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Yale Center for British Art Jerusalem Plate 94 |
In his little book Blake: A Psychological Study Witcutt
included a Chapter titled The Anatomy of Disintegration.
In it he attempted to associate Blake's experiences in growing up
with the conflicts among Blake's characters in his poems. Witcutt
thought that there was an event in Blake's youth which was so
traumatic for him that he enacted his psychic reactions in the
interactions among his characters. Witcutt was a minister as well
as a student of psychology: to him Blake endured a religious and a
psychic trauma as he matured. He considers that there was a
breakdown (perhaps associated with a sense of sinfulness) in
Blake's psychological organization at about 14 years of age. This
is the age at which Blake began his apprenticeship as well as the
age associated with puberty. Whatever trauma may have occurred, it
has not been identified.
Blake's early or juvenile poetry, which was published in Poetical Sketches, suggests a transition from an idyllic childhood to an adolescence of exploration. Since Blake did not attend school, he apparently assumed responsibility for educating himself. The poems included in Poetical Sketches were written between the ages of 12 and 20. It is clear from Frye's analysis of this work that Blake was not only writing poetry but learning from the masters how to write poetry. He would copy the styles of other poets in order to learn from them, but his intention was to invent his own style suitable for his intended content.
So Blake's teen years were occupied with studying literature, teaching himself how to be a poet, and learning the craft of engraving through his apprenticeship to Basire. He submitted to the discipline of being apprenticed in an exacting field. At the same time he educated himself in a complementary art to balance his ability to communicate graphically. He used his rational and physical abilities in learning engraving; he depended on his imagination and emotion to master poetry. If there was a struggle to coordinate multitude abilities, it helped him to see the inner facets of his mind which might either be in conflict or harmony.
Perhaps the mythic figures which Blake created did not come from consciousness of failure and guilt as Witcutt indicated, but from the overwhelming sense of possibilities which must be coordinated in order for each to contribute to the wholeness of the man of the new age.
Quotes from W P Witcutt's Blake: A Psychological Study:
Blake's early or juvenile poetry, which was published in Poetical Sketches, suggests a transition from an idyllic childhood to an adolescence of exploration. Since Blake did not attend school, he apparently assumed responsibility for educating himself. The poems included in Poetical Sketches were written between the ages of 12 and 20. It is clear from Frye's analysis of this work that Blake was not only writing poetry but learning from the masters how to write poetry. He would copy the styles of other poets in order to learn from them, but his intention was to invent his own style suitable for his intended content.
So Blake's teen years were occupied with studying literature, teaching himself how to be a poet, and learning the craft of engraving through his apprenticeship to Basire. He submitted to the discipline of being apprenticed in an exacting field. At the same time he educated himself in a complementary art to balance his ability to communicate graphically. He used his rational and physical abilities in learning engraving; he depended on his imagination and emotion to master poetry. If there was a struggle to coordinate multitude abilities, it helped him to see the inner facets of his mind which might either be in conflict or harmony.
Perhaps the mythic figures which Blake created did not come from consciousness of failure and guilt as Witcutt indicated, but from the overwhelming sense of possibilities which must be coordinated in order for each to contribute to the wholeness of the man of the new age.
Quotes from W P Witcutt's Blake: A Psychological Study:
Page 52
"Sin causes the disorientation of all the powers of the soul;...
Blake, with his clear view of the symbolic forms in which the imagination clothes the inner workings of the soul, saw the whole drama enacted and re-enacted. It haunted him continually; literally he could think of little else...underneath the surface of his mind, a surface clear and transparent to him, he could not help seeing the turmoil caused by that shattering event."
"Orc ('who is Luvah') is unloosed at the age of fourteen in the poem 'America' and bound at the same age in 'Vala.' These apparentlely contradictory symbols evidently refer to the same event, and seem to point to the conclusion that the Trauma took place in Blake's fourteenth year.
After his repression of Luvah Albion sinks down into a deathlike sleep upon a rock amid the waters of the unconscious."
Page 81
"The man of dominant thought would write out these psychological events in his own abstract terminology: but to the intuitive introvert such as Blake or Shelley they appear as the conflicts of awesome figures...The figures first of all appeared to his imagination just like a vivid dream, and enacted their dreamlike conflicts, made their speeches. It was afterwards that he puzzled, wondering, over what could be the meaning of their symbolic actions; and gave them names. His first instinct was always to draw what he had seen; thus it is that Blake's poetry is really a commentary on his engravings."
