SCHOOLMASTER

British Museum

Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

 

If you are the reflective sort of person, you can look at the life you are living from multiple perspectives. One lens through which I see my life is that of symbols. Since Blake was a master of creating symbols, manipulating symbols and revealing their meaning, I lean on him to teach me the whys, hows and whens of discovering and applying meanings enclosed in the input which bombards me.

Blake's Urizen was his symbol for the reasoning mind. The implications of Urizen as a symbol  spread in many directions. A fairly simple manifestation of Urizen was a the 'schoolmaster.' You probably remember that on the first day of his schooling, little William observed the schoolmaster 'birching' a child, got up and left the classroom, and never returned. Blake immediately reacted to the enforced discipline which the schoolmaster imposed. So the schoolmaster was useful as the aspect of Urizen which tried to control the behavior of others.

Four Zoas, Night IX,(E 389) 
"The Eternal Man sat on the Rocks & cried with awful voice

O Prince of Light [Urizen] where art thou   I behold thee not as once
In those Eternal fields in clouds of morning stepping forth 
With harps & songs where bright Ahania sang before thy face
And all thy sons & daughters gatherd round my ample table
See you not all this wracking furious confusion
Come forth from slumbers of thy cold abstraction come forth
Arise to Eternal births shake off thy cold repose 
Schoolmaster of souls great opposer of change arise
That the Eternal worlds may see thy face in peace & joy
That thou dread form of Certainty maist sit in town & village
While little children play around thy feet in gentle awe
Fearing thy frown loving thy smile O Urizen Prince of light" 

Marriage of Heaven an Hell, Plate 5, (E 48)

"and wilt thou take the ape 

For thy councellor? or the dog, for a schoolmaster to thy children?"  

 

Notebook, (E 518) 

"You say their Pictures well Painted be 

And yet they are Blockheads you all agree 

Thank God I never was sent to school 

To be Flogd into following the Style of a Fool "

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Song 53, (E 31) 
"The School Boy               

I love to rise in a summer morn,
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the sky-lark sings with me.
O! what sweet company. 

But to go to school in a summer morn,
O! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn,
The little ones spend the day,
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour.
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learnings bower,
Worn thro' with the dreary shower. 
 
How can the bird that is born for joy,
Sit in a cage and sing.
How can a child when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring.

O! father & mother, if buds are nip'd,
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are strip'd
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and cares dismay, 

How shall the summer arise in joy.
Or the summer fruits appear,
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear. "

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Song 54, (E 31)
"The Voice of the Ancient Bard.     

Youth of delight come hither:
And see the opening morn,
Image of truth new born.
Doubt is fled & clouds of reason.
Dark disputes & artful teazing.
Folly is an endless maze,
Tangled roots perplex her ways,

How many have fallen there!
They stumble all night over bones of the dead,
And feel they know not what but care 
And wish to lead others, when they should be led."

Jerusalem, Plate 15, (E 159)
"I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe
And there behold the Loom of Locke whose Woof rages dire  
Washd by the Water-wheels of Newton. black the cloth
In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation; cruel Works
Of many Wheels I View, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
Moving by compulsion each other: not as those in Eden: which
Wheel within Wheel in freedom revolve in harmony & peace." 

Four Zoas, Night II, Page 28, (E 318)
"And many said We see no Visions in the darksom air
Measure the course of that sulphur orb that lights the darksom day  
Set stations on this breeding Earth & let us buy & sell
Others arose & schools Erected forming Instruments               
To measure out the course of heaven. Stern Urizen beheld
In woe his brethren & his Sons in darkning woe lamenting
Upon the winds in clouds involvd Uttering his voice in thunders
Commanding all the work with care & power & severity"

Miscellaneous Prose, Blake's Autograph, (E 698)
"I am apt to believe that what is done
without meaning is very different from that which a Man Does with
his Thought & Mind & ought not to be Calld by the Same Name."

---

Galatians 3

[24] Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
[25] But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.