ROMANTICISM

Illustrations to Robert Blair's The Grave

Object 10 

Our Time is Fix'd

Each Romantic poet followed his own leadings. Blake was distinctive as was each of them. The fact that he was characterized among them may be attributed to the fact they all were responding to guidance from right dominated brains. They were born into the Enlightenment period of history, a period which McGilchrist  describes as "single, knowable, consistent, certain, fixed, therefore ultimately finite", in other words left dominated. Obviously there are some individuals for whom differences are evident. They turn away from the majority culture and follow the right sides of their brains which are telling then that opposites may be equally true, that differences need not be excluded, and that there is more than is encompassed by what is already known.     

McGilchrist writes the following in his book The Master and His Emissary:

Page 354 

"In this chapter I will develop the view that romanticism is a manifestation of right-hemisphere dominance in our way of looking at the world. Here I am reminded of the fact that the right hemisphere is more inclusive, and can equally use what the left hemisphere uses as well as its own preferred approach, whereas the left hemisphere does not have that degree of flexibility or reciprocity.  

Page 355

For the Romantic mind, theory was not something abstracted from the mind and separate from it (based on representation), but present in the act of perception. There was not question of 'applying' theory to life, since phenomena themselves were the source of 'theory'. Fact and theory, like particular and universal, were not opposites...The particular metaphorises the universal. 

Page 356

...Some things have to remain obscure if they are not to be untrue to their very nature: they are known, and can be expressed, only indirectly.

 

One of these is embodied existence.

Page 357

...'real people have embodied minds whose conceptual systems  arise from, are shaped by, and are given meaning through living human bodies...

The fusion of body with mind or more properly with spirit of soul, was never more keenly felt than by the Romantics. 'O Human Imagination, O Divine Body', wrote Blake.

Page 358

Unlike history seen as an intellectual realm, a repository of ideas about socio-cultural issues, tradition is an embodiment of culture: not an idea of the past, but the past itself embodied... what I believe the rise of Romanticism to be, [is] to redress the imbalance of the hemispheres, and to curtail the domination of the left." 

Right brain ideas are incorporated in Blake's poetry although, in true Romantic fashion, they are not expressed overtly.

Marriage of Heaven & Hell, Plate 4, (E 34)

                 "The voice of the Devil

  All Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the
following Errors.
  1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a
Soul.
  2. That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that
Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul.
  3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his
Energies.
  But the following Contraries to these are True
  1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is
a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets
of Soul in this age
  2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is
the bound or outward circumference of Energy. 

  3 Energy is Eternal Delight "

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 14, (E 39)
   "The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire
at the  end of six thousand years is true. as I have heard from
Hell.
   For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to 
leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole 
creation will be consumed, and appear infinite. and holy whereas
it now  appears finite & corrupt.
   This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.
   But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his
soul, is to  be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and
medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite which was hid.
   If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would
appear  to man as it is: infinite.
   For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narrow chinks of his cavern."

Milton, Plate 3, (E 96)                                                     t

"By Enitharmons Looms when Albion was slain upon his Mountains
And in his Tent, thro envy of Living Form, even of the Divine Vision
And of the sports of Wisdom in the Human Imagination
Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for ever.
Mark well my words. they are of your eternal salvation:"  

Milton, Plate 26 [28], (E 123)

"These are the Sons of Los! These the Visions of Eternity 

But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wond'rous Visions

There are Two Gates thro which all Souls descend. One Southward
From Dover Cliff to Lizard Point. the other toward the North
Caithness & rocky Durness, Pentland & John Groats House.         

The Souls descending to the Body, wail on the right hand
Of Los; & those deliverd from the Body, on the left hand
For Los against the east his force continually bends
Along the Valleys of Middlesex from Hounslow to Blackheath
Lest those Three Heavens of Beulah should the Creation destroy   
And lest they should descend before the north & south Gates
Groaning with pity, he among the wailing Souls laments."

Milton, Plate 26 [28], (E 123)
"And every Generated Body in its inward form,
Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,"

Milton, Plate 40 [46], (E 142)

"There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary
The Negation must be destroyd to redeem the Contraries
The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man
This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal           
Spirit; a Selfhood, which must be put off & annihilated alway
To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination."

Jerusalem, Plate 5, (E 148)

"Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination
(Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus. blessed for ever)."

Jerusalem, Plate 71, (E 224)

"And above Albions Land was seen the Heavenly Canaan
As the Substance is to the Shadow: and above Albions Twelve Sons
Were seen Jerusalems Sons: and all the Twelve Tribes spreading
Over Albion. As the Soul is to the Body, so Jerusalems Sons,
Are to the Sons of Albion: and Jerusalem is Albions Emanation    

What is Above is Within, for every-thing in Eternity is translucent:
The Circumference is Within: Without, is formed the Selfish Center 
And the Circumference still expands going forward to Eternity.
And the Center has Eternal States! these States we now explore."

Jerusalem Plate 77, (E 231)

"I know of no other
Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body
& mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.   
  Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more.  The Apostles knew of no other Gospel.  What were
all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy
Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the
Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it
is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are
to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies &
Performances? What are all the Gifts. of the Gospel, are they not
all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in
Spirit & in Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing
to Man? O ye Religious discountenance every one among
 
you who shall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon you
in the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art & Science?
is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is
Mortality but the things relating to the Body, which Dies? What
is Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit, which Lives
Eternally! What is the joy of Heaven but Improvement in the
things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance,
Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the
Spirit?"