About Frye

Reading  an old post  on Frye I found this comment:
"trebor mahned said...      It's 'Frye' not 'Frey'"   

From this I discovered  a website based on Frye. 
One of the posts was essentially a speech by the 
former Governor of Canada.
Perhaps that speech may form the body of another
post
Search Results
The Educated Imagination » Denham's Frye Doggerel
/Signed: Denham, sometimes Called instead By pseudonym: Trebor Mahned. Which you will see If backwards read Will spell the name Of Norrie's ed.

Here's an excerpt on Frye's notebooks: 

"The depth and complexity of Frye’s purgatorial journey could be only dimly perceived in a selection of the notebooks.

Notebooks are generally a private form of writing, and Frye certainly never entertained any notion of publishing them himself. “I don’t need to unscramble that silly parenthesis: I’m not publishing this,” he says at one point, reminding himself that he need not worry himself with stylistic propriety. And in the course of a series of poignant entries following the death of his first wife, he remarks, “It’s a good thing this notebook is not for publication, because everyone else would be bored by my recurring to Helen.” But there is a difference between the absence of an intent on Frye’s part to use the notebooks for anything other than his own writing projects and the knowledge, which he seems clearly to have had, that the notebooks would some day be published. The very fact that we have seventy-six notebooks, along with the files of typed notes he preserved, provides some evidence of Frye’s awareness that these documents would someday be read by others. He appears to have considered this form of his writing as of a different order from the countless reams of manuscripts, including thousands of pages of holograph and typed drafts, that he consigned to the dustbin. Moreover, while the notebooks occasionally contain a laconic entry, a hasty jotting, an outline, almost all of the paragraphs are syntactically complete units. They are not the polished prose of Frye’s published work, but they do reveal a genuine concern for the rhetorical unit that can stand by itself. Such care in the construction of the prose would hardly seem required if Frye were writing only for himself. In addition, the notebooks are rather meticulously laid out, their pages numbered and each entry separated from the next by a blank line. Frye even revised his notebooks, correcting mistakes, inserting an omitted word here and there, and cancelling some of the repeated passages.(From a post on Denham's website)

The Main Chance

Friday, December 31, 2010

Blake's Main Chance

Hegemony of the Spectre

Becoming an Individual

Blake was born an individual, a very distinctive human being, until he got married in his early twenties.

That carried responsibilities; as a bread-winner he of necessity more or less 'joined the crowd'. But he remained a misfit (we all know such people; you may be one), call them unwilling joiners. You must have sustenance of some kind: emotional or financial, usually both.

The crowd is made up of the kind of people who watch the ads to see what people are doing so they can do the same thing, so they know what to do. People in the crowd generally want to 'get ahead' (whatever that may mean); it takes the place of 'following your bliss'; instead you try to follow the 'bliss' of the person in the crowd whom you most admire, your role model,  your 'father', so to speak. Jesus had something to say about your 'father':
"call no man father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven". (Matthew 23:9)

In particular Blake wanted to be able to 'hold his head up'--financially and intellectually. He lent his enormous artistic gift in the service of other people; he especially admired the famous artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds--until he saw the artistic chasm that loomed between the two. He joined the 'Matthews Group', made up of very gifted people..... He rubbed shoulders with the intelligencia until he found himself rubbing elbows; they proved to be just as frustrating as anyone else (they were appropriate provocation for An Island in the Moon; the Matthews Group had been relativized.

"I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Mans"
Jerusalem, 10.20; E153

When Blake said that, it marked his realization that the systems he had found in Reynolds and the Matthews Group simply didn't satisfy his needs and values. With The Four Zoas he tried to systematize in poetry his own spiritual values; it led to universal incomprehension by his friends, even his best friends.

In 1800 he wrote to his friend and benefactor, George Cumberland, expressing his emphatic frustration over the commercial art he had been impressed into following, what he called the main chance:
"I myself remember when I thought my pursuits of Art a kind of Criminal Dissipation neglect of the main chance which I hid my face for not being able to abandon as a Passion which is forbidden by Law and Religion" (Erdman 706)

But the Magic Moment, the veritable rebirth came at the Truchsessian Gallery  when he "was again enlightened with the light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for exactly twenty years been closed from me as by a door" (Letter 51, to Hayley; Erdman 756)

The Four Zoas turned into those two masterpieces, Milton and Jersalem. But in general he moved away from 'poetry to painting' . Finally there were the Illustrations to the Book of Job; it might be called his Last Testament.

The Books

This is part of wikipedia...wiki

The books

• Tiriel (c. 1789)
• Tiriel was not an illuminated book, but the first that Blake
• wrote.
• 
  
• The Book of Thel (c. 1789)
• There are a lot of posts on this subject.
• Thel , in the Vales of Har (Heaven?) contemplates how it would be to go down into the world.
• She sees herself succesively as worm, a lilly, and a cloud (and what else?) and of course death; she doesn't want it; she draws back to Har.
• 
  
• America a Prophecy (1793)

Blake wrote this book soon after the American Revolution.

Urizen

Urizen functions as the terribly
frightened King of England, to be
revolted against











Europe a Prophecy (1794)

This one was virtually a sequel of the last one.

