VALA #5: Divine Humanity; or, God appears when we appear godly
Issue 5 of VALA, the journal of The Blake Society, is published on Thursday 28 November 2024 as a free download from our website. There will be an online launch that evening at 7.30 PM, to which all are welcome. Here, Editor of VALA and Chair of The Blake Society, Sibylle Erle, introduces our new issue, with the not inconsiderable theme of ‘God’.
Thou art a Man God is no more
Thy own humanity learn to adore
(The Everlasting Gospel, ll. 71-72, E520)
William Blake’s relationship with religion is complicated as well as always personal; it has a very specific historical context and it has been examined through many critical perspectives. Blake, like the Old Testament Job, wrestled with God but never lost his faith. Blake lived and breathed the stories of the Bible thanks to his Moravian upbringing. His art is deeply indebted to his Christian background. Nowadays, unfortunately, many of his poetic statements can be a little confusing for those unfamiliar with religious concepts or the tone and style of the Bible. The modern way into Blake is often via the imagination and the belief that we, as individuals, can make a difference. What comes to mind is a proverb from hell: ‘What is now proved was once only imagin’d’ (Marriage, pl. 8, E36). Like his contemporaries, Blake was obsessed with originality and sensitive towards the nuances of inspiration. To be original, a poet had to reach the equivalent of divine creation, a demand put upon artists and termed ‘primary imagination’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and parodied by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein (1818).
Shortly after his return from Felpham in 1804, Blake started on printing the long epic poems Milton and Jerusalem. Always open and ready to talk about his intimate connection with God, he describes divine inspiration as controlled transmission. Writing to his patron, Thomas Butts about Milton, he admits to relinquishing authorship:
this Poem from immediate Dictation twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time without Premeditation & even against my Will. the Time it has taken in writing was thus renderd Non Existent. & an immense Poem Exists which seems to be the Labour of a long Life all producd without Labour or Study. (E728-29)
He doesn’t have a choice. He cannot but write and do as he is told. By relinquishing authorship, Blake implies that there is no physical effort whatsoever. Creation by divine inspiration bears immediate results. What he has to offer is not only perfect, it also carries an important message. However, it would be wrong to take this stance at face value. Blake was a hard-working artist with many set-backs, and the stories about his night-visions suggest that he was working deep into the night with his wife Catherine at his side.
Tracing Blake’s use of ‘God’ in his complete works not only chronicles many different usages but also Blake’s developing thought. And yet, the early works in illuminated printing, such as All Religions Are One (1788), set forth recurring motifs. All religions, for example, have the ‘Poetic Genius’ in common. The ‘Poetic Genius’, according to Blake, is a shared true identity:
As all men are alike in outward form, So (and with the same infinite variety) all are alike in the Poetic Genius. (E1)
As all men are alike (tho’ infinitely various), So all Religions & as all similars have one source
The true Man is the source he being the Poetic Genius (E2)
The importance of this common shared origin is reiterated in the second early work, There is No Natural Religion (1788), which exists in two versions although as two independent texts. Without their ‘Poetic Genius’, Blake says, humankind is doomed:
If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character, the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be the ration of all things & stand still, unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again (E3)
he ‘Poetic Genius’ is something inside every person; it is a force that everybody ought to search out and embrace. It is the imagination, a creative force that is divine in origin. The imagination is the God of creativity within us.
In There is No Natural Religion (1788 [a]) Blake also lays the foundation of his theory of perception: ‘Man’s perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he percieves more than sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover’ (E2). This is later extended in Marriage, ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite’ (pl. 14, E39). In There is No Natural Religion [b] (1788), possibly created after All Religions are One, Blake turns to Christianity and moves on to practical matters (E3):
Application. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.
Therefore
God becomes as we are,
that we may be as he
is
Much later Blake and Henry Crabb Robinson came to talk about the historical Jesus, who, according to Blake, was a prophet and not the only incarnation of God on earth: ‘On my asking in what light he viewed the great question concerning the divinity of Jesus Christ, he said, “He is the only God;” but then he added, “And so am I and so are you”’ (Bentley 2004: 421). The difference between God, Jesus, you and me is one in degree but not in kind. This is why Blake thinks of the ‘Poetic Genius’ as a source of strength and hope that everybody can draw on. It’s high time that we embrace this sentiment. Blake’s message is a call to (creative) action and it concerns everybody. This VALA, like those before her, includes new poetry, original art and a new short story — all inspired by Blake’s art and poetry. These contributions are framed and layered with critical and artistic reflections that articulate what needs to happen to accommodate ‘Blake’ in our lives and creative processes.
References
Bentley, G. E. Jr., Blake Records, second edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004)
Sibylle Erle
Chairperson and Editor of VALA: The Journal of the Blake Society
