Blake the Mystic
INTEREST in William Blake is increasing steadily, and investigators pore over the symbolic books of the poet in the hope of solving the great riddle. These latter-day scholiasts have one thing in common,
despite their grave differences; of them regard themselves as lonely pioneers. Miss Mona ilson, whose ample biography of the poet was reprinted recently, admits in her preface that she did not consult all the other monographs, and her attitude is significant. The discoverers keep to themselves. But we may suspect that, some time in the future, controversy over Blake will quicken and present- day theories become material for fiery dispute..
Dr. Blackstone has left his rivals far behind, for, while they are still delayed by poetic cryptograms, he hastens to emphasise the value of Blake as a spiritual teacher in these days of confusion and perplexity. His practical exposition, though breath-taking at times, induces a mood of confidence, but it is not always convincing. With paradoxical abruptness he asserts that Blake was thoroughly English in his very opposition to the English tradition of inductive philosophy, and finds in his extreme reaction a new norm. " For the West, he is a key figure in mystical thought. The writings of Blake stand beside the Gita, the Upanishads and the Tao Teh Ching among the spiritual masterpieces of the world." Unfortunately, Dr. Blackstone feels constrained to depreciate the literary element in writing. "The poet, the man of letters, all too often writes from an impure motive or with impure technique, He has one eye on his subject, the other on himself and his readers.. . . The mystic, on the other hand, writes at the end of a long process of ' self-naughting,' of doing away with masks and veils and everything that obscures the real self."
This is altogether too simple, and Dr. Blackstone cannot get rid of literary criticism so easily as he thinks. Moreover, he shares with other enthusiasts an important fault ; he overlooks the fact that Blake was not only a poet but a working artist. Compare the vigorous art of the designs and engravings, due to the sheer necessity of the medium, with the slack literary technique of the mythological books. Lacking the imaginative loveliness of the Songs of Innocence and of Experience—a delight which vanishes all too soon after the Book of Thel—would we have been lured by the druidic nomenclature and mythology of the Prophetic Books? It must be admitted that Dr. Blackstone insists on the poetic value of these books, and quotes in admiration a well-known passage from The Four Zoas, in which the stars are described :
" Others triangular, right angled course maintain. Others obtuse, Acute, Scalene, in simple paths ; but others move In intricate ways, biquadrate, Trapeziums, Rhombs, Rhomboids, Parallelograms triple and quadruple, polygonic
In theif amazing hard subdu'd course in the vast deep."
But few will agree with Dr. Blackstone that Blake has succeeded in turning " this odd collection of mathematical terms into great poetry."
Between Blake's concrete drawings and the vague thought-forms of his mystical writings there is a curious contrast, but scarcely, as is implied in his philosophy, a tension of opposites. Blake saw all in terms of eternity, yet there are times when we feel that an ordinary emotion is concealed by exaggerated diction. When Blake was offered the loan of a cottage at Felpham by his friend,. Hayley, he wrote almost in Miltonic terms:
" We are .safe arrived at our Cottage, which is more beautiful than I thought it, and most convenient. It is a perfect Model for Cottages and, I think, for Palaces of Magnificence, only Enlarging, not altering its proportions, and adding ornaments and not principals. Nothing can be more Grand than its Simplicity and Usefulness."
There is something very human, too, in the fact that Blake quickly tired of the pleasures of country existence.
Despite his belief that Blake was above all vulgar error, Dr. Black- stone can be a shrewd critic. Other commentators have agreed that tht poet's marriage was ideal, but Dr. Blackstone suggests that he was for years aggrieved by a possessive devotion which conflicted with his mystical belief in unfettered love. Certainly his mysticism is stimulating and imaginatively tempting, for this strange poet and artist, borrowing from Marcion and other distant Gnostics, brings us a little nearer to a religion which is all joy and, therefore, with- out cant ; it holds, too, within itself the dream and promise of a new
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