BIBLICAL TRADITION IN BLAKE'S EARLY PROPHECIES: the great code of art

389 Pages·2017·11.716 MB·English

by  Tannenbaum, Leslie

Biblical Tradition in
Blake's Early Prophecies

LESLIE TANNENBAUM
Biblical Tradition in
Blake's Early Prophecies:
The Great Code of Art
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Copyright © 1982 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William St.,
Princeton, New Jersey
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
Guildford, Surrey
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be
found on the last printed page of this book
This book has been composed in Linotype Baskerville
Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books
are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are
chosen for strength and durability
Printed in the United States of America by Princeton
University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
To Paula

Contents
PREFACE ix
TEXTUAL NOTE xiii
INTRODUCTION 3
I. Blake and Biblical Tradition 8
II. Prophetic Form:
The "Still Better Order" 25
III. The Figurative Language of Scripture
and Blake's Composite Art 55
IV. Sublime Allegory:
Blake's Use of Typology 86
v. America: "The Doors
of Marriage Are Open" 124
VI. Europe:
The Bride and the Harlot 152
VII. The Song of Los:
Enslavement to the Elements 185
VIII. The Book of Urizen:
Blake's Inverted Genesis 201
IX. The Book of Ahania:
Moses Fell and Asia Arose 225
x. The Book of Los: Los Agonistes 251
283
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY 337
363
INDEX
Vll
The Old & New Testaments are the Great Code
of Art.
—William Blake
Preface
While this book was in its initial stages, a distinguished
colleague asked me how I had the temerity to write about
so vast a subject as Blake and the Bible. I responded with
a quotation from William Godwin's The Enquirer: "When
a man writes a book of methodical investigation, he does
not write because he understands the subject, but he un­
derstands the subject because he has written." I have writ­
ten because I wanted to understand what Blake meant
when he said that the Bible is the Great Code of Art. My
investigation of this subject began with three earlier stud­
ies: one on the relationship of The Book of Urizen to
Genesis, and the two others on the biblical context of The
Ghost of Abel. In these studies I found that Blake was not
merely concerned with the Bible itself but was also engaged
with critical and exegetical premises and conclusions that
had accrued from the past and that were being actively
tested and revised in his own time. Indeed, given the enor­
mous exegetical overlay that had been imposed upon the
Bible since the time of the church fathers, it would be
difficult for someone in Blake's time to be reading, in New
Critical fashion, simply "the text itself." Therefore, I dis­
covered, the proper study of Blake's use of the Bible must
include a consideration of how Blake's contemporaries and
predecessors read the Scriptures, and how this is reflected in
Blake's theory and practice. I learned, in short, that we
cannot talk meaningfully about Blake and the Bible with­
out talking about Blake and biblical tradition. Over the
past few years, therefore, I have been concerned with exam­
ining this tradition and its relevance to Blake's ideas about
—and exploitation of—prophetic form, biblical pictorial-