EPIC POETRY

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The Characters in Spenser's Faerie Queen

Frye presents these three English poems Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Milton's Paradise Lost as the epics which would have been the exemplars for Blake. The goal which was before each serious poet, Frye believed, would have been to write a fourth English epic, building on the achievements of these predecessors. 

Below are quotes from Northrop Frey's Fearful Symmetry which have been helpful to me in attempting to understand Blake's Milton. Topics for study before one plunges into Milton may include Epic Poetry, John Milton's biography, William Blake's biography, Blake's The Four Zoas, Milton's Paradise Lost, and, of course, the Old and New testaments of the Bible. 

Fearful Symmetry - Page 9

"Blake's own definition of poetry:

'Allegory addressd to the Intellectual powers while it is altogether hidden from the Corporeal Understanding is My Definition of the Most Sublime Poetry. it is also somewhat in the same manner defin'd by Plato.'

...The corporeal understanding, then, canot do more than elucidate the genuine obscurities, the things requiring special knowledge to understand,
...The 'intellectual powers' go to work rather differently; they start with the hypothesis that the poem in front of them is an imaginative whole and work out the implications of that hypothesis 'Every Poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity,' said Blake: the identity of form and content is the axiom of all sound criticism."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 316

"The function of the epic, in its origin, seems to be primarily to teach the nation, or whatever we call the social unit which the poet is addressing, irs own traditions. These traditions are chiefly concerned with the national religion and the national history...The religion is not theological nor the history documentary: both are mythopoeic. "  

Fearful Symmetry - Page 319

"Milton thinks of himself continually as an inspired prophet sent by God to present his vision to the English people."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 340

"The primary social function of the epic is to teach the 'nation' its own traditions, and in Blakean terms this means recreating dead facts into living truths, the vanished spectres of tradition into imagination's eternal and infinite present. 

... the prophets did not turn their backs on their national history: they recreated it, and brought out of it the eternally present archetypes of the fall and redemption of man."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 346

"Blake is, therefore, trying to do for Milton what the prophets and Jesus did for Moses: isolate what is poetic and imaginative and annihilate what is legal and historical. This is also what he is trying to do for himself, and there will always be a curse on any critic who tries to see the Christianity and radicalism of Blake as a dichotomy instead of a unity." 

Fearful Symmetry - Page 352

"He (Milton) felt...that the family was the main breach in the visionary's defenses through which the powers of compromise came pouring with their threats and wheedling. The visionary's right to cut himslf loose from his family when his genius was in mortal danger was an essential part of Milton's conception of liberty and was perhaps the real reason for writing the divorce tracts...
When Satan is in charge of this world,
'A mans worst enemies are those
Of his own house & family'
Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 173)

Fearful Symmetry - Page 355

"The Epilogue of the great poem is exquisitely managed. With the four Zoas sounding the trumpets of the Last Judgement in his ears, Blake falls into a swoon, and revives in his garden with his wife bending anxiously over him, and before him a singing lark and a wild thyme, the early-rising bird and the early-flowering plant of returning spring...

..Milton is the prelude to a longer poem on the theme it announces, the building of a continuing city in the England of the Satanic Mills."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 359 - Final quote from Frye

"[By] the time he wrote Jerusalem Blake was so accustomed to thinking in terms of his symbols that the latter had become a kind of ideographic alphabet...The justification for Blake's kind of dehydrated epic is a simple matter of literary honesty. Poems must take their own forms, and these precipitates of meaning are the form which poetry takes in Blake's crystallizing mind. An epic of such form cannot be expanded: it can only be padded, and padding is immoral...Blake's epics are brief enough to be examined plastically, reread so that their structural unity emerges along with their linear meaning, and as part of it. The beauty of Jerusalem is the beauty of intense concentration." 

