Blake seeks to provide the Golden String which can lead us through the labyrinth of our experience or his own poetry.

Saturday, April 9, 2022

BLAKE'S EMANATION

Wikipedia Commons
Angel of the Divine Presence Bringing Eve to Adam

Each of the Zoas is both an inner being and an outer being. As an inner being his Emanation is part of himself. When his Emanation becomes expressed externally she is withdrawn from the total Zoa and he is depleted. The urge to return to the condition of completeness creates the dynamic of Blake's myth. 

Harold Bloom, Blake's Apocalypse, Page 195

"An emanation is literally what comes into being from a process of creation in which a series of effluxes flow from a creator. As a created form an emanation may be male of female or both; either way it is opposed to the Spectre of shadow, a baffled creation or residue of self that failed to emanate , to reach an outer but connected existence."

Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry, Page 73

"Abstract ideas are called spectres by Blake, and Spectre with a capital letter is the Selfhood. The corresponding term is 'Emanation', which means the total form of all the things a man loves and creates. In the fallen states the Emanation is conceived as outside, and hence it becomes the source of continuously tantalizing and elusive torment. In imaginative states it is united with and emanates from the man, hence its name." 

Milton O Percival, William Blake's Circle of Destiny, Page 98

"In union with her masculine source - the proper relation of the contraries undisturbed - the Emanation provides a 'concentering vision,' whereby faith in the unity of all life is maintained. The mind, having in this state a sympathetic and intuitive understanding of the Emanation (the life of the world of manifestations), accepts the body and its energies - all of them - and knows them to be good."

S Foster Damon, A Blake Dictionary, Page 121

"It will be noted that the Emanations, when they achieve a separate existence (and get names of their own, which Spectres never do), exhibit all the characteristics of the personae of the split personality which modern science discovered. They seek for dominion, can be dangerously destructive, and fight reintegration (which seems to them like annihilation): but the moment they are reabsorbed, their voice cease altogether.

...Meanwhile the male is left a selfish and ravening Spectre. His rational power, unchecked by his lost Emanation, dominates him. He denounces all delights as sin and condemns Jerusalem the mother of sin."

Jerusalem, Plate 53, E 203
"In eternal labours: loud the Furnaces & loud the Anvils Of Death thunder incessant around the flaming Couches of The Twentyfour Friends of Albion and round the awful Four For the protection of the Twelve Emanations of Albions Sons The Mystic Union of the Emanation in the Lord; Because Man divided from his Emanation is a dark Spectre His Emanation is an ever-weeping melancholy Shadow But she is made receptive of Generation thro' mercy In the Potters Furnace, among the Funeral Urns of Beulah From Surrey hills, thro' Italy and Greece, to Hinnoms vale. Plate 54 In Great Eternity, every particular Form gives forth or Emanates Its own peculiar Light, & the Form is the Divine Vision And the Light is his Garment This is Jerusalem in every Man A Tent & Tabernacle of Mutual Forgiveness Male & Female Clothings. And Jerusalem is called Liberty among the Children of Albion"
Jerusalem, Plate 88, (E 245)
When in Eternity Man converses with Man they enter Into each others Bosom (which are Universes of delight) In mutual interchange. and first their Emanations meet Surrounded by their Children. if they embrace & comingle The Human Four-fold Forms mingle also in thunders of Intellect But if the Emanations mingle not; with storms & agitations Of earthquakes & consuming fires they roll apart in fear For Man cannot unite with Man but by their Emanations Which stand both Male & Female at the Gates of each Humanity How then can I ever again be united as Man with Man While thou my Emanation refusest my Fibres of dominion. When Souls mingle & join thro all the Fibres of Brotherhood Can there be any secret joy on Earth greater than this? Enitharmon answerd: This is Womans World, nor need she any Spectre to defend her from Man. I will Create secret places And the masculine names of the places Merlin & Arthur. A triple Female Tabernacle for Moral Law I weave That he who loves Jesus may loathe terrified Female love Till God himself become a Male subservient to the Female."
 

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