ENG308Y1 Study Guide - Spring 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - William Wordsworth, Kingdom Of England, William Blake
ENG308Y1
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
ENG308 Tuesday September 26 2017
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
-most of the form of the text is close to free verse, almost prose
-moving between lyric and prose
-aphoristic style, essayistic style
-precursor to Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals
-asking where our ideas of good and evil come from
-elements of satire:
-satire being the great genre for undercutting pretentiousness
-but it is not simply a satire, because there is a deep seriousness to what he is doing: blake
thinks he is writing something prophetic
-try to find to terms to explain
-a prophet who looks into the present to try to see what’s wrong with the present
-prophetic satire
-trying to reshape how we see the world
-rethinking categories; rethinking it’s own formal categories
-in songs of innocence and experience, blake was saying that all imaginations have to struggle
with other people’s imaginations
-a lot of this poem is a parody of other kinds of religious writing
-what’s at stake is what’s really religious: what’s the divine, what is the heavenly
-the problem of organized religion: what happens when you think you’re more religious as
someone else?
-the sociology of religion
-behind this is a very deep politic
-rethink religious to break down the political structure in England
Title page: barren trees above where the heaven is
-below, where the hell is: flames, desire
-tells us there is some relation between heaven and hell
-the purpose of the poem is to bring heaven and hell back together in some kind of unity
-but blake doesn’t believe in unities that dissolve difference: he believes in polarities and
oppositions being true friendship, the way of the universe
-perhaps at the bottom it is the body and the soul embracing
The Argument
-usurpation: the villain takes the position of the just man and drives the just man into the
wilderness
-the just man is a prophet of some kind
-in 18th C, third son of nobility were the ones who became churchmen
-Blake was associated more with evangelicalism, which was opposed to the dominant anglican
tradition
-so in this poem, one finds the prophet in the wilderness
-voice of prophet is indignant
[Plate 3]
-without contraries is no progression
-dialectical model
-thesis, antithesis, synthesis: opposing a thesis results in a higher synthesis that incorporates
the thesis and antithesis
-all dialectical thinking says you need two sides in order to get at the truth
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
-bring heaven and hell together will result in some greater truth
-the reader must find the synthesis that brings together
-reason vs energy: reason being the passive, rule making facilities
-energy breaking through the codes of reason
-prolific and the devourer
-evil is the active springing from energy
-associated place: creation coming out of energy and heat, revolution
[Plate 4]
-wants us to recognize what has been lost in the creation of a devil:what has been lost by the
isolation of the devil from heaven, from the division of the world into heaven and hell
-asking us to be dialectical in relationship to the devil, recognizing that the devil says something
we are slightly opposed to, and in the recognition of this opposition we will be able to see some
higher truth
-think about what the devil bring to the table when he tells his account
-blake believes we are entirely soul: our bodies are just the outer bounds of our soul
-we are limited in our understanding of the soul by our bodies
-that called body is a portion of the soul discerned by the 5 senses
-fights against the reduction of everything to the 5 senses locks us up in a cavern
-we confuse what our sense tell us with the world
-the counter of a religion of the senses is a religion of the imagination
[Plate 5]
-we didn’t start with heaven and then form hell
-heaven is a form of divided-ness that we confuse for being a state of unity
A Memorable Fancy
-argues with john locke: to reduce what we are to an accumulation of sensory data denies who
we truly are
-now perceive by the minds of men: text becoming self reflexive, is the events that is
describing
-we are seeing the engraving literally, first the first time, on his engraving
-relationship between his actives as an engraver and what is happening in the poem
-how do we know but evr’y Bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, closed
by your sense five?
-does the bird have consciousness, is it a subject?
-how would we ever think like a bat?
-but we have to be able to think like a bat if we are to recognize that the bat is a
subjective being
-we need our imaginations to think beyond and explore different modes of subjectivity
-our insistence, a la Locke that the only thing that matters is the sensory has locked us out of a
bigger world that should matter to us
-Blake’s idea of what a plate is is similar to Michelangelo’s idea of a statue: engraving is
exposing the hidden world just underneath the plate
-exposure through the very violent act of using acids
-the process of engraving brings out that which you cannot see
-Flat sided steep: the forehead/the plate
-trying to engrave away the skull to release the imagination
Proverbs of Hell
-the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom—characteristic of Blake’s understanding
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Most of the form of the text is close to free verse, almost prose. Asking where our ideas of good and evil come from. Satire being the great genre for undercutting pretentiousness. But it is not simply a satire, because there is a deep seriousness to what he is doing: blake thinks he is writing something prophetic. A prophet who looks into the present to try to see what"s wrong with the present. Trying to reshape how we see the world. In songs of innocence and experience, blake was saying that all imaginations have to struggle with other people"s imaginations. A lot of this poem is a parody of other kinds of religious writing. What"s at stake is what"s really religious: what"s the divine, what is the heavenly. Rethink religious to break down the political structure in england. Title page: barren trees above where the (cid:1688)heaven is(cid:1689) Tells us there is some relation between heaven and hell.
