FURNACE

 

Blake Archive

Morgan Library and Museum

Jerusalem

Plate 6

We turn again to Northrop Frye's last major work, Words With Power: Being a Second Study of "The Bible and Literature." 

In Part 2 of his book Frye devotes the four chapters to four metaphoric topics: the Mountain, the Garden, the Cave and the Furnace. He calls these chapters "essays on comparative mythology, organized around four primary concerns: the concern to make and create, the concern to love, the concern to sustain oneself and assimilate the environment, with its metaphorical kernal of food, and the concern to escape from slavery and restraint." (Page 139) 

From Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye, Page 290

"But there is no image of an inscrutable fate which may not be also an image of creative power, and the winepress and mill may represent not only the disintegration of form, but the reuniting of all nature into the body and blood of a universal Man. Thus the gathering-in of life to prevent its death may be a symbol of apocalypse...In Night IX Blake expands this apocalyptic aspect of his bread and wine symbolism into a superb fantasia in which Luvah gathers the vintage and Urizen the harvest, Tharmas winnows the grain and Urthona grinds it in the mill... The process is part of the great communion feast in which human life is reintigrated into its real form. 

The same regenerative meaning belongs also to the furnace. Man's body may remain a natural hell of unsatisfied desire, or it may become an imaginative purgatory, a crucible from which the purified mind emerges. In that case the furnace, the body of Luvah, is operated by Los, which is the fiery furnace shown us in the Book of Daniel." 

Daniel 3

[23] And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
[24] Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellers, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
[25] He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
[26] Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth of the midst of the fire.
[27] And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellers, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.
[28] Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

On page 296 of Words with Power Frye wrote:

"The image of the furnace may be used for either the negative or
positive aspects of the lower world. The negative or demonic world
is the traditional hell which is a furnace of heat without light.
The positive one is purgatorial, a crucible from which the redeemed
emerge purified like metal in a smelting operation."

 

The importance of the furnace to Blake as an agent of change is indicated by the fact that the word furnace occurs 171 times in his writings. Although several of Blake's characters are associated with furnaces, Los the blacksmith is the principle operator. His is the job of shaping the raw materials into the human form. 

Frye indicates that there a two sides ot the image of the furnace. In the hymn "How firm a foundation" we sing in the fourth verse: 

“When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.”

The hymn is stating that our life's journey will not always be easy or pleasant; that our experience will force us into arduous situations that will try our endurance. For this the hymn writer uses the metaphor of the furnace whose intense heat removes that which can be annihilated from the pure, indestructable material which will enable us to achieve the goal of our journey. That which can be relinquished must be subjected to the testing of the fire so that we may learn to rely on God's wisdom and love to guide us.  

In the Books of Genesis and  Exodus we follow the journey of the children of 
Abraham as they pass through the furnace of Egypt which became progressively more onerous as the years passed.

Exodus 2

[23] And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.
[24] And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
[25] And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.

Exodus 3

[9] Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.
[10] Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Exodus 6

[11] Go in, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.

Exodus 12

[41] And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

Blake's use of the furnace:

Jerusalem, Plate 8, (E 151)
"He saw that Los was the sole, uncontrolld Lord of the Furnaces
Groaning he kneeld before Los's iron-shod feet on London Stone,
Hungring & thirsting for Los's life yet pretending obedience.
While Los pursud his speech in threatnings loud & fierce.
Thou art my Pride & Self-righteousness: I have found thee out:
Thou art reveald before me in all thy magnitude & power
Thy Uncircumcised pretences to Chastity must be cut in sunder!
Thy holy wrath & deep deceit cannot avail against me
Nor shalt thou ever assume the triple-form of Albions Spectre
For I am one of the living: dare not to mock my inspired fury
If thou wast cast forth from my life! if I was dead upon the mountains
Thou mightest be pitied & lovd: but now I am living; unless
Thou abstain ravening I will create an eternal Hell for thee.
Take thou this Hammer & in patience heave the thundering Bellows
Take thou these Tongs: strike thou alternate with me: labour obedient"
Jerusalem, Plate 9, (E 152)
"I saw terrified; I took the sighs & tears, & bitter groans:
I lifted them into my Furnaces; to form the spiritual sword.
That lays open the hidden heart: I drew forth the pang
Of sorrow red hot: I workd it on my resolute anvil:
I heated it in the flames of Hand, & Hyle, & Coban
Nine times; Gwendolen & Cambel & Gwineverra
Are melted into the gold, the silver, the liquid ruby,
The crysolite, the topaz, the jacinth, & every precious stone,
Loud roar my Furnaces and loud my hammer is heard:
I labour day and night, I behold the soft affections
Condense beneath my hammer into forms of cruelty
But still I labour in hope, tho' still my tears flow down.
That he who will not defend Truth, may be compelld to defend
A Lie: that he may be snared and caught and snared and taken
That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: arise Spectre arise!"
Jerusalem Plate 10, (E 152) t
"Into the Furnaces & into the valleys of the Anvils of Death
And into the mountains of the Anvils & of the heavy Hammers
Till he should bring the Sons & Daughters of Jerusalem to be
The Sons & Daughters of Los that he might protect them from
Albions dread Spectres; storming, loud, thunderous & mighty
The Bellows & the Hammers move compell'd by Los's hand."