Even in the prose preface to Jerusalem Blake adopted the phraseology of the preface to Paradise Lost: When this Verse was first dictated to me I consider'd a Monotonous Cadence like that used by Milton & Shakspeare & all writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modern bondage of Rhyming, to be a necessary and indispensable part of Verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward, but as much a bondage as rhyme itself.1 22 How naturally ideas and words of the earlier poet came to him is shown by his explaining in a letter that he was "of the same opinion with Milton when he says that the Muse visits his slumbers and awakes and governs his song when morn purples the east.' There is probably an unconscious reference to another passage from Paradise Lost, of similar import, in his remark to Butts, "I have written this poem from immediate dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without premeditation." He seems to have taken Milton's allusions to the visits of the muse more seriously and to have interpreted them more literally than most persons do, for he wrote: "The Ancients did not mean to Impose when they affirmed their belief in Vision and Revelation. Plato was in earnest. Milton was in earnest. They believed that God did visit Man really and Truly." It is also not unlikely that the phrase "the Daughters of Memory," which he uses several times when scornfully contrasting (Vala, ii. 66), "adamantine leaves” (ib. vi. 171), “the vast of Nature" (Song of Los, 42), suggest Paradise Lost, i. 48, ii. 645-6, etc., vi. 203, as do the words "englobed," "englobing," "conglobing" (Urizen, ix. 9, Vala, i. 123, iii. 87, iv. 95, vi. 120, etc., cf. P. L., vii. 239), and "petrific" (Vala, iv. 168, cf. P. L., x. 294). M. Paul Berger (William Blake, Mysticisme et Poésie, Paris, 1907, p. 329) regards Blind-man's Buff as "inspiré par un passage de l'Allegro de Milton," but only five lines (8-12) in Blake's octosyllabics have for me any suggestion of Milton's. Samson, which was originally published as prose, Mr. E. J. Ellis, following W. M. Rossetti, prints as blank verse and considers Blake's "most Miltonic fragment" (Poetical Works, 1906, i. 539-40). M. Berger (pp. 328–9) says of it, “Les expressions de Milton et celles de la Bible sont copiées presque mot à mot." I find but one such expression, the very dubious description of the angel, "His form was manhood in the prime" (cf. P. L., xi. 245–6), — and, except possibly in the fourth and fifth sentences, no evidence of Milton's influence. The piece, in my opinion, was intended as poetry but not as blank verse. 1 Compare Milton's "rime being no necessary adjunct . . . of . . . good verse... a fault avoided... in.. . all good oratory . . . the troublesome and modern bondage of riming." 2 To Dr. Trusler, Aug. 16, 1799; cf. P. L., vii. 28–31. to me.. 3 Letter of April 25, 1803; cf. P. L., ix. 20-24, "my celestial patroness ... dictates my unpremeditated verse.' Milton likewise dictated "Ten, Twenty, or Thirty Verses at a Time" to his amanuenses (see Phillips's life, p. xxxvi, in Milton's Letters of State, 1694). • Note in Reynolds's Discourses (Ellis's Real Blake, 392). 1 the classical muses with "the Daughters of Inspiration," was suggested by the noble words in the Reason of Church Government, where Milton refers to his epic as a work "not to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory and her siren daughters." We know that this passage impressed Blake, since he wrote it in a copy of Reynolds's Discourses.2 The style and diction of Paradise Lost he would seem no more likely to adopt than he was to borrow phrases. The "Monotonous Cadence" of blank verse he felt to be "as much a bondage as rhyme,' and discarded it for a loose, half-prose measure of his own with long lines that fall into six, seven, or eight feet, usually seven. Yet, just as he did not escape borrowed expressions, he could not rid himself entirely from the qualities with which he had always been familiar in unrimed poetry. He may not have tried; at any rate, he has many inversions that are marked and unnatural, as well as many adjectives used as adverbs which frequently sound more Miltonic from being taken out of their normal positions. Sometimes, as in Paradise Lost, a noun is placed between two of its qualifying adjectives, as "heavy clouds confused," "ornamented pillars square Of fire," "hard iron petrific," "flakey locks terrific," "a mighty sound articulate," "in