blacksmith/poet as a narrator placed him as an advocate of the class who opposed the war with France and the new Industrialism, along with his method of examining established texts and his hostility to academicism. Blake himself said that "General Knowledge is Remote Knowledge~ and he consequently examined other authors with a somewhat aggressive self-confidence. He treated each author as his equal or less, even the Old Testament prophets, whom he regarded as worse than unenlightened. He saw a battle between polite culture and imagination and claimed (as Los) that he must "create his own system or be enslaved by another man's." Blake worked on the premise that experience must be laid alongside learning; that the two should test each other as they progressed, and in this he cannot fail to be identified with the movement that challenged the established hierarchy of the day's intellectual authority. His challenges to the authorities of the day is sometimes of a mystico-philosophic nature and sometimes of a far more direct nature as in Los's speech where he declares Erdman, D/PROPHET AGAINST EMPIRE (Princeton) It is possible, then to see Blake's visionary world in a number of ways; as purely concerned with the mental recreation of Eden, as a comment on and presentation of social values, or as a combination of the two. There appears to be in my opinion an inextricable link between the two polemic interpretations of his visions. A coherent social context is unavoidably necessary to permit intelligibility, and usually, as in Blake's case, political and social change are the motivating factors that inspire the need to master reality through art. "Four Mighty Ones are in every Man; a Perfect Unity Los was the fourth immortal starry one, and in the contemporary French Revolution as the purifying violence that according to Biblical prophecy was the precursor to the imminent redemption of humanity and the world. As time passed however, Blake and his contemporaries grew more and more disillusioned with the revolution as it became more and more bloody, and Robespierre's rule became known as The Terror. The original aims of creating a just and equal society and aiding other countries who wished to do so became submerged in conquest and totalitarianism and eventually the Romantic Movement as a whole was forced to re-examine its beliefs. Advocation of a physical, political revolution and belief in an imminent Biblical Apocalypse gave way to a new idea that the prophecies in the Bible must be interpreted in a spiritual sense. Orc, the fiery spirit of Revolution gives way to Los, a visionary in the fallen world as a central character in Blake's writing. He began to hold the view that revolution must be in the minds of the people, rather than in a political sense and that The Fall and
Some common words found in the essay are:
French Revolution, William Blake, Imaginative God, Context Human, Remote Knowledge~, HolY Blake's, Imaginative Blake, Mighty Ones, Riqhts Women, Fall Redemption, french revolution, fallen world, spiritual sense, artists day, blake's visionary world, blake's visionary, visionary world, religious belief, eighteenth century, fall division, blake's political,
Approximate Word count = 2116
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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