BOOKS OF THE WEEK
Blake and Yeats
THE new volume published for the Blake Trust contains a facsimile of the "Rinder" copy, which was etched in black ink, and also a frontispiece in colour (black and light brown), reproduced from a proof of Blake's frontispiece in the possession of Mr. Geoffrey Keynes, who contributes a foreword. The whole text of "Jerusalem' is also printed in letter-press. The edition is limited to 2,500 copies. It is a very fine book, and, to my mind, not the least, of its merits is the fact that, because of the size of the page and the ready availability of the illustrations, this difficult poem is made more easy and exciting to read than 1 have ever found it in other editions. • It must be admitted, however, that no beauties of typography or of presentation can make the poem anything but exceedingly difficult. There are, of course, many passages where the verse must sweep the reader along in its own fine frenzy and lead him to behold with delight and admiration something of the terrific vision of the mystic Poet. But there are other passages which are most bleak and for- bidding. Not only do "Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic," but much else besides. And I imagine that there are many people who, when reading the Prophetic Books and after sticking on some such a line as "The Hermaphroditic Condensations are Divided by the Knife," will turn back to the earlier poems and will wonder whether all these visionary pages are worth a single one of the Songs of Innocence or of Experience.
Such an impatient attitude, though nat ural, is not to be commended. The author of "Jerusalem" and "Milton" is the same man as the author of "Tyger, Typr" and "0 Rose, thou art sick." Everything we have from his pen must be respected, and almost everything Can be admired. And if, in his later works, he becomes difficult to follow because of the peculiarity of his own system of mythology, we are not entitled to dismiss this mythology as a fraud or to deplore it as an unfortunate accident. This is what Mr. T. S. Eliot seems to do when he writes of Make: " What his v.nius required, and what it sadly lacked, was a framework of accepted and traditional ideas which would have prevented him from indulging in a philosophy of his Own, and concentrated his attention upon the problems of the poet." To me it seems that, while nearly ever ybody does "need" this "frame- work of accepted and traditional ideas," Blake is one of the great exceptions to the rule. He was a self-educated mystic, and, had this not been so, his powerful and peculiar vision would certainly have been different. One must be bold indeed to suggest that it would have been, in any sense, "better."
The poet who is also a mystic is so rare a phenomenon that he is bound to raise problems of literary criticism. Some of these are attacked with &eat vigour and at some length by Miss Margaret Rudd in a study of Blake and Yeats. According to Miss Rudd, "it is vision, mystical vision, that Yeats longed to win in imitating Blak6, and it is vision that we are examining in this study." Her Method is to contrast the attitude of Blake the prophet with that of Yeats the magician. Blake, with a rare single-mindedness, follows the difficult path of the mystic and is rewarded with the mystic's vision. Yeats, though he attempts to follow Blake, makes the initial mistake' of choosing the method of magic rather than the arduous pursuit of sainthood. His doctrines of the "anti-self" and of "the mask," even his romantic love for Maud Gonnz, lead him astray. He is a schizophrenic and a gnostic, and, as such, typical of the times in which we live.
In spite of all this .Yeats remains, as Miss Rudd would be the first to admit, a very great poet. - The question as to whether he would
have been a better poet if he had followed the mystical way is dis-
cussed but not answered. In the course of the discussion many interesting things are said and much useful research is done. It is interesting, for example, to find that Yeats' early enthusiasm for Blake left such a mark on him that some of the images and actual Phrases of so late a poem as "The Second Coming" are clearly derived from the memory or the re-reading of one of the Prophetic Books. But, even in detail, Miss Rudd's criticism does not seem to me to be always reliable. It is odd that she finds "a startling likeness" between Blake's Mad Song and a Chinese poem which seems to be as sane as can be. It is also provoking to be told that any one of Blake's poems is "undoubtedly" his greatest. A more serious criticism may be made of the whole method of approach to these poets. Miss Rudd describes her approach as "frankly Christian," but her method reminds one more of the inquisitorial and dogmatic elements in Christianity than of any others. It seems to be assumed throughout that Yeats had some moral obligation to make himself more like Blake. Indeed there are some sentences which almost give the impression that, in Miss Rudd's view, all poetry, except that of Blake's type, should disappear. For example:
"I would suggest that the attitude of the magician must disappear in the face of the greater insight of the saint, although it may have served its purpose. The horizontal dynamics of evocation which is the magician's job mast come to rest in the final evocation—as one might be permitted to call the vision of the saint without for- getting the vertical dynamics of Grace."
Such sentences are neither instructive nor pleasant to read. And there cannot be either accuracy or good taste in Miss Rudd's judge- ment that Mr. Eliot is treading "the orderly short cut to mystical vision, secure in the knowledge that he has arranged a fine welcome in heaven." Arrogance of this kind must offend the reader, and make him less willing than he would otherwise have been to follow a discussion which, whether one agrees with the conclusions or not, is vigorously conducted and often full of interest.
REX WARNER.
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