3/12/09 Blake 2

order of poems/P2?

summary:

• What we saw in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience is that, with respect to irony, Blake has both Neo-classical and Romantic tendencies. Using irony in the conventional sense, there is surely irony in the fact that the speaker in "The Chimney Sweeper" in Songs of Innocence is being abused and doesn't realize it, but how ironic the poem is in Northrop Frye's sense, in which irony is associated with limitation and frustration while romance is associated with transformation and fulfillment, is complicated: Tom Dacre's life is surely nightmarish, but we can't tell whether his dream of being released by angels is ironic or not, at least not in looking at the poem by itself; it could be a promise of genuine freedom, and it is at least a real source of happiness insofar as it gives Tom Dacre a hopeful view of life, but it could also be a self-delusion that would in the long run serve to keep the chimney sweepers in servitude.
• "The Tyger" is similarly complex. On the one hand, it seems to be asking a relatively straightforward theodicy question: why did the God who made the gentle lamb create the fearsome tiger? Why is there oppression and suffering in the world?  The poem doesn't give an answer--which could be an answer, by implying that there isn't one, i.e. either God is cruel or God doesn't exist. But the illustration which accompanies the poem calls everything into question, because the tiger doesn't look especially fierce--if anything he looks confused, as if wondering why he should be talked about in such a mean way. This suggests that somehow the classic theodicy question is the wrong question--which makes the poem not so much about the existence of suffering as about the necessity of seeing things in a new way. Perception is crucial in this poem, as it was the "The Chimney Sweeper," and again in "London": the central problem identified by that poem is not the objective conditions in London but the "mind-forg'd manacles" that keep people in those conditions.
• we started discussion of MHH with the hypothesis that Blake believes in the possibility of transformation and fulfillment but usually focuses on our failure to attain it. This led us to two questions: what would fulfillment would consist of, for Blake? and what prevents us from attaining it?  Looking at plate 14 gives us some answers:
  • fulfillment  = perception of infinite and holy. Note that we're back to perception
  • prevented by perception of body and soul as separate.  By going after dualism in this way, Blake manages to go after both religion and science: Christian dualism and Cartesian dualism.
• At the end of the hour, we had started talking about the religious side of this, looking at plate 11. We did this quickly, but I think our general sense was that Blake's argument is not with religion in general--the "enlarged senses" of the poets perceive something "infinite and holy" which is really there--but with institutional religion: Priesthood is a systemization of the poets' perceptions which enslaves the vulgar.

Want to pick up on this issue of the separation of body and soul. what form would this take?

• restraining desire: plate 8 brothels, plate 10 sooner murder
• [rationality (science, technology, industry): mills in plate 17]
• plate 4 (from end of 3)

Is this poem ironic in the traditional sense? If there is a persona here, who is it and how do we read through it?

• plate 3 Heaven and Hell; voice of the Devil, Proverbs of Hell
• contraries are necessary: plate 3, plate 16 prolific/devouring
• So there is a persona in this section (and presumably in others, although not always the same persona). but how do you read through this kind of irony?

Back to Songs:

"The Chimney Sweeper" in SoI again: does this solve our problem about how ironic the central vision is, or does it simply deepen an irony that remains irresolvable?

"The Chimney Sweeper" in SoE: Does it make sense now for Blake to blame the church for what happens? Does this poem resolve the ambiguity of "Sweeper" in SoI, or does it again just up the stakes with resolving the ambiguity?

["Chimney Sweeper" in SoE might seem to tilt the balance in favor of the bleaker view; a religious vision looks pretty questionable when we realize that the chimney's sweeper's parents have abandoned him to go to church--specifically "to praise God & his Priest & King,/ who make up a heaven of our misery." But the chimney sweeper in SoI is a lot happier--which counts for a lot with a poet who is as insistent as Blake is that how you SEE things makes a difference. Which chimney sweeper is in "mind-forg'd manacles"?]

Often, the degree to which a piece is ironic or note is a function of or at least connected to the issue of who the narrator is. Even in "Death of Dr. Swift," in which Swift is talking about himself, alluding to actual incidents in his life, he still adopts a persona which we are supposed to see through. The speaker of "Tintern Abbey," however, even if he is a somewhat idealized version of Wordsworth, is surely not an ironic figure.

So let's consider the speakers of these poems. Some are characters in the poems (as in the SoI version of "The Chimney Sweeper") and these need to be addressed individually. Even those that are not, however, are set up as being spoken by a particular KIND of speaker.

Introduction to SoI:

• what's the speaker like?
• is the Piper ironized in any way?

Introduction to SoE:

• very complex narration, with an ambiguous syntax which is characteristic of Blake
• who is speaking? What's he like? What qualifies him to speak?
• who calls the lapsed soul? If the Word, then what is implied? If the bard, then what?
• who might control the starry pole? if the Soul, then what? If the Word, then what?
• who speaks in the quotation marks? is the speaker presented ironically?

"Earth's Answer"

• does this poem help clarify the preceding one?
• if evil is the problem, who does the Word blame it on? who does Earth blame it on? What is the bard's position?