white linen pure he hovered," "fluxile eyes englob'd roll." When there are several adjectives after the noun and but one or none before it, there is a Miltonic effect something like that of apposition: "a crack across from immense to immense, Loud, strong"; "panting in sobs, Thick, short, incessant"; "dire flames, Quenchless, unceasing"; "a lovely form, inspired, divine, human"; He approached the East, Void, pathless, beaten with eternal sleet, and eternal hail and rain. Thirty of Tiriel's sons remained, to wither in the palace – The following passages will show that at times the prophetic books are clearly influenced by the style of Paradise Lost: I hear the screech of Childbirth loud pealing, & the groans Of Death, in Albion's clouds dreadful utter'd over all the Earth. 1 For example, at the beginning of his account of his picture the "Last Judgment," and in Milton, preface, and 12:29. 2 See Ellis's Real Blake, 381. 3 Tiriel, v. 14; Vala, ii. 275–6, iv. 168, vi. 238, ix. 12; Jerusalem, 29:38 (also Vala, iii. 51), 29:68. ♦ Vala, iii. 151-2, 157–8; vi. 263-4; vii. 465; vi. 144–5; Tiriel, v. 33-4. M. Berger, who calls attention to this Miltonism of Blake's (pp. 426-7), notes similar instances in Paradise Lost, i. 52-3, 60. Though not unusual in Vala, it is very rare in the other prophetic books. The Twelve Daughters of Albion attentive listen in secret shades Henceforth, Palamabron, let each his own station Keep: nor in pity false, nor in officious brotherhood, where Rag'd with thick flames redundant, & the Harrow madden'd with fury. They Plow'd in tears! incessant pour'd Jehovah's rain & Molech's Terrible over their heads. Suddenly around Milton on my Path, the Starry Seven As the clear Sun & Milton silent came down on my Path. And there went forth from the Starry limbs of the Seven, Forms As the Seven spake.1 The lines given below not only illustrate the style of Vala but may show indebtedness to the subject-matter of Paradise Lost, particularly to that part of the fifth book in which Satan first plots rebellion with Beelzebub: His family Slept round on hills and valleys in the region of his love. But Urizen awoke, and Luvah awoke, and they conferred thus. Thou Luvah, said the Prince of Light, behold our sons and daughters Into thy wished kingdom, where in Majesty and Power We may create a throne. Deep in the North I place my lot, Luvah replied: Dictate thou to thy equals, am not I The Prince of all the hosts of men, nor equal know in Heaven? ... Sent round his heralds secretly, commanding to depart Into the North.... Sudden, down fell they all together into an unknown space, Deep, horrible, without end, from Beulah separate, far beneath." 1 Jerusalem, 34:23-4, 82:10-12; Milton, 5:42–5, 6:27-9, 40:3-8. 2 Vala, i. 457-514; cf. P. L., v. 647-701, vi. 864–70. This similarity and one or two others that I have called attention to were pointed out by M. Saurat (Blake and Milton, 15-23, 35). Perhaps M. Saurat is justified in asserting (p. 17), "The journeys of Urizen in the sixth Night of Vala, his explorations through the dark world of Urthona are strongly reminiscent of Satan's travels through outer Hell and Chaos." Urizen's journey, particularly the part described in Vala, vi. 72–176, is vaguely suggestive of Satan's, and his encounter with the "three terrific women" who are his daughters (Vala vi. 1-23) is somewhat like Satan's meeting with his offspring Sin and Death; Blake's supreme tribute is the poem Milton, which not only contains a larger proportion of phrases from Paradise Lost than do the other books, makes as much use of its style, and prints its line, To Justify the Ways of God to Men, on the title-page, but introduces its author as a principal character. Yet, since the only connections between this title-character and the man John Milton are the references to his "sixty" (really sixty-six) years of life, to his death a "hundred" (really one hundred thirty) years before this poem was begun, and to his three wives and three daughters, it seems as if Blake intended him to represent not so much the author of Paradise Lost as "the poet" in general. For, in the words of M. Berger, "Milton était pour lui le Poète par excellence." 