Mythical

 

Larry Clayton's Primer, Chapter 10

      Many people have called William Blake unique among English poets as the creator of a complete mythology. In a standard dictionary "without foundation in fact" appears as the fifth meaning of 'mythical', but this is probably what the term conveys in common parlance. Therefore we must begin our study of Blake's myth by raising our consciousness of the word. 'Logos', 'myth', 'epic'--these three words have common roots. In literary and theological language myths are statements about the non-material ultimate. Some people of course avoid the non-material, considering it to be "without foundation in fact"; it's doubtful that any such reader has endured to this point of our study.

       Blake considered the non-material to be the real; his art centered around the endeavour to express the reality of the non-material. The meaning of his entire artistic enterprise we may call his myth. His object was to fit all of experience into a total framework of meaning that will inform life and "to raise other people to a perception of the Infinite". Our object is to grasp that total framework; once we do that, we have a myth of meaning.

With his story of the Prodigal Son, Jesus gave us a personal paradigm of the history of the Chosen People and of the Human Race. 

Luke 15
[10] Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
[11] And he said, A certain man had two sons:
[12] And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.
[13] And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.
[14] And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.
[15] And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.
[16] And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.
[17] And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
[18] I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
[19] And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
[20] And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
[21] And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.
[22] But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: 

[23] And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

[24] For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.

A striking modern analogy, although not Blakean per se, is provided by the cycle of alcoholism: progressive deterioration until the sufferer hits bottom, followed by recovery. Blake did use as a recurring motif the story of Lazarus found in the Gospel of John.

Luke 11

[1] Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
[2] (It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.)
[3] Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
[4] When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

But the primary paradigm of this myth is the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. However Blake did not express this, probably did not fully realize it, until 1800. 

Galations 2

[20] I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

The next Chapter illustrates the application of this fundamental myth in Blake's major poetic works. The development of Blake's epic will be traced through the various stages of his spiritual journey. In essence it's the same journey we all take; you could call it the history of Man. Blake called it the Circle of Destiny in Night 1 of The Four Zoas.

Four Zoas, Night I, Page 5, (E 302)

"Enion said Farewell I die I hide. from thy searching eyes

So saying--From her bosom weaving soft in Sinewy threads
A tabernacle for Jerusalem she sat among the Rocks        
Singing her lamentation. Tharmas groand among his Clouds
Weeping, then bending from his Clouds he stoopd his innocent head 
And stretching out his holy hand in the vast Deep sublime        
Turnd round the circle of Destiny with tears & bitter sighs
And said.     Return O Wanderer when the Day of Clouds is oer

So saying he sunk down into the sea a pale white corse"

There are no easy solutions. There are no shortcuts to a more direct path. Milton O. Percival in William Blake's Circle of Destiny understood that Blake taught that entrenched error destroys the possibility of return.

"But if in Beulah the error deepens and the circuit of return is closed, 
then the wheel has to swing "downwards and outwards," over a greatly 
expanded periphery, into the worlds of Ulro and Generation. For the 
punishment for error in Blake's system as in life itself lies in the 
bitter experience of error. When man decides, as he does in Beulah, 
without yet realizing the import of his decision, to live the outward, 
the passive, the feminine, the selfish, and the rational, he must be 
delivered over into the reality of his dream world in order that he may 
know it and renounce it. For experience, in Blake's system is remedial. 
Error runs its course. The spiritual body, like the natural body, labors
to throw off infection and in the end succeeds. The path of experience 
is therefore circular. When the error which may be described as Nature 
or Natural Religion becomes formulated in  man's mind, the cycle over 
which it is destined to run takes shape and begins to move. This cycle, 
which descends from Beulah into Ulro and ascends from Ulro by way of 
Generation into Beulah, where it joins the supernal cycle, is the Circle
of Destiny." 

Jerusalem, Plate 41 [46], (E 188) 

"Thou art in Error Albion, the Land of Ulro:               
One Error not remov'd, will destroy a human Soul
Repose in Beulahs night, till the Error is remov'd
Reason not on both sides. Repose upon our bosoms
Till the Plow of Jehovah, and the Harrow of Shaddai
Have passed over the Dead, to awake the Dead to Judgment.     
But Albion turn'd away refusing comfort."