Milton, Plate 2, (E 98)

"If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent, and
Not to shew it: I do not account that Wisdom but Folly.
Every Mans Wisdom is peculiar to his own Individuality
O Satan my youngest born, art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven, to turn the Mills day & night?  
Art thou not Newtons Pantocrator weaving the Woof of Locke
To Mortals thy Mills seem every thing & the Harrow of Shaddai
A scheme of Human conduct invisible & incomprehensible
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath,

Satan was going to reply, but Los roll'd his loud thunders.   

Anger me not! thou canst not drive the Harrow in pitys paths.
Thy Work is Eternal Death, with Mills & Ovens & Cauldrons.
Trouble me no more. thou canst not have Eternal Life

So Los spoke! Satan trembling obeyd weeping along the way.
Mark well my words, they are of your eternal Salvation" 

SIXFOLD EMANATION

 

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 44

Early in Blake's book Milton, the poet Milton explains that the reason for his unhappiness in heaven was the torment of his Sixfold Emanation scattered in the deep.    

Milton, Plate 2, (E 96)

"Say first! what mov'd Milton, who walkd about in Eternity
One hundred years, pondring the intricate mazes of Providence
Unhappy tho in heav'n, he obey'd, he murmur'd not. he was silent
Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter'd thro' the deep
In torment! To go into the deep her to redeem & himself perish?"

When Milton descended to Ulro to find that part of himself which is represented 
by Ololon, his journey was noticed by the Divine Family who remain Everywhere 
Forever. Jesus and Ololon united initiating Ololon's lament for Milton who had been 
driven into Ulro.

Milton, Plate 21 (E 115)

"So spake the Family Divine as One Man even Jesus
Uniting in One with Ololon & the appearance of One Man
Jesus the Saviour appeard coming in the Clouds of Ololon!        

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 116)
"Tho driven away with the Seven Starry Ones into the Ulro
Yet the Divine Vision remains Every-where For-ever. Amen.
And Ololon lamented for Milton with a great lamentation.

While Los heard indistinct in fear, what time I bound my sandals
On; to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:         
And Los behind me stood; a terrible flaming Sun: just close" 

The Sixfold Female who is an aspect of Ololon perceived that Milton has entered 
Ulro to redeem his Female Shade. She responded by acknowledging that she must 
be continually redeemed by death and misery of those she loves and by annihilation.
Milton's annihilation of his selfhood resulted in her redemption.

Milton, Plate 33 [36], (E 132)

"And the Divine Voice was heard in the Songs of Beulah Saying     

When I first Married you, I gave you all my whole Soul
I thought that you would love my loves & joy in my delights
Seeking for pleasures in my pleasures O Daughter of Babylon
Then thou wast lovely, mild & gentle. now thou art terrible      
In jealousy & unlovely in my sight, because thou hast cruelly
Cut off my loves in fury till I have no love left for thee
Thy love depends on him thou lovest & on his dear loves
Depend thy pleasures which thou hast cut off by jealousy
Therefore I shew my jealousy  & set  before you Death.     
Behold Milton descended to Redeem the Female Shade

From Death Eternal; such your lot, to be continually Redeem'd
By death & misery of those you love & by Annihilation
When the Sixfold Female percieves that Milton annihilates
Himself: that seeing all his loves by her cut off: he leaves     
Her also: intirely abstracting himself from Female loves
She shall relent in fear of death: She shall begin to give
Her maidens to her husband: delighting in his delight"
Ololon acknowledged that She and Milton are contraries. 
Milton, Plate 41 [48], (E 142) 

"These are the Sexual Garments, the Abomination of Desolation
Hiding the Human lineaments as with an Ark & Curtains

Which Jesus rent: & now shall wholly purge away with Fire
Till Generation is swallowd up in Regeneration.

