BLAKE'S TYGER
A Christological Interpretation
K. D. SETHNA
Cover Drawing by Ritam
March 1989
© K. D. Sethna
Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press
Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry
PRINTED IN INDIA
This essay in interpretation has grown out of half a dozen talks given during 1959 to students of First Year Arts at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Pondicherry (South India) in the course of a general study of poetic vision and expression.
It is mostly the pursuit, along several ways, of what has seemed to the author a new line of symbolic significance in Blake's intensest lyric, The Tyger. When it touches on the readings attempted by others, the aim has not been to exhaust the whole range of exegesis. As a rule, only those comments which, on coming to hand, have appeared to be immediately relevant as either guiding hints or partial supports or possible objections have been quoted and dealt with.
The author has benefited from the judicious remarks of a few friends in South India, especially those at the University of Annamalai and, among them, Professor M.S. Duraiswamy in particular, to whom Dr. V.S. Seturaman enthusiastically took the typescript of the original draft of the essay. It is also owing to their eagerness to interest Blake-scholars in England that the author set himself to make out of his talks a thesis for the scrutiny of experts.
The essay, in a somewhat revised version, went to England when, replying to Prof. Duraiswamy, Prof. J.H. Buxton of Oxford wrote that Sir Geoffrey Keynes would be glad to look at it. It is difficult to thank Sir Geoffrey adequately for the true scholar's courtesy he has shown to an unknown though earnest researcher. A triple courtesy as his letter of January 21, 1961 proved - for, he did not only read the essay and declare himself "very favourably impressed" though, in his opinion, "it needed a good deal of condensation": he also sent it to one whom he considered a great Blake-authority, Miss Kathleen Raine, and as his "own tribute" he presented me with an inscribed copy of
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his edition of Blake's complete writings published by the Nonesuch Press in 1957. Miss Raine, on her part, was kind enough -as Sir Geoffrey put it - to think my research "worth criticising in detail" as well as to begin her long report on it to him with the encouraging words: "I like his essay immensely, for it is written by a mind with insight into the realities that concerned Blake also. In spite of its length and diffuseness I read it straight with continuous pleasure and the sympathy one feels with minds of quality and undistorted by any of the falsehoods so rife in modern criticism (and poetry also!)."
A happy discussion started between Miss Raine and the author. The correspondence ran for nearly a year and to a length that would make of it a little book by itself. As a result the original draft had to be modified or rewritten in several places at the same time that there was no alteration in fundamentals. In her letters Miss Raine elaborated what she had already laid down in her report. On the one hand she had seen my central thesis to contain "illuminating truth" and had even gone on to say to Sir Geoffrey: "I think he has found a profound truth not seen by any of us hitherto." On the other hand she had stoutly disputed a number of important points and offered some reconstructive suggestions. But at almost the end (July 25, 1961) of the main bulk of the debate by correspondence she was still generous enough to make a statement for which one cannot be sufficiently grateful: "I think you have more insight into the poem than any other commentator has ever done, and I hope to see your Essay published soon, with or without the modifications I have suggested. Some you may accept, others reject, of course."
Miss Raine allowed the author to read even her own essay on The Tyger, unpublished at the time, in its final revised form, and later the rough draft of her A.W. Mellon Lectures meant to be delivered in 1962 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington City. A part of them too expounded in a briefer and slightly altered shape the same poem. In the light of her far-reaching perceptions no less than extensive scholarship the author has realised many things more precisely and concretely:
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without her challenges he could not have set himself in the right direction towards his own goal. It was clear to him that unless he could meet all her objections his thesis was bound to fall short. He has tried to plug every possible leak and examined from all sides the particulars of her own splendid interpretation of The Tyger, feeling that if he could not pass beyond it this reading would certainly be the last word on the poem.
It is for the wide world of Blake-experts to pronounce whether or not he has succeeded in the difficult task undertaken. But the pronouncement they have to make must be based not merely on the arguments advanced in the face of Miss Raine's view. It must be based also on the several converging lines developed in favour of an alternative view independently of the issues here involved. The two main lines are: (1) the pattern of vision discoverable in The Tyger by a minute study of the lyric in itself and (2) the analogy of this pattern, both imaginatively and verbally, to certain phases of the Chris-tological drama unfolded in the course of Milton's Paradise Lost.
Miss Raine's charge of diffuseness against the original draft of the essay referred principally to the setting forth of the Miltonic analogy. But she was not altogether critical when she wrote to Sir Geoffrey: "I agree that the section on Milton wanders and is in great need of cutting. At the same time I think it contains a great deal that is convincing and excellent, and in general I think Mr. Sethna has proved beyond doubt that The Tyger is steeped in Miltonic thought." Later she wrote to the author: "As to Milton, while I agree that he is always with Blake, I think the influence of Alchemical and Hermetic thought, and of Boehme, was no less strong and in this poem has given him the symbolic bones, Milton only the imagery.... To be steeped in Miltonic thought is not to derive wholly from Milton."
After all this had been written, the section on Milton was redone. Whatever, in the author's opinion, seemed to "wander" was cut out. But, although he sought to guard against diffuseness, he could not help elaborating parts of the section
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further and adding much new material, so as to demonstrate fully that no other influences need be admitted in regard at least to the fundamental significance and structure of the poem's story.
If this section tries the reader's patience, which it most probably will unless he is both Milton-struck and Blake-bitten, he need not plough through it beyond the point sufficient to render my case plausible. He may return to the skipped parts after the rest of the book in order to complete the new understanding.
The relevance of this section will actually appear greater from some comments at almost the end of the book. For there what I feel to be the fullest and most satisfying interpretation of another famous and much-discussed lyric of Blake's - "And did those feet in ancient time" - emerges against a background affined to the Tyger-Miltonic.
Perhaps a long essay - long not only by the section on Milton but also by some other chapters - on a short poem "burning bright" runs the risk of looking markedly prosaic. But Blake's poetry is often apt to dazzle, and a patient tracing of the form in which, as he says somewhere, fire delights may not be ungrateful labour - especially if the form happens to be complex. Only, the "fearful symmetry" should be caught with neither too dull an eye nor too cold a hand. Besides, except for the first two chapters,1 the book is meant really for Blake-cultists -not a small number, though, since they must run into many thousands - and it is to be hoped that they will permit a fellow-enthusiast his full say and, like Miss Raine and Sir Geoffrey, feel that he has striven to seize Blake's vision not quite without first quickening with his fire of "distant deeps or skies".
K.D.S.
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry,
April 22, 1962.
1. These chapters have since been published in a commemorative volume in honour of Professor M.S. Duraiswamy, Critical Essays on English Literature, edited by V. Seturaman (Orient Longmans, Madras, 1965). - K.D.S. (1976)
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Six years after this Preface, Miss Raine's monumental work was published: Blake and Tradition, Two Volumes (Bollingen Series XXXV. 11, Princeton University Press, U.S.A., 1968). In two places in her notes at the end of the work she has done me the honour of referring to my essay.
On p. 230 of Vol. I, in the course of her own thesis, she has the statement: "Blake's Tyger is another fiery beast, created in the furnaces of the demiurge by the theft of 'fire,' the solar spiritual principle.78" Her note 78 on p. 407 reads: "K. D. Sethna has written a fine exposition of this theme, still unpublished at the time of writing."
Vol. II, p. 5, finds her saying: "If Lamb and Tyger are alike expressions of the divine energy, under what conditions does the Tyger come into existence? If the 'fires' are the First Principle of the Divine Essence (as Boehme taught), does some agency other than the supreme God impose a form of evil upon the primal energy?4"
P. 285 has note 4 as follows:
"Mr. K.D. Sethna, who kindly allowed me to read his unpublished essay on The Tyger, also sees the 'fires' of the Tyger as a manifestation of the Divine Essence, and his conclusion is in accord with what we know of Blake's indebtedness to Boehme and the alchemists. I cannot accept all Mr. Sethna's conclusions, but many of them, reached by lines of thought different from those followed in this work, strikingly confirm what had been the inevitable outcome of a retracing of Blake's reading. After becoming acquainted with Mr. Sethna's essay I found myself obliged to rewrite some pages of this study, not so much in order to adopt his conclusions as, in one or two particulars, to strengthen my reasons for not doing so. I must therefore thank Mr. Sethna for what I have learned from him through a correspondence that has, apart from its application to
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this theme, confirmed me in the belief that a knowledge of tradition, such as he possesses (though in a form unknown to Blake), is of more value in giving insight into his work than the profane 'learning' of academic critics who are ignorant of the order of reality that Blake is at all times attempting to communicate."
From Miss Raine's comment, it would seem that the choice for a final interpretation of The Tyger lies between her conclusions and those towards which I worked my way. The latter stand mightily besieged. Whether they can hold out is an issue not to be prejudged by their author. All he can hug to his heart is the keen joy of living dangerously face to face with so gallant an enemy.
October 10, 1983
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This book, written originally in 1961, has had to wait for more than a quarter century to get published. Although appreciated, it was returned by one publishing company in India because it was judged unlikely to have an appeal wide enough for large sales. My friend Arabinda Basu made an attempt to interest publishers in the U.S.A. An enterprising company received a favourable verdict from one official reader, but a discouraging opinion from another. As the latter may have been more forcefully expressed, no resort was made to a third and final arbitrating assessment. Now at last funds have come for me to bring the book out on my own. My nephew Dr. Ferdauz N. Canteenwalla, practising in the States, has made the liberal gift.
The book has not undergone any change since the Postscript was written, except in two respects. First, I have set right a small number of scholarly peccadilloes to which my attention was silently drawn by whoever had read the typescript for the American publisher with special care: he had put marginal signs in pencil against a few syntactical oversights, misspellings, inaccurate references or slips in quotations. The rejection of my book has not been devoid of some advantage to me. Secondly, I have added as an Appendix a fine letter of critical appraisal from Miss Raine, dated February 4, 1979, after she had gone through the typescript in its final form, and a comment on her outlook by myself rounding off the discussion that had started nearly twenty years earlier.
All through the book and even in the rounding-off comment it is suggested that either Miss Raine has hit the mark or I have done it: the two visions cannot be fused except in a very minor sense. But now I may conjure up a possibility beyond their mutual exclusion as regards fundamentals. I leave it to experts to contemplate the strange question: "Could The Tyger by any
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chance yield a double perspective, the central theme allowing two distinct antithetical views, alternatively Christological-Miltonic and Alchemical-Hermetic?"
February 21, 1987
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1
The Tyger:
The Problem of its Symbolism
Ever since 1794 Blake's Tyger has confronted critics with its mystery no less than its intensity. They have yet to find definitive answers to the questions that beat upon us in quick succession out of the famous poem like a roll of wild drums reaching us at once from near and far:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
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Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?1
Blake's beast of prey has long been recognised as a symbol. But there are levels and kinds of symbolisation. And one may inquire at the outset whether the Tyger is symbolic in any except the most simple sense of representing not solely a particular type of carnivore but all grandiose destructive forces at work in the world - forces that at once terrify and impress, cause dismay and rouse admiration. Why not stop with the chilled awed wonder whether the God who had benignly created gentle and peaceful entities like the Lamb could be the same as the God who is stern enough to create fierce ones like the Tyger - whether the same God has put into the human mind the contrasting qualities of loving kindness and devastating anger, sweet reasonableness and ferocious strength? Is it necessary to read in the figure of the familiar predatory animal, round which Blake has woven what a critic has aptly called "an obsessive chant", a more recondite truth?
With D.W. Harding, who favours the simplest reading of the poem,2 we may regret the accumulating mass of divergent exegeses along elaborate paths of specialised "intellectual meanings that are too remotely and indirectly derived from the words" and determined chiefly by each commentator "following up the allusions and associations that mean most to him."3 We may also sympathise with Harding's recoil from expositions that have "a parish-magazine quality of sentiment... totally
1.The Complete Writings of William Blake, with all the variant readings, edited by Geoffrey Keynes (The Nonesuch Press, London), 1957, p. 214. (The later edition published by the Oxford University Press, London, in 1966, under the same editor, is a photographic reprint from the earlier one and does not change line or page numbering except for pp. 110 and 420 where the number of the lines has been affected without in the least affecting the references in my book. K.D.S., 1987)
2."William Blake" in From Blake to Byron, edited by Boris Ford (Pelican Books, Harmondsworth), 1957, pp. 68-69.
3.Ibid., pp. 69, 70.
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foreign to the tautness and strength of the state of mind Blake invites us to share."4 We may further grant the simplest reading to be not really what Blake condemned when he wrote to Dr. J. Trusler on August 23, 1799, about his own paintings: "That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care. The wisest of the Ancients considered what is not too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction, because it rouses the faculties to act."5 This reading has its own subtlety in referring us to the contrasting qualities of the human mind no less than to physical or animal antithesis - a theme which, though commonplace, is yet, as Harding6 observes, "a fact of supreme human importance, the focus of sharp psychological conflict in individual minds and of unending theological and philosophical discussion."
But the interpretation a la Harding does scant justice to the atmosphere of secret significances the poem conjures up with its "forests of the night" and its "distant deeps and skies", the mythopoeic strangeness of vision it sets before us with its Tyger-form all ablaze, its winged aspiring immortal creator, its celestial smithy, its warrior stars who part with their weapons and break into tears - a recording as of events in a dimension other than the physical, facts of a life beyond the merely psychological, issues arising among supernatural protagonists before pertaining to the world of theologians and philosophers. How shall we confine ourselves to regarding the various turns of the language as no more than a vivid rhetoric of peculiarly cast imagery when the animal apostrophised under an earthly name seems to be part of a picture half weird half sublime such as we may expect from the Blake who claimed again and again to look into heavenly movements preceding earth's history and into the harmonies and conflicts of mighty beings in "Eternity"?
Whether or not we credit Blake's mysticism with insight into another order of reality, we have to acknowledge that he was visited by abnormal experiences as though of some Supernature.
4.Ibid., p. 70.
5.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 793 (The Letters,
6.Op. cit, pp. 68-69.
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On these experiences we cannot do better than listen to the master of the most integral form of the spiritual discipline that is Yoga, Sri Aurobindo, who was also a master of literary criticism and himself a rare poet of both Life and Spirit, with even a phrase which is the most memorable outside Blake on the Tiger -
Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft soundless paws
of grandeur and murder.7
In Sri Aurobindo's view, Blake did have occult insight, and the Supernature of "Europe's greatest mystic poet"8 is the "middle world" of subtle "planes" lying between earth and the sovereignly spiritual levels of the highest seers and saints of the West as well as the East. But, with his acute soul-sense and inward look and the exercise, time and again, of that "supreme power of expression" which Sri Aurobindo9 attributes to him, Blake, we may say, has not missed the truths of these levels. He embodies them, in the terms of his own temperament, to the farthest limit to which those truths may penetrate through the middle world in luminous myth and symbol or be shadowed forth by it in complicated parable and allegory. Thus, in its figure of "Divine Humanity", described sometimes as "All glorious Imagination", with its "Four Zoas" - Los, Urizen, Luvah, Tharmas - in their unfallen state, "Living Creatures" "pervading all,... each in the other reflected", we can see not only a more mystical version of Jung's "Collective Unconscious" and his psychological division of man into Intuition, Thought, Feeling and Sensation. In it we can also discern with Kathleen Raine10 a presentment of "the Self of the Upanishads known to mystics both Platonic and Christian as beyond the conscious self."
7.Collected Poems (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry), 1972, p. 569.
8.The Future Poetry and Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art (Sri Aurobindo Ashram), 1972, p. 529.
9.Ibid., p. 442.
10. William Blake (Published for the British Council and the National Book League by Longmans Green & Co., London, New York, Toronto), 1951, p. 25.
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For, Blake's middle world seems considerably to overpass the dubious, fluctuant mass of what we commonly term "psychical phenomena." According to Sri Aurobindo,11 "Blake lives ordinarily far up in this middle world of which Coleridge only catches some glimpses or at most stands occasionally just over its borders. His seeing teems with its images, he hears around him the echoes of its sounds and voices. He is not only a seer, but almost an inhabitant of other planes and other worlds; or at least this second sight is his normal sight. "
His Tyger, to one who is sensitive to abnormal poetry, may well seem a straight capture from the higher, more concordant and significant regions of the same Supernature from whose nightmarish pits may be hailing the snakes that, as F.W. Bateson12 remarks, "writhe in and through and around so many of his paintings and engravings, for no discoverable reason at all" and "the Neanderthal monster who turns up not only in the powerful and gruesome painting that Blake called 'The Ghost of a Flea', but also as Pestilence in 'Pestilence: the Death of the First-Born', and as Goliath in 'David and Goliath'."
It is, however, of little moment for our precise purpose whether the Tyger is an occult vision proper to mysticism or simply an intense poetic one. We are conducting a literary and not a psychological inquiry into the imaginations of a lyric written by a mystically disposed poet. We need only to remember Blake's keen religious sense and his preoccupation with happenings that he regarded as supraphysical and as concerned with ultimate realities. Our point is no more than that, owing to the mode in which he visualizes and communicates the Tyger to us, it is difficult to ignore the general impression of a supernatural symbolism.
But any exegesis guided by this impression must be preceded by a patient exact realisation of the details of the poem's posture, for then alone would we penetrate to the real meaning of the piece - one arising from its very body and not superim-
11.The Future Poetry, pp. 124-125.
12.Selected Poems of William Blake, Edited with an Introduction and Explanatory Notes (Heinemann, London), 1957, p. xv.
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posed. We must not rest with a broad survey or begin with considerations from outside the poem. Artistic truth demands that we first take the poem to be a self-sufficient unit which will yield a coherent scheme to sharp yet sympathetic analysis of the very words and their interweavings. We may remember Blake's own advice:
he who wishes to see a Vision, a perfect Whole,
Must see it in its Minute Particulars, Organised...13
13. Keynes, ed. cit., p. 738 (Jerusalem, Chapter 4, Plate 91, 11.21-22).
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2
The first thing to strike us is that it is not any one part of the Tyger which is said to burn. As Harding1 puts it apropos of the opening phrase -
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright -
"we may (in view of the second stanza) think primarily of the two burning eyes in the darkness, but the phrase itself makes the whole tiger a symbol of a 'burning' quality..." The Tyger's entire body which in physical fact would not be visible in the darkness is here seen as aflame. Of course, a physical Tiger even at night may be poetically visioned in its ferocity like this, but the sheer totality of the fire tends by itself to suggest that here is not common clay. We take poetic descriptions so much for granted that we overlook their penetration beyond such clay, and the essence of their insight which moves to show this clay in interpretative terms borrowed from some ideal sense of it. We must be on the alert to know what a poet really wants to depict, we must reject the ultra-physical only after ascertaining that the terms proper to it which a poet uses as a fundamental part of his expression are not literally meant. The all-burning body of Blake's Tyger should give us pause. Unless something in the context definitely runs counter, we should have a prima facie case in it for a glimpse of the supernatural. Until an opposite sign is found, the onus of proof would appear to lie on those who maintain the Tyger to be natural.
Secondly, the Tyger does not only burn: it is "burning bright". "Bright", no doubt, is an adjectival adverb equivalent
1. Op. cit., p. 69.
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to "brightly", but it is not confined to conveying that the activity expressed by the verb goes on very clearly. It holds more than the intense exhibition of the burning act. The real suggestion of the verb-adverb complex has been appositely noted by Harding:2 the Tyger is not possessed simply of "a 'burning' quality - wrath, passion, ardour perhaps;...the word 'bright' modifies the kind of burning suggested: it may convey incandescence, white heat, and it brings a sense of light, something glorious and shining in the quality symbolised." Our prima facie case gets enlarged. There is also an enrichment of it towards a kind of godlike in the Tyger.
Nor is the sense of shining to be considered as less than that of burning. True, burning is set in prominence as the Tyger's function, and the adverbial character of the adjective indicates splendour to be a mode of this function. But there is nothing in the syntax to import that the two can be separated or that the function can go on without this mode. As soon as we ask whether Blake's Tyger could ever burn except brightly we realize that to burn and to be bright are here a single activity expressive of an essence at once burning and bright. And we realize this with greater sharpness on marking the poetic posture of our phrase in relation to the rest of the line. The phrase "burning bright" corresponds to the double apostrophe "Tyger! Tyger!": the same being is twice addressed and the same essence is as if described in a twofold manner. The twofoldness is suggested all the more by the alliteration here matching in its own way the alliteration there and by the fact that, even as the adverb is adjectival, the verb is participial, so that the two appear like a pair of epithets equally basic.
Then there is the importance attaching to the word "bright" by its terminal place in the line, where a strong accent falls on it followed by a small pause. And this terminal place gets further filled with significance by carrying a rhyme to the "night" of the next line and emphasising what the Tyger's quality is intended to do vis-a-vis darkness. If, as is evident, "night" no less than "forests" is to be considered in the balance on one side and the Tyger and its quality on the other, this "night" can only be
2. Ibid.
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matched by brightness coupled with burning as an equal. Darkness in its own right cannot be fully matched unless brightness is present as an activity on its own.
To believe that the adjectival adverb conveys just a splendid mode of the burning act is to be obsessed by the superficial aspect of the syntax and to stress only one half of the poet's revelation. The Tyger visioned is such that it would be as correct to call it burningly bright as brightly burning, though the latter is made syntactically prominent.
The point has some importance, for, even if a bright burning is not a check on reading an ultra-terrestrial significance in the Tyger, the burning brightness is an actual spur to doing so. It is also a direct help to seeing the Tyger as Beauty no less than Power, and this in a basic way and not simply as a mode of Power's manifestation.
The point we are pressing emerges in another shape from the words of the fourth line: "fearful symmetry." The immediate meaning of "symmetry" is proportionate and harmonious structure, but the result of such structure is not only effective action, the easy accomplishment of what the Tyger is intended to do: the result is also a perfection of sheer form. "Fearful" and "symmetry" stand together in correspondence to "burning" and "bright". "Fearful" implies a destructive power, an effectivity of burning - "symmetry" implies a beauty and a brightness at smooth work. But the syntactical role is here reversed. "Symmetry", the noun, is prominent; "fearful", the adjective, is its attendant. Beauty and brightness are at first sight basic now, power and burning qualify them. The superficial import of the opening line's syntax is thus counterbalanced on its own level. But again here, as there, what the syntax throws into prominence is mitigated by the poetic posture of the phrase in relation to the rest of the line. The most striking sound-effect in
Could frame thy fearful symmetry
is the alliteration, reinforced by the metrical accent, of "frame" and "fearful". It is as if fearfulness rather than symmetry were
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being framed and in consequence an equally basic status for both is the true drift of the poetry.
An explicit resolution of the problem, bringing out under a different pair of terms the fundamental character of both burning and bright, is touched off in a later phrase referring to the Tyger's maker:
"Shoulder" carries the aspect of power, a massive strength set toiling. "Art" connotes skill of execution directed to an end. But what is the end here? As with all that can be called art, the end is ostensibly the making of a significant form, but ultimately the particularised expression of a creative delight arising from some illuminative "inwardness" of being and driven by a sense of perfection. And because art is such a delight it is always associated with beauty. But beauty is not to be understood in conventional terms: its patterns can be strange, they can even be fearful and twisted. In the light of this possibility the two components - "shoulder" and "art" - appear to merge, and power and beauty, burning and brightness, grow one. But the identity is not the engulfing of either by the other: hence after the phrase in which by turns each is apparently prominent - "burning bright" and "fearful symmetry" - we get a phrase juxtaposing the agencies that find expression in the twisted sinews of the Tyger's heart. Only, we must see that the juxtaposition of "shoulder" and "art" coming as it does after those two phrases, involves a unity-in-duality, a "shoulder-art" as it were, whose quality stands projected in the elements of the Tyger.
So much at present for the complexity of "burning bright": one more point will be made later. To get the complexity in relation to "the forests of the night" is our next step. What have we in that phrase? Something apparently that would carry us clean out of the physical. We have forests not of any country like India where tigers abound, but of the night. Even as one may argue that the poet is talking of just the keen savagery of the animal when he speaks of its "burning bright", one may
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urge that "the forests of the night" are no more than "nocturnal forests" or "forests at night". But why is the verbal form in either case such as to make a prima facie support possible for the supernatural? To say that the poetry would be spoiled by a different form is insufficient: an inspired poet can give a satisfying form to whatever notion suits his purpose. If the supernatural had not been his purpose, Blake, instead of writing
could have written:
In the forests thro' the night.
