Samuel Palmer, “Early Morning” (1825)

A Tree-Hugger Ahead of His Time

Palmer’s sepias take us deep into the mysterious harmony of the natural world. Animals and humans are often present — note the hyperalert rabbit and half-hidden villagers in the resplendent “Early Morning” — and houses and barns crop up in the distance. But the main character is nature, in its wholeness and divineness, measured out in slightly stiff renderings of effulgently leafy bushes, glimmering birches, massive oaks and gnarly rocks, and in occasional moments of breathtaking ambiguity.

The watercolor above was executed by William Blake for a Reverend named Dr. Trussler, famous for such books as The Way to be Rich and Respectable, and the popular Luxury not Political Evil. Trussler sent instructions for the design, which Blake ignored— apologizing in a letter “I attempted every morning for a fortnight to follow your Dictate, but when I found my attempts were in vain, resolv’d to shew an independence that will please an Author better than slavishly following the track of another, however admirable that track may be.”

When Trussler refused his design, Blake fired back with perhaps one of the most venomous letters I’ve ever read. Anytime I get angry, I think of this letter. I’m sure it is not the way Blake would want to be remembered:

Continue reading “Malevolence” →

Seduction by Aphorism

Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.

MHH:10

Blake’s aphorism, one of the “proverbs of hell,” is seductive. Aphorisms are sexy. That is the cornerstone of their power. Interesting things occur when you apply pressure to these little nuggets. Thinking it over the last few days, I feel there are three possibilities:

1. An aphorism can be “true”
2. An aphorism can be “false”
3. An aphorism may be non sequitur— neither true nor false.

However, an aphorism begs to be penetrated. This aphorism by Blake is in direct conflict with Occam’s Razor— the idea that nature prefers simplicity. Does it work that way? The evolutionary record of organisms moving toward increasing levels of complexity doesn’t support Occam. However, we are inexorably drawn to Occam’s principle—things ought to be simple. Blake’s aphorism is ironic on several levels.

First, there is the form—that of an aphorism. Aphorisms are not crooked, but rather a straight path directly to a thought—an improvement over a dense and complex diatribe. Second, there is the implication that genius is not an improvement —but a complication of what is already present. But what does Blake really mean by genius? His standard usage of “the poetic genius” to describe the presence of god in man points at a nuance of the word genius accessible to nineteenth century readers, but lost to most of us—genius is related to genie, or “spirit” in a metaphysical sense. Therefore, it seems, that what Blake is really getting at is that the road of the spirit, as contrasted with the road of improvement (or reason) is crooked.

Is this true, false, or null (non sequitur)? If true, why would its form so deeply contrast with its content—or, for that matter, why would it be a proverb of hell, sandwiched with other sayings of dubious merit?

I suspect that it is placed as it is to provoke thought. That’s what aphorisms do, they seduce us into thinking about commonplaces in order to evaluate their merit. This is the key. The writer of an aphorism does not confront us with what they think as much as they encourage us to think for ourselves.

Blake dutifully commented in the margins of Lavater’s Aphorisms, commenting “true” or “false” and sometimes offering rebuttals or amplifications. He loved aphorisms. I’m not so sure. I wonder if they make us fall prey to Occam’s Razor—suspecting that they “must be true” by virtue of their simplicity—when nearly all aphorisms ultimately reduce to the null quantity of a non sequitur.

Infernal Methods

Akma’s report from the digital genres conference rang bells. I wish I could have heard Trevor’s paper. Judith Butler would be proud—online identity as a performance. More than that though, I suddenly started thinking about giants.

The central character of William Blake’s Jerusalem is a giant named Albion. As the story begins, Albion has fallen and he can’t get up. Albion, in his fallen state, is spread all over the world. But that is only part of the problem. Blake is big on distinguishing the self (identity) from the selfhood (think of it like clothes). He uses this image in the closing plates of Milton— Milton must cast off his rotten garments of self-hood before he can stride forward. From a historical standpoint, this self-hood can be seen as Milton’s complicity with Cromwell, his horrible problems with women, etc.. The arresting image of a shedding of excess clothing is the penultimate moment of Milton— and the image of rotten layers clouding existence is reborn in Jerusalem through Blake’s allusion to the Covering Cherub in its final, apocalyptic scene. Los is working at the furnace, forging and dividing Albion’s body (the world) until he reveals the antichrist:

Thus was the Covering Cherub reveald majestic image
Of Selfhood, Body put off, the Antichrist accursed
Covered with precious stones, a Human Dragon terrible
And bright, stretched over Europe and Asia gorgeous
In three nights he devoured the rejected corse of death

His Head dark, deadly in its brain encloses a reflexion
Of Eden, all perverted; Egypt on the Gibon many tongued
And many mouthed: Ethiopia, Lybia, the Sea of Rephaim
Minute Particulars in slavery I behold among the brick-kilns
Disorganized. & there is Pharoh in his iron court:
And the Dragon of the River & the Furnaces of iron.

Jerusalem 89:9-19

Blake was obsessed with trying to figure out how to tell Christ from antichrist. For him, it was a matter of perspective. What many people thought holy, Blake thought to be a farce. The idea of a “body politic” obsessed him, though he was clearly concerned about the sort of clothes it would wear. The connections between people (in the above example, spoken of as “minute particulars”) and societies as a giant manifestation of people, was important. A society that enslaves its people cannot be a good thing, but the difference between market economics and slavery are slight, and dependant on where on the food chain you fall.

Albion covered the earth, obscured by the Covering Cherub. This, oddly, finally brings me to Chris Corrigan’s question regarding Blake’s infernal method.

Continue reading “Infernal Methods” →