An Approach to Blake*
BY E. M. FORSTER.
BLAKE is u man whom one is ashamed to review. One's feelings lie deep and are vague ; raised to the surface they appear as the thinnest of thin journalism, empty patronage, chatter. The reviewer writes his thousand words, or whatever the editor wants, he puts away his typewriter, and Good God !—what in such circumstances can he have written about Blake ? What light can lie have thrown ? What certainty has he that Blake needs light ? Praising this, . regretting that, elucidating Vother point, the article moves to its con- elusion, the article is done, the newspaper containing the article is read, is thrown away, is burnt, and a silence profounder than usual ensues ; more profound than if our subject had been Dante or Shakespeare.
For the cry that is raised by all literature—the cry of "Read me, do not write about me, do not even talk about me, but read me ! " rings with particular force through Blake. Read him ! Case at his pictures ! Not 'because he is our greatest poet or painter—he is far from being either—but because he demands more than most our co operation in the creative process. We have to get into his skin. To handle him from outside is to fall into the error of his demiurge Urizcn, who withdrew from the primal unity, and, applying laws to the universe, brought everything, himself included, to destruction. Urizen saw that' his rule was wrong, he " wept, and he called it Pity," but, entangled in chains meant for others, he supposed that the alternative to law is lawlessness, he could not imagine the service of perfect freedom. Nor can the average reader conceive of an attitude that is neither critical nor uncritical. Confusing literature with education, he supposes that he must either analyse a book or fail to master it—forgetting that there is such a state as in-dwelling, and that Blake, though he never knew us personally, is inviting each of us to dwell with him in the words that he has collected. The more we can respond, the better we shall understand him, and we must quite clear our minds of the notion that there is something weak in our yielding to him, that we are letting him off to easily, so to speak. We can dwell in his words and yet admit that they are not the wisest and best words in literature. He cannot write like this, for instance :
° Vase». the sumer it sole c raltre sidle •!
nor like this : " There lives within the very flame of lore A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it."
No, he is not Dante or Shakespeare, the grandeur attain- able only through a grand style is beyond him. But, more than his greater brethren, he asks us to join him at
.Pocros of Blake. Chosen and edited by Laurance Binyon. (Macmillan. s. ad.) his work, indeed, unless he believed we should join -him., he would neither have written nor have painted-; the wildest and most abstract of artists is also the, most intimate, the most anxious for personal co-operation : " Let Us agree to give up love And root up the infernal grove : Then shall too return and see The worlds of happy Eternity.
And throughout all Eternity. I forgive you, you forgive me. As our dear Redeemer said • This the Wine and this the Bread.' " • • • He knew the joy Of creation--his own life was radiant • because of it, and Mrs. Blake's only complaint of bins was that lie was too often away from her in Paradise--
but he never supposed that creation is the prerogative of the small minority who happen to be able to AO. a poem or pietrire or play a musical instrument. If this were so, humanity would be in a tragic plight. He bell-tired- that everyone can create—and, by the way; educationists in their pedestrian fashion now agree with hint h&c. The imagination (whom he calls Jerusalem) waits within each of us, ready to redeem from inertia and chaos,' and to lead us through action to our eternal home, and the poet- or painter-type of artist is only specially valuable when he reminds average men of the salvation they arc neglecting.
Blake is an artist, not an aesthete. He is, furthermore, a prophet as Well as an artist, and here the trouble begins. In his later writings the glamour of his invitation often fades. We can create with hint no longer, he steps out of earth into Heaven, and leaves the rest of Ais gazing after him with our unfinished toys in our handS. This is the moment when we lose patience. We' 'recall his definition of Imagination (" Imagination has nothing to do with memory "), and we disagree with it, and'mistrust visions of a future that has. no roots in the past. Tirzah, Urizen, Epitharmon, Luvah, end Los ! They Meast no more to us than a list of railWay stations in some unknown country which we shall never visit. Our impatience is natural, and as soon as Blake gets a bore we lio.d better stop reading him. But we must always realize that out failure distresses him, and that Ise would return if he could to build Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land.
The best complete edition of Blake was published a few years ago by the Nonesuch Press, but anyone who wants to be introduced to him should get this Volume of selections by Mr. Binyon, and, after reading 'it, should read the admirable preface. No one can Write lielpfull■, about Blake who is not himself a poet and can reeelket his emotions in tranquillity, and Mr. IlinYan brings exactly the right mixture of sympathy and detaelniterit to his work. In his selection all aspects of Blake (esk:ept one) are fully rePresented. We have all the gongiothinocenee and Experience, The Marriage of Hearen and. Hill; The Everlasting Gospel, &c., and a valuable selection from Prophetic Books. Notes arc added, and there'll a short terminal essay on Blake's metrical experiments..
Blake also wrote a number of trivial or,'improper epigrams. Mr. Binyon includes none of these,. and he has, of course, his reasons for their orinssionand be can argue that none of them were intended for piiblication. Yet they should have been represented. They 'reveal a suppressed irritability and a coarseness Whieli were important factors in Blake, as in most poets. An attempt is being made to-day, in the LaW Courts and 'elsewhere. to." clean up " English literature, and it is as well tai remind the juries that their task is an extensive orie; and can only be achieved by abolishing the literature of the past. In other ways Mr. Binyon's guidanee is 'complete. He has given the best approach to Blake likely 'to he made in our generation.
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