The picture shows Orc who is most familiar with blood, which spread over Europe after the American Revolution

Commons Wikipaedia
Europe 15

A few descriptive words and an impressive Image!

Job 7

After the terrible things the devil had done to Job he sat there despondent.  His three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zopha joined together to make him a visit.

In Job 2:11: 
Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

From wikipedia:
Eliphaz appears mild and modest; in his first reply to Job's complaints, he argues that those who are truly good are never entirely forsaken by Providence, but that punishment may justly be inflicted for secret sins. He denies that any man is innocent and censures Job for asserting his freedom from guilt. Eliphaz exhorts Job to confess any concealed iniquities to alleviate his punishment. His arguments are well supported but God declares at the end of the book that Eliphaz believed an erroneous view of divine dispensations.Job offers a sacrifice to God for Eliphaz's error.

Bildad  the Shuhite, was one of Job's three friends who visited the patriarch in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Job. He was a descendant of Shuah, son of Abraham and Keturah (Genesis 25:1 - 25:2), whose family lived in the deserts of Arabia, or a resident of the district.[1] In speaking with Job, his intent was consolation, but he became an accuser, asking Job what he has done to deserve God's wrath.

Zophar
In the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Book of Job, Zophar  the Naamathite is one of the three friends of Job who visits to comfort him during his illness. His comments can be found in Job chapter 11 and 20. He suggests that Job's suffering could be divine punishment, and goes into great detail about the consequences of living a life of sin.

Unlike friends Bildad and Eliphaz, Zophar only speaks twice to Job. He is the most impetuous and dogmatic of the three. Zophar is the first to accuse Job directly of wickedness; averring indeed that his punishment is too good for him (Job 11:6);

What! shall we recieve Good at the hand of God & shall we not also recieve Evil

(The ideas of good and evil are central in the Bible and in Blake's thought; he approached it with his early illuminated poem,The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , but 25 or so years later he used good and Evil more conventionally.)

Job's Comforter Job 2:10
Adelaide Job 7

Job 2;12 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him. 









12And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven. 

13So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him: for they saw that his grief was very great.

What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? (Job 2:10)

And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven (Job 2:12)

Ye have heard of the Patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord.

from the Kiev Psalter of 1397.
Job and Friends

Job 4

Job 4 (Adelaide ebook)



Bible Text

Job 1:`14:

And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were plowing, and the asses feeding beside them:

( King James Bible "Authorized Version", Cambridge Edition)

Job 1:15

And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Book of Job 2

The Book of Job was Blake's last great creative work.  He had begun to use images more than text.  Blake's Job is almost all image and Scripture. 

Job 1
[6] Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
[7] And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
[8] And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
[9] Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
[10] Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
[11] But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
[12] And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

The Book of Job was almost his last creative work.  In it he focused primarily on pictures rather than text;  the words were largely passages from the Bible.

The bottom third of  the picture shows Job resting quietly with his family.  The top third is the Almighty resting on his throne and 
listening to a complaint from one of the 'sons of God', namely Satan.

This from www.blakearchive.org:
Job sits with his family lower center, holding a book or tablet and gesturing with his right hand. His wife is to the left, holding on open book on her lap. Six of Job's children sit, lie, and stand on the right; one holds a scroll, two others hold opened books. The seated figures are supported by an odd bench with gothic tracery and niches. The most prominent niche contains a sleeping dog; to the right are books. Two winged angels hover lower left; both hold scrolls. Behind the family group are three trees with vines entwined around their trunks. A flock of sheep grazes in the left middle distance; behind them is a mountain peak. Another complex figure group appears in the heavens above, partly contained within cloud bands left and right. At the top sits God with a halo behind his head and upper body and an open book on his lap. He points downward with his right index finger to Satan, who hovers, striding vigorously to the left, in flames. Also in the fire are the faces of Job and his wife. Four angels hover on the left side of the group; one deposits a scroll before God's throne-like chair, another holds an open book. These figures are balanced by a group of five on the right, including another angel placing a scroll before God and another holding a scroll.

nebuchadnezzar

In the 1790s

William Blake made a series of prints on oppression. One of them was about the great Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar.




Nebuchadnezzar had a dream he did not understand so he asked his jewish advisor Daniel to explain it. Summarized Daniel said he would be punished, and the punishment would end after seven years when he would acknowledge the supreme power in heaven.


This is a copper engraving coloured with pen, ink a










Nebuchadnezzar by Blake

wiki common





Frrom Wikipedia:


Nebuchadnezzar is a colour monotype print



with additions ink and watercolour portraying the Old Testament Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II by the English

poet, painter and printmaker William Blake. Taken from the

Book of Daniel , the legend of Nebuchadnezzar tells of a ruler

who through hubris lost his mind and was reduced to animalistic madness[ and eating "grass as oxen"








****************************************************

This picture is connected with Blake's personal journey, which he described in a letter to....


Blake had this to say about Nebu:

"Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him; I have had twenty; thank God I was not altogether a beast as he was; but I was a slave bound in a mill amont beasts and

devils these beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become children of light and liberty. and me feet and my wife's feet are free from fetters.