There would have been nothing unpoetic and yet the burning bright would have been bounded by the terrestrial. The raison d'etre of what Blake has actually given us is an imaginative exceeding of nocturnal forests. In his line it is as though the supernatural were intrinsic to the poetic pattern and he were keeping up the type of vision with which he had begun the poem. The opening couplet is as if meant to portray a strange glowing destructive presence in some universe of unearthly darkness whose dense and devious qualities are visualised as forests.
But the poetic pattern, while combining the two phrases so as to break the bound of what the matter-of-fact might be in a literary depiction, sets this glowing presence over against that darkness. There is no denying the stark antithesis they make. So the forests of the night not only transcend jungles as of India after sunset: they also get charged with significances in contrast to those of the Tyger's burning and brightness. They loom up as cold and suppressive, callous and distorted, life-sapping and sinister. Hence the Tyger, instead of belonging to the forests and being a portion of the night, stands out as their opponent -a force that does not leap from them but moves through them as their antagonist counteracting their qualities by its own.
To pit the Tyger against the forests, no matter if they be of the night, may look like a paradox, an artificiality, from the
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viewpoint of common experience. But is it wholly so? In ordinary Nature itself a forest has two aspects. It is on the one hand the home of a carnivore and on the other the field of its predatory action, the home of its prey and therefore something against which it is pitted. A forest helps not only a carnivore to lie in ambush but also its intended victim to find cover. Inasmuch as Blake's Tyger is the antithesis of night, the poet is using in his own way the second natural aspect. Or we may even say that his Tyger does make its home in the night's forests but as their enemy.
However, there is a sense in which Blake in his own way is using the first natural aspect too, and his Tyger is at one with his forests. This animal, though the opposite of the cold and suppressive, the callous and distorted, the life-sapping and sinister, shares the attribute that they must have by being an immensity of dense darkness, the attribute of being fearful. The Tyger is "fearful" in its "symmetry" and brings to its gloomy antithesis what outdoes that antithesis in the latter's own terms. Against the fearfulness of the forests it pits a greater fearfulness. At one and the same time the Tyger is as if a supreme expression of the forests themselves and a power fighting them by its origin from their opposite. Here is a "metaphysical" tension fundamental to the poem.
Of course, if the Tyger's origin, its birthplace, is other than the forests, we should expect the poet to tell us what it is. For, unless at least a hint is given us, we cannot feel quite confident in pitting the Tyger in any respect against the forests. Blake provides all the necessary information. He clearly tells us that his Tyger is not born in the usual fashion: it is a special creation out of a far fire, it is extraordinarily made in a celestial smithy. It is such as to provoke the queries:
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?...
What the anvil?...
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Forests cannot be this Tyger's ultimate home. Blake, within the picture he is at pains to draw, would be entirely logical in using the night's forests as not the home of his Tyger but as the milieu of its work on its victims. He does not merely give us a divergence of terms in the opening couplet: he later flashes on us the source from which, if not from the night's forests, the Tyger hails in order to move in them solely to counteract their contents by a force which is at once their antithesis and their climax.
The initial divergence of terms and the subsequent speciality of the Tyger's creation are an extremely cogent index to not only the supernatural in the Tyger but also the godlike in it.
What, however, about the word "deeps" in the query already quoted about the origin of the Tyger's eye-fire? Does it not render the animal's substance ambiguous, not skiey or godlike with any certainty even if it be supernatural? Our school-books often annotate the word with "oceans" - forgetting that oceans, though their caves may bear "full many a gem of purest ray serene", can never yield the dazzling and dynamic flame which Blake is trying to trace. Bateson3 comments: "perhaps volcanoes rather than oceans." But volcanoes no less than oceans must be ruled out - as too trivial as well as too innocent. They do not stand in sufficiently significant, sufficiently grim contrast to "skies". We must seek out that which will prepare and justify the anxious half-dubious note struck in:
The Tyger is godlike yet comes with a dreadful destructiveness of flame as if out-devilling any devil. The "deeps" can truly contrast to the "skies" as hell would to heaven, something abysmal and infernal to something empyreal and glorious.
Still, if the Tyger is the enemy of the forests of the night, a real depth of hell, a real abysmal existence cannot be put into our "deeps": the infernal and abysmal would go, in one sense or another, with those forests rather than with their opponent. "Deeps" and "skies", standing as alternatives, can imply no-
3. Op. cit., p. 118.
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thing except that the Tyger's eye-fire, fearful like that animal's whole symmetry, is a paradox of the godlike which would deserve to be called the glare of a hellish heaven or the sheen of a heavenly hell.
Moreover, an actual nether world of horrors and terrors, or even anything lower than the skies, is out of place when we have the line -
On what wings dare he aspire? -
about the Tyger's creator whose "immortal hand or eye" has already been mentioned in line 3. This line on aspiring should decide unequivocally that the "deeps", whatever they may specifically mean as distinguished from the "skies", are high above with them. For, to aspire cannot here signify only "to desire earnestly": its other connotation - "to mount up", "to soar" - must be added on the strength of the "wings" that serve as the means of aspiring. The concrete upward movement is too palpably suggested to be ignored - and the presence of "skies" as a region to be reached by aspiring confirms the suggestion. Indeed, the context is such that this movement must be construed as the dominant, if not quite the sole, sense.
The Tyger's creator has to fly up to attain the "deeps" no less than the "skies" for the eye-fire which he wants. And to use the word "deeps" for the highest ethereal domain is hardly unnatural: the intended paradox to which we have drawn attention would justify the usage in any case, but even otherwise the word is neutral enough to receive a variety of shades. And it is in consonance with the legitimate employment of it on a par with "skies" to designate the ethereal that Shelley says to his Skylark:
The blue deep thou wingest...
Both the words make a single description in our poem, showing two aspects of the same thing, just as the earlier phrase "immortal hand or eye" does. That phrase refers to the power of formative execution and the power of conceptive image wielded by a deathless being. How shall we similarly charac-
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terise the terms before us? We must bear a couple of points in mind. First, the connection of both the aspects with a search for the origin of the fire that is in the Tyger's eyes. Secondly, the nature of the Tyger that we have hit off as divine with a power more demoniac-seeming than any we may imagine in the anti-divine. So we may declare that the deeps are a secrecy of heavenly spaces not only fathomless but also searingly ablaze, and the skies are a manifestation of them not only ample but also transfiguringly splendourous. The deeps are a Divine Existence above as an infinite blinding profound of light, and the skies the same Existence as an infinite irradiating wideness of it. If we may revert to an old comparison, we may call the former the empyrean burning, the latter the empyrean bright.
By the way, this interpretation provides a more general fieriness above than may be guessed by taking the Tyger's eyes alone as a point de depart. Some readers are likely to get the impression that Blake meant stars in the lofty distances to be the origin of the Tyger's eye-fire. But such a view would ill accord with stanzas 1 and 5. The eyes by themselves could be lit from the stars; but if, as the first stanza tells us, the whole Tyger is one mass of flame, a source other than the starry is more likely to be required for the kindling. The stars are perhaps too small and faint to account for that mass. And if something vaster and keener in the firmament is preferable as a sufficient cause, they become superfluous. What could render the entire body of the Tyger incandescent could also put the fire in the eyes.
Then there is the specific reference to the role of the stars in the fifth stanza. Whatever the full sense of the lines -
And water'd heaven with their tears -
the weeping action in them hardly suggests that the gleam in the Tyger's eyes was contributed by the stars or that the stars have the same quality as those eyes.
To return to our main discussion. The line about "deeps or skies" does not at all imply the possibility of anything nether
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for the Tyger's glow. It speaks of nothing except a region of reality that belongs to a far-away empyrean. And if the Tyger's eye-fire originally belongs there, the presumption is surely that its possessor is other than a mundane creature and that it bodies forth an attribute of the Supreme.
To dispel this presumption it is not enough to emphasize the distantness of the deeps or skies and argue that there is involved an immediate earth on which the Tyger prowls. If the earth is involved at all, it need be for the poet alone: he may be thought of as visioning from there the heavens distant from him. To involve the Tyger also on the earth is not possible unless we affirm at the same time two other things: we must take the forests of the night to pertain to terrestrial topography, and we must take the Tyger's maker as functioning in the midst of them, creating it upon our soil. If the forests of the night suggest rather a transcendence of jungles like the Indian, the argument involving the earth for the Tyger is pretty weak. And there is no sign anywhere that the Tyger's creator, who not only is winged but also has an immortal hand and eye, is functioning away from his own home, the heavens. Evidently he aspires to deeps or skies above him, but such aspiration does not mean he has to fly to them from a location on the earth: it merely means that there is an empyrean overtopping the ethereal level where he happens to be and which is nearer to the poet as compared to this empyrean. Or else the poet may be considered as visionarily placed not on the earth but in the lofty spaces themselves - on a level with the supernatural Tyger -and viewing what occurred when it was created. Then the distance would be between the uttermost empyrean and the winged immortal's station on high at the moment of his wanting to create the Tyger and let it ramp in the night's forests. In either case, we cannot locate the created Tyger as earthly: its station and that of its creator appear to be the same.
Our next job is to bring into focus the exact nature of the creator. Since he is said to aspire from one ethereal level to another, he must be a being who, for all his "immortal hand or eye", is in some manner not utterly supreme. The maker of a
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Tyger which strikes us as godlike, he must himself be divine and not simply deathless; yet his divinity is secondary and obtains the wanted fire from that which is primary. However, the succeeding line -
What the hand dare seize the fire? -
has not only the shade of audacity in handling such a fire as the original of the Tyger's eyes: it has also, by virtue of the particular word "seize", a shade of authority in relation to the distant deeps or skies, as if the divinity that is secondary could yet come forcibly with a right of hold on them equal to what the primary possesses in that ultimate altitude.
Some may suspect a violent laying of hands on another's property, on a fire not belonging to oneself. But the sense of a hostile or pillaging act is not in the least inevitable in "seize" which simply means to take energetic hold of a thing - and that other sense is not prompted either by the interplaying elements of expression at the place where the word occurs or by a backlight from the later turn of speech where again the same hand is involved and nothing save a gesture of energetic hold is doubly driven home:
what dread grasp
In the "seize" of our poem we cannot go beyond an audacious competence carrying an authoritative touch.
Another thing to be noted, as between the secondary divinity and the primary, is: the latter is distinguished from the former by a lack of personal outline. We are given a winged creative figure on the one hand and on the other a distant region at once skiey and deep - a scorching secrecy and an entrancing splendour - a supreme empyrean that is as if a blaze of light not only immense in extension but also impenetrable except by that creator aspirant on wings. All personal outline, if any, of a Godhead there is concealed by that blaze.
Now for some linguistic points about the creative "he". Critics sometimes dwell on the absence of the capital H here
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and raise certain issues. One of them is: "The Tyger's creator is an inferior spirit and not the true Godhead." Another is: "He is mentioned mysteriously as a being who is quite unknown and has to be identified." Both the issues are false: they can be avoided by a look at line 20 where the capital H is again wanting:
Surely, no inferiority or mystery could be intended for the Lamb's maker. A small h in the third personal pronoun for even the Deity seems to be Blake's general practice. And actually Sir Geoffrey Keynes4 tells us the same thing when he discusses Blake's spelling, capitals and abbreviations.
A second linguistic point about the creative "he" is: "The personal pronoun is introduced without a personal noun preceding and preparing it. If Blake had written -
What immortal's hand or eye -
this 'he' would not have made a surprising appearance. What are we to infer from the suddenness, the surprise?" The answer should be plain. The lack of preparation is only apparent. The sudden and the surprising will vanish the moment we recognise in line 3 -
What immortal hand or eye -
the figure of speech called synecdoche. Synecdoche is the use of a part for the whole or vice versa. In the matter of creation, "hand" or "eye" - the power of formative execution or the power of conceptive image - is of the very essence: if we consider a being as a creator, he may be summed up in one or the other of these powers. So the phrase can serve as a double-aspected synecdoche presenting the concentration of the whole self of the creator in the hand-function or the eye-function. When the phrase is thus interpreted, the "he" stands quite logically where it does because the framer of the Tyger has already been mentioned as an immortal: it has rhetorically been prepared by the poet.
4. Ed. cit., Preface, p. xiii.
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Line 3 has a special significance not only in regard to the creative "he" but also in regard to the created animal - a significance on a deeper level than the rhetorical and arising as part of the question of common qualities between the "he" and the Tyger. "Dread hand", "dread feet", "dread grasp" serve to declare openly a correspondence in the maker to the "deadly terrors" of the created object. Analogously we may take the activity of the shoulder and the art that have fashioned the heart of the Tyger as implying a compactly knit strength and shapeliness in the fashioner answering to the sinewiness twisted into harmonious form in this organ. The instruments and the furnace used by that art and by those limbs balance on the maker's side what must be a massive stubbornness and an enveloping heat on the side of the made. The maker's fire-seizing hand and aspirant wings match the animal's commanding gaze and empyrean-lit passion. What are we to say for the Tyger when we get the query:
Shall we just argue that to frame a fearful symmetry a hand or eye must be immortal, for else the artifact would destroy the artificer? In the rest of the poem Blake finds it sufficient to speak of the artificer's being "dread" in order to cope with the creation of the Tyger-terror's heart and brain. Why has he not written "tremendous" or else "terrific" (quite a favourite epithet with him) instead of "immortal"? The epithet actually used appears to exceed the requirements of "fearful".
To feel its full sense, should we not match it against "symmetry" as well as "fearful" - "symmetry" which involves beauty of proportionate structure? And should we not take it also in conjunction with the words "burning bright" in the preceding couplet with which the couplet where it occurs is grammatically linked by a comma? If we do what is demanded by the form of the stanza, "immortal" by an implication of the awe-inspiringly indestructible would meet both "fearful" and "burning" on one side and on the other both "bright" and
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"symmetry" by an implication of the undiminishably divine. But then, according to the explicit or implicit correspondence we have found everywhere else in the poem, it would answer to something immortal in the Tyger. This animal, burning bright with its fearful symmetry, would belong to the same supernatural order of deific existence as its maker.
Such a conclusion is precisely what we should expect in the wake of our observation that the verbal turn throughout bears an aura of the supernatural and even the godlike, and avoids bringing the Tyger down into material phenomena as an animal of flesh and blood in a surrounding of wild vegetable growth. Also this conclusion is inevitable if we press, as we must, the lines -
for an entirely satisfying significance.
Can we take the phrase about throwing down the spears as just a poetic mode of saying that the stars shed their rays on the earth? To liken rays to spears is certainly in agreement with the poetic imagination; but, even so, can we stop with a purely naturalistic interpretation and, slurring over the definite word "spears" with its implication of war, never ask why the rays are handled like weapons by the stars? If we have a mere metaphor with no profound pertinence, there is the problem of combining with such a metaphor the next poetic step: the watering of heaven with tears. What should be the naturalistic view of this phenomenon? Stars looking like tear-drops after throwing down their rays? But did they not look the same even before? The sequence of images is pretty pointless. Even if concomitance rather than sequence is intended, there is little point. Could the sense of weeping be introduced, some point would be possible. But that sense can be introduced for neither sequence nor concomitance in a naturalistic picture: it would be a foreign element piercing through the naturalism. Unless the whole phrase which includes the spear-throwing lends itself to a deeper explanation, the sheer figure of tear-drops cannot yield
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that sense. If the former act connotes nothing more than rays hurling down, the latter cannot connote anything else than tiny twinkling spots studding the sky. Then the entire phrase will be pure decoration descriptive only of the night-sky in a somewhat fanciful manner, and all the energy and emotion of the two lines will be issueless. But such a result is absurd and proves the naturalistic interpretation inadequate.
Doubtless, Blake has made use of the similarity of star-rays to spears and of star-twinkles to tear-drops. Yet just as evidently the similarity is a jumping-board to a connotation beyond descriptive and decorative naturalism. The stars are figured as beings who perform significant acts that transcend the beaming and sparkling of luminous material bodies after sunset in physical space overhead. Like the Tyger's artificer, they belong to a mythopoeic picture: what is said about them has to be interpreted as the acts of supernatural beings. Even so, several interpretations are possible and we must choose the most convincing.
Shall we say that in the first line the stars with their rays thrown down are rendering the Tyger visible on earth and looking at it and in the second they are weeping at the sight? But there again we shall have to ask: "Why are the stars' ray-glances spear-sharp as if cast in a warlike gesture? And why is that gesture followed by profuse weeping?" Much more is obviously implied than the simple seeing of a thing on earth or even elsewhere, and obviously the seeing is connected with something done in regard to shining-sharp weapons of war.
Hardly are we helped if we take the stars as hurling ray-spears at the Tyger below in order to wound it to death. How shall we bind together this act with the act of profuse weeping? There will be no organic link between the vigorous attack and the lamenting desperation - unless we are whimsical enough to think that the stars' shower of spears at the beast on the earth missed its mark and the poor celestials then let loose a shower of tears over their failure!
Besides, what reason have we to talk of anything - ray-glances or ray-spears - as being thrown towards the earth? The
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adverb "down" is in itself neutral: it need not imply earth in contrast to heaven: it need imply no more than that the spears which were held up are cast down. Just as the tears shed are not rained upon earth but moisten heaven, so also the thrown spears may fall where their possessors are and make no descent earthwards: they may fall on the same region as the tears. When the situation is openly stated by Blake to be in heaven and one of the two acts goes no farther, this seems the most proper, the most logical construction. The image of the ray as a spear is employed only to conjure up a crowd of luminous supernatural beings who carry spears and, for some reason, throw them down within their own domain which is above earth.
Alfred Kazin5 tells us that "the stars throwing down their 'spears' join in the generation of the Tiger". How such an understanding of Blake's picture can be reached is really a puzzle. To imagine Blake to have wanted merely to say that the stars, in order to get their hands free for co-operation, put away their spears would reduce him to banality. Moreover, the tears would still remain unexplained. Should we take them as water provided for tempering, as in a smithy, the hot-ironlike substance and shape of the Tyger? That is the best meaning we can put into Kazin's statement. But it would be rather on the fantastic side and render functional or businesslike what the words offer as profoundly pathetic. The poetic tone would be ill served by it.
M.L. Rosenthal and A.J.M. Smith, authors of Exploring Poetry,6 make the couplet a remembrance of "the miraculous events on the night Christ was born". But when we turn to the Bible we find the Gospel of Luke7 mentioning the angel of the Lord coming upon the shepherds who were at watch over their flock at night and asking them not to be afraid of the glory of the Lord that shone round them. The angel declared to them
5.The Portable Blake, Selected and Arranged with an Introduction by Alfred Kazin (The Viking Press, New York), 1946, p. 45.
6.Exploring Poetry (The Macmillan Company, New York), 1957, p. 186.
7.II, 8-14.
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"good tidings of great joy" about the birth of Christ in a manger and "suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men". The picture is of triumph and exultation exactly the opposite of Blake's. Surely there is no implication in it of the heavenly host throwing down their spears as a sign of non-hostile intentions or weeping abundantly because of uncontrollable joy?
Clearly, an upset of the stars is in Blake's picture: both the lines go to build it up. According to Swinburne,8 "the very stars, and all the children of heaven, the 'helmed cherubim' that guide and the 'sworded seraphim' that guard their several planets, wept for pity and fear at the sight of this new force of monstrous matter seen in the deepest night as a fire of menace to men." May we ask where Swinburne gets the idea of "pity"? What is the sanction for taking tears to denote it? Tears are primarily a sign of one's own pain, grief, chagrin, frustration, failure. In lieu of a direct pointer to the contrary we cannot go beyond these. If there is any pity here, it should be self-pity which is equivalent to the experience we have characterised. And who else is present to be pitied? Swinburne refers to "men" menaced by "a new force of monstrous matter". But Blake has no hint of the stars being related in any way to men. Even earth is not on the scene - unless we dogmatically deny to "the forests of the night" any wider and deeper significance than "nocturnal forests" or "forests at night". It is gratuitous to introduce either men or the earth or both - especially when, as we have already pointed out, Blake openly states the situation to be in heaven. The tears have nothing to do with pity for men's plight. And if they are of an experience such as we have characterized, what more natural than the throwing down of the spears by the stars as the result of being overcome by some force, some panic-striking foe?
Several annotators have approached this idea in a brief generalized manner. F.F. Monk9 may be chosen to represent
8.William Blake (Chatto & Windus), p. 31, fn.
9.Representative English Poetry (London), 1927, p. 51.
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them: "The stars are here thought of as armed angels, throwing down their weapons and breaking into tears at the sight of the terrible new thing God has created." A recent version of much the same representation is Harding's comment10 on the first three lines of the stanza concerned: "Blake asks, with scarcely believing awe, whether the Creator smiled with satisfaction in what he had made when in fact its ferocious strength was so appalling that even the stars abandoned their armed formida-bility (the spears suggested by their steely glitter) and broke down in tears." To both Monk and Harding - more explicitly to the latter - Blake is referring in an imaginative vein to the physical stars and expressing through the figure of them the effect of the Tyger's creation on all Nature, even the most remote and secure and dominant parts of it. And it is, of course, on earth that Monk's "terrible" and Harding's "appalling" new thing is seen from above. But these interpreters go outside the terms of Blake's vision and physicalise the stars because, just like Swinburne with his "new force of monstrous matter", their eyes are upon a Tyger imaged to be terrestrial. They are right in confining themselves to the stars' dismay and refraining from ascription of pity to them, but, in addition to the gratuitousness of their physical outlook, there is poetic loss if one visualizes a terrestrial Tyger as terrorizing the stars.
Even supposing the Tyger to be earthly on the ground that the word "forests" occurs in the poem, how do we get human beings into relation with the beast of prey on any evidence? And without their relation with it the poetry suffers still more. Does not the phrase about the stars throwing down their spears — that is, getting completely unnerved or showing helpless defeat or abandoning all severity - strike us, despite its vividness, as vague hyperbole in connection with the Tyger being created to prowl not in the sky but far below on the earth, and there too in forests at night-time? Again, in the phrase about these stars watering heaven with their tears, have we not, despite its movingness, a strained sentimentalism in connection
10. Op. cit., p. 69.
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with the Tyger prowling not at all amidst men but far away from them in earth's night-enveloped jungles?
If human beings are to be involved, they must be participants in a darkness beyond such jungles. It should be plain that they do not live on earth in forests - and the Tyger of earthly forests cannot be associated with them in any pointed pertinent fashion. Only if their lives - at least in certain respects - are spent in forests of an unearthly darkness - jungles of a supernatural Evil - Blake's Tyger can be associated with them. Inasmuch as any part of our humanity makes inwardly its home in these jungles, the Tyger becomes automatically an agent against it. But nothing of our humanity can be concerned in what Blake says about the stars. And, without anything of our humanity, far less is earth concerned.
No, the earth-heaven interpretation, whichever way we turn it, does not make the utterly right poetic sense out of the splendid language and the thrilling word-painting, the lofty tragedy and the vast pathos. Some mysterious event of frightful import in very heaven, jeopardizing the stars' own existence there and reducing them to impotent distress, would alone charge the whole expression with a profound felicity of significance. A straightforward reading of Blake's lines would also yield no more than such an event, for it would keep earth and men out and just stop with the stars suffering an utter breakdown, letting go of their spears and weeping inconsolably. Looking at the problem from every side, we are driven to understand Blake as describing exclusively a heavenly event. And if the Tyger has anything to do with that event it must definitely be a supernatural Tyger vis-a-vis angel-stars.
Kathleen Raine11 is in no doubt that the stars are supernatural beings. She identifies them with those in a myth of Blake's elsewhere, containing the lines:
11. "Blake's Debt to Antiquity", The Sewanee Review, Summer 1963, Vol. LXXI, No. 3, pp. 434-435. The corresponding reference in Raine's Blake and Tradition (Bollingen Series XXXV-11, Princeton University Press, 1968) is: Vol. II, p. 29. In this book the chapter "The Tyger" runs from p. 3 to p. 31.