Page 90
"Jungian psychology recognizes another world from which thought may draw data - the inner world of the unconscious mind, the world of the archetypes. This was the only world in which Blake was interested; he repressed extroverted sensation to the utmost"
Page 91
"Blake was obsessed by the conflict of the four functions within himself and spent his life trying to resolve the conflict."
Page 102
"It would be hard to find a better statement of the process of disintegration, of the sinking of repressed functions into the unconscious ("buried beneath in dark obliviom") and of eventual reintegration."
Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 126,(E 395)
"Sin causes the disorientation of all the powers of the soul;...
Blake, with his clear view of the symbolic forms in which the imagination clothes the inner workings of the soul, saw the whole drama enacted and re-enacted. It haunted him continually; literally he could think of little else...underneath the surface of his mind, a surface clear and transparent to him, he could not help seeing the turmoil caused by that shattering event."
Jerusalem, Plate 32 [36], (E 178)
"And the Four Zoa's clouded rage East & West & North & South
They change their situations, in the Universal Man.
Albion groans, he sees the Elements divide before his face.
And England who is Brittannia divided into Jerusalem & Vala
And Urizen assumes the East, Luvah assumes the South
In his dark Spectre ravening from his open Sepulcher
And the Four Zoa's who are the Four Eternal Senses of Man
Became Four Elements separating from the Limbs of Albion
These are their names in the Vegetative Generation
[West Weighing East & North dividing Generation South bounding]
And Accident & Chance were found hidden in Length Bredth & Highth
And they divided into Four ravening deathlike Forms
Fairies & Genii & Nymphs & Gnomes of the Elements.
These are States Permanently Fixed by the Divine Power"
Page 58
"Orc ('who is Luvah') is unloosed at the age of fourteen in the poem 'America' and bound at the same age in 'Vala.' These apparentlely contradictory symbols evidently refer to the same event, and seem to point to the conclusion that the Trauma took place in Blake's fourteenth year.
After his repression of Luvah Albion sinks down into a deathlike sleep upon a rock amid the waters of the unconscious."
Page 81
"The man of dominant thought would write out these psychological events in his own abstract terminology: but to the intuitive introvert such as Blake or Shelley they appear as the conflicts of awesome figures...The figures first of all appeared to his imagination just like a vivid dream, and enacted their dreamlike conflicts, made their speeches. It was afterwards that he puzzled, wondering, over what could be the meaning of their symbolic actions; and gave them names. His first instinct was always to draw what he had seen; thus it is that Blake's poetry is really a commentary on his engravings."
Page 90
"Jungian psychology recognizes another world from which thought may draw data - the inner world of the unconscious mind, the world of the archetypes. This was the only world in which Blake was interested; he repressed extroverted sensation to the utmost"
Page 91
"Blake was obsessed by the conflict of the four functions within himself and spent his life trying to resolve the conflict."
Page 102
"It would be hard to find a better statement of the process of disintegration, of the sinking of repressed functions into the unconscious ("buried beneath in dark obliviom") and of eventual reintegration."
Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 126,(E 395)
"If Gods combine against Man Setting their Dominion above
The Human form Divine. Thrown down from their high Station
In the Eternal heavens of Human Imagination: buried beneath
In dark Oblivion with incessant pangs ages on ages
In Enmity & war first weakend then in stern repentance
They must renew their brightness & their disorganizd functions
Again reorganize till they resume the image of the human
Cooperating in the bliss of Man obeying his Will
Servants to the infinite & Eternal of the Human form"
Milton, Plate 1, (E 95)
"To justify the Ways of God to Men
Preface.
The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid: of Plato &
Cicero. which all Men ought to contemn: are set up by artifice
against the Sublime of the Bible. but when the New Age is at
leisure to Pronounce; all will be set right: & those Grand Works
of the more ancient & consciously & professedly Inspired Men,
will hold their proper rank, & the Daughters of Memory shall
become the Daughters of Inspiration. Shakspeare & Milton were
both curbd by the general malady & infection from the silly Greek
& Latin slaves of the Sword.
Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads
against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the
Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could, for
ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War. Painters! on you I
call! Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fash[i]onable Fools
to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for
contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they
make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a
Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not
want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to
our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall
live for ever; in Jesus our Lord."
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