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William Blake's Comic Vision PDF

307 Pages·2003·1.27 MB·English
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Amazon.com: William Blake's Comic Vision (9780333745656): Nicholas Rawlinson William Blake's Comic Vision Close Window http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0333745655/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books4/22/2011 10:25:08 AM 0333_745655 preiv.qxd 1/6/04 6:55 AM Page i William Blake’s Comic Vision 9 1 4- 0 1- 1 0 2 ct - e n n o C e v a gr al P o - s m o Tr et i k e ot bli bi s et sit er v ni U o d t e s n e c m - li o c ct. e n n o c e v a gr al p w. w w m o al fr eri at m ht g yri p o C 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 9 1 4- 0 1- 1 0 2 This page intentionally left blank ct - e n n o C e v a gr al P o - s m o Tr et i k e ot bli bi s et sit er v ni U o d t e s n e c m - li o c ct. e n n o c e v a gr al p w. w w m o al fr eri at m ht g yri p o C 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 0333_745655 preiv.qxd 1/6/04 6:55 AM Page iii William Blake’s Comic Vision 9 Nick Rawlinson 1 4- 0 1- 1 0 2 ct - e n n o C e v a gr al P o - s m o Tr et i k e ot bli bi s et sit er v ni U o d t e s n e c m - li o c ct. e n n o c e v a gr al p w. w w m o al fr eri at m ht g yri p o C 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 0333_745655 preiv.qxd 1/6/04 6:55 AM Page iv © Nick Rawlinson 2003 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the 9 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence 4-1 permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 1-0 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. 01 2 Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication ct - e may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. nn o C The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work e v in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. gra al FPiArsLtG pRuAbVliEs hMedA C2M00IL3L bAyN so - P Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and om 1C7o5m Fpiaftnhie As vaenndu ree, pNreeswe nYtoartkiv, eNs. Yth. 1ro0u0g1h0o ut the world et i Tr k e PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave bliot Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. bi s Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom et and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European sit er nion and other countries. v ni U ISBN 0–333–74565–5 (outside North America) o ISBN 0–312–22064–2 (in North America) ed t s n This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully e c managed and sustained forest sources. m - li A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. co ct. e Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data nn o Rawlinson, Nick, 1963– ec v William Blake’s comic vision / Nick Rawlinson a gr p. cm. al p Includes bibliographical references and index. w. ISBN 0–312–22064–2 ww 1. Blake, William, 1757–1827—Humor. 2.Humorous poetry, English— m o P8R2H411′i.s74t—o8r .ydC ca52n61dR 3cr9it 1ic9is9m9. 3.Comic, The, in literature. I. Title 98–50635 aterial fr m CIP ht g yri 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 op 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 C Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 0333_745655 prevxii.qxd 9/27/02 6:42 PM Page v Contents Preface vii 9 1 Abbreviations xiii 04- 1- 1 0 1 Songs of Pleasant Glee: William Blake and the 2 Comic 1 ect - n n Comedy: ‘For Every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life’ 5 o C e The Comic and Blake’s Vision 12 v a gr Old Nobodaddy aloft 15 al P o - 2 Mirth at the errors of a foe: the Eighteenth- and s m Nineteenth-Century Comic World 19 Tro Satire 19 et i k e Sentimental comedy 26 ot bli The carnivalesque 32 bi s Blake and the Fool 40 sitet It is in Particulars that Wisdom consists & Happiness too 49 ver ni U 3 Playing the Fool: Blake’s Sense of Humour 50 d to Absurd tales and strait waistcoats 60 se n e I must Create a System 66 m - lic 4 ‘I love the jocund dance’: The Comic in the Poetical co Sketchesand Tiriel 67 ect. n n The Sun of loss and the Father of Los 68 co e The Fool and King Edward the Third 81 av gr ‘Listen to the fool’s reproach! it is a kingly title!’ The al p w. Madman and Tiriel 89 w w m 5 TThalek liunnga or fl aVnidrtsucaopues Cats: An Island in the Moon 9988 erial fro ‘I was only making a fool of you’ 104 mat The map of a small island 108 ht g yri p 6 To sing the sweet chorus of ‘Ha, Ha, He’: The Songs o C Of Innocence And Of Experience 163 7 A Vision of the Last Judgment: The Comic in Blake’s Designs 193 ‘No man if hee be sober daunceth, except hee be mad’ 202 v 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 0333_745655 prevxii.qxd 9/27/02 6:42 PM Page vi vi Contents 8 And to conclude: A fool sees not the same tree a wise man sees 215 Appendix 226 Notes 228 19 4- 0 Bibliography 263 11- 0 2 Index 279 ct - e n n o C e v a gr al P o - s m o Tr et i k e ot bli bi s et sit er v ni U o d t e s n e c m - li o c ct. e n n o c e v a gr al p w. w w m o al fr eri at m ht g yri p o C 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 0333_745655 prevxii.qxd 9/27/02 6:42 PM Page vii Preface One rainy winter’s evening, coming out of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, I paused to raise my umbrella to the inclement weather. As I did 19 4- so, I realized what a foolish but suitable metaphor that action was for 1-0 1 writing the preface to a critical work on Blake. Blake enthusiasts invari- 20 ably find the need to raise umbrellas of one kind or another. Sometimes, ct - e n like the tour guides here in Oxford, they do so to indicate their position on C beside a site of Special Interest. More often, it is a vain attempt to fend ve a off the damp fallout that is an inevitable part of entering the critical algr P fray. It is with both aims in mind that I raise mine now. o - s This book started life over ten years ago as a simple hunch: that the m o reason that I and countless other readers enjoy the work of William et i Tr Blake is due, in part, to the fact that Blake is a comic writer. Such a claim ek ot may seem staggeringly obvious, but believe it or not at that time the bli bi weight of serious, critical authority was against such an idea. While it s et acknowledged that Blake was often satirical, and of the Devil’s party, of sit er course, still – ‘Tyger, Tyger burning bright’ – ‘Little Lamb who made thee’ niv U – ‘And did those feet in ancient time’ – ‘O rose thou art sick’ – not exact- o d t ly funny, surely? Better to argue over his politics or his madness, the se n dominant criticism said, to see his work in historicist or psychoanalytic ce terms, to use it as proof of this or that theory of criticism, rather than m - li o pursue the idea he might be deliberately comic. Blake’s abundant and ct.c e consistent use of humour was then, and often still is, dismissed as little nn o more than a curious character trait. It is seen as a product of his wilful ec v a but amusing rebelliousness which, if it has to be explained at all, is cate- gr al gorized as nothing more than the defensive reaction of a neglected and w.p w rather petulant genius. His most clearly comic work, An Island in the w m Moon, is considered merely the tomfool doodles of a distracted young- o ster. Even the recent critical emphasis on recovering the complexities of al fr eri the social struggle in which Blake found himself has done little to at m change this attitude. Despite exciting recent research, such as Jon Mee’s ht g fascinating study of what he calls the ‘Culture of Radicalism’, critical yri p o opinion still suggests that Blake’s use of the comic was, at best, nothing C more than the sporadic application of a handy tool for destabilizing conventional readings of texts. But Blake has always attracted those who are, or think they are, a little off the beaten track. So despite the prevailing critical wisdom, I pursued vii 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 0333_745655 prevxii.qxd 9/27/02 6:42 PM Page viii viii Preface the idea that Blake was a comic writer and, after years of research and sev- eral false starts my hunch began to take shape. In fact, the more I read, the more surprising the tendency to overlook the importance of Blake’s use of comedy became, especially given the long-established critical recognition that Blake was passionately engaged with the world of eigh- 9 1 teenth-century ideas. For the eighteenth-century thinker – whether in 4- 0 Parliament or in coffee shops, whether writing for the Gentleman’s 11- 0 2 Magazineor the cheapest of radical pamphlets – understanding and good ct - behaviour were, essentially, a matter of ‘taste’. Literary and moral dis- ne n course demanded a combination of aesthetics, perception, education and Co e v the social application of morality. To speak of society was to recognize a gr the complexity of the relationships between self, self-consciousness, lan- Pal guage and government. And, as the title of one of the plays by the great o - s m eighteenth-century comedian Samuel Foote reminds us, comedy, being o Tr of all things a matter of ‘Taste’, occupied a unique and pivotal position in et i k such discourse. Even the briefest of surveys of eighteenth- and early nine- ote teenth-century comic theory will show that many of the thinkers with bibli s whom Blake engages most closely – Hobbes and John Dennis, for exam- et sit ple – expressed strong opinions on the nature of comedy as a natural er v corollary to their statements on social order, consciousness and aesthet- Uni o ics. Likewise, we know that Blake was deeply interested in d t e Antiquarianism, and many of these popular historians devoted a great ns e c deal of energy to uncovering the history of comic pastimes. Blake was, of m - li all things, a Visionary, an artist of the spiritual