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"I call'd the stars around my feet in the night of
councils dark;
"The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away.
"We fell..."12
Yet she sees the Tyger not as the supernatural opponent of the stars but as their own kin, a creation by their leader who is not godlike but diabolic or at least ambiguous and who, on being defeated, fell from heaven with his followers. She arrives at this conception by trying to fit the poem into the context both of traditional mythology and of Blake's complete writings, with all their references to tygers and stars as well as forests. Her attempt is a legitimate one: ultimately the poem is to be seen thus no less than by itself. We hold that even such seeing -especially when aided by a "source" little tapped by Miss Raine - will not deprive the Tyger here of its essential divineness; but at present we are concerned with the typical modern practice of viewing a piece of poetry as a self-contained unit. And, in considering Raine's view, we have to ask: "Does she offer any argument, in terms of this practice, to stamp the Tyger as evil or even ambiguous rather than deific?"
Glancing at the word "seize", Raine13 gets the impression that it implies theft - here the forcible act of one "who in order to create must possess himself of fires not his own". But, as we have been careful to observe, the idea of alien property violated is not in the least inevitable in "seize": the verb simply means to lay hold of a thing energetically. And the poem's internal pattern nowhere prompts the idea of hostility or robbery: at least lines 15-16 openly induce us to equate seizing just with grasping or clasping adequately and rightfully.
It is not by direct analysis of words and of the poem's internal pattern that Raine comes to her conclusion about the Tyger's nature. In fact, the only straight evaluation which she essays of the poem's character has quite the opposite result. It is a bit of
12.Keynes, erf. cit., p. 311 (Vala, or the Four Zoas, Night the Fifth, 11.223-225).
13.Op. cit., p. 428.
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magnificent literary insight:14 "Nor must we overlook, in analyzing the meaning of the text, all that is conveyed by the powerful exaltation of the metre, by the fiery grandeur of the images. If the discoverable meaning of the poem suggests that the Tyger is the work of a creator ambiguous or evil, the emotive force of metre and image is all affirmation, praising the fiery might, the energy, and the intelligence of the mortal God."
The expression "mortal God" applied to the Tyger's creator is borrowed from the Alchemical philosophy of Paracelsus and is equivalent to the "Demiurge" of the Gnostics. The Demiurge of Gnosticism is not the supreme God but an ambivalent power descended from the latter and he, not the supreme God, is the creator of the mortal universe with its abundant evil joined to whatever beauty and truth and goodness still strive in it. This God resembles the "he" of our poem in being what we have distinguished there as a secondary divinity; but, in our reading, that "he" with his apparent or practical status as secondary is yet essentially one with the primary divinity and, laying energetic hold of that divinity's fire both competently and authoritatively, remains undiminished in fundamental di-vineness even though his dread manifestation by means of the seized fire seems to out-Satan Satan. Here he differs altogether from Raine's mortal God. And, when we weigh her conception not with the help of Alchemical or Gnostic or any other literature and not by exploring the rest of Blake's complicated writings but immediately alongside the inspiration of our lyric, we find that the very term "mortal" is at variance with the lyric's "immortal hand or eye" as well as with the sweeping affirmation, the unambiguous praise, which Raine's single attempt at a straight evaluation of the poem's character discerns in the powerful exaltation of the metre and the fiery grandeur of the images.
Therefore, on the ground we have chosen - the poem itself -Raine, approaching it extraneously, is right in her indentifica-tion of the stars but mistaken in understanding the Tyger as
14. Ibid., p. 436.
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their kin and its creator as their leader.
And, even with the Tyger thus understood, what is Raine's final view of Blake's answer to the question of questions:
Following certain clues, she15 perceives in the Tyger's maker not only Blake's Satan, a perverting power who is named Urizen, but also a perfecting power, named Los who is drawn to fall with Urizen but who acts as "the time-spirit of evolution": "Los the time-spirit must labour to rebuild what was ruined in the beginning" by Urizen's revolt: he has to resurrect in the world the true Godhead that has become concealed or buried in it, deus absconditus. According to Raine, it is the mixture of this kind of creative or demiurgic force with Urizen's cruel and corrupting one, that accounts in the early part of the poem for "those grand images of the moulding of the Tyger" and contributes in the later part to the inconclusiveness which she discovers in Blake's answer to his great query and which is for her the master-key to the poem's ultimate revelation. The other reason for the inconclusiveness is, to her mind, an unusual insight by Blake into the problem of evil. After asking whether we are to answer the last query in some words about God which she quotes from Boehme - God visioned as all Being, both Heaven and Hell, Eternity and Time, Love and Anger - she16 writes: "This is the god of the Alchemists, beyond the contraries. But the answer of the Platonists, and of the Hermetica, would be No: the Tyger belongs to the fallen time-world. Yet on the deepest level, all these traditions converge, for the time-world exists only by divine permission. Blake, I believe, left his great question unanswered not because he was in doubt, but because the only answer is a No and Yes of such depth and complexity." Then comes Raine's penetrative observation of what is communicated by the metrical movement and the imagery: an admirable perfecting power rather than a power ambiguous or evil is conjured up with
15.Ibid., pp. 431-434.
16.Ibid., p. 336.
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emotive force. Next, Raine17 remarks that The Tyger "is preparing the way" for the "vindication of Hell or Energy" in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (written and etched by Blake over the years 1790-179318): "The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man."19
Raine's is indeed a profound interpretation; but, if we drop the resort to "all these traditions" which she brings to bear from outside on the lyric, if we concentrate on the sheer poem, we face nothing except a violent grandeur which "exists only by divine permission" and which, unlike the explicitly defeated stars in heaven, has not the slightest fallenness attributed to it and would thus seem to stand as a portion of eternity opposed instead of being allied to them.
The basic elements of Raine's final reading are essentially in accord with ours and acquire a different tone merely to the extent that her approach is extraneous.
We may, then, continue along our own line. We have concluded, as against popular commentators, that Blake is describing exclusively a heavenly event - angel-stars suffering a catastrophic breakdown. And we have argued that if that Tyger has anything to do with that event it must definitely be a supernatural animal.
Our vision is of the Tyger and the angel-stars in a hostile confrontation. Does anything in the remainder of the poem render it possible to disjoin the animal from the stars' catastrophe in heaven? Up to the stanza mentioning the stars the making of the Tyger has been spoken of: an audacious creative being has been pictured as fashioning the animal: hence the line -
should refer to that creative being's attitude to the animal he has made. So the Tyger is the "work" - a designation apt indeed for the product of a smithy, a workshop. An unpre-
17.Ibid.
18.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 888 (The Notes).
19.Ibid., p. 151, Plate 8.
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judiced look, connecting part to part, cannot infer otherwise. Swinburne, Monk, Harding - though subscribing to an earth-heaven interpretation - are also in agreement that the word "work" denotes the Tyger at which a divine labour has been shown in the preceding stanzas. Raine, in writing that "the Tyger is the work of a creator ambiguous or evil", adheres to the same denotation. A confirmation of this straightforward inference is the next line -
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? -
in which the point is precise only if "thee" refers to the question-provoking "work" of the "he" mentioned here as a maker.
But both the lines come in connection with the preceding couplet - the former immediately, the latter at one remove. The line about the work is the main clause of the sentence whose subordinate clause is about the stars and the link between the two is "when" and the two clauses have the same tense. So what the Tyger's maker did - the smiling or its contrary - on seeing the animal that was his product is an accompaniment of the heavenly catastrophe. But what would be the sense of the accompaniment if his product had nothing to do with that event? The Tyger is joined vitally with the stars' finding their own existence in heaven jeopardised, and being reduced to impotent distress. Consequently, it is a supernatural Tyger active in heaven itself and causing there the catastrophe mentioned.
The conclusion would be unchanged even if we took the alternative meaning possible of "work": not "thing made" but "thing done" or "deed". The deed here would be the catastrophe caused by the Tyger's creator through the Tyger. Heaven would still constitute the scene of the deed.
The supernaturalism of the animal involved may thus be thought unchallengeably established. And, if the Tyger is supernatural, the Lamb of the poem can be no less. But then, since a supernatural Lamb can only symbolise divine qualities -God's loving kindness and path of peace - the logical and most
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pertinent problem emerging for us from the line -
must run: "Is the Tyger the diabolic contradictory pole in Supernature to the Divine Lamb, or Supernature's divine contrary-complementary pole to it?"
On the strength of our analysis up to the "star"-lines we could summarily dismiss the first alternative. But let us ask whether in these lines themselves there is a possible support for the conclusion of our analysis. If a support from them is available, that conclusion will acquire extra force, be still more cogent and qualify as compelling.
Here our inquiry may be made by way of asking what poetic relation the stanza containing the "star"-lines bears to the rest of the piece. The term "work", as we saw, joins it to the preceding verses where the Tyger's making is visualised. But is there not an abruptness in the matter of the stars and their sad plight? Why all of a sudden are they brought up? Do we have anywhere a hint that the Tyger was meant to defeat and distress them?
There is the subject announced at the beginning with its two components - the bright-burning Tyger and its dense and devious milieu of darkness, "the forests of the night" which are its opposite in quality and which also it prowls for its prey. Until the end of the fourth stanza the former component is treated. With the occurrence of "stars" the latter may be said to re-emerge by implication. For, we may validly suggest that the stars are elements of the night and therefore in relation to the night's forests. Are they not, then, at one with the forests and, more specifically, the prey for which the Tyger prowls its dense and devious milieu of darkness? So right at the beginning of the poem, we may read already a preparation of the activity the fifth stanza attributes to the Tyger or to its maker.
Nor is the "stars"-"night" association the sole one to be discerned. The "spears" of the stars, before being thrown down, were surely carried upright. These upright spears may be seen poetically as if they were trees, so that a kinship is
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established between night-forests of trees and forests of spears held by stars of the night. The forests of stanza 1 have indeed their own symbolic function and we cannot say that Blake meant "spears" when he indicated trees. But a connection of sympathetic imagery between stanzas 1 and 5 can legitimately be taken as part of The Tyger's poetry. If the "spears"-"forests" association be challenged as fanciful, we have only to refer to Milton's poetic picture of Satan's army: it tells us how "through the gloom were seen" ten thousand banners rising, and how
with them rose
A forest huge of spears...20
Again, as if to throw into relief the subtle connection between stanzas 1 and 5, we get, immediately after stanza 5, a repetition of stanza 1 except for the slight change of "could" into "dare" in the last line. The repetition, coming just on the heels of the "star"-lines and their query-sequel, is Blake's sign of the close-weaving of the whole poem, his evolution of the end from the beginning.
The sign is welcome: it lessens our straining for the sense of the poem as a totality. The repetition, following the disclosure of a new aspect of the vision, is a response to a profound artistic necessity.
It also suggests a generalisation of the Tyger's activity. Although originally the Tyger went forth against the night's forests sprung up in heaven itself, the Divine Wrath it represents could operate wherever these forests might take root outside heaven. The terms repeated in the last stanza not only bring together the contents of the first stanza and those of the fifth but hint the extension of the first stanza's theme beyond the events that provoked the creation of the Tyger and culminated in the defeat and distress of the stars - extension to whatever participation in the supernatural principle of the anti-divine might occur anywhere, in any state of existence including the inner being of man.
20. Paradise Lost, Bk. I, 11.546-547.
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To return to our discussion. If the stars can be put in relation to the forests of the night and if the Tyger is set upon the stars, the animal cannot be anything diabolic: rather the stars must be the diabolism against which it acts with its scorching and splendoured divineness. Thus the fifth stanza itself can be brought to sustain our thesis that the Tyger is Supernature's divine contrary-complementary pole, and not its diabolic contradictory one, to the Lamb's divinity.
And indeed, when we look back at all the terms applied to the Tyger, we see that even apart from those which conjure up magnificence it is pictured only as fearful, dread, full of deadly terrors, a power formidable and destructive but not necessarily evil in any sense. There is no indication of anything essentially diabolic. Surely the Divine may terrify, the Divine may consume, the Divine may even annihilate. This truth pervades the poem. Not that the poem shows any complacence about it: the fact of Omnipotence ireful is too big to be taken in one's stride, and Blake is far from contemplating it composedly. We have interpreted his "deeps" in tune with the note of anxiety and half-doubt in line 20, and we may add that line 19 too has an anxious ring, doubting whether Omnipotence itself could be quite happy with a manifestation of its own of such frightfulness as the Tyger. Yet, for all his unease, Blake never brings himself to deny the heavenly halo of even that manifestation.
Rosenthal and Smith21 overlook the finest subtleties of the poem and stop short with the view: "In this poem the problem of evil - the existence of terrible, uncontrolled forces and their relation to the nature of God - is dynamically symbolized with naked directness." They appreciate correctly that "the forests of the night" in which the Tyger ranges are of "not Asia or Africa": a deeper and wider domain is shadowed forth. But they say that the Tyger "looms as a freely moving force" in this domain and that Blake "sees in the Tiger a mysterious, sinister vision of supernatural power" and "so we are led to think of him as ever-present, ever-dangerous, a 'burning bright' symbol
21. Op. cit., pp. 1 85, 186.
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of the savagery in every human soul and in all existence; a satanic beast".
How can one speak of Blake's beast of prey as looming? Blake's language does make it come magnified and threatening, but the animal cannot really loom unless it is something vague and obscure. Although Blake sets it before us mysteriously no less than intensely, and in that sense it can be deemed vague and obscure, there is no vagueness, no obscurity in its character as distinguished from its meaning: what constitutes its mystery is the uncertain frame of mind in which we are left by the very opposite of vagueness and obscurity. Rosenthal and Smith make it loom because they assimilate it to the forests of the night, and they assimilate it to them because the forests are given as its milieu. But what then becomes of the bright burning attributed to it? Apart from stressing the absence of any pointer to the Tyger's evilness, one may seriously doubt whether the phrase "burning bright" is no more than the equivalent of "ever-dangerous" and "ever-present". As we have already observed, a glory is evoked by the phrase, and the glory is reinforced by the later words "symmetry" and "art" as well as by the word "skies" for the origin of what the phrase "fire of thine eyes" associates with the Tyger. But the glory is quite lost if we reduce the bright burning to mean an ubiquitous peril that never grows less. More pertinent on the part of Rosenthal and Smith would have been the question: "Why does wickedness come sometimes in a most beautifully dreadful form?" But even here there is a weakness in the adverb "sometimes". Blake's Tyger comes always, and not only on occasion, in a form of the most beauty-lustrous dreadfulness. If the animal symbolizes Evil, we must take the poet to mean that Evil is ever a stupendous beauty. But is it? Could Blake have thought it so? And, even when it is beautiful, has it the sheer and unqualified glory that the fierceness of Blake's Tyger bears? We may admit that his Tyger, for all its glory, is not benign in the sense of being kindly, but we cannot go to the opposite extreme and designate it as malign. If we choose to deny its benignity, we can designate it only as stern and
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awesome - epithets not inapplicable to some aspects of the omnipotence of the Divine.
Rosenthal and Smith's reading is based on a superficial impression of the fierce intensity Blake visualized and on a misunderstanding of the role which the forests play. Fastening on the Tyger's supernatural fearfulness and sensing the same quality in the night-forests they pass by the paradox that makes a fundamental tension in the poem - the paradox of a seeming devilry that is yet totally divine in the Tyger. Missing the whole temper and atmosphere of "burning bright" they deem the forests no more than another aspect of the same force that the animal is and they do not feel how the forests, while being outmatched in supernatural fearfulness by the Tyger, stand over against it as darkness and coldness against light and fire and how the night joins up with the stars which, as we have marked, they misconstrue into a connection with Christ's birth.
The Tyger, on all internal evidence, is the terrifying complementary of the Divine Lamb and not the sheer diabolic pole to it. What it really contradicts and opposes is connoted in the present stanza by "stars" - something which in spite of being radiant is part of a multitudinous and massive obscurity, part of the state or domain symbolized by "the forests of the night."
To get the full drama of the poem properly distinguished, we must ask who the stars could be. They are radiances in "heaven" but they have changed over to the side of obscurity. What has thus changed in Heaven can be nought else than a fallen splendour. The stars must be heavenly angels who have become beings of gloom, embedded or entangled in error, alienated from the divine light and harmony. As a result of that alienation, this light and harmony manifests a destructive fire against them, comes forth burning bright with a fearful symmetry.
Discussion of the stars' specific character brings up again the subject of the origin of the Tyger's eye-fire. Their anti-divineness and the Tyger's opposition to them put them out of court for that origin. What we argued on general grounds from stanzas 1 and 5 is now confirmed by particular analysis.
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A detail for consideration at this stage of the poem is the paraphernalia of the Tyger's artificer. As he is a divine smith we can understand the presence of the hammer, the anvil, the furnace. But what role does the chain play? There are three possibilities. First, a chain may hang from the bellows for the smith to tug at in order to keep the fire flaring. Secondly, a chain may serve to keep under control the material that is being moulded. Thirdly, a chain may be used as a leash for the Tyger: it may be loosened, or even detached, to set the animal upon the enemy - it may also be pulled to draw back the animal from doing more than the master has intended. As the Tyger is a beast of deadly terrors, the aptest reading of the poem's significance would be that which would provide occasion and justification in full for this third use in addition to the two others.
The picture we have constructed involves that use. If a godlike Tyger attacks star-angels defecting from the true light and harmony, it must have been unchained or, more probably, the chain must have been slackened so as to give the animal its head. And if those alienated entities are only reduced by the Tyger to throwing down their spears and weeping in defeated distress instead of being annihilated, a definite restraint has been placed on its deadly terrors. The chain acquires a very notable raison d'etre by our picture.
Now we may sum up our reading of the poem so far and proceed to a fundamental appreciation of the imaginative-emotional attitude displayed in its questionings and to a clear determination of its total perspective. Then we shall turn to a final resolution of the poem's mystery.
A creative divinity, standing at the same time outwardly second to the supreme Godhead and inwardly on a parity with Him, obtains from the latter's empyrean of light the power and passion of a luminous wrath, a beautiful ferocity. Making this passion-power one with himself, he manifests or projects his immortal dreadfulness into action in a supernatural Tyger-form. The divine deadly Tyger goes burning through the huge and labyrinthine, cold and sinister darkness of being from
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whose forests of night rebellious star-angels glitter in their armed hostility. It attacks and vanquishes them but is held back from destroying them: their resistance is entirely broken and they down their arms and weep inconsolably over the debacle. The supernatural beast that plays such havoc symbolizes the attribute at once contrary and complementary to the one symbolized by the Lamb-form. In it is the same divinity as is manifested and projected in the supernatural Lamb. And this divinity is ever ready to overpower and punish all that in the wake of the stars' rebellion dwells in what may anywhere be called the night's forests.
But the poet, face to face with the supernatural Tyger, emphasizes the daring dreadfulness of the divinity capable of creating it. Looking at its gloriousness and knowing it to be pitted against Satanic forces, he is necessarily aware that no diabolism is here; yet with such might of devastation comes the Tyger-form, seeming to out-Satan Satan, that the poet stands bewildered before the nature of the creative divinity and before the art he practises and the means he employs. In response to the blazing beauty and terror, the hellish heavenliness, that is shown to be his nature, the whole series of questions in the first four stanzas sparks off. Although the series does not really seek the identity of an utterly unknown creator, it goes on as if it did, because Blake can hardly believe that the true godhead could be so fearful in his magnificence. Thus the mood of interrogation is also paradoxical: there is certainty behind and there is incomprehension in front and both together stir up a passionate wonder.
The wonder that is a tension between the sense of the Tyger-maker's supernal splendour and the sense of his transcendent fury grows itself a component of a larger wonder in the fifth stanza where, after asking whether the maker took pleasure in the dire work for which he was responsible, Blake puts his crowning question. Struck with the vast difference between the grandiosely terrible aspect of the Divine which the supernatural Tyger reveals and the aspect of sweetness and quietness laid bare by the Lamb of Supernature, he once more throws out
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a query about identity in spite of knowing the one source of the two aspects. He cannot deny both to the true godhead and yet must ask:
However, the manner of this identity-query is cunning in its inspiration. Even the queries in the first four stanzas, while they appear to seek the identity of a creator quite unknown, breathe an atmosphere suggesting that this creator could be none save the Supreme in some form: the epithet "immortal" and still more the couplet about wingedly daring to aspire to the topmost empyrean and seizing with the hand its fire are shot with inklings of the Highest. In the query of the fifth stanza the manner is a general one of comparison which in itself need imply no ignorance in the matter of the two makers. Two makers, both of whom might be already known beings, are set opposite each other; and they might be known already as a single being, though their singleness be a great puzzle. We may elaborate the meaning of our line: "I know who, manifesting a quality of divinely fierce strength, made you, O Tyger of Supernature, and I know who, manifesting a quality of divinely peaceful gentleness, made the supernatural Lamb. Shall I believe they are the same maker? It seems so much that they are not. In truth they are, and the Supreme in some form is both; still, how do they manage to be one, how does the Supreme reconcile such contraries as complementaries?"
Yes, the query has an inspired cunning. But it is no piece of cold ambivalence. It is charged with an intense conflict in Blake's religious mind: he attempts absolute acceptance yet suffers near-bafflement. The poem's theology reaches an acute crisis from a starting-point well summed up in words like those of a line of Blake's elsewhere:
Wonder, awe, fear, astonishment.22
A few words now on the poem's total perspective. We are likely to be told: "Why have you read the lyric as a particular
22. Keynes, ed. cit.. p. 231 (The Fi rst Book of Urizen , Ch. V. p. 18. 1.13).
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picture of a war in heaven, shading off into a general significance at the end, rather than as a general picture of Divine Wrath illustrated by a particular reference to a war in heaven? The first four stanzas may be seen as a description of that Wrath against the domain of Darkness, wherever it may be. The fifth mentions the initial occasion of that Wrath's manifestation and poses apropos of this occasion those two anxious half-doubting queries. Then again there is, in the sixth stanza, a return to the general picture. Will not such a view be more satisfactory by applying the poem directly to our human concerns instead of making them a vague pendent to prehuman and superhuman events?"
The proposed view is attractive, but will it correspond fully to the organization of the parts, the disposition of light and shade, the proportions of the various contents in the lyric? How can we separate the opening stanza's "forests of the night" from the fifth stanza's "stars"? The forests came into existence only because the stars rebelled against God. Unquestionably, they can cover other concerns than that rebellion - they are a symbol of the supernatural Darkness, within which even human beings dwell when their thoughts and desires grow anti-divine. But human beings do so as accomplices of the rebellious stars who, after their defeat in heaven, must be presumed to have carried their forests of the night elsewhere and to have attempted the seduction of entities other than themselves. The stars are not just one illustration of anti-divine activity: they provide not only the first but also the foremost and foundational occasion for the Divine Wrath to manifest. Further, the queries of the fifth stanza attach themselves to this occasion because they arise originally from it and are more pertinent to it than to anything else: the Divine Wrath is at its intensest against the stars. And if these queries are the psychological climax of the poem, this occasion is the central theme of it. Moreover, the poem, after mentioning the Tyger and the forests, deals predominantly with the creation of the former. As the Tyger's creation is bound up with the defection by the stars and is indeed the tremendous counter-stroke to it, the defection and
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the divine retributive response it provokes come to occupy the foreground in the total perspective and bear the high-lights of the composition. The application of the Divine Wrath outside heaven and to human concerns is in the background and, though inevitable, it is more suggested than expressed. It is an extension of the principal story in which Blake sees with amazement a Tyger-creative war in heaven by one whom he knew as the Lord of Love self-figured as the Lamb.
*
On the strength of our analysis of the poem's internal pattern it is easy to identify the complex situation depicted in Blake's anonymous religious myth. Evidently it is an original reconstruction of the Christian parable of rebellion in heaven against God by a group of angels led by Lucifer or Satan and opposed and punished by Christ, God's Son who is known also as the Lamb of God. Zealous in his Father's cause, Christ goes forth in battle against them with the power sought and received from his father and concentrated into a form of activity quite unlike any we should think of associating with the Divine Lamb - a mighty wrath - and yet this fire burns not to destroy the enemies of God but to defeat them completely and then expel them from heaven into hell.