Then trembled the Virgin Ololon & replyd in clouds of despair

Is this our Feminine Portion the Six-fold Miltonic Female      
Terribly this Portion trembles before thee O awful Man
Altho' our Human Power can sustain the severe contentions
Of Friendship, our Sexual cannot: but flies into the Ulro.
Hence arose all our terrors in Eternity! & now remembrance
Returns upon us! are we Contraries O Milton, Thou & I            
O Immortal! how were we led to War the Wars of Death
Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enterd into
Plate 42 [49]              
Becomes a Womb? & is this the Death Couch of Albion
Thou goest to Eternal Death & all must go with thee

So saying, the Virgin divided Six-fold & with a shriek
Dolorous that ran thro all Creation a Double Six-fold Wonder!
Away from Ololon she divided & fled into the depths              
Of Miltons Shadow as a Dove upon the stormy Sea.

Then as a Moony Ark Ololon descended to Felphams Vale
In clouds of blood, in streams of gore, with dreadful thunderings
Into the Fires of Intellect that rejoic'd in Felphams Vale
Around the Starry Eight: with one accord the Starry Eight became 
One Man Jesus the Saviour. wonderful! round his limbs
The Clouds of Ololon folded as a Garment dipped in blood
Written within & without in woven letters: & the Writing
Is the Divine Revelation in the Litteral expression:
A Garment of War, I heard it namd the Woof of Six Thousand Years 

In the book Jerusalem Los explained the critical difference between contraties and 
negations.
Jerusalem, Plate 17, (E 162)

[Los spoke]
"Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist:
But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs
Exist not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever:     
If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation: a meer
Reasoning & Derogation from Me, an Objecting & cruel Spite
And Malice & Envy: but my Emanation, Alas! will become
My Contrary: O thou Negation, I will continually compell
Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when            
And where & how I please, and never! never! shalt thou be Organized
But as a distorted & reversed Reflexion in the Darkness
And in the Non Entity: nor shall that which is above
Ever descend into thee: but thou shalt be a Non Entity for ever"

Jerusalem, Plate 48, (E 196)

"Eternity groan'd. & was troubled, at the image of Eternal Death!

Beneath the bottoms of the Graves, which is Earths central joint,
There is a place where Contrarieties are equally true:
(To protect from the Giant blows in the sports of intellect,     
Thunder in the midst of kindness, & love that kills its beloved:
Because Death is for a period, and they renew tenfold.)
From this sweet Place Maternal Love awoke Jerusalem 
With pangs she forsook Beulah's pleasant lovely shadowy Universe
Where no dispute can come; created for those who Sleep."  
In his book William Blake,  Martin K Nurmi writes:
"A final confrontation between Milton and Satan occurs, in which Milton, now free 
from  any Satanic influence, can vigorously reject Satan even though Satan insists 
he is God  as in effect he has been. Ololon, meeting Milton now, recognizes that 
she, as his  feminine counterpart, is his creative contrary, and her satanic aspect, 
represented as  self-seeking femaleness called 'virginity', departs." (Page 156) 

 

MILTON/OLOLON/LOS

 First posted Sept 2019

New York Public Library
Milton
Plate 43

Essays for S. Foster Damon edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld includes a chapter by Harold Fisch titled Blake's Miltonic Moment. On page 44 Fisch associates the spiritual event in Blake's life in which he grasped the fullness of the living presence of the Imagination within him that was mediated to him through Milton. We read:

"Los...is the spirit of prophecy which spoke through Elijah and Ezekiel; and if with him the biblical dimension is introduced in its fullness in Blake's poetry, it should be added that it is Milton who presides over this transformation. Milton is the inspired biblical poet of an age of faith who had wedded poetry to the inspiration of the Bible. And so Los becomes the spirit of biblical poetry; with his arrival of Eden and Jerusalem become major symbols. The new phase of Blake's poetry beginning with the later additions of The Four Zoas and reaching its fullness in Milton and Jerusalem is thus in a most particular degree biblical, and the agent of the transformation is Milton. We can watch the actual dynamics of the process, Los, busy creating the world and governing it through time to its predestined conclusion, looks around for a means of redeeming the enchained Orc (that is the stifled spirit of revolution). In Plate 20 of Milton that means is discovered:

Milton, Plate 20, (E 115)
'He recollected an old Prophecy in Eden recorded,
And often sung to the loud harp at the immortal feasts
That Milton of the Land of Albion should up ascend
Forwards from Ulro from the Vale of Felpham; and set free
Orc from his Chain of Jealousy'

Here the epiphany is precisely located and its nature defined. Milton is the prophet of England-Albion, but his arrival is prophesied in Eden, that is it is biblically motivated and directed. The transforming moment occurs, we are told, in the Vale of Felpham, that is between 1800 and 1803, and its outcome will be the freeing of Orc from his Chain, that is to say, the giving of new direction to the perverted spirit of Revolution now disclosed to be the ugliness of the Napoleonic era in France and the parallel manifestation in the England of Pitt and George III.

The fundamental value of Milton's spiritual achievement to Blake then was that he enabled him to relate the temporal, political reality to the biblical."    

That reconciliation of his use of imagination in interpreting biblical history with using imagination to understand of the revolutionary events of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries became for Blake the key to entering a new stage of spiritual development. He associated his breakthrough with having assimilated the progress Milton had made in freeing himself from the constraints imposed by his religious and political affiliations. Blake represented his transformation as having occurred through Milton entering his foot. The implication is that Blake's imagination was enlarged not through some grand revelation but through a humble response resulting from living with Milton's physical experiences and mental achievements.

Plate 43 represents the culmination of Blake's incorporating what Milton gave him. Blake is pictured not with his mentor Milton but with Los 'in that fierce glowing fire.'

Letters, To Thomas Butts, Enclosed Poem, (E 721)
"Then Los appeard in all his power
In the Sun he appeard descending before
My face in fierce flames in my double sight
Twas outward a Sun: inward Los in his might" 

Blake's Imagination was not longer clouded by doubt or fear; the prophetic voice which spoke through Ezekiel spoke through him as well.  

Ezekiel 8
[1] And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.
[2] Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.
[3] And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.
[4] And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.

Milton, Plate 21, [23] (E 115)
"And down descended into Udan-Adan; it was night:
And Satan sat sleeping upon his Couch in Udan-Adan:
His Spectre slept, his Shadow woke; when one sleeps th'other wakes

But Milton entering my Foot; I saw in the nether
Regions of the Imagination; also all men on Earth,              
And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive              
Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments.

And all this Vegetable World appeard on my left Foot,
As a bright sandal formd immortal of precious stones & gold:
I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro' Eternity.
...
Seven mornings Los heard them, as the poor bird within the shell

Hears its impatient parent bird; and Enitharmon heard them:
But saw them not, for the blue Mundane Shell inclosd them in.   

And they lamented that they had in wrath & fury & fire
Driven Milton into the Ulro; for now they knew too late
That it was Milton the Awakener: they had not heard the Bard,
Whose song calld Milton to the attempt; and Los heard these laments.
He heard them call in prayer all the Divine Family;             
And he beheld the Cloud of Milton stretching over Europe.

But all the Family Divine collected as Four Suns
In the Four Points of heaven East, West & North & South
Enlarging and enlarging till their Disks approachd each other;
And when they touch'd closed together Southward in One Sun      
Over Ololon: and as One Man, who weeps over his brother,
In a dark tomb, so all the Family Divine. wept over Ololon.

Saying, Milton goes to Eternal Death! so saying, they groan'd in spirit
And were troubled! and again the Divine Family groaned in spirit!"

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 116)
"Tho driven away with the Seven Starry Ones into the Ulro
Yet the Divine Vision remains Every-where For-ever. Amen.
And Ololon lamented for Milton with a great lamentation.