world, and many eigh- o c teenth-century moralists and sermonizers debated hotly on the impor- ct. e n tance of comedy to faith – deciding whether the joyful should also be on c jolly and the blessed blithe. And even discussions of art used the lan- ve a guage of comedy: Blake himself, while busy refuting the ideas of Sir algr p Joshua Reynolds, called the use of light a ‘witticism’. When taking on the w. w w giants of eighteenth-century thought, then, in the fields of perception, m o spirituality and social organization, it would be extraordinary if an atti- al fr tude to comedy was not an important part of Blake’s mental armoury. eri at Of course, comedy is a difficult, paradoxical entity, a trickster among m ht literary and social genres that positively defies definition, declaring, as g yri Shakespeare’s arch fool Dogberry reminds us, that ‘comparisons are op C odorous’. Defining what makes someone a comic writer is, therefore, a challenge in itself. But, that said, starting from the general premise that a comic writer is one who uses humour to convey a positive, life-affirm- ing message, assuming that Blake was a comic writer began to offer a new and exciting perspective to his work. Indeed, it quickly became obvious that the comic provided him with an essential key to his con- 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson 0333_745655 prevxii.qxd 9/27/02 6:42 PM Page ix Preface ix cept of Vision. For the comic is an ideal model – and perhaps, the only model – for the kind of creative reading Blake’s Vision demands. First, it provides a popular challenge to all forms of cultural and textual author- ity – a way to give all kings, priests and theorists a swift kick up the back- side. Second, while it destabilizes texts, it also offers a positive 9 1 alternative. The problem with undermining texts is that if you destroy 4- 0 all concepts of authority, then how do you then put over your message 11- 0 2 of hope in a Universal Humanity? When all forms of art are susceptible ct - to deconstruction, how can you articulate faith? Recent critical thought ne n has sought to answer this by placing considerable emphasis on the Co e v importance of ‘play’ and ‘communitas’ in Blake’s work. But these con- a gr cepts, while important, are rather nebulous, thus contradicting Blake’s Pal insistence on the importance of the minute articulation of ideas. o - s m Moreover, both are questioned in Blake’s portrayal of the aged children o Tr Har and Heva. Using the language and imagery of comedy, however – et i k especially of social festivities and the carnivalesque – allows Blake to ote describe faith as a physical, emotional and intellectual experience, a joy- bibli s ful social act that goes beyond the isolating limitations of literary et sit expression. Moreover, in order to ‘see’ the joke, comedy requires that we er v read the world afresh. In this act of creative perception the comic pro- Uni o vides Blake with a poetics of reading, a model of how his Visionary per- d t e ceptions could survive while being presented in physical media he ns e c consistently pointed out were limiting and potentially oppressive. m - li Finally, comedy has a long and intimate connection with faith, particu- o c larly in the idea of the divinely inspired fool. It formed part of a ct. e n Christian tradition that found expression in many of Blake’s major on c influences – the writings of St Paul, the plays of Shakespeare, even ve a London street life. To employ the comic, then, allows Blake to encour- algr p age Vision, to celebrate the madness of inspiration, and to present a pos- w. w w itive message in an inherently flawed medium. m o Recognizing the comic as a key to Vision, as well as providing exciting al fr insights into individual lyrics, also gives a new thematic unity to Blake’s eri at work. Rather than being a juvenile exercise in imitation, the Poetical m ht Sketches can be read as the beginnings of a series of comic images that g yri substantially shape the presentation of ‘play’ in the Songs of Innocence op C and of Experience. Likewise An Island in the Moon, rather than being an idle and protracted in-joke, proves to be a significant early draft of the sort of philosophical and spiritual education attempted in The Marriage of Heaven and Helland later in Jerusalem. As a conscious choice, then, Blake’s use of humour is far-reaching in both its scope and implications. As sharp as the satirical thrusts of Swift 10.1057/9780230287235 - William Blake's Comic Vision, Nicholas Rawlinson

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In the eighteenth century, comedy played a pivotal role in debates on aesthetics, education, spirituality and morality. However, despite William Blake's full-bloodied engagement with the world of eighteenth-century ideas, the abundance of wit and humour in his work and his own claim that he 'loved l
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.