Our lyric is Christological through and through. A look at Christian tradition, scriptural or literary, in detail side by side with it can confirm every feature of both its vision and its language. But just now we shall content ourselves with pointing out how Blake's Tyger-image is quite natural for the warring Christ by analogy from the description of him at peace as the Lamb of God. We have only to note two turns of thought, one general and the other specifically Christian, one as long ago as Shakespeare's King Henry the Fifth, and the other in a poem of our own day: T. S. Eliot's Gerontion.
Shakespeare has the lines, which begin with a mention of lamb-like attributes and whose concluding purport can easily be transferred from the human to the divine:
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In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.. .23
Eliot goes directly to Christ. Contracting the accepted English derivative - "juvenescence" - of the Latin juvenescere which means "to reach the age of youth", and using it to denote the spring-time or the beginning of an historical era, the first 2,000 years of Christianity summed up as a Year, he writes:
In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger.24
Curiously enough, Rosenthal and Smith who have read a supernatural presence of Evil in Blake's animal forget themselves in their comment on Gerontion in the very same book, Exploring Poetry,25 and give their interpretation of Eliot: "Then Christ came with the power and beauty of a tiger, with the godlike energy and glory that Blake's tiger symbolizes."
George Williamson, in A Reader's Guide to T. S. Eliot,26 designates "Christ the tiger" as "an image of terror - or a springing form of terror and beauty" and, while deriving the image from the reaction of the unheroic character who is the speaker in Eliot's poem (Gerontion=little old man), he opines: "Blake may be recalled." In a gloss on the later line which expresses the speaker's remorse over man's waste of knowledge about God and over his labyrinthine errors through history -
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree -
Williamson identifies this strange tree as that of the betrayer already hinted at in "flowering judas", a rank growth symbolically mentioned by Eliot in the company of "dogwood" and
23.King Henry the Fifth, Act III, Scene 1.
24.Selected Poems - T. S. Eliot (Penguin Poets, Harmondsworth), 1948, p. 29.
25.P. 641.
26.A Reader's Guide to T. S. Eliot (London), 1955, p. 109.
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"chestnut" as a product of "depraved May", and he considers it to be now bearing or enduring "the wrath of God" which is implied in the next line:
The tiger springs in the new year, Us he devours...
This would suggest that in the second of Eliot's oblique references to Blake the terror and beauty of Christ as Divine Wrath are indirectly in the Blakean Tyger.
And, most strikingly, this Wrath is associated by Eliot not only with a tree of rank growth evoking a memory of Blake's "forests of the night", but also with tears which by being shaken from that tree stir a recollection of Blake's tear-shedding stars and put them together with those forests.
"Christ the tiger" - Eliot's flashing phrase lights up Blake's whole vision of the battle in heaven. But perhaps one touch more is to be added to naturalize in our sight the opposition we have discerned in Blake between the Tyger and the night in whose forests he burns bright. This opposition gets indirectly illuminated by some lines of Christian nomenclature from Christopher Smart who wrote apocalyptically about his cat Jeffrey nearly a quarter century before Blake rhapsodized about the Tyger:
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against
the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his
electrical skin and glaring eyes...
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger...27
27. From a quotation by Northrop Frye in "Blake After Two Centuries" in English Romantic Poets, Modern Essays in Criticism, edited by M. H. Abrams (New York), 1960, p. 61.
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3
Now - in addition to the two passages already noted, Eliot's and Smart's - we may attempt a survey of Christian tradition and set forth correspondences to the "Minute Particulars" of The Tyger's symbolism as well as to the lyric's "Vision" as "a perfect Whole" into which they are "Organized".
We have found Christ emerging from the internal pattern of the poem as the maker of the Tyger. The very attribution of creativeness to him rather than to God is in complete consonance with Christian doctrine. Christ there is known as the Word of God: he answers to the Greek Logos, the Indian Shabda Brahman, the Creative Vibration of the Divine Consciousness. The Father begets the Son, but the Son begets everything else - or, if we like, the Father begets everything through the Son who is essentially no other than the Father. This complex doctrine is all there at the commencement of St. John's Gospel:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made... He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew it not... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." We hear practically the same from St. Paul2 who calls Christ "the first-born of every creature" and "...by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth..."
Both St. Paul and St. John may be cited also for a hint on
1.I: 1, 2, 10, 14.
2.Colossians I: 15, 16.
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what we have termed the lack of personal outline in Blake's reference to the primary divinity of God the Father as distinguished from God the Son - the heavenly hiddenness of the former in ultimate light. St. John3 not only says, "God is light", but also lays down: "No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." St. Paul4 has the phrase about Christ: "the image of the invisible God."
In passing, we may note that the sentences from St. John as well as St. Paul have the small h about Christ and God. In fact, the whole Bible has no capital H for either. Blake's non-capitalization for them is nothing to be wondered at. It is in the highest Christian tradition.
And Christian tradition, we may point out, can quite justify the figuring of a Tyger Christ. Blake's poem merely depicts with a mythopoeic vision and with an emotion of fascinated religious terror the war which Christian tradition tells us to have been waged in Heaven. The last book in the Bible, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, has the passage: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death."5 A lot of things seem mixed up here, including post-Crucifixion issues; but the traditional picture of the defeat of Satan in
3.First Epistle, I: 5; Gospel, I: 16.
4.Op. cit.,
5.XII: 7-11.
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Heaven and of his expulsion from there draws its life from the first half of the passage. C. McColley, referring to it in his study of Milton,6 states that, while early theologians interpreted it as naming Michael as the conqueror of Satan, some altered the punctuation so that Christ could be regarded as intervening after Michael and Satan had waged an indecisive fight. McColley7 has also noted that the second version is not really unorthodox since the De Victoria Verbi Dei of the Catholic bishop Rupertus Tutiensus has used it. Then there is a third version brought to our notice by B. Rajan in his Milton-study:8 commentators in the seventeenth century identified Michael with Christ, and Milton himself, while distinguishing them and portraying Christ as the victor, admits in the De Doctrina Christiana the authority of this version when he writes, "... it is generally supposed that Michael is Christ". So the wrathful Christ, Tyger-dreadful in his attack on Satan and his hosts, whom we have elicited from Blake's poem, is far from being foreign to Christian tradition.
In the passage from The Revelation we have not only mention of "the power of Christ" come as a result of the war in Heaven: we have also the phrase, "the blood of the Lamb". No doubt, the Lamb here is centrally a symbol of saviour self-sacrifice, Christ's innocent death on the Cross for the redemption of humanity. It is not expressly a symbol of divine gentleness and peacefulness to be set as complementary to a symbol of divinity's fierce strength. But behind the saviour's self-sacrifice there is surely a gentleness and peacefulness so extreme as to allow their own immolation rather than let humanity be grievously hurt by Satan's insidious attacks and God's retributive visitation. The Lamb-symbol, in Christian tradition, cannot ever be divorced from these qualities.
And it is not from just the passage quoted that, side by side,
6.Paradise Lost (Chicago), 1940, p. 22.
7."Milton's Battle in Heaven and Rupert of St. Herbert", Speculum, XVI (941), pp. 230-235.
8.Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth Century Reader (London), 1947, pp. 48, 146-147, Note 20.
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the Lamb in Christ and the power and wrath of him have figured in Christian tradition. Some other places also in The Revelation can suggest that both the Lamb and the Tyger are in Christ or, rather, that the Tyger is implicit in the One who is like the Lamb. For instance, there is the vision of Christ: "I saw... one like unto the Son of Man... His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace... and out of his mouth went a two-edged sword; and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength."9 A furnace-forged Tygerish divineness, fire-eyed and burning bright, seems to be here, topped with a Lamb-like purity.
Again, The Revelation mentions a book sealed with seven seals. It is in the right hand of God who is sitting on a throne in Heaven. None among the priests and the cherubim present is found worthy to open it. Suddenly there appears in their midst a Lamb having seven horns and seven eyes: the Lamb takes the book and starts breaking the seals. But before this event the writer says: "And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look therein. And one of the elders saith unto me, weep not: behold, the Lion of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."10 And it is after these words have been spoken that the strange Lamb comes forward. The Lamb and the Lion (of Juda) are identical, as is clear too from what Christ says much later: "I am the root and the offspring of David..."11
A further point to remark in The Revelation is what happens when the sixth seal is broken. The vaults of the sky are shaken with an earthquake which moves mountains and islands. Then kings and captains and mighty men hide themselves and cry to the mountains and rocks: "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of wrath is come; and who shall be able
9. I: 13-16.
10.V: 4-5.
11.XXII: 16.
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to stand?"12 "The wrath of the Lamb" - there we have in the Lamb the Tyger implicit.
And Christian tradition, including the Old Testament no less than the New, may be said to contain also a hint of the wrath of Divinity leaping like a bright-burning beast of prey against dense forests as if they were its enemy. We read in Isaiah: "Therefore shall the Lord...send among his fat ones leanness; and under his glory he shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire...and his Holy One for a flame: and it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day; And shall consume the glory of his forest..."13
In the Old Testament Blake's image of the stars for the Angels is present too. Job gives us: "When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy"14 - a phrase which inspired one of the finest water-colour drawings by Blake. Isaiah shows us the image in a more apposite setting - a setting which has repeatedly been taken by Christians to refer to the revolt and fall of Satan and his Angels. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!... For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High."15 Here, of course, the faithful Angels no less than the rebellious are "stars", but the star of stars is the leader of the latter, Lucifer, son of the morning, who by his infamous insurrection becomes a perverted brilliance, a power of the night, and leads his own starry hosts to do the same.
The New Testament also has the star-image and very pointedly applies it to the followers of Satan no less than to the Angels in general. A little before the passage on "the war in heaven" in which Satan is called a dragon, we find about him the words: "And there appeared another wonder in heaven;
12.VI: 12-17.
13.X: 16-18.
14.XXXVIII: 7.
15.XIV: 12-14.
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and behold a great red dragon... And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven..."16
The Isaiah-passage on Lucifer presents us with a general prototype also of Blake's "distant deeps or skies" which form the empyrean of the ultimate Godhead. The passage puts "the Most High" "above the stars of God...above the heights of the clouds..."
Next, we may ask whether Christian tradition suggests a winged Christ. The answer cannot be a uniform "yes", yet such a Christ is not excluded. And the immediate argument for non-exclusion could derive from the discussion of the passage dealing with the dragon that is Satan. We have cited Milton's remark: "...it is generally supposed that Michael is Christ." If Christ acts in the form of Michael against Satan, then wings are most natural for him: all the Angels in Christian tradition are winged, just as the Cherubim and Seraphim are. And we may observe that the fusion of Christ with Angel or Cherub or Seraph (often interchangeable terms) is not quite exceptional in this tradition. We may remember the account by Brother Matthew of Castiglione Aventino, on the third of October, 1282, relating to the Stigmata of St. Francis. Brother Matthew reports seeing a vision of the Saint in which the latter says about his own experience: "And while I was praying, there came down through the air from Heaven with great rapidity a crucified Young Man in the form of a Seraph, with six wings... He who appeared to me then was not an angel but was my Lord Jesus Christ in the form of a Seraph..."17
In poetic vision too a Christ with wings has occurred. Vaughan, a part contemporary of Milton and a near predecessor of Blake, has a poem, That Night, addressed to Jesus and
16.XII: 3-4.
17.The Little Flowers of St. Francis, translated from the original Latin and Italian by Raphael Brown (Image Books, New York), 1958, p. 208. The same incident is reported also by St. Bonaventure. See pp. 730 and 821 of St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies - English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis, translated by several hands and edited by Marion A. Habig (Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago). I owe this information to my friend Ms Sonia Dyne of Singapore.
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referring to Nicodemus's secret visit to him and so to rebirth of the flesh by the spirit- a theme taken from St. John's Gospel.18 The second verse of the poem runs:
Most blest believer he!
Who in that land of darkness and blind eyes
Thy long-expected healing wings could see
When thou didst rise!
And what can never more be done,
Did at midnight speak with the Son!
Amidst the "metaphysical" punning of the poem - e.g. "Son" (Sun) - the picture-idea of Christ rising at midnight to meet Nicodemus prompts not only the suggestion of his resurrection from the darkness of the tomb but also that of ascendant wings of his heavenly uplifting presence. Even if the motive be a profound religious wit, the fact remains that a pre-Blake Christian poet has explicitly endowed Christ with wings.
Then there are the Biblical passages where too the poetry gives wings to divinity. David rhapsodises: "Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice"19 - "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust"20 - "And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea he did fly upon the wings of the wind".21 The last passage joins up with those22 in which the heavens are opened and Ezekiel sees visions of God. Out of the midst of a bright fire came four living creatures who had the likeness of a man and who moved with wheels within wheels. "And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings... And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it..." Thus goes "the glory of the Lord" in an ensemble wheeled and winged. When Christ is worshipped as
18.III.
19.The Psalms of David, 63: 7.
20.Ibid., 91: 4.
21.Ibid., 18: 10.
22.Ezekiel, I, 4-28.
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the Lord, he must naturally be considered to be moving not only on wheels within wheels but also with a multitude of wings as part of his full glory of throned supremacy above the four living creatures.
Perhaps the most directly apt poetic reference for our purpose is in Bishop Synesius, a contemporary of St. Athanasius (c.295-373). He has a beautiful hymn on the Ascension of Jesus, picturing Jesus' passage through several levels and having towards the end of the composition the lines:
But thou, with spreading wings,
Broke through the azure dome
And rested in the spheres
Of pure Intelligence.23
Even on a deeper level - the level of fundamental doctrine -the wingedness of Christ in one particular sense can be argued for. Christ in his own distinct individuality has no wings, just as God the Father has none; but the Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Ghost, is always winged, as in Gerard Manley Hopkins's
...the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright
wings,24
and it is the Holy Ghost that is called the Spirit of God considered as the creative divine force no less than the divine force mediating, in-dwelling, enthusing, grace-giving, salvation-bringing. The Holy Ghost is also called the Spirit of Christ. And in early Christological speculation Christ and the Holy Spirit were often put together. Thinkers like Irenaeus unite the Son and the Holy Spirit with God as "His Hands" by which He created the world.25 Still earlier, "the Spirit, viewed as a divine
23.Hymn 8 quoted by Jocelyn Godwin in "The Golden Chain of Orpheus: A Survey of Musical Esotericisms in the West", in Temenos: A Review devoted to the Arts of the Imagination, edited by Kathleen Raine (London, 1 983), No. 4, p. 16.
24.Gerard Manley Hopkins (Penguin , Harmondsworth ) . 1 953, p. 27 .
25.Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by J . Hastings (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh) , 1 934. Vol. X I , p. 797.
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essence was frequently identified with the Son".26
One may then say in general that Divinity in its creative function is winged in Christian tradition and that Christ may even be directly seen as this Divinity and that it would be poetically legitimate as well as not really unChristian to endow with wings the Christ who frames the Tyger.
Finally, there is the question of Christ aspiring. If Blake's "aspire" connotes more than merely soaring or mounting up, does Christian tradition support the idea of Christ in Heaven having to aspire for anything? But we must bear in mind that Blake does not stop with the Tyger's maker aspiring on wings to "distant deeps or skies" for the Tyger's eye-fire: he makes the aspirant seize it - as by right. A dual relationship is there with the ultimate empyrean. Could we not trace this relationship in the doctrine that distinguishes Christ as the Son from God as the Father - the doctrine in which Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity and God the First? Although essentially one, may not the two Persons have a difference of degree in practical functioning? Do not the words of the incarnate Jesus of the Bible imply the essential unity and yet this difference again and again? Let us listen to some of his sayings.
"I and my Father are one"27 - "thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee"28 - "All things that the Father hath are mine".29 There we have the essential unity beyond all controversy. But the difference of degree in practical functioning would seem to be equally incontrovertible. "My father is greater than I"30 - "the Father gave me commandment, even so do I"31 - "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me"32 - "I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I by myself, but he sent me."33 We should observe that
26.Ibid., p. 796.
27.St. John's Gospel, X: 30.
28.Ibid., XVII: 21.
29.Ibid., XVI: 15.
30.Ibid., XIV: 29.
31.Ibid., XIV: 30.
32.Ibid., VI: 38. 33. Ibid., VIII: 42.
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the references to a secondary position are not confined to the role played by Christ on earth as a God-Man for a certain period of time: some of them extend to affairs in Heaven where the decision to send him to earth was. taken and the commandment of earth-ministry was given. Indeed, the very dogma, which we touched upon at the start, that God creates everything in Heaven and earth through Christ presents the latter in the light of an instrument carrying delegated powers. And, for all the essential identity with the Father, such a Christ could very well be poetically figured as aspiring to the Father to receive powers which the Father wills for him - though the reception is not of anything foreign to the Son but of something over which he too has basic authority.
Thus the whole structure of The Tyger as viewed by us may be founded in Christian tradition. And if its Christology is in relation to a dynamic drama of the Divine and the Diabolic in Heaven, it should send us scrutinizing the greatest literary portrayal of this drama, the most fully developed and explicit poetization of it - those portions of Milton's Paradise Lost that roll out in mighty verse the battle under God's seat, with Christ the clear-cut figure personally victorious over Satan's armies. Here was a vision immediately apt to Blake's purposes. If our interpretation is correct, we should find many affinities of idea and even language. Conversely, if we discover many affinities, our thesis on the central symbolism will get its own confirmation and a new perspective be set up for a critical appreciation of the poem's origin and progression, general vision and pictorial particularities. The most important treatment, therefore, of our poem's internal pattern in regard to Christian tradition must lie in a minute exposition of a Miltonic basis to it.
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4
(a)
Paradise Lost is called by Bernard Blackstone1 "a poem which influenced Blake more than anything outside the Bible itself."2 And critics have noted three kinds of influence by Milton's epic on The Tyger. We may take these as our starting-point. But before we do so a few words will be in place on how the poem of one writer may be related to that of another.
The relation between them, no matter how vital, is not always open and full-figured: it is often subtle and embryonic. Not only do basic ideas, images and locutions pass from the earlier writer to the later in a straightforward or an oblique manner: there occur also certain combinations and permutations. If two ideas or images, though in the same context, stand separately in the earlier writer, they may get attached or fused in the later: an attribute not belonging to an object but to another which is mentioned along with it in the same or the next or a closely succeeding line may cling to it instead when that object emerges through a new poet's imagination. We must not always expect accurate correspondence. Provided the most important motifs do have altogether or almost an accurate correspondence and thereby establish the inner influence beyond doubt, we should not dismiss as fanciful a comparison if what is said about a thing by a later poet is said by the earlier about something else which accompanies the same or an analo-
1.English Blake (Cambridge), l949, p. 140.
2.Cf. S. Foster Damon: "...the works of Milton influenced Blake more than any other book except the Bible" ("Blake and Milton" in The Divine Vision, Studies in the Poetry and Art of William Blake, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto [London], 1957, p. 95). Also Northrop Frye: "Blake...was brought upon the Bible and on Milton" ("Blake After Two Centuries", op. cit., p. 62).
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gous subject. A poetic influence is not like a scene memory-mirrored either clearly or dimly or distortedly or with a fresh colouring: it is as if that scene were passed through a thrilled idiosyncrasy of imaginative understanding and enjoyment, so that while many features get reproduced with just a personal novelty several get shuffled and rearranged and new-married and yet others undergo intuitive development or intuitive alteration. On the whole a creation de novo results, which includes old motifs recognizable in a modified psychological light and original motifs appearing out of combined and permuted elements of the anterior creation.
Now for Paradise Lost and The Tyger. A general background influence is well expressed by Bateson.3 He tells us that the Rossetti MS., in which many of the "Songs of Experience" including our poem were originally composed, was first used as a sketch-book for scenes in or suggested by Paradise Lost -"Satan exulting over Eve", "Satan defying God the Father, the Son interceding", "The Trinity", "Adam and Eve", etc. Normally, the even-numbered pages have these drawings while, with the book reversed, the odd-numbered contain the poems, but the revision of two poems - Earth's Answer and The Tyger - actually spill over on to the illustrations. Bateson tells us: "Blake cannot have been unaware...of the sketches for Paradise Lost. As he looked up from the first verse of Earth's Answer the contorted figure of Satan shrieking his defiance of God the Father would have met his eyes. And even when there could be no specific influence the drawings would at least tend to confirm and reinforce the background of Genesis myth in the poems. The symbolism of Experience draws heavily on the Fall of Man, the Fall of the Angels, the forbidden fruit, the serpent-tempter, and similar themes. The fact that Blake had recently been illustrating Genesis episodes and that the illustrations were often before his eyes as he worked out their poetic equivalents is one that needs to be remembered in reading them."
A more particular influence has been observed in two ways
3. Op. cit.. p. 106.
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in connection with the lines opening Blake's fifth stanza:
And water'd heaven with their tears...
We may quote Bateson again. First, in the course of annotating The Tyger he4 writes: "1.17 is repeated in The Four Zoas, Night V (c. 1 797) , 1 .224 ('the stars threw down their spears and fled naked away') , in a passage that is obviously based on Milton's account of the Fall of the Angels (Paradise Lost, Book VI) , the stars being Urizen (Satan) and his associates. " Later, there is Bateson's remark5 on the fifth stanza: "In the Rossetti MS. this stanza faces the first draft of the rest of the poem on the opposite page . It has been written over the edge of a swirling sketch of a figure with bent knees and upraised hands who seems to be falling through the air (Satan?) ."
But Bateson misses to drive home that not only the passage in The Four Zoas, in which The Tyger's line about the stars is repeated, but this very line is an obvious echo of Milton. And the next line too is essentially a Miltonic reminiscence. There is a direct correspondence between Blake's couplet and Milton's picture of the rebel Angels at the onset of Christ's chariot:
They, astonish'd, all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idle weapons dropt;
O'er shields, and helms, and helmed heads he rode
Of Thrones and mighty Seraphim prostrate...6
The attack
wither'd all their strength,
And of their wonted vigour left them drain'd,
Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fall'n.7
The precise parallel between the throwing down of the spears and the dropping down of the weapons needs no comment. But
4.Ibid.,
5.Ibid.,
6.Paradise Lost,
7.Ibid., 11 .
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we may offer a few remarks on other matters. Psychologically, the profuse shedding of tears in Blake answers to the condition in Milton of being afflicted at the same time as being exhausted, spiritless and fallen. The very sense of tears by the vanquished could have arisen in Blake through a phrase which Milton makes the seraph Abdiel utter in a warning to Satan about the punishment he will receive. Satan has refused to accept Christ as Lord and Creator. Abdiel, anticipating the revolted Archangel's defeat, tells him:
"Then who created thee lamenting learn
When who can uncreate thee thou shalt know."8
We may go beyond the implication of "tears" in "lamenting" and see their direct association with it through some lines on Adam:
Adam was all in tears, and to his guide
Lamenting turn'd full sad...9
Tears themselves may also be seen as coming to Blake in a direct association with Satan through a Miltonic reference: there are the lines on Satan facing his crew in Hell after the defeat in Heaven, whose memory Milton has evoked before writing:
Thrice he essay'd, and thrice, in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last
Words interwove with sighs found out their way.10
As to the special phrase about watering Heaven with tears, Milton has a passage which may have served excellently as a spur to Blake to adapt some words of it to his own purpose -words which draw particular attention since Milton repeats them a few lines later. Christ is part of the context and a grievous error is concerned. After Christ has come to the Garden of Eden to pass judgement on Adam and Eve for their
8.Bk. V, 11 .1094-1095.
9.Bk. XI, 11.674-675.
10. Bk. I, 11.619-621.
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transgression of God's Will and after he has done what was needed, the erring pair have a talk which ends with Adam's saying in reference to the spot at which Christ has stood:
"What better can we do than, to the place
Repairing where he judg'd us, prostrate fall
Before him reverent and there, confess
Humbly our faults and pardon beg, with tears
Wat'ring the ground...?11
From watering the ground of the earthly heaven, Eden, with tears it is but one imaginative step to watering Heaven itself with them. And the step is all the easier when not only is Christ retributive in both the situations but also, corresponding to Milton's picture of the prostrate falling of Adam and Eve in the one passage, is Milton's picture of "Seraphim prostrate" and "fall'n" in the other on which Blake built his own lines about the catastrophe to the stars.