1 The work pictures Milton as "unhappy tho' in heav'n" because his "Sixfold Emanation" (his three wives and three daughters, his separation from whom represents his errors) is "scatter'd thro' the deep In torment." Through the song of a bard - an allegorical account of Blake's quarrel with Hayley which represents the subjection of genius to inferiority - he is roused to 'give up Selfhood' and redeem this "Sixfold Emanation" by descending once more into the world and by entering into Blake. The remainder of the poem is taken up with the acts of the strange mythological beings who people the other prophetic books. Milton's entrance into Blake may mean simply the descent of poetic inspiration and the divine commission; it may also signify that the spirit of the elder writer prompted the younger to compose a poem intended to correct, among other things, the errors taught in Paradise Lost regarding sex; 2 or it may mean that in general Milton's spirit had taken possession of his admirer. There are several reasons why Blake might have regarded himself as a kind of reincarnation or poetic son of the earlier writer. The emphasis in Paradise Lost upon the nudity of our first parents would have met with his hearty approval, for he seems to have had a decided preference for the undraped figure in life as well as in art; the frank treatment of Adam's relations with Eve must have pleased him still more, since the doctrine on which he insisted most often was that of combut the similarities are so few and general that there is no certainty that the Milton passages were even unconsciously in Blake's mind when he wrote. 1 Berger, p. 426. 2 Blake, it will be remembered, told Crabb Robinson that Milton asked him to "correct, in a poem or picture,” an error he had made in Paradise Lost (see above, p. 219; the italics are mine). Allan Cunningham asserts (Lives of the most Eminent Painters, etc., 1830, ii. 157) that Milton "entrusted him with a whole poem of his, which the world had never seen," - that is, Milton. plete freedom in matters of sex; and the teachings of the epic as to the superiority of the male and the absolute authority to be exercised over the female were in entire accord with his own theory and practice. Milton's vigorous, dynamic, positive personality was also very much to the taste of one who even on his death-bed sang so powerfully as to 'make the rafters ring,' who regarded negative virtues as vices, and scorned the mild insipidity of Hayley, whose "mother on his father him begot." Furthermore, the lofty nobility that marks all of Milton's work would be neither overlooked nor unappreciated by one who was deeply religious in his own way, who worshipped the Bible, took a profoundly serious and spiritual view of life, and was intolerant of the mean, the low, and the trivial. The verse of Paradise Lost likewise appealed to Blake, for he tells us that he at first considered using something like it in Jerusalem. Milton did not go far enough, to be sure; but he was the recognized leader of the free-verse movement, and Blake's meter was closer to his than to that of any other English poem. The extensive use of run-over lines in Paradise Lost, and the substitution of free musical paragraphs for lines as the basis of prosody, must also have pleased and probably have influenced the author of Jerusalem. Then, too, Milton's feeling that his unpremeditated verse was dictated to him by a heavenly messenger coincided with Blake's conception of the origin of his own work and may have strengthened him in the idea.2 Besides, Blake was a revolutionist, one who associated with radicals like Tom Paine, Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Priestley, and hailed the American and French republics with enthusiasm. Although he disapproved of the political activities of the Latin secretary of the Commonwealth, his highly-strung nature must have vibrated in deep sympathy with Milton's passion for liberty of every kind. As he read his life and works, talked with his biographer Hayley, or considered his independence in religion, literature, politics, and divorce, he may well have thought that the spirit which did these things had indeed entered into him. Satan, the arch-rebel of all poetry, must have thrilled him with unusual joy. At least, he once declared him to be the true Saviour, and gave his name to an 1 "Of H―'s birth," Ellis's edition of Works, i. 170. In Vala, iii. 116–20, Urizen contrasts "feminine indolent bliss" and "passive idle sleep" with "active masculine virtue," and exclaims, Thy passivity, thy laws of obedience and insincerity "The Weak Man may be Virtuous Enough, but will Never be an Artist," Blake wrote in Reynolds's Discourses (Ellis's Real Blake, 378). See p. 222 above. |
