BLAKE/MILTON I

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Illustrations to Milton's Il Penseroso
Milton's Mysterious Dream

The influence of John Milton on William Blake began in Blake's childhood when he was so fascinated by Paradise Lost that he felt that Milton loved him. But he reached a point when he felt that Milton had not found solutions to the predicament of man in the cosmic order. In Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake states that Milton in Paradise Lost called 'the Governor or Reason' - 'Messiah.' Blake associated Reason not with the Messiah but with Urizen, the authoritarian figure who sought to control mankind. Furthermore he thought that in Paradise Lost Milton wrote as if 'the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!', or, in other words, that the Father is controlling, the Son is confined to the material world, and the Holy Spirit is absent.

As Blake matured in his understanding of love and forgiveness he tried to resolve the debt he owed to Milton with the errors in Milton's thinking which he found contrary to the teaching of Jesus. Blake wrote his poem Milton in order to show both his love for John Milton and the failures of Milton's theology to offer a clear path for man to follow seeking God. In Milton, Blake and Milton struggle together along a journey to redemption. 

Letters, To Flaxman, (E 707)
"Now my lot in the Heavens is this; Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face
Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand
Paracelsus & Behmen appeard to me. terrors appeard in the Heavens above
And in Hell beneath & a mighty & awful change threatend the Earth
The American War began All its dark horrors passed before my face
Across the Atlantic to France. Then the French Revolution commencd in thick clouds
And My Angels have told me. that seeing such visions I could not subsist on the Earth
But by my conjunction with Flaxman who knows to forgive Nervous Fear
I remain for Ever Yours
WILLIAM BLAKE"

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 5, (E 34)

  "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough
to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place &
governs the unwilling.
  And being restraind it by degrees becomes passive till it is
only the shadow of desire.
  The history of this is written in Paradise Lost. & the Governor
or Reason is call'd Messiah.
  And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the
heavenly host, is calld the Devil or Satan and his children are
call'd Sin & Death
  But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd Satan.
  For this history has been adopted by both parties
  It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out. but the
Devils account is, that the Messiah fell. & formed a heaven
of what he stole from the Abyss
  This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to
send  the comforter or Desire that Reason may have Ideas to build
on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he, who dwells
in flaming fire.                                 
   Know that after Christs death, he became Jehovah.
   But in Milton; the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the
five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!
   Note.  The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of
Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he 
was a true  Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it"

Kay Easson and Roger R Easson wrote in their book Milton of the parallel paths of the two poets who engaged in journeys of self-discovery while learning to write prophetic poetry:

"Blake designates John Milton, the seventeenth century Christian poet, to be the central figure of Milton and, in this way, acknowledges that John Milton was his literary and spiritual teacher. As Milton undertakes a spiritual journey within Blake's narrative, it is as if John Milton and his works are teaching Blake about their identity and simultaneously guiding Blake to discovery of his poetic and prophetic role." (Page 135)
...
"the spiritual path, Milton senses, requires giving, not getting. Sacrifice and surrender and giving mean a painful renunciation, but they can be an equally painful openness to love. Just as the journey is undertaken because of love, so to the relationship upon which the journey is predicated, the relationship of student and teacher, must be loving and mutual, 'each shall mutually / Annihilate himself.' The Bard loves and therefore sings. His song does not cater to Milton's 'present ease and gratification, (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell); it, in fact, opposes Milton. But Milton accepts the opposition in the loving spirit in which it is offered. Blake believes that 'Opposition is true Friendship' (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). He sees the teacher/student relationship as neither 'corporeal' nor hierarchical, but as a loving and mutual conversation: the Bard takes 'refuge in Milton's bosom.'
...
Blake describes his task in Milton as displaying 'Nature's cruel holiness, the Deceits of Natural Religion.' In other words, one of the basics tasks of Blake's poem is to expose the false reality of the so-called 'natural world' and its assertion that it is the only reality." (Page 137-8)  

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