Blake's knowledge of Milton's phrase cannot be doubted. In the lyric The Human Abstract which is in the same collection Songs of Experience where The Tyger is found and which, without naming him, is distantly about Urizen who is Blake's Satan and is here called "Cruelty", we have the lines:
He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears...12
We may also note in passing that in The Tyger as well as in this poem "tears" forms the line-ending and that in the Milton-passage too "tears" ends a line. Even when Milton repeats his phrase a little later the word has the identical position: "...and pardon begg'd, with tears."13
We may next mark that in a passage in Milton about Christ's attack the locution "threw down" which Blake employs in regard to Satan's army and its "spears" and which is followed by the lines mentioning "heaven", is present with a mention of
11.Bk. X, 11 .1086-1090.
12.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 217, 11.9-10.
13.Bk. X, 1,1101.
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the same word though there is nothing about "tears":
headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of Heav'n...14
Earlier in the same Book we have the phrase - "Their arms away they threw"15 - in the context of God's armies plucking up mountains and hurling them at the rebels instead of fighting them in the usual mode. In another Book also we read in the address to Christ as God's Similitude -
He Heav'n of Heav'ns and all the Powers therein
By thee created, and by thee threw down
Th' aspiring Dominations...16
The locution we are discussing in its association with Satan's defeat is a thoroughly Miltonic one. Blake could easily have written "cast down" or "flung down" or "hurl'd down". In fact, about Satan as treated by God, Milton himself uses "cast out from Heav'n" and "hurl'd... from th'ethereal sky... down" in Book I,17 but there is no open reference there to Christ's action. Blake's choice of a substitute Miltonic turn of phrase occurring twice in a Christ-context appears to be no coincidence.
Even Blake's association of Satan and his armies in Heaven with stars is not wanting in Milton. Here Milton cannot be considered a pre-eminent source of Blake, for his star-imagery comes in more as simile than as symbol; but his repeated employment of it must have strengthened the symbolic movement in Blake under the Biblical influence which he and Milton had in common. When Milton speaks of all the Angels together near God's throne he has the expression:
About him all the Sanctities of Heav'n
Stood thick as stars...18
14.Bk. VI, 11.864-865.
15.Ibid., 1. 639.
16.Bk. III, 11.390-394.
17.Bk. I, yy.37, 48.
18.Bk. III, 11.60-61.
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And when in Book V Satan is described as gathering supporters for himself against God and Christ, Milton writes:
His count'nance, as the morning star that guides
The starry flock, allur'd them, and with lies
Drew after him the third part of Heav'n's host...19
Here Milton must have been aware of the way in which Blake was later to employ the star-image, for the last line is based on the Biblical passage where Satan is called a dragon about whom we are told: "And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven."20
Again, immediately after Christ has spoken of quelling the pride of the rebels, Milton says:
But Satan with his powers
Far was advanc't on winged speed, an host
Innumerable as the stars of night...21
Finally, in Book VII Milton dwells a moment on Satan's original name Lucifer:
Lucifer from Heav'n
(So call him, brighter once amidst the host
Of Angels than that star the stars among)
Fell with his flaming legions...22
Now remains only the word "spears" in Blake's couplet to be seen Miltonically. No doubt, if "spears" were absent, the rhyme with "tears" would be impossible. But Blake could surely have written something like:
When star on star threw down his sword,
And all their tears in heaven pour'd...
The association of a sword with a star-angel is hardly unnatural to Blake, as the couplet - which brings in the word "tear" as well - proves:
19.Bk. V , 11 . 708-7 1 0 .
20.The Revelation, XII, 3.
21.Bk. V , 11 . 743-745.
22.Bk. VII, 11. 131-134
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For a Tear is an Intellectual thing,
And a Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King...23
To match "star on star" we have in Blake turns like "times on times"24 and "eternity on eternity":25 there is also "From star to star" beginning a line.26 As for "tears pour'd", we have Blake's: "his tears poured down / His immortal cheeks".27 So we should trace the "spears" of The Tyger not only to the rhyme-need. The fact is that these weapons are prominent in Milton's pictures of Satan's army. Thus they are the first to be named when for the first time the armies of God's faithful beheld Satan's hosts: the latter
Bristl'd with upright beams innumerable
Of rigid spears, and helmets throng'd, and shields...28
In another place also the spears stand out: there is the description - from which we have already culled the final phrase - of Satan's troops remarshalled in Hell's everlasting night:
All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air,
With orient colours waving: with them rose
A forest huge of spears...29
The concluding phrase is indeed striking for its combination of spears with a forest. It seems to make explicit one of the imaginative links we have divined between Blake's forests of the night and his spear-bearing stars: Milton appears to supply a straight clue to Blake's composite picture of the Tyger's enemies and to show himself as the matrix of the later poet's vision of the rebel Angels. And it may be marked that the
23.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 683 (Jerusalem, ch. 3, pl. 52, 11.25-26).
24.Ibid., p. 222 (The Book of Urizen, pl. 3, ch. I, 1.9).
25.Ibid., p. 230 (ibid., pl. 13, ch. V, 1.54).
26.Ibid., p. 539 (Milton, II, 37, 1.52).
27.Ibid., p. 711 (Jerusalem, ch. 3, p1. 71, 11.56-57).
28.Bk. VI, 11.82-83.
29.Bk. I, 11.544-547.
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spears being thrown down in that vision answers in exact reverse to the earlier poet's vision of them either as rising or as upright beams.
Milton's "forest huge of spears", by its relevance to the internal pattern of The Tyger, suggests that Milton is involved not only in Blake's couplet about the stars but also - and most probably in an equally thorough fashion - in the entire lyric. He may be conceived as present in all that precedes and follows this couplet and providing by his emergence into instant view here a master-clue to the whole poem's meaning.
As soon as we peer a little beyond the couplet new Miltonic connections get disclosed. Immediately before it the Tyger is asked about its furnace-forged brain:
In Milton immediately before the lines corresponding to Blake's about throwing down the spears and weeping, we read of Christ amidst Satan's armies:
Full soon
Among them he arriv'd, in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their souls infix'd
Plagues.30
The Tyger-creator's dreadfulness of grasp using the Tyger's deadliness of terrors is unmistakably here. And a few lines earlier31 we have the actual word "terror" in reference to Christ's face and a few lines later32 we have Christ pursuing his enemies with "terrors". In regard to Blake's verses immediately after the star-couplet -
we have no immediate Miltonic parallel in thought and phrase
30.Bk. VI, 11.834-838.
31.Ibid., 11 .824-825.
32.Ibid., 11.858-859.
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after the lines about the rebels dropping down their weapons and falling exhausted and afflicted. But the parallel springs into view the moment we look into Milton a little more widely.
What is the word he has for Christ's devastation of the rebels? When Christ comes in his chariot among God's armies he tells "to all his host on either hand" to rest from battle on that day, for not they in their myriads but he alone has been appointed to wreak vengeance:
"Number to this day's work is not ordain'd,
Nor multitude; stand only and behold
God's indignation on these godless pour'd
By me..."33
Here we have Blake's own term "work" to connote Christ's destructive attack, his pouring of God's indignation on the godless, which Milton describes soon after. We have even an order to Christ's company to "behold" this "work", thus serving as a suggestion for Blake's phrase: "his work to see." And when Christ has made his attack we get repeated reference to the seeing of it or of its consequences. When Satan's crew is driven to the verge of Heaven and "headlong themselves they threw / Down" and "eternal wrath / Burnt after them",
Hell saw
Heav'n ruining from Heav'n...34
Again, after the fight, Christ's Saints
who silent stood
Eye-witnesses of his almighty acts,
With jubilee advanc't...35
There we get not only seeing but also an equivalent of smiling. And the general "jubilee" at Satan's defeat and expulsion is also expressed in the phrase:
33.Bk. VI, 11 .809-812.
34.Ibid., 11.867-868.
35.Ibid., 11.882-884.
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Disburden'd Heav'n rejoic'd...36
While we are about Christ's "work" we may observe that Milton has not only spoken of it, as in Christ's speech to his men, in a sense analogous to one of the alternatives we read in Blake - namely, the sense of "thing done" or "deed". Milton has also spoken of "work" in relation to Christ in the other sense: "thing made." Before Christ goes into battle we are told of his accepting God's "almighty arms" and chariot and we are given the description:
He, in celestial panoply all arm'd
Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought...37
The term "work" about the celestial armour set with scintillating brilliances ("radiant Urim") answers precisely to Blake's possible use of it for the bright-burning Tyger as a creation from empyrean-fire, and Milton's expression "divinely wrought" in reference to the armour implies the furnace and hammer and anvil of a supernatural smithy where the "work" was forged and shaped just as Blake's Tyger was fashioned by a supernatural smith.
There is another Miltonic point to be appreciated in considering Blake's "work". The question,
has evidently a resemblance to the formula after each day's creation in the first chapter of Genesis: "and God saw that it was good." But nowhere in Genesis do we find God's seeing and approving of any "work": the term "work" occurs only after everything has been created - "And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made" - and then there is no repetition of "God saw that it was good". The case is quite otherwise with Milton. He explicitly uses "work" or "works" in speaking of the objects created in the six days. Thus, when Light was made and divided from Darkness and the first Day
36.Ibid., 1.878.
37.Ibid., 11.760-761.
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and Night happened, the "celestial quire...prais'd God and all his works".38 On the termination of the fifth day when Man is still uncreated we are told: "There wanted yet the master-work...39 What is most pertinent to our thesis, there is, when the sun and moon and stars were created, the Miltonic sentence:
God saw,
Surveying his great work that it was good.40
This is a direct anticipation of Blake - the bringing together of divine seeing and work and approval - except that Blake casts his line into the form of a query with an undertone of doubt. Milton, not the Bible, is Blake's source. And a more specific Miltonic colour is perceived on our remembering that in Paradise Lost God as Christ the Son is the Creator:41 Christ's seeing and work and approval are collocated just as in our reading of The Tyger.
Blake's presentation of the idea of approval by means of the act of smiling has also an anticipation in Milton. The anticipation is not in the account either of the battle in Heaven or of world-creation. But still it has to do with Christ's victory over Satan: Milton, picturing the divine termination of the world-drama, makes Christ say to God the Father:
"I through the ample air in triumph high
Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show
The powers of Darkness bound. Thou, at the sight
Pleas'd, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile..."42
Seeing and smiling are brought together in relation to Satan's defeat by Christ.
At this place, with Milton quoted about Christ showing "the powers of Darkness bound", it will not be inappropriate to go back to the subject of a supernatural smithy, which is implicit in
38.Bk. VII, 1.259.
39.Ibid., 1.555.
40.Ibid., 11.352-353.
41.E.g., Bk. V, 11.835-837.
42.Bk. III, 11.254-257.
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Milton and explicit in Blake where the question about the dread grasp is preceded by the phrases:
What the anvil?
The purpose of our going back is to glance Miltonically at the "chain" among the smith-paraphernalia of the Tyger's maker. Blake mentions the chain immediately before the furnace. In Milton we have the collocations: "adamantine chains and penal fire"43 - "Chain'd on the burning lake".44 If we could fuse the notions of "penal fire" and "burning lake" with that of something like a blazing furnace, we should have a sequence exactly as in Blake. And, actually, a few lines after "penal fire" and after a subsequent description of Satan "with his horrid crew... rolling in the fiery gulf",45 Milton gives us the whole environ of the vanquished rebels in Hell in the statement:
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace flam'd...46
Milton even puts openly a chain in Christ's hand in a passage redepicting the scene of Christ showing the powers of Darkness bound: the passage tells us that at the world's end Christ shall "drag in chains"47 a surprised Satan. Although the chain here has a different function from the one it has in Christ's hand in The Tyger, the mere juxtaposition of a chain and this hand is worth remembering. Blake himself remembered it when he wrote elsewhere, setting to the chain the same Miltonic function:
He bound Old Satan in his Chain,
And bursting forth, his furious ire
Became a Chariot of fire...
43.Bk. I, 1.48.
44.Ibid., 1.210.
45.Ibid., 1.52.
46.Ibid., 11.61-62.
47.Bk. XII, 11.454.
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And Satan in his Spiritual War
Drag'd at his Chariot wheels...48
It is interesting that here Blake, while putting a chain in Christ's hand to bind and drag Satan, explicitly recalls the Miltonic "Chariot of Paternal Deity / Flashing thick flames,"49 in which the Christ of Paradise Lost moves forth against Satan. And we have in addition a very important link between Milton and The Tyger: just as in Blake's lyric we have seen Christ's wrath taking the shape of a fiery Tyger we find "his furious ire" taking the shape of a fiery chariot, so that a correspondence is suggested between Blake's Tyger as Christ's vehicle of anger and Milton's chariot as the same vehicle. But, of course, Christ's chain in Blake's lyric is not for binding Satan: it is related directly to the Tyger itself and, if Milton's chariot no less than "almighty arms" and other God-provided means of destruction answers to this animal of Blake, we should discover in the account of Christ's attack a suggestion of the role Blake gives to the chain.
We have discussed that role and marked it to be in particular to control the Tyger while being made and afterwards to keep it in a line of action from its maker, whether for setting it upon enemies or for restraining it if necessary. We found the Tyger not only set upon the rebel stars but also restrained from destroying them. The same gesture of defeating and distressing without destroying is discernible in Milton's story of Christ's assault on Satan's troops. After the line about them -
Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fall'n -
Milton continues about Christ:
Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd
His thunder in mid volley, for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of Heav'n:
The overthrown he rais'd, and as a herd
Of goats or timorous flock together throng'd,
48.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 749 (The Everlasting Gospel, b, 11.32-34, 42-43).
49.Bk. VI, 1.750-751.
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Drove them before him thunderstruck, pursu'd
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And crystal wall of Heav'n...50
There we have the clear background to Blake's chain by which the Christ-Tyger - corresponding in Milton to Christ's "strength" and "thunder" - is checked. Here, instead of complete destruction, a dreadful chase is afoot.
And it is most interesting to observe that Milton talks of Christ driving the armies of Satan as if they were "a herd / Of goats or timorous flock together throng'd": such a picture of animals in frightened flight could easily conjure up the image of a tiger in pursuit with thunders and terrors and furies.
The words "timorous flock" need a special scrutiny. Obviously they stand for "sheep" and, when sheep are pictured as fleeing from a tigerish pursuit, we get a foreshadowing as of Blake's contraposed Lamb and Tyger:
Paradoxically, with Christ becoming the Tyger, it is Satan who becomes the Lamb, driven helplessly and hopelessly as he is: Christ in his Tyger-aspect is, as it were, opposed to his own Lamb-aspect and his victim grows Lamblike. And it is just this transposition no less than contraposition that creates the angst of Blake's poem, the deep note of anxiety and half-doubt and near-bafflement in the nervous heart despite the steady mind's vision of the divinity of the Tyger and of its maker, a divinity equal to that of the Lamb's maker and of the Lamb.
This vision, no less than the disturbing many-sided paradox, may be traced again to Milton. Listen to the words of Christ to God:
"But whom thou hat'st I hate, and can put on
Thy terrors, as I put thy mildness on,
Image of thee in all things: and shall soon
50. Bk. VI, 11.853-860.
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Arm'd with thy might, rid Heav'n of these rebell'd.
To their prepar'd ill mansion driven down..."51
There we have both the aspects of Christ indicated: Christ who is mild and Christ who is terrible, Christ the Lamb and Christ the Tyger. The latter meets us once more in the lines already quoted as part of Christ's speech to his own men:
"...behold
By me..."52
The Tyger-aspect comes out in still another passage: it is after the above speech has been concluded:
So spoke the Son, and into terror chang'd
His count'nance, too severe to be beheld,
And full of wrath bent on his enemies...53
What this wrath could do we have already seen. The end of its action on its enemies may be summed up:
eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit...54
Hell, their fit habitation, fraught with fire
Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain.55
The passion and power that the creator in Blake's poem put into his creation, the Tyger, and set burning bright against night's forests and against the stars whose milieu of darkness they were is indeed present in Milton's Christ. And when we realize that by this passion and power there was inflicted on the rebellious Archangel
His punishment, eternal misery,56
51.Bk. VI, 11.734-738.
52.Ibid., 11.810-812.
53.Ibid., 11.824-826.
54.Ibid., 11.865-866.
55.Ibid., 11.876-877.
56.Bk. VI, 1.905.
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we get the proper background for Blake's mood in his poem's fifth stanza. The stern and unrelenting sentence of permanent banishment of Satan and his followers from Heaven Milton the Puritan could view calmly: Blake, though no less a champion of "prophetic wrath", was a more sensitive soul and, while revealing in his poem the divinity of Christ the Tyger to the full, he could not help being shaken by the extremism of punishment to which that fiery manifestation was instrumental. The later Blake, persistent to the end in combating the forces of evil, had yet a vision of ultimate regeneration in which even Satan would recover his lost divineness. But at the time of writing The Tyger he stood steeped in Miltonic Christology without the Miltonic Puritanism. Hence - and hence alone - those two poignant and searching interrogations after the concentrated sublimity and pathos of the clearly Miltonic lines about the fate of the stars.
We have now shown not only these lines but also those just preceding and succeeding them to be coloured through and through with Miltonism and we have read from all of them indications of Miltonism as the basis of the whole lyric. We may then consider ourselves justified on a close and detailed examination of Milton vis-a-vis all the parts of Blake's Tyger.
But before doing so we may touch on one simple characteristic and two complexities relevant to the Blake-Milton comparison. In all the lines we have culled from Paradise Lost, where God figures, there is no capital H except at the commencement of a line; and all the references to Christ have also a small h. Just as in the whole Bible and very nearly the whole of Blake's poetry, Paradise Lost - save at a few places for a special purpose - has no capital H for either God or Christ. The three h's in The Tyger would be natural for Christ if Blake were practising the Miltonic tradition, and all the more natural if the creator of the poem's beast of prey were the Miltonic Christ at war with Satan.
So much for the simple characteristic. The two complexities arise precisely apropos of the bearing of this characteristic on the "he" of The Tyger. For, the first complexity is the fact known to all Blake-scholars that, though steeped in Milton's
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poetry, Blake topsyturvied Milton's hero and villain.57 He considered Milton's Christ or Messiah to be Reason, the res-trainer of Desire which in his eyes is Milton's Devil or Satan. He believed that Reason divorced from Desire is the real Devil and that what was originally cast out from Heaven was the spirit of rationality which had revolted against the many-sided fullness of Divine Being. In that fullness there is room for the Energy that to Blake is Eternal Delight and for the Exuberance that to him is Beauty. This fullness is "the Poetic Genius, which is the Lord",58 or - as he puts it in his long prophetic poem Milton (1804-1808) where he makes the older poet return to correct some of his errors -
the Poetic Genius,
Who is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity.59
Blake also terms it in the same poem again using the designation "human" in an archetypal sense -
the Human Imagination,
Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed
forever60 -
Jesus whom in this very poem he Miltonically calls "the image of the Invisible God"61 and elsewhere62 distinguishes as "all Virtue" because, in the sense of a supreme spontaneity, he "acted from impulse, not rules".
But if to Blake his own Satan is Milton's Messiah how can The Tyger's "he" be the Miltonic Christ? Here comes the second complexity. Without reverting to the essential characters which, according to Blake, Milton has given his Messiah and Satan, Blake partly turns his own topsyturvying of them upside down and remains Miltonic when he is face to face with
57. Keynes, ed. cit. , pp. 1 49- 1 50 ( The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pls. 3. 4, 5-6)
58. Ibid. , p. 90 (Annotations to Swedenborg's Divine Love).
59. Ibid. , p . 495 ( Milton, I, 14, 11 . 1 -2 ) .
60. Ibid. , p . 482 (ibid . . I, 3, 11 .3-4).
61 . Ibid. , p . 48 1 (ibid. , I , 2 , 1 . 12 ) . cf. Paradise Lost, Bk. III . 11 . 384-187, Bk. V I .
11 .68 1 -682.
62. Ibid . , p. 1 58 ( The Marriage, A Memorable Fancy. pls. 22-24) .
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Milton's description of Christ's martial expedition against the rebellious Archangel. In that expedition the Messiah, the res-trainer of elemental energies and of the principle of fire and desire, assumes an energism and an outleaping fieriness which exceed anything possible in the opposite camp. Blake's Christ in The Tyger is not Reason trying to repel the claims of Intuition, Emotion and Sensation, yet is he the Christ of Milton's Book VI, Christ the Reason grown a scorching splendour. Blake's Christ in The Tyger is Milton's Messiah insofar as the latter is drawn by that poet in the war-scenes.
A similar identification is found in some passages in The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818) from which we have already picked out a few lines. Blake writes:
Thunders and lightnings broke around,
And Jesus' voice in thunder's sound...63
Where'er his Chariot took its way,
There Gates of Death let in the day,
Broke down from every Chain & Bar;
Drag'd at his Chariot wheels: loud howl'd
The God of this World: louder roll'd
The Chariot Wheels, & louder still
His voice was heard from Zion's hill,
And in his hand the Scourge shone bright...64
Here too Christ in battle with Satan is etched out in flame and it is done with Christ appearing in his own person and not anonymously as in our poem; his wrath too, instead of being depicted under the Tyger-symbol, is openly his at the same time that it takes the symbolic form of "a Chariot of Fire". The Christ warring with Satan, "the God of this World", in The Everlasting Gospel is the same burning brightness that the Messiah is in Milton's Book VI. So it is no freakish and unlikely
63.Ibid.,
64.Ibid.,
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identification that we are submitting of that Messiah and the Christ in our lyric both in the role of the Tyger's maker and in that of the Tyger itself.
Of course, the identification is solely in respect of the gloriously terrible dynamism manifested: Blake would have denied that the essential character - Ratio, as he names it - which manifests this dynamism in Milton is the same as what does so in either The Tyger or The Everlasting Gospel. Perhaps he would have thought it inconsistent that a Messiah who is Reason should be portrayed as so genuinely bright-burning, so divine in his intensity of power - the very model of the "fearful symmetry" going out all ablaze with the empyrean's fire against the Satanism of rationality.
But, consistent or no, this Christ of Milton is also Blake's and we should expect The Tyger to catch many of the movements and verbal turns connected with him. At the same time we must not forget the general inversion by Blake of Milton's Christ and Satan: so we should expect too the Christ of The Tyger to recreate in himself many lines of activity that are Satan's in Paradise Lost, and phrases going with Satan in the epic would naturally get shifted on to Christ in the lyric. A constant interplay of the two characters in a new unity is what we have principally to deal with in a Milton-Blake comparison. This interplay must be well kept in view so that no impression of inconsistency may arise.
Now we may proceed to an extension of our study which would enable us, so far as The Tyger is concerned, to alter Blackstone's dictum and call Paradise Lost a poem which influenced Blake more than any other writing, the Bible included.
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(b)
According to a critic, Francis Thompson's Hound of Heaven must have been born from a phrase flashed out by St. Augustine nearly fifteen centuries earlier in his Confessions:65 "Et ecce tu, imminens dorso fugitivorum, Deus ultionis et fons misericordium simul, qui convertis nos ad te variis modis" -"And lo, Thou pressing at the heel of those who are fleeing from Thee, God of Vengeance and yet Fountain of Pity, who turnest us back to Thee in various ways."
Similarly, one could say that the germ of Blake's Tyger - a poem which also is about a God of Vengeance who is yet a Fountain of Pity - is in a phrase of Milton's towards the end of Book V of Paradise Lost. The second half of this Book describes the course of Satan's revolt in Heaven prior to the actual battle. Part of the course is his success in persuading his legions to rebel with him - all except Abdiel, a seraph, who in argument dissuades and opposes him, then forsakes him. Before he goes, Satan tells him his decision to challenge "th' Almighty throne" and adds:
"...this report,
These tidings carry to th' Anointed King;
And fly, ere evil intercept thy flight."66
In Abdiel's bold answer occur the lines:
"henceforth
No more be troubl'd how to quit the yoke
Of God's Messiah; those indulgent laws
Will not be now vouchsaf't, other decrees
Against thee are gone forth without recall;
That golden sceptre which thou didst reject
Is now an iron rod to bruise and break
Thy disobedience. Well didst thou advise,
Yet not for thy advice or threats I fly
These wicked tents devoted, lest the wrath
65.Bk. IV, Ch. 4.