While Los heard indistinct in fear, what time I bound my sandals
On; to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:        
And Los behind me stood; a terrible flaming Sun: just close
Behind my back; I turned round in terror, and behold.
Los stood in that fierce glowing fire; & he also  stoop'd down
And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan; trembling I stood
Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale            
Of Lambeth: but he kissed me and wishd me health.
And I became One  Man  with  him  arising in my strength:
Twas too late now to recede. Los had enterd into my soul:

His terrors now posses'd me whole! I arose in fury & strength." 

OLOLON

 First posted July 2010 

In Plate 31 of Milton, a contrast is seen between the way things appear in the fallen world and in the unfallen world. The first paragraph quoted below concerns Satan and Rahab, Generation, Kingdoms of the Earth, War and Strife. All of the Living Creatures of the Four Elements are wailing in bitter lament. They weep because "they see the Lord coming in the Clouds of Ololon with Power & Great Glory!"

Beulah is said to weep also, but the lamentation of Beulah is seen as a vision the greatest beauty, joy and hope. The eyes of vision see the loveliest things of the natural world as expressing the culmination which will result from Ololon's sacrificial descent following Milton in his return to the world of matter.

The world of suffering, war, and strife should welcome the prospect of the Lord's arrival, for it will initiate the world of love, and peace and brotherhood. But it is not so. First an open mind, a receptive heart, a gentle hand, and an intuitive soul must grow in man. The vision cannot appear until we have prepared ourselves for it.

Milton, Plate 31 [34], (E 130)
"And all the Living Creatures of the Four Elements, wail'd
With bitter wailing: these in the aggregate are named Satan
And Rahab: they know not of Regeneration, but only of Generation
The Fairies, Nymphs, Gnomes & Genii of the Four Elements
Unforgiving & unalterable: these cannot be Regenerated
But must be Created, for they know only of Generation
These are the Gods of the Kingdoms of the Earth: in contrarious
And cruel opposition: Element against Element, opposed in War
Not Mental, as the Wars of Eternity, but a Corporeal Strife
In Los's Halls continual labouring in the Furnaces of Golgonooza
Orc howls on the Atlantic: Enitharmon trembles: All Beulah weeps

Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring;
The Lark sitting upon his earthy bed: just as the morn
Appears; listens silent; then springing from the waving
Corn-field! loud
He leads the Choir of Day! trill, trill, trill, trill,
Mounting upon the wings of light into the Great Expanse:
Reecchoing against the lovely blue & shining heavenly Shell:
His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine
All Nature listens silent to him & the awful Sun
Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird

With eyes of soft humility, & wonder love & awe.
Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their Song
The Thrush, the Linnet & the Goldfinch, Robin & the Wren
Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain:
The Nightingale again assays his song, & thro the day,
And thro the night warbles luxuriant; every Bird of Song
Attending his loud harmony with admiration & love.
This is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon!

Thou percievest the Flowers put forth their precious Odours!
And none can tell how from so small a center comes such sweets
Forgetting that within that Center Eternity expands
Its ever during doors, that Og & Anak fiercely guard[.]
First eer the morning breaks joy opens in the flowery bosoms
Joy even to tears, which the Sun rising dries; first the Wild Thyme
And Meadow-sweet downy & soft waving among the reeds.
Light springing on the air lead the sweet Dance: they wake
The Honeysuckle sleeping on the Oak: the flaunting beauty
Revels along upon the wind; the White-thorn lovely May
Opens her many lovely eyes: listening the Rose still sleeps
None dare to wake her. soon she bursts her crimson curtaind bed
And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every Flower:
The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation
The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens! every Tree,
And Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance
Yet all in order sweet & lovely, Men are sick with Love!
Such is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon"

Advice from the apostle Paul:
Philippians
4:6-7 - Don't worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus.
4:8-9 - Here is a last piece of advice. If you believe in goodness and if you value the approval of God, fix your minds on the things which are holy and right and pure and beautiful and good. Model your conduct on what you have learned from me, on what I have told you and shown you, and you will find the God of peace will be with you.

J. B. Phillips translation of the New Testament