66.Bk. V. 11.869-871.
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Impendent, raging into sudden flame,
Distinguish not: for soon expect to feel
His thunder on thy head, devouring fire..."67
In the powerful phrase -
Thy disobedience. -
and in the yet intenser turn of language -
...the wrath
Impendent, raging into sudden flame....
His thunder on thy head, devouring fire -
the terrible Christ-Tyger wrought with furnace and hammer and anvil to a fearful symmetry, bright-burning, fire-eyed, full of deadly terrors is present in all but open image. I say "all but open image", because the image in essence is certainly there in the two words: "devouring fire."
These words, more than anything else, are the germinal inspiration of The Tyger. And we can easily demonstrate that they stuck in Blake's mind over years. In his Europe (1794) he has written of his Satan-Urizen's serpent religion established on earth by erring "thought" and bringing out in place of the aspect of pity a face of the Divine that frightens man. Here Blake combines a recollection of the original "indulgent laws" mentioned by Abdiel with a recollection of the "devouring fire" and a recollection of his own image about the dark regions in which he had put his luminous Tyger hunting for its prey:
Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which
pitieth
To a devouring flame, and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night...68
No doubt, here the general posture of the poetic ideas is not
67.Ibid., 11. 881-893
68.Keynes, ed. cit. p. 241, pl. 10, 11.16-18.
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identical with that in the earlier Tyger. we have in some respects a reversal which we shall study when we put The Tyger against the general background of Blake's work. But the three recollections seem enough to indicate that the passion of the first line of The Tyger as well as the wonder in the phrase -
has come from a Miltonic inspiration to share a common context with the forest-image.
In Blake's Jerusalem (1804-1820) we have not even the slight variation from "fire" to "flame": the exact phrase from Milton is reproduced and again in relation to a paraphrase for "those indulgent laws". The line is:
"At enmity with the Merciful & fill'd with devouring
fire..."69
Nor is it just a very plausible conjecture that Blake took Milton's words to denote a carnivore like a tiger. It is a certainty. No question can remain after the expression in Europe itself:
"...howling terrors, all devouring fiery Kings, "Devouring & devoured, roaming on dark and desolate
mountains,
"In forests of eternal death..."70
The only discrepancy between this expression and the significance of The Tyger is that here the beast of prey is diabolic and there it is divine.
We may go a step further about Blake's derivation from Milton. His association, in Europe, of that Miltonic phrase with a diabolic carnivore is itself a piece of semi-Miltonism. For, Milton associates both the lion and the tiger with his Satan in one place. In Book IV he pictures Satan as assuming their shapes in the Garden of Eden in order to move around Adam and Eve, "unespied", and learn of their state:
69.Ibid., p. 667 (Ch. 2, 40, 1.33).
70.Ibid., p.238, pl. 2, 11.4-6.
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A lion now he stalks with fiery glare,
Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spied
In some purlieu two gentle fawns at play,
Straight couches close, then rising changes oft
His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground
Whence rushing he might surest seize them both,
Grip't in each paw...71
Blake must surely have noted Milton's elaborate dwelling on the tiger: his poem turns the tables, as it were, on Satan and makes him the prey - a change most natural and itself absolutely Miltonic if his poem springs from Abdiel's speech where the victim of the "devouring fire" is indeed meant to be Satan. His poem also fuses the two carnivores of Milton, and the very picture of the stalking lion by the epic poet becomes that of the Tyger in Blake. The "fiery glare" grows "the fire of thine eyes", and the body-movement at once stately and stealthily ominous, visualized by Milton, recrystallizes as "fearful symmetry". Perhaps we should note too that the rising, seizing and gripping which Milton speaks of in connection with his tiger's movement and with its use of "each paw" get adapted to what the artificer of Blake's Tyger does: the artificer aspires, seizes with his hand, brings a dread grasp in connection with the making of the Tyger.
Once Blake had visioned his destructively luminous animal and focused in it the theme of his poem, the rest of his piece found itself sparked off by various passages in Paradise Lost -mostly those in Books III, V and VI which tell of the revolt of Satan and his defeat at Christ's hands, but also a few elsewhere related directly or indirectly to Satan.
We may commence with lines coming pretty close on the heels of the germinal phrase, and trace suggestions vital to the poem. Abdiel, moving all through the night in which Satan had collected his crew, reached those parts of Heaven where the faithful abode. "Morn" has now come forth:
from before her vanish'd Night,
71. L1. 402-408
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Shot through with orient beams; when all the plain
Cover'd with thick embattl'd squadrons bright,
Chariots, and flaming arms, and fiery steeds,
Reflecting blaze on blaze, first met his view.
War he perceiv'd, war in procinct...72
The whole symbolic posture of The Tyger's start may be seen prefigured : victorious Light opposed to Night - God's bright forces, including fiery animals, poised for war against Satan's horde. And there is even the arresting rhyme of "Night" and "bright" in the middle of the blank verse, a rhyme anticipating in just the right place the most marked sound-effect in Blake's opening couplet.
Blake's bright-burning Tyger derives its fire from "distant deeps or skies". If we may expect a Miltonic clue to the derivation we should turn to "the sacred hill",73 "the seat supreme"74 of God to which Abdiel was led by members of the "squadrons bright". Out of this altitude was heard "a voice / From midst a golden cloud",75 ordering - among other things -an assault "with fire and hostile arms"76 on the rebels. And about this supreme seat itself we get some descriptive lines in the very series of passages to which the phrase we have called germinal is almost the termination. God's appointment of Christ as Lord of all, which Satan resented, is
Amidst as from a flaming mount whose top
Brightness had made invisible...77
Have we not here, clearly indicated, the origin of Blake's "distant deeps or skies", the blinding heavenly secrecy, the dazzling heavenly magnificence, where the fire of the Tyger's eyes had burnt before it was brought down and the whole Tyger set burning bright? A similar source is in the corresponding
72.Bk. VI, 11
73.Ibid., 1.25.
74.Ibid., 1.21.
75.Ibid., 11
76.Ibid., 1
77.Bk. V, 11
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passage of Book III: God is apostrophized -
Fountain of light, thyself invisible Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st Thron'd inaccessible...78
Fountain of light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st
Thron'd inaccessible...78
Here the distances of the ultimate deeps or skies is thrust into prominence by the adverbial epithet "inaccessible", and again the noun "brightness" moves our mind from the primal fire to Blake's burning embodiment of it within a night thick with Satanic growths. Even the word "bright", though not as an adjectival adverb but as an adjectival noun, follows four lines later in the phrase: "dark with excessive bright.":79 and in that "dark" we have a hint of the skies that are also deeps, the heaven that has also a power as of hell to meet the forces of night with an intensity even more ruthless than theirs. As for the burning that goes with the brightness of Blake's Tyger, we have, interestingly enough, in conjunction with the very mount whose brightness has been spoken of in Book V as well as in Book III, the locution "burn" also, and it occurs in conjunction with the idea of an eye up there no less than the idea of night and of Satan's revolt - though the conjoinings do not stand quite as we find them in Blake -
...th' Eternal Eye, whose sight discerns Abstrusest thoughts, from forth his holy mount, And from within the golden lamps that burn Nightly before him, saw without their light Rebellion rising - saw in whom, how spread Among the Sons of Morn, what multitudes Were banded to oppose his high decree...80
...th' Eternal Eye, whose sight discerns
Abstrusest thoughts, from forth his holy mount,
And from within the golden lamps that burn
Nightly before him, saw without their light
Rebellion rising - saw in whom, how spread
Among the Sons of Morn, what multitudes
Were banded to oppose his high decree...80
We may observe that Satan's rebellion is spoken of as "rising", "spread" and "banded" in "multitudes" in the night against God's "high decree" - an indirect picture as of what we have
78.L1.375-377.
79.L..380.
80.L1.711-717.
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called "a night thick with Satanic growths", Blake's "forests of the night".
That Blake carried this passage in his mind and even linked it with the mount's "brightness" which is elsewhere in Milton is obvious from the lines which in Vala or The Four Zoas refer to the Zoas in general and, in particular, to Urizen in his unfallen state within the Heaven of Eternal Humanity:
"Tho' this bright world of all our joy is in the Human Brain "Where Urizen and all his Hosts hang their immortal lamps..."81
"Tho' this bright world of all our joy is in the Human
Brain
"Where Urizen and all his Hosts hang their immortal
lamps..."81
It is hardly illogical for us to relate Milton's lines to The Tyger and fix attention on their "Eternal Eye".
Evidently this Eye is self-luminous - archetype, as it were, of the eye-fire of Blake's Tyger - and this same Eye is seen explicitly in far-off ultimate "deeps or skies" in Book III in a passage about matters that just precede those pertaining to our subject:
Nor had th' Almighty Father from above, From the pure empyrean where he sits High thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye His own works and their works at once to view...82
Nor had th' Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits
High thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye
His own works and their works at once to view...82
What recommends the passage all the more as relevant is that it connects the divine viewing with "works", as in the query which we have considered to be applied to Christ in our poem -
While we are on the topic of the Eternal Eye in the empyrean, the empyrean which originally held the fire contained by the Blakean Tyger's eyes, we may remark on Milton's combination of "fire" and "eye" in Book VI. Christ's chariot, when he went against Satan, was convoyed by "four Cherubic Shapes", and their bodies and wings were all "set with eyes" and
81.Keynes, ed. cit.,p. 272 (Vala or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.302-303).
82.L1.56-57.
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every eye Glar'd lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire Against th'accurs'd...83
every eye
Glar'd lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire
Against th'accurs'd...83
Now for line 2 of Blake:
In the forests of the night.
We have noted an oblique implication of its idea in some phrases of Milton's. We may proceed to mark more direct suggestions. First we may study briefly the role of night in Milton's story. To Milton
God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity..."84
God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity..."84
To Milton the areas of existence outside Heaven are Chaos and Night. But
There is a cave Within the Mount of God, fast by his throne, Where Light and Darkness in perpetual round Lodge and dislodge by turns - which make through Heav'n Grateful vicissitude, like day and night..."85
There is a cave
Within the Mount of God, fast by his throne,
Where Light and Darkness in perpetual round
Lodge and dislodge by turns - which make through
Heav'n
Grateful vicissitude, like day and night..."85
In this night of Heaven, called "ambrosial"86 in another place, Satan's revolt first occurs. The precise night is of the day on which God declares Christ to be His vicegerent: Satan, resenting the vicegerency, seduces "the third part of Heav'n's host"87 into rebellion. He and his company thus become enemies of God who is light and they get their proper designation when God asks Christ to go into battle against them with His light and might:
83.Ibid., 11.847-849.
84.Bk. III, 11.3-5.
85.Bk. VI, 11.4-8.
86.Bk. V, 1.643.
87.Ibid., 1.710.
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"Pursue these Sons of Darkness, drive them out From all Heav'n's bounds..."88
"Pursue these Sons of Darkness, drive them out
From all Heav'n's bounds..."88
So a diabolical night, essentially an inner obscurity, comes into play under the shadow of the "ambrosial night", as if it were a perversion of the latter - the kind of night whose forests, according to our interpretation of Blake's lyric, environ the Tyger-Christ with Satanic hostility.
Here we may remember Blake's phrase in The Four Zoas about his Satan's "night of councils dark", the phrase we have already quoted en passant to throw on the "stars" mentioned in The Tyger some illumination because of its link-up with "stars" and for the repetition following it of the very words in The Tyger: "the stars threw down their spears." We may now point out that Satan's "night of councils dark" in Blake is itself the echo of a line in Milton on Satan's doings on another night before the battle with Christ: Satan
His potentates to council call'd by night.89
The night of The Tyger has obviously its original in Paradise Lost. But not only in night - both literal and symbolic - does the revolt of Milton's Satan occur: it occurs also in a context where the presence of forests is hinted. That there are forests in Milton's Heaven is, of course, a certainty. We read about the "bright legions" of God and His Messiah:
On they move, Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill, Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream, divides Their perfect ranks; for high above the ground Their march was, and the passive air upbore Their nimble tread.90
On they move,
Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill,
Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream, divides
Their perfect ranks; for high above the ground
Their march was, and the passive air upbore
Their nimble tread.90
Now, some part of the wood spoken of in line 3 is surely in the
88. Bk. VI, 11.715-716.
89.Ibid.. 1. 416
90.Ibid.. 11. 68-73
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passage telling us of Satan's first movement of "pride" and "malice" and "disdain":
th' Angelic throng, Dispers'd in bands and files, their camps extend By living streams among the trees of life - Pavilions numberless and sudden rear'd, Celestial tabernacles, where they slept, Fann'd with cool winds; save those who, in their course, Melodious hymns about the sovran throne Alternate all night long. But not so wak'd Satan... Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd With all his legions to dislodge, and leave Unworshipp'd, unobey'd, the Throne supreme...91
th' Angelic throng,
Dispers'd in bands and files, their camps extend
By living streams among the trees of life -
Pavilions numberless and sudden rear'd,
Celestial tabernacles, where they slept,
Fann'd with cool winds; save those who, in their course,
Melodious hymns about the sovran throne
Alternate all night long. But not so wak'd
Satan...
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd
With all his legions to dislodge, and leave
Unworshipp'd, unobey'd, the Throne supreme...91
What are "the trees of life", among which flow "living streams", except bits of divine forests? No doubt, there is no straight association here of this suggestion of forests with Satan's resolve at midnight, but the presence of those trees could provide a background, if not a basis, to Blake's symbolic combination of night and forests - especially when influences from elsewhere in Milton would appear to support this combination. At least two such influences, bringing the image of "forests" into relation with the doings of the Sons of Darkness, can be clearly shown.
A celebrated simile, the one in Book I that pictures Satan's followers as standing faithful to him in spite of their withered glory, runs:
As when Heaven's fire Hath scath'd the forest oaks or mountain pines, With singed tops their stately growth, though bare, Stands on the blasted heath.92
As when Heaven's fire
Hath scath'd the forest oaks or mountain pines,
With singed tops their stately growth, though bare,
Stands on the blasted heath.92
91.Bk. V, 11.643-649, 667-670.
92.Bk. I, 11.612-615.
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Mark that the very word "forest" is collocated with "Heaven's fire" in mutual opposition just as the heavenly Tyger of our interpretation opposes its fire to the night-forests. Then there is the interesting fact to be remembered that Blake associated his Satan, Urizen, with Druidism, and the oaks became, as Black-stone93 says, a permanent symbol of diabolic cruelty and tyranny in his verse. He has even the expression "Forest of Oaks" when he speaks of Albion and of "Albion's Druid Sons" in a context that brings them together with "the Antichrist accursed". Milton's whole phrase "forest oaks" looks thus like an anticipation of Blake's Satan-symbolism.
The word "forest" is also used by Milton in the same Book in the lines94 we have already cited for their depiction of Satan's army in Hell as "a forest huge of spears" seen rising "through the gloom" - a phrase which we have regarded as of capital importance for the explicit imaginative link it provides between Blake's "forests of the night" and his spear-bearing stars. We noted too how Milton's vision of the rising spears is the exact reverse of Blake's vision of spears thrown down, as if suggestively preparing Blake's mind.
One more point about forests we shall make when we reach the night-implying "star"-lines and the last stanza's night-forests.
Our next concern is:
What immortal hand or eye...?
"Immortal...eye" puts us at once in mind of Milton's "Eternal Eye". In Blake we have made Christ the possessor of it, but the transference is perfectly just even according to Milton's story. For, a few lines later than the mention of "th' Eternal Eye", God addresses His Son:
"Son, thou in whom my glory I behold In full resplendence, heir of all my might"95 -
"Son, thou in whom my glory I behold
In full resplendence, heir of all my might"95 -
93.Op. cit., p. 204.
94.Bk. I, 11. 544-547.
95.Bk. V, 11.719-720.
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a statement which recalls an analogous one about Christ in Book III:
"Begotten Son, Divine Similitude, In whose conspicuous count'nance, without cloud Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines, Whom else no creature can behold..."96
"Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
In whose conspicuous count'nance, without cloud
Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines,
Whom else no creature can behold..."96
"Th' Eternal Eye" is surely implicit in these lines by virtue not only of "Divine Similitude" but also of the "conspicuous count'nance" full of the Almighty Father's light. And that Blake's sense of Christ was not in general without a Miltonic affinity is evident from not only the phrase already quoted from his Milton but also his line in Jerusalem on Jesus:
...the Eternal Vision, the Divine Similitude...97
Also, just as the epithet "eternal" is here used by Blake for Christ, the epithet "immortal" is present in Milton about God a little above the lines beginning "Begotten Son, Divine Similitude" and becomes transferable to God's likeness:
Immutable, immortal, infinite...98
And the association, in Blake's poetic consciousness, of what is eternal with eyes that are immortal, is shown in his famous declaration of his "great task":
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes Of man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity...99
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity...99
Here is even an immediate association of "immortal Eyes" with inmost "Thought", that curiously reminds us of "th' Eternal Eye, whose sight discerns / Abstrusest thoughts". But the most striking link between the "immortal eye" in The Tyger and Milton's "Eternal Eye" is the figure of speech constituted by
96.Bk. III, 11.384-387.
97.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 664 (Jerusalem, Ch. 2, 38, 1.11).
98.Bk. III, 1.373.
99.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 623 (Jerusalem, Ch. 1, 5, 11.18-19).
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the latter and the reference back to it in the passage where it occurs. It represents God by a synecdoche, a part doing duty for the whole, and in the very next line we have the word "his" referring back to it and in the fourth line "him" with the same function. The rhetorical structure is precisely like what we find in Blake: the synecdoche of "immortal eye" (as well as "immortal hand") in line 3, followed by "he" in line 7. All in all, it can hardly be far-fetched to look Miltonically at Christ's "Immortal Eye" in Blake.
And our Miltonic gaze grows more full as well as more apt when from Book VI we take God's first speech to Christ. It is a speech resembling those we have quoted from Books III and V, and it suggests not only Christ's "immortal eye" in a general way but also his "immortal hand" in a particular manner. God says:
"Effulgence of my glory, Son belov'd, Son in whose face invisible is beheld Visibly, what by Deity I am, And in whose hand what by decree I do, Second Omnipotence..."100
"Effulgence of my glory, Son belov'd,
Son in whose face invisible is beheld
Visibly, what by Deity I am,
And in whose hand what by decree I do,
Second Omnipotence..."100
Here is presented in both its essence-visioning and its form-executive aspects - the aspects of eye and hand - the Divine Power which expresses itself in the bright-burning Tyger with the help of the glory drawn by its Sonhood from the Supreme Fatherhood above.
Then there is Christ's command to his own armies to stand still and let him fight and finish the enemies, because, though they have been faithful to God in their welfare,
"of this cursed crew The punishment to other hand belongs: Vengeance is his, or whose he sole appoints."101
"of this cursed crew
The punishment to other hand belongs:
Vengeance is his, or whose he sole appoints."101
Christ's hand, one with God's by being God-appointed, is made prominent for dealing out punishment and vengeance -
100.Bk. VI, 11.680-684.
101.Bk. VI, 11.680-684.
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for sending out a Tyger-fury, as it were, against the godless.
An extremely relevant passage at this point is the early part of the dialogue between Abdiel and Satan in Book V. There Abdiel emphasizes to Satan the notion of Christ being in the forefront of action and God doing everything through Christ,
"begotten Son, by whom, As by his Word, the mighty Father made All things, even thee, and all the Spirits of Heav'n By him created in their bright degrees..."102
"begotten Son, by whom,
As by his Word, the mighty Father made
All things, even thee, and all the Spirits of Heav'n
By him created in their bright degrees..."102
Satan replies:
"That we were form'd then, sayst thou? and the work Of secondary hands, by task transferr'd From Father to his Son? Strange point and new!"103
"That we were form'd then, sayst thou? and the work
Of secondary hands, by task transferr'd
From Father to his Son? Strange point and new!"103
The "hands" of the Son at creative "work" with God's power in them stand out. The "immortal hand" which we have made Christ employ in framing the Tyger after seizing with it God's fire on high is explicitly prefigured in a general fashion. And the epithet "bright" applied by Abdiel to "all the Spirits of Heav'n" that are the work of Christ's hands introduces a further touch of explicitness in relation to the Tyger.
Not that a poet would be incapable of writing "immortal hand or eye" without having read such passages as Milton's. Blake's phrase could very well have been an independent composition. But words which in theory could be independently written need not have been so in practice. To determine whether they were born under an influence or no, we have to go to the actual historical situation and not to a bare calculus of possibilities.
Now for line 4. Its main phrase - "fearful symmetry" - about which we have already said a little has no open counterpart in Milton bearing directly on Christ's wrath; but, like the Tyger-image, its essence is there unmistakably. We shall take it for consideration together with the "deadly terrors" of the Tyger's
102.Ibid., 11.806-808.
103.Ibid., 11.853-855.
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brain and with the "dread hands", "dread feet" and "dread grasp" of the animal's maker. Even the earlier description of Christ's battle - that of Book III - has a line directed to Christ, from which an echo seems caught in the thrice repeated "dread" of Blake:
Thou that day Thy Father's dreadful thunder didst not spare...104
Thou that day
Thy Father's dreadful thunder didst not spare...104
The first two "dread"'s in Blake come in connection with a kind of thunder, the beating of the fiery Tyger's heart:
And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hands? & what dread feet?
What dread hands? & what dread feet?
Blake's third "dread" - the one in "dread grasp" - is almost immediately followed by the line:
When the stars threw down their spears...
In Milton too the turn "threw down" is combined with "dreadful" and this turn has to do with Christ's attack on the rebel Angels. Immediately before the phrase in which "dreadful" occurs, Milton, addressing Christ and referring to "th' Almighty Father", says: "He"
by thee threw down Th' aspiring Dominations."105
by thee threw down
Th' aspiring Dominations."105
When we go to Book VI we have more extended correspondences in idea, and the precise meaning of "fearful symmetry" no less than of the Tyger's burning as an embodiment of Divine Wrath becomes as clear as in the germinal "devouring fire". We may recollect how Christ tells God:
"But whom thou hat'st I hate, and can put on Thy terrors, as I put thy mildness on..."106
Thy terrors, as I put thy mildness on..."106
We may recollect too his asking his armies to behold him
104.Bk. III, 11.392-393.
105.Bk. III, 11.391-392.
106.Bk. VI, 11.734-735.
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pouring "God's indignation" on the godless,"107 and finally his countenance changing into "terror" and bent "full of wrath" on his enemies.108 Moreover, when he goes to war in God's chariot we read not only of that vehicle's "flashing thick flames"109 and of "fierce effusions" rolling about him
Of smoke and bick'ring flame and sparkles dire."110
We read also of the accompanying Cherubim's wings "spread out... / With dreadful shade contiguous"111 and of his own driving upon his foes right onward "Gloomy as Night"112 - a description bringing home to us (with a Homeric phrase) how by putting on God's terrors the Lord of Light and Love could yet out-Satan Satan, the chief Son of Darkness, as if by a "fearful symmetry" exceeding the awesomeness of "forests of the night". And towards the end of Milton's account we have a climactic picture of Christ Tygerishly "burning bright" with "deadly terrors" against the rebels. He
Drove them before him thunderstruck, pursu'd With terrors and with furies...113 eternal wrath Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.114
With terrors and with furies...113
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.114
(c)
The opening couplet of the second stanza -
In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
has already received some comment apropos of Milton. The
107.Ibid., 11.810-812
108.Ibid., 11.824-826.
109.Ibid., 1.751
110.Ibid., 1.766
111.Ibid., 1.829
112.Ibid., 1.832
113.Ibid., 11.858-859.
114.Ibid., 11 .865-866.
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sense of fathomless and forbidding brilliance we have read in "deeps" has been found by us to be an echo of what Milton says about God's throne. God, "high thron'd above all highth" in "the pure Empyrean", is invisible amidst His own brightness. This invisibility is also responsible for what we have called the lack of personal outline about God the Father in Blake and the figuring of Him as merely an ultimate empyrean-blaze. Now we may show in Milton correspondence to the very form of Blake's expression, as well as dwell Miltonically a little further on the word "deeps". The couplet before us seems to bear, for all its distinct individuality, a marked resemblance to the phrase:
this Heav'n which we behold Distant so high, with moving fires adorn'd..."11
this Heav'n which we behold
Distant so high, with moving fires adorn'd..."11
Even Blake's word "eyes", which is not explicitly anticipated here, is yet present by implication in "behold".
In passing, we may shed light, with the help of Milton's phrase, on the question: Are the deeps or skies distant from the poet stationed on earth and visioning things farthest above in Supernature or from the winged creator in his station in mid-Heaven at the moment when he wants to make the Tyger? Milton's phrase is spoken by Adam standing in his earthly paradise. So perhaps the first alternative may be favoured.
Now for some Miltonic light on the word "deeps". In Paradise Lost we often meet with the "Deep". The vocable connotes Chaos whose lowest depth is Hell. God asks Christ to drive the Sons of Darkness "into the utter Deep"11
115.Bk. VII. 11.85-86.
116.Bk. VI, 1.716.
117.Ibid.. 11.861-862.
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seems to out-devil the Devil could be the God of Love we worship and symbolize as the Divine Lamb. Blake has made a bold inversion of the usual Miltonic meaning - but the inversion too has a Miltonic sanction. The sanction in summary-form is there, as we hinted, in the phrase about God's presence: "dark with excessive bright." It appears in clear elaboration when in Book II Mammon, one of Satan's followers, speaks at some length in the assembly in Hell:
"...This deep world Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst Thick clouds and dark doth Heav'n's all-ruling Sire Choose to reside, his glory unobscur'd, And with the majesty of darkness round Covers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar, Must'ring their rage, and Heav'n resembles Hell! As he our darkness, cannot we his light Imitate when we please?..."11
"...This deep world
Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst
Thick clouds and dark doth Heav'n's all-ruling Sire
Choose to reside, his glory unobscur'd,
And with the majesty of darkness round
Covers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar,
Must'ring their rage, and Heav'n resembles Hell!
As he our darkness, cannot we his light
Imitate when we please?..."11
The adjective "deep" occurs twice here, the first time in a Hell-context and the second in a Heaven-context. The noun "darkness" too occurs in either context and there is a straight statement: "Heav'n resembles Hell." The suggestion of a heavenly hell or a hellish heaven in Blake's "deeps" can be derived directly and openly from Milton's conception and expression.
Milton has even used the noun "Deep" at one place in a curious connection with Heaven. On the second day of the battle between Satan's armies and those led by Michael and Gabriel, Satan in desperation gets the idea of making gunpowder and surprising his foes. He opens his comrades' eyes to the new possibility thus:
"Which of us who beholds the bright surface Of this ethereous mould whereon we stand - This continent of spacious Heav'n adorn'd With plant, fruit, flower ambrosial, gems and gold -
"Which of us who beholds the bright surface
Of this ethereous mould whereon we stand -
This continent of spacious Heav'n adorn'd
With plant, fruit, flower ambrosial, gems and gold -
118. Bk. II, 11
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Whose eye so superficially surveys These things as not to mind from whence they grow Deep under ground: materials dark and crude, Of spiritous and fiery spume, till, touch'd With Heaven's ray, and temper'd, they shoot forth So beauteous, op'ning to the ambient light? These in their dark nativity the Deep Shall yield us, pregnant with infernal fire..."119
Whose eye so superficially surveys
These things as not to mind from whence they grow
Deep under ground: materials dark and crude,
Of spiritous and fiery spume, till, touch'd
With Heaven's ray, and temper'd, they shoot forth
So beauteous, op'ning to the ambient light?
These in their dark nativity the Deep
Shall yield us, pregnant with infernal fire..."119
In line 7 "deep" is still an adjective; but in the penultimate it is a noun, and this "Deep" is reached when, as a later line says, Satan's associates "up turn'd / Wide the celestial soil..."120 Most probably what is reached is the level where Heaven shades off, as it were, into the Chaos below. But the impression on the mind is of Heaven itself possessing a Deep of its own, with "infernal" incendiary possibilities. We should not be surprised if it quickened Blake all the more to couple "skies" with "deeps" in the same divine domain.
Here it would be relevant to remark that, Miltonically speaking, Blake has continued his "deeps" of heavenly hell or hellish heaven in the furnace where the Tyger is moulded. For in Book I Milton describes Satan as discovering in the deeps below that
A dungeon horrible on all sides round As one great furnace flam'd...121
A dungeon horrible on all sides round
As one great furnace flam'd...121
Blake, in giving us a celestial smithy, seems to have inverted Milton so far as overt expression is concerned: covertly, as we have seen already, Milton himself implies such a smithy, rendering Blake's quickening from him in this matter complete.
The connection, in Blake, between his "deeps" and his "furnace" would have been almost obvious if part of the original draft of The Tyger had remained in the final version. On the line -
What dread hand? & what dread feet? -
119.L1.472-483.
120.L1.509-510.
121.L1.61-62.
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Bateson122 has the annotation: "The original draft in the Ros-setti MS. shows that 'hand' and 'feet' were at that stage the subjects of a main verb in the next stanza, which then began: 'Could fetch it from the furnace deep.'" The epithet "deep" makes us hark back immediately to the empyrean where the fire of the Tyger's eyes burnt before being embodied. (By the way, the adjectival allusion to those "deeps" high up, linking them to an apparatus for producing intense heat, would show their distinction from "skies" as that of heat from light.)
Apropos of "the fire of thine eyes" of the second line in our couplet we have quoted Milton on the fire-shooting eyes with which were set the bodies and wings of the four-faced Cherubim who convoyed Christ's chariot. We may also note that in Milton these eyes are primarily linked with bodies and wings and that Blake, as soon as he has spoken of the Tyger's eye-fire, has the line about the animal's maker:
Moreover, the wings mentioned by Milton are ultimately linked with Christ whose chariot the Cherubim convoy:
He on the wings of Cherub rode sublime On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd - Illustrious far and wide...123
He on the wings of Cherub rode sublime
On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd -
Illustrious far and wide...123
There is also Satan's reference to Christ in a speech to Gabriel:
"...though Heaven's King Ride on thy wings...124
"...though Heaven's King
Ride on thy wings...124
And when Christ goes on his world-creative mission he is described as
on the wings of Cherubim Uplifted...125
on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted...125
122.Op. cit., p. 118.
123.Bk. VI, 11.771-773.
124.Bk. IV, 11. 973-974.
125.Bk. VII, 11.218-219
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But Milton links up wings with Christ more directly too. Once his mind seems to fuse the entire manifold of Christ's charioted Cherubim-convoyed movement into the single figure of him: the image of a winged Christ is there when in Book VI the angel Michael asks Satan not to risk a fight but go on his own to the infernal regions prepared for him,
"Ere this avenging sword begin thy doom, Or some more sudden vengeance, wing'd from God, Precipitate thee with augmented pain..."126
"Ere this avenging sword begin thy doom,
Or some more sudden vengeance, wing'd from God,
Precipitate thee with augmented pain..."126
True, when Michael says this, he is not aware that his fight with Satan would be indecisive and that God has reserved victory for Christ. But above Michael, to whom Satan is equal, there is none except Christ to wage God's war; so "some more sudden vengeance" which would be "wing'd from God" upon Satan could only be Christ's attack. And actually it is Christ who, augmenting Satan's pain, precipitates him into Hell. Also, God's decisive "vengeance" on His foes through Christ alone is more than once explicitly declared. Milton apostrophizes Christ:
Son of thy Father's might, To execute fierce vengeance on his foes.127
Son of thy Father's might,
To execute fierce vengeance on his foes.127
And Christ tells his own army standing opposite Satan's:
"...this day from battle rest... Faithful hath been your warfare, and of God Accepted, fearless in his righteous cause; ...But of this cursed crew The punishment to other hand belongs; Vengeance is his, or whose he sole appoints... ...Not you, but me they have despis'd,... Therefore to me their doom he hath assign'd..."128
"...this day from battle rest...
Faithful hath been your warfare, and of God
Accepted, fearless in his righteous cause;
...But of this cursed crew
The punishment to other hand belongs;
Vengeance is his, or whose he sole appoints...
...Not you, but me they have despis'd,...
Therefore to me their doom he hath assign'd..."128
126.L1 .278-280.
127.Bk. III, 11.398-399.
128.Bk. VI, 11.802-804, 806-808, 812-815.
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Thus the wings of vengeance are linked - even if metaphorically - with Christ and no one else.
And we may point out that in another way also the sense comes to us from Milton of a divine wingedness one with Christ whenever he acts on God's behalf. We have to read a number of passages together. Consider the lines to Christ vis-a-vis God in Book III:
on thee Impress'd th' effulgence of his glory abides; Transfus'd on thee his ample Spirit rests. He Heav'n of Heav'ns, and all the Powers therein, By thee created; and by thee threw down Th' aspiring Dominations.129
on thee
Impress'd th' effulgence of his glory abides;
Transfus'd on thee his ample Spirit rests.
He Heav'n of Heav'ns, and all the Powers therein,
By thee created; and by thee threw down
Th' aspiring Dominations.129
God's Spirit and glory grow Christ's both when he creates all things and when he vanquishes Satan. The double occasion is suggested also by verbal correspondences between God's words to Christ before the decisive battle with Satan -
"...Into thee such virtue and grace Immense I have transfus'd, that all may know In Heav'n and Hell thy power above compare... Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might"130
"...Into thee such virtue and grace
Immense I have transfus'd, that all may know
In Heav'n and Hell thy power above compare...
Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might"130
and, on the one hand, the lines quoted from Book III about God's spirit and glory and, on the other, those in which God sends Christ on the world-creative mission -
"...my Word, begotten Son, by thee This I perform; speak thou, and be it done! My overshadowing Spirit and might with thee I send along"
"...my Word, begotten Son, by thee
This I perform; speak thou, and be it done!
My overshadowing Spirit and might with thee
I send along"
the world-creative mission which is performed when
on the wat'ry calm His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
on the wat'ry calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
129.Bk. III, 11.387-392.
130.Bk. VI, 11.703-705, 710.
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And vital virtue infus'd, and vital warmth...131
But, as is clear from the last citation, the Spirit of God - ample, glorious, mighty, full of virtue and grace and warmth - that is transfused on and into Christ has wings in Milton as in all Christian tradition , wings which meet us from the very beginning of Paradise Lost in the poet's invocation to this Spirit to instruct him since its creative power was present "from the first . . . with mighty wings outspread" .132
Blake's poetic consciousness, absorbing Milton, would find itself spurred to do all the more what his own sense of Christ creative might incite - namely, to endow him with wings in The Tyger. And in making Christ ascend on wings it would get encouragement from a phrase of Milton's like
Down he descended straight; the speed of Gods Time counts not, though with swiftest minutes wing'd,133
Down he descended straight; the speed of Gods
Time counts not, though with swiftest minutes wing'd,133
where the descending Christ is not himself explicitly said to have wings but wings that are not his are so collocated with him that he seems to be moving on swifter pinions.
Further, we have in Book III "eyes" and "wings" together with "the glorious brightness" where God sits "thron'd inaccessible". God is addressed in His utter altitude whose "full blaze", even on His shading it, dazzles Heaven, with the result that
brightest Seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.134
brightest Seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.134
But Christ is not debarred from the supreme Presence: on the contrary, he is said to receive the full blaze and in his face shines forth what none else could see.135 From this picture of Seraphim-wings unable to reach the Highest and of Seraphim-
131.Ibid.. 11.234-236.
132.Bk. I, 11.19, 20.
133.Bk. X, 11.90-91.
134.Bk. III. 11.381-382.
135.Ibid., 11.385-387.
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eyes failing to view Him, even when the light is self-subdued, the idea could easily arise in Blake of Christ alone having the kind of wings that can carry one to God's empyrean of fire and Christ alone having the sort of eye that can behold there, as well as the sort of hand that can seize there, what is required for the eyes of the Tyger.
The question, however, would still stand: Does Milton show any need for Christ, who is himself a member of the Divine Trinity, to "aspire"? No doubt, Milton presents us with a Christ whom God Himself is made to describe as
thron'd in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying God-like fruition,136
thron'd in highest bliss
Equal to God, and equally enjoying
God-like fruition,136
and Milton writes of Christ after a colloquy with God:
Thus saying, from his radiant seat he rose, Of high collateral glory,137
Thus saying, from his radiant seat he rose,
Of high collateral glory,137
and the poet, besides giving us about the Angels the phrase -
lowly reverent Towards either throne they bow138 -
lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow138 -
speaks in his own person:
never shall my harp thy praise Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin!139
never shall my harp thy praise
Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin!139
But we get also the lines on Christ in an apostrophe to God:
the bliss wherein he sat Second to thee...140
the bliss wherein he sat
Second to thee...140
And when the Angels touched their harps to "sacred song" -
Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent,
136.Ibid., 11.305-307.
137.Bk. X, 1.85-86.
138.Bk. III, 11.349-350.
139.Ibid., 11.414-415.
140.Ibid., 77.408-409.
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Immutable, Immortal, Infinite, Eternal King; thee, Author of all being,...141 Thee next they sang, of all creation first, Begotten Son, Divine Similitude...142
Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,
Eternal King; thee, Author of all being,...141
Thee next they sang, of all creation first,
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude...142
And it is always God in reference to whom Christ's position in Heaven is indicated, never vice versa:
the Father Infinite, By whom in bliss embosom'd sat the Son...143 On his right The radiant image of his glory sat, His only Son...144 So spoke the Father; and, unfolding bright Towards the right hand his glory, on the Son Blazed forth unclouded deity...145
the Father Infinite,
By whom in bliss embosom'd sat the Son...143
On his right
The radiant image of his glory sat, His only Son...144
So spoke the Father; and, unfolding bright
Towards the right hand his glory, on the Son
Blazed forth unclouded deity...145
And the key to the meaning of the relative positions of God and Christ appears in God's declaration to the heavenly host that Christ is His only Son: "I," says God,
"Him have anointed, whom ye now behold At my right hand; your head I him appoint...146
"Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your head I him appoint...146
In the midst of their equality of level God and Christ have yet a difference of shade in status and function: there is a subtle sense in which the former is primary and the latter secondary or, if we regard them as two aspects of a single Reality, God is Christ's own self as source of power while Christ is God's own self as manifestation of power: the former originates, the latter expresses. The whole relationship is well brought out in a passage which may be taken as linking the opposite sets of lines we have cited, for its beginning belongs to one set and its end to the other:
141.Ibid., 11.372-374.
142.Ibid., 11.383-384.
143.Bk. V, 11.596-597.
144.Bk. III, 11.62-64.
145.Bk. X, 11.63-65.
146.Bk. V, 11.605-606.
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So spake the Father; and, unfolding bright Toward the right hand his glory, on the Son Blaz'd forth unclouded deity. He full Resplendent all his Father manifest Express'd, and thus divinely answer'd mild:- "Father Eternal, thine is to decree; Mine both in Heav'n and Earth to do thy will Supreme, that thou in me, thy Son belov'd, May'st ever rest well pleas'd..." Thus saying, from his radiant seat he rose, Of high collateral glory.147
So spake the Father; and, unfolding bright
Toward the right hand his glory, on the Son
Blaz'd forth unclouded deity. He full
Resplendent all his Father manifest
Express'd, and thus divinely answer'd mild:-
"Father Eternal, thine is to decree;
Mine both in Heav'n and Earth to do thy will
Supreme, that thou in me, thy Son belov'd,
May'st ever rest well pleas'd..."
Of high collateral glory.147
The same idea of God decreeing and Christ carrying out the decree not only where matters of Earth are concerned but also where matters of Heaven are involved meets us when Christ addresses his Father before going out to battle with Satan:
"O Father, O Supreme of Heav'nly Thrones, First, Highest, Holiest, Best, thou always seek'st To glorify thy Son; I always thee, As is most just. This I my glory account, My exaltation, and my whole delight, That thou in me, well pleas'd, declar'st thy will Fulfill'd, which to fulfil is all my bliss. Sceptre and power, thy giving I assume..."148
"O Father, O Supreme of Heav'nly Thrones,
First, Highest, Holiest, Best, thou always seek'st
To glorify thy Son; I always thee,
As is most just. This I my glory account,
My exaltation, and my whole delight,
That thou in me, well pleas'd, declar'st thy will
Fulfill'd, which to fulfil is all my bliss.
Sceptre and power, thy giving I assume..."148
The last line repeats in essence what Christ is made to say earlier:
"...all regal power Giv'n me to quell their pride..."149
"...all regal power
Giv'n me to quell their pride..."149
Thus there are not only various levels of Heaven, with God on the highest throne: there is, on the very same level of God and Christ, a variation. Seated beside and not below God, Christ has outwardly not to "aspire" for God's light and might,
147.Bk. X, 11.63-71, 85-86.
148.Bk. VI, 11.723-730.
149.Bk. V, 11.739-740.
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yet inwardly he is the receiver and God the giver, and this variation which is implied in his throne being called "second" to God's is not merely shown as an attitude on Christ's part to glorify his Father just as the Father always glorifies His Son: it is also recognized by Milton on his own when he portrays Christ's gesture after the latter has replied to God's gift to him of might and light:
So said, he, o'er his sceptre bowing, rose From the right hand of glory where he sate...150
So said, he, o'er his sceptre bowing, rose
From the right hand of glory where he sate...150
And here we may read a subtle suggestion for Blake of Christ's actual aspiration from his inward status of secondness to God. The bowing renders vividly concrete this status and, when it is immediately followed by the rising, we get an upward movement, an aspiring, which symbolizes in a bodily act the result of a psychological need.
Mark for another subtle suggestion the word "exaltation" in the speech which has preceded the bowing and rising gesture. Literally the word means "raising, lifting up", though it is usually used figuratively; it also stands for "elation, rapturous emotion; intensification". The verb-form of it, "exalt", when figuratively meaning "praise, extol", goes often to make the phrase: "exalt to the skies"- rather a curious coincidence in view of the "deeps or skies" to which the Tyger's creator is said to "aspire". And it is also as curious a coincidence that "exalt" in the sense of "raise, place high in rank, power, etc." is used by Milton in close proximity to and connection with "aspire": Satan soliloquizes in the Garden of Eden about God's command to Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge:
"I will excite their minds With more desire to know, and to reject Envious commands, invented with design To keep them low, whom knowledge might exalt Equal with Gods. Aspiring to be such, They taste and die..."151
"I will excite their minds
With more desire to know, and to reject
Envious commands, invented with design
To keep them low, whom knowledge might exalt
Equal with Gods. Aspiring to be such,
They taste and die..."151
150. Bk. VI, 11.746-747. 151. Bk. IV, 11.522-527.
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What is of further interest is that these lines are part of the very first utterance by Satan after he had moved round Adam and Eve in the form of a "tiger" such as might be preparing to "seize" his prey.152 Thus many of the ideas and expressions associated in Blake's lines go with "exalt" in Milton; and not only "exaltation" but "exalt" itself goes with Christ and precisely with reference to the supreme empyrean where his own throne stands with God's. It is in the context of Christ's offer to sacrifice himself in order to save fallen Man: God says -
"Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt With thee thy manhood also to this throne..."153
"Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt
With thee thy manhood also to this throne..."153
And a few lines later God, anticipating Christ's words quoted by us from two places, declares:
"All power I give thee..."154
"All power
I give thee..."154
So we circle back to the passage where Christ, just prior to assuming "sceptre and power" by God's "giving", speaks of his own "exaltation", but we circle back with a number of Blakean anticipations clinging to this term.
Unquestionably the words of the Miltonic Christ look up to God's throne as if he had need to "aspire" in spite of his own high position beside God. This up-look of speech comes out also when he tells God what the Faithful would do after he, "arm'd with thy might", has driven out the rebels: "Then shall thy Saints...
Unfeign'd halleluiahs to thee sing, Hymns of high praise, and I among them chief."155
Unfeign'd halleluiahs to thee sing,
Hymns of high praise, and I among them chief."155
But here a certain doctrinal problem must be touched upon. Reading Milton's theological treatise De Doctrina Christiana, which came to light at the beginning of the nineteenth century,
152.Ibid., 11.403,407.
153.Bk. III. 11.313-314.
154.Ibid., 11.317-318.
155.Bk. VI, 11.744-745.
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we realize that Milton subscribed to the heresy known as Arianism. Arianism considers Christ a distinctly lower member of the Trinity than God - not a divinity co-essential or co-eternal with God but one who was created by God and who, for all the power with which he is endowed, is subordinate, a kind of super-demigod at best. Now, if Arianism can be shown to be part of the theological structure of Paradise Lost, Milton's Christ cannot in any sense inspire Blake's, and whatever need to "aspire" he may evince in the epic will be out of tune with the aspiration we have attributed to him in the lyric, for Blake never subscribed to Arianism.
Maurice Kelley156 has conclusively demonstrated that when Paradise Lost is collated with De Doctrina Christiana it stands in no contradiction to this treatise. But the crucial point is whether it openly asserts Arianism and whether, without the help of the treatise, we could take Milton to have made it Arian in its theology rather than such as would appeal to the whole Christendom of his day. As Rajan157 puts the situation: "To say that the epic is consistent with Milton's heterodox theology is very different from saying that it implies it." Sir Herbert Grierson158 has reached the conclusion: "... Milton's Arianism which is fully developed in the 'De Doctrina' is not so clearly adumbrated in the poem." Rajan159 has tried to prove that the poem does not imply Milton's heterodoxy and was not intended to do so for a reader unacquainted with the De Doctrina. He160 writes: "Milton's mind is too fixed for him to succeed entirely. He cannot make his heresy irrelevant. But he tries very hard to make it incidental. He makes no denial of co-essentiality. He makes only one statement that is explicitly Arian [Bk. VIII, 11.419-421] and even that has been deviously interpreted. For the rest, he confounds would-be exegetes with a series of allusions which can be manipulated as evidence of Trinitarian-ism, Anti-Trinitarianism, a Trinity of modes or one of mani-
156.The Great Argument (Princeton), 1941.
157.Op. cit., p. 12.
158.Milton and Wordsworth (Cambridge) 1938, p. 98.
159.Op. cit.. pp. 22-38.
160.Ibid., pp. 25, 26.
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festations. But he does not wish his dogma to obtrude. It did not obtrude with Newton, or with Todd, or with that long tradition of eighteenth century imitation which took Milton as its matrix in sentiment and style. If it obtrudes on us it is because of our excessive concern with possible connections between Milton's prose and his poetry. Yet surely Paradise Lost should be sufficient unto itself... Milton's treatment of the Trinity in Paradise Lost is therefore entirely consistent with his unorthodox views in the Treatise. But his presentation on his heresy is sufficiently subdued to involve no challenge to the beliefs of the orthodox." J. H. Hanford161 also, while declaring Milton's Anti-Trinitarianism discernible enough in both Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained in the light of the elaborate discussions in the Christian Doctrine, says that in the former epic he conceals or modifies them. C. S. Lewis162 surveying all the relevant phrases disposes of the contention that they must be interpreted a la Arius. Apropos of the last of them, which has occurred in one of our own quotations, he writes: "The expression 'of all Creation first' applied to the Son in III, 383, is a translation of St. Paul's
163 (Col. I,15). A writer anxious to avoid the Arian heresy might indeed have avoided Milton's translation; but we should not from this passage, nor from any passage in the whole poem, have discovered the poet's Arianism without the aid of external evidence."
Hence whatever need to "aspire" is seen in the Christ of Milton's epic must be understood independently of Arianism: it must have its ground in a poetic presentation of beliefs substantially held "always and everywhere and by all". The need must be understood basically in nothing except the framework of the Son-Father relationship between Christ and God. It goes no further than what the Divine Son might do vis-à-vis the Divine Father. And it involves no more inferiority in Christ to God
161.A Milton Handbook (Fourth Edition, New York), 1946, p. 231.
162.A Preface to Paradise Lost (Oxford Paperback), 1960, pp. 86-87.
163."The firstborn of every creature".
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than is in the line Blake himself puts into Jesus's mouth in The Everlasting Gospel (1818):
I am doing my Father's business.164
To carry out God's work, whether in Earth or Heaven - to be on God's mission - not only to do His Father's business but also to want to do it - all this is part of Divine Sonhood, even if the Son be co-essential and co-eternal with the Divine Father. The up-look of the Miltonic Christ's speech to God has no unBla-kean association and could easily have got more vividly concretized in Blake's picture of aspiring.
The up-look is shared by Milton's rebels in their own way, and it is extremely significant to find Milton using repeatedly in reference to Satan's ambition to capture the supreme height of God's dazzling throne the verbal turn "aspire". Thus twice in Book VI, before Christ has received God's wrath-power and let it loose in battle, the usage meets us. "The banded Powers of Satan" thought
That self-same day, by fight or by surprise, To win the Mount of God, and on his throne To set the envier of his state, the proud Aspirer.165
That self-same day, by fight or by surprise,
To win the Mount of God, and on his throne
To set the envier of his state, the proud
Aspirer.165
A little later, Abdiel cries to Satan
"Proud, art thou met? Thy hope was to have reach'd The highth of thy aspiring unoppos'd - The throne of God unguarded..."166
"Proud, art thou met? Thy hope was to have reach'd
The highth of thy aspiring unoppos'd -
The throne of God unguarded..."166
In Blake's poem too, as we have read it, the aspiring comes in the part preparatory to the Tyger's creation by Christ from empyrean-fire and the letting loose of the dread power in battle. But, of course, there we have made Christ and not Satan aspire - a difference on whose rationale in the Milton-context we shall soon touch. And, of course, Milton's usage is primarily
164.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 750 (The Everlasting Gospel, c, 1. 8).
165.Bk. VI, 11.87-90.
166.Ibid., 11.131-133.
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psychological, connoting the inner movement of pride, envy, ambition, whereas Blake's in collocation with "wings" is principally equivalent to "soar, mount up" literally as a result of earnest desire. But let us not forget that Satan and his host were all winged beings and that to reach God's throne which was the top of Heaven they would have also to aspire bodily. And once the very notion of soaring or winging high is indirectly suggested immediately after Satan has spoken of his own "essence... / That to the highth of deity aspir'd!" - for, Satan says:
But what will not ambition and revenge Descend to? Who aspires must down as low As high he soar'd...167
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? Who aspires must down as low
As high he soar'd...167
Blake's mind has received the Miltonic "aspire" as a seed of double suggestion and re-creatively transferred, to the "exaltation" of which Christ speaks before the battle, the aspiring of the rebels and set him winging upward. (Milton, as we shall soon see, has similarly transferred to Christ the word "ascend" which the Bible employs for Satan where Milton writes "aspire". Thus Isaiah168 to Lucifer, as already cited by us: "For thou hast said in thy heart, ' I will ascend unto heaven, . . . I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, . . . I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the Most High . ' ")
Further, as a number of passages either imply or make explicit, Milton pictures Christ as leaving God's seat on his destructive or creative mission and then rising back to it. A compact phrase showing God above and Christ mounting to Him is:
To him with swift ascent he up return'd.169
Again, we have Christ moving to God's "distant deeps or skies":
167.Bk. IX. 11.168-170
168.XIV, 12.
169.Bk. X, 1.224.
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Then to the Heav'n of Heav'ns he shall ascend...170
Hence, even outwardly, in one sense, Christ does "aspire".
But the most important context in regard to ascension (equivalent to aspiring or mounting up) by Christ is God's speech and its sequel, in Book VI. God says to Christ:
"Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might; Ascend my chariot..."171
"Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might;
Ascend my chariot..."171
And Christ, we are told, "ascended"172 this "Chariot of Paternal Deity" which is described as "flashing thick flames" and rushing "with whirlwind sound". In addition, immediately after being told that Christ "ascended", we get the phrase:
at his right hand victory Sat eagle-wing'd...173
at his right hand victory
Sat eagle-wing'd...173
Thus apropos of Christ's obtaining his Father's fire and thunder, the suggestions of ascending bodily and of wings as well as of hand come together, even as they do, though with a recreated combination, in Blake. And it is to be noted that Christ's bodily ascension of the Chariot equipping him with God's fire and thunder takes him to "a crystal firmament" which is over the heads of the Cherubs convoying the Chariot and on which his throne is set.174 When he ascends there and the Chariot moves we get the picture already noted:
He on the wings of Cherub rode sublime On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd - Illustrious far and wide...175
Illustrious far and wide...175
There we have even the Blakean word "sky" to mark the level to which Christ "ascended", over and above the conjunction of "wings" with his "sublime" (uplifted) position and the impres-
170.Bk. XII, 1.451.
171.Bk. VI, 11.710-711.
172.Ibid., 1.762
173.Ibid., 11.762-763.
174.Ibid., 1.757.
175.Ibid., 11.771-773.
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sion of the winged enskied movement burning and shining across great distances ("illustrious far and wide"). A complete background or basis for Blake's re-creation is essentially before us.
What perhaps reinforces the background or basis is that the passage is the very one whose commencement is the gesture by Christ already commented on:
So said, he, o'er his sceptre bowing, rose From the right hand of glory where he sate...176
From the right hand of glory where he sate...176
The act of Christ's rising - in answer to God's call - with a sense of lowliness from his seat, which is second to God's, sets the stage most fittingly for his subsequent ascension of "the crystalline sky" of God's Chariot. In fact, this ascension may be looked upon as completing what that significant rising has begun: the two constitute one emphatic whole which could not but serve to kindle Blake's imagination in the form in which we find it.
Here, since Blake knew his Milton backwards and forwards, it would not be whimsical to make a remark on the mere words "ascend" and "wings" as they must have played in Blake's memory from Milton. Once in Paradise Lost they occur together in the very way to serve as a starting-point for Blake's line. Their togetherness is with reference to Adam and Eve when Raphael tells Adam that the bodies of man and woman may at last
turn all to spirit, Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend Ethereal...177
turn all to spirit,
Improv'd by tract of time, and wing'd ascend
Ethereal...177
But, as the word "ascend" has gone so often with Christ in Milton, the togetherness may not unnaturally raise in Blake the vision of a winged Christ.
While we are about words as such and their floating from Milton into Blake, it should also not look fanciful to add one
176.Ibid., 11.746-747.
177.Bk. V, 11.497-499.
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more example of the older poet's employment of "aspire" and suggest how Blake may have been influenced by it to figure forth a Christ aspiring. We have observed the linking of the words "exalt" and "exaltation" with Christ in relation to God and His empyrean, as well as the linking of "exalt" with "aspire" in relation to a godlike status held as a lure before Adam and Eve. We may note that when "exaltation" is linked with Christ it is in a context mentioning Christ as God's "Son",178 and when "exalt" occurs the context runs, in God's speech:
"Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt With thee thy manhood also to this throne: Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man..."179
With thee thy manhood also to this throne:
Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign
Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man..."179
"Aspire" thus gets linked not only with reaching up to God's empyrean but also with expressions referring to God's "Son" and "Son both of God and Man". And as if to clinch the connection by an open statement, though in terms of execration rather than admiration, there is for Blake in Milton the lines about a son of Man - Nimrod, builder of the sky-climbing Babel-tower, as viewed in prophetic vision by Adam:
"O execrable son, so to aspire Above his brethren, to himself assuming Authority usurpt, from God not giv'n!... to God his tower intends Siege and defiance."180
"O execrable son, so to aspire
Above his brethren, to himself assuming
Authority usurpt, from God not giv'n!...
to God his tower intends
Siege and defiance."180
A re-creative transposition would provide Blake with a Miltonic stimulus for his own vision of Christ daringly aspiring above the heavenly brotherhood to his Father's dreadful Power and receiving it as at once a gift and a right.
A re-creative transposition of these lines, as well as of those where Satan comes in as the aspirer, would be facilitated by a
178.Bk. VI, 1.725.
179.Bk. III, 11.313-316.
180.Bk. XII, 11.64-66, 73-74.
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suggestion emanating verbally from Milton himself, though from Paradise Regained and not Paradise Lost. This suggestion would fuse the aspiring Satan and the aspiring Nimrod with Christ, "Son both of God and Man". The scene is in Jerusalem, and Satan is the speaker. After telling Jesus that he among the rest has heard Jesus pronounced by a voice from Heaven "the Son of God belov'd" at the ford of Jordan where people had flocked to John the Baptist, Satan says:
"Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn In what degree or meaning thou art call'd The Son of God, which bears no single sense. The Son of God I also am, or was; And, if I was, I am; relation stands; All men are Sons of God..."181
"Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view
And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn
In what degree or meaning thou art call'd
The Son of God, which bears no single sense.
The Son of God I also am, or was;
And, if I was, I am; relation stands;
All men are Sons of God..."181
Of course, what in general would encourage and fulfil all trends in a Miltonized Blake to send his Christ aspiring on wings is some influence of the fact we discussed at almost the outset - namely, that apart from the fiery character displayed in the battle-context Milton's Christ is Blake's Satan and Milton's Satan Blake's Christ. If the Satan of Paradise Lost conveys to Blake the fire and desire, the energy and exuberance, proper to the divinity manifest in the Messiah, the aspiring to God's height which Milton frequently attributed to Satan and to his followers ("Th' aspiring Dominations"182) - together with the wings required to accomplish his aim - might get not unnaturally shifted in a reconstituted and divinized form on to Blake's Christ.
Now a brief summing up will be appropriate of what exactly corresponds in Milton to the empyrean-fire whither Blake's creative "he" aspires on wings to seize it with his hand. The correspondence is a composite one and we shall get the full sense of it in a compact way if we read the beginning and the close of the great speech in which
181.Paradise Regained, Bk. IV, 11.514-520.
182.Paradise Lost, Bk. III, 1.392.
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th' Almighty Father, where he sits Shrin'd in his sanctuary of Heav'n secure,183
th' Almighty Father, where he sits
Shrin'd in his sanctuary of Heav'n secure,183
wishes
To honour his Anointed Son, aveng'd Upon his enemies, and to declare All power on him transferr'd.184
To honour his Anointed Son, aveng'd
Upon his enemies, and to declare
All power on him transferr'd.184
He starts with the lines on which we have already drawn:
"Effulgence of my glory, Son belov'd, Son, in whose face invisible is beheld Visibly, what by Deity I am, And in whose hand what by decree I do, Second Omnipotence!..."185
"Effulgence of my glory,
Son belov'd, Son, in whose face invisible is beheld
Second Omnipotence!..."185
Then he says that He has ordained for His Son to end the war between His Angels and the rebels, and thus far "suffer'd" it
"that the glory be thine..."186
Then He adds:
"Into thee such virtue and grace Immense I have transfus'd, that all may know In Heav'n and Hell thy power above compare... Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might; Ascend my chariot; guide the rapid wheels That shake Heav'n's basis; bring forth all my war; My bow and thunder, my almighty arms, Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh; Pursue these Sons of Darkness, drive them out From all Heav'n's bounds..."187
"Into thee such virtue and grace
Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might;
Ascend my chariot; guide the rapid wheels
That shake Heav'n's basis; bring forth all my war;
My bow and thunder, my almighty arms,
Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh;
Pursue these Sons of Darkness, drive them out
From all Heav'n's bounds..."187
The glory of God's face, the omnipotence of God's hand, shrined in the sanctuary of Heaven - all the supernal absolutes
183.Bk. VI, 11.671-672.
184.Ibid., 11.676-678.
185.Ibid., 11.680-684.
186.Ibid., 1.701.
187.Ibid., 11.703-705, 710-716.
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"dark with excessive bright" in their empyrean - are transfused in their full grace and virtue into Christ who, as it were, rises to the occasion of receiving them and stands high over all existence, "above compare". The glory and the omnipotence residing in Heaven's sanctuary are more dynamically represented by God's chariot and all that goes with it, bringing forth God's war: bow and thunder, almighty arms, sword. More details about this chariot we get when we learn that, as we noted, it rushes with a whirlwind sound and flashes thick flames. It has also "burning wheels"188 and is convoyed by four Cherubic Shapes, each four-faced and many-winged, who carry it aloft and whose "bodies all / And wings were set with eyes"189 which
Glar'd lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire190
among the accursed, the "Sons of Darkness". An extra detail, explaining the almighty arms, is the radiant panoply, "work divinely wrought". And when the Messiah comes with God's war, "far off his coming shone".191. It should be evident that the fiery "distant deeps or skies" of Blake to which the creative "he" aspires are the many-featured chariot which the Messiah ascended in answer to the Father's call, as much as they are what is transfused into Christ before this more dynamic representation of it appears.
But it should be evident too that just as Milton has a composite correspondence to Blake's empyrean of fire Blake has a composite correspondence to Milton's many-featured chariot. The chariot, besides being this empyrean, is the destructive four-footed beast of fearful symmetry and fiery eyes, the "work" of burning brightness which the aspiring creative "he" has wrought to embody the glory and omnipotence from on high; and the chariot is also, by virtue of the wings carrying it aloft, the winged creator himself in his response to the celestial fire no less than in his capacity to loose out an
188.Ibid., 1.832.
189.Ibid., 11.754-755.
190.Ibid., 1.849.
191.Ibid., 1.768.
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expression of his divine dreadfulness against the night and its forests and its perverted stars. Now for the Miltonic stimulus of the last line of stanza 3:
In Blake's "seize" we have read not only audacity in handling the fire that is the original of the Tyger's eyes but also authority in relation to the distant deeps or skies, as if the divinity that has something still beyond it and is therefore secondary had yet a right equal to what the primary possesses in its ultimate altitude. "Seize" counterbalances the "aspire" of the preceding line. There is a similar counterbalancing in the unquoted part of the great speech of God where God confers His glory and omnipotence on Christ and asks him to "ascend" His chariot. This part follows the lines about God's self-transfusion into His Son that all may know him incomparable,
"And this perverse commotion govern'd thus, To manifest thee worthiest to be Heir Of all things - to be Heir, and to be King By sacred unction, thy deserved right. Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might..."192
"And this perverse commotion govern'd thus,
To manifest thee worthiest to be Heir
Of all things - to be Heir, and to be King
By sacred unction, thy deserved right.
Go, then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might..."192
Here we have the clear indication of the creative "he"'s authority: God, in appointing Christ His own Heir and Heaven's King, speaks of Christ's "deserved right". And the indication comes just a little before the phrases "Ascend my chariot" and "bring forth all my war", and in logical relation to them through the word "then" in "Go, then, thou Mightiest..." It also joins up with the reference to Christ's "hand" of "Second Omnipotence". So we seem to hear Christ being asked to aspire to what is not only God's but also Christ's own and to seize with his hand for manifestation what too is his privilege by his essential oneness with his Father.
The word "seize" occurs in Paradise Lost many times and in diverse ways. We have marked its suggestive occurrence in
192. Ibid., 11.707-710.
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connection with a tiger. We further read: "Admiration seiz'd / All Heav'n"193 -
The Princely Hierarch In their bright stand there left his Powers to seize Possession of the Garden194 -
The Princely Hierarch
In their bright stand there left his Powers to seize
Possession of the Garden194 -
"At last they seize / The sceptre"195 - "Seiz'd on by force".196 The most relevant forms for us are three others. One is in God's reference to Satan in a speech to the Son:
"This inaccessible high strength, the seat Of Deity supreme, us dispossess'd, He trusted to have seiz'd..."197
"This inaccessible high strength, the seat
Of Deity supreme, us dispossess'd,
He trusted to have seiz'd..."197
A situation in general such as we have seen in The Tyger is here. Only, instead of the Son seizing the fire of the Father's "strength" at the latter's call, we have the Adversary attempting to capture His seat by main force. But Blake's reversal is in accordance with his reversal of the notion of aspiring: once this motion, in a reconstituted form, is transferred from Satan and his crew to the creator of the animal which defeats and distresses the rebel stars under Satan, we should expect in relation to God's glory the motion of seizing to be also reconstituted and transferred to this creator whom we have identified with Christ. And indeed in Milton we find even a Father-Son context for the word "seize", though here too the celestial situation is of enmity, taken as it is from Greek mythology:
Titan, Heav'n's first-born, With his enormous brood, and birthright seiz'd By younger Saturn; he from mightier Jove , His own and Rhea's son, like measure found, So Jove usurping reign'd . . . 198
Titan, Heav'n's first-born,
With his enormous brood, and birthright seiz'd
By younger Saturn; he from mightier Jove ,
His own and Rhea's son, like measure found,
So Jove usurping reign'd . . . 198
193.Bk. III, 11.211-212.
194.Bk. XI, 11.220-222.
195.Bk. XII, 11.356-357.
196.Ibid., 1.412.
197.Bk. VII, 11.141-143.
198.Bk. I, 11.510-514.
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In trying to understand how ideas and word-turns moving from one poet to another pass often with dramatic changes, we may observe apropos of these lines that birthright, sonhood and reign recur together when God speaks to Christ on the sacrifice which the latter has offered to give for man's sake: "Because... thou hast been found
By merit more than birthright Son of God,... Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign..."199
By merit more than birthright Son of God,...
Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign..."199
A fusion of the Titan-and-Saturn-and-Jove picture with this God and Christ under a new motive is prompted by what God says almost immediately after. Christ is told:
"All power I give thee; reign for ever, and assume Thy merits... "200
I give thee; reign for ever, and assume
Thy merits... "200
In the command to Christ to assume his merits we hear from God's side all that we have read for Christ in Blake's word "seize". Even this very expression is not far from the above sentence. For, it is when Christ has offered his self-sacrifice, and God is about to express His appreciation, that we get the phrase already cited:
Admiration seiz'd All Heav'n...201
Admiration seiz'd
All Heav'n...201
In this context, however, there is no association everywhere of "seize" and "hand" as in Blake's "What the hand dare seize...?" But Milton is not devoid of this association. In the vision of the future the Archangel Michael shows Adam, there is a scene in which, within an attacked city defended with "sulphurous fire"202 and other means, rose one who in the midst of "factious opposition" spoke much of "right and wrong... and judgment from above", and whom both old and young
199.Bk. III, 11.305, 308-309, 315.
200.Ibid., 11.317-318.
201.Ibid., 11.211-212.
202.Bk. XI, 1.658.
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had seiz'd with violent hands Had not a cloud descending snatched him thence...203
had seiz'd with violent hands
Had not a cloud descending snatched him thence...203
Yes, Blake's precise collocation is in Milton and, what is most amazing, Milton's Michael, soon elaborating on the incident, describes to Adam the righteous man concerned as "daring single to be just",204 and continues:
him the Most High, Rapt in a balmy cloud, with winged steeds, Did, as thou saw'st, receive to walk with God High in salvation and the climes of bliss...205
him the Most High,
Rapt in a balmy cloud, with winged steeds,
Did, as thou saw'st, receive to walk with God
High in salvation and the climes of bliss...205
When we put everything together we get not only "fire" and "seiz'd with hands" but also "daring" and "winged" and being "snatch'd" up "to walk with God / High...in the climes of bliss". Have we not all the rough materials and the general scheme-suggestion of
On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
Now for a brief Miltonic scrutiny of the creation-process indicated for the bright-burning Tyger by these lines of Blake's together with the couplet preceding them:
The process may be stated: there is a mass of light burning above, there is a going up to it to bring its fire in order to enkindle the Tyger's fire-eyed body, to "frame" its "fearful symmetry". Milton, recounting the acts of creation performed by Christ with the transfusion of God's winged Spirit into him, speaks how
203.Bk. XI, 11.669-670.
204.Ibid., 1.703.
205.Ibid., 11.705-708.
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Light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, Sprung from the Deep...206
Light
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the Deep...206
The Light is "sphered in a radiant cloud".207 The Sun was not yet. And when the Sun came to be, we hear about this creation of Christ's:
For, of celestial bodies, first the Sun A mighty sphere he fram'd, unlightsome first, Though of ethereal mould...208
For, of celestial bodies, first the Sun
A mighty sphere he fram'd, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould...208
Then we are referred back to the original Light:
Of light by far the greater part he took, Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and plac'd In the Sun's orb, made porous to receive And drink the liquid light, firm to retain Her gather'd beams, great palace now of Light... First in his east the glorious lamp was seen, Regent of day, and all the horizon round Invested with bright rays...209
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and plac'd
In the Sun's orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light, firm to retain
Her gather'd beams, great palace now of Light...
First in his east the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all the horizon round
Invested with bright rays...209
A process analogous in general to the Tyger's creation is depicted, and we have not only the words "Deep" and "bright" to summon up even verbal anticipations but also the Blakean word "fram'd" rather than "form'd" which is used soon after about the Moon.210 Finally, just after the creation of the Sun, as well as of the Moon and stars, is mentioned in broad terms and just before it is described in detail, beginning with the lines we have quoted above, there meets us the phrase about Christ we have culled in commenting on "Did he smile his work to see?" -
God saw, Surveying his great work, that it was good.211
Surveying his great work, that it was good.211
206.Bk. VII, 11.243-245.
207.Ibid., 11.247.
208.Ibid., 11.354-356.
209.Ibid., 11.359-363.
210.Ibid., 1.356.
211.Ibid., 11.352-353.
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This phrase is the sole one in the whole of Milton's account of creation where the creator is said to see specifically his "work" while approving of it. If Blake drew from Milton the inspiration for his vision of the making of the work that was the Tyger the place where we find that phrase of Milton's is the precise one we should expect.
And indeed it is apt that the Miltonic making of the sun should spark off in Blake the making of his animal. For, after all, what are the terms contraposed in the lyric? The Tyger ablaze and the night's forests. If we suppress the figures of the Tyger and the forests, we are left with burning and brightness on the one side and with the night on the other - the former breaking upon the latter just as the sun's fire might upon a world of darkness. We have already seen the Blakean rhyme -the very initial one in the lyric - of "bright" with "night" in a Milton-passage212 on Morn vanquishing Night in Heaven and disclosing God's bright embattled squadrons with their chariots and flaming weapons and fiery animals. At a superficial level, one may even read the lyric as a parable of dawn-burst; the defeated and distressed stars would be quite in keeping with the symbolled story. And, when the Tyger represents the sun, the Lamb would stand for the moon, the mild light which for all its splendour does not dispel the stars. The suggestion itself of the different fate of the stars on facing the sun and on facing the moon is Miltonic in a most explicit fashion. Milton writes that the moon
her reign With thousand lesser lights dividual holds, With thousand thousand stars...213
her reign
With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,
With thousand thousand stars...213
But his sun, "with surpassing glory crown'd", is a luminary
at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads...214
at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads...214
212.Bk. VI, 11.14-19.
213.Bk. VII, 11.381-383.
214.Bk. IV, 11.34-35.
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And it is most striking that the phrase about the sun occurs in an apostrophe to it by Satan and that in this apostrophe there is a reference to the battle in Heaven in close connection with the phrase concerned. Immediately after that phrase we get the lines:
"to thee I call But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, OSun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state Ifell, how glorious once above thy sphere, Till pride and worse ambition threw me down, Warring in Heav'n against Heav'n's matchless King!"215
"to thee I call
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
OSun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
Ifell, how glorious once above thy sphere,
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in Heav'n against Heav'n's matchless King!"215
A Miltonized mind like Blake is bound to have been variously impregnated by seed within seed of diversely fused suggestions from Paradise Lost, and a sub-symbolism of sun and moon - with their contrary relations to stars - may well be thought of as running from Milton in The Tyger. The sub-symbolism may even be conceived as complete in its own place by an influence from Milton. For if the star-diminishing sun and the star-accepting moon came under the heads "Tyger" and "Lamb", the Light from which they are made and of which they form two opposite yet complementary aspects and which, as we saw, is called
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure
is addressed in one of Milton's finest passages:
Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born! Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May 1 express thee unblam'd? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity - dwelt then in thee. Bright effluence of bright essence increate!216
Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born!
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May 1 express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
Dwelt from eternity - dwelt then in thee.
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!216
215.Ibid., 11
216.Bk. III, 11
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To Blake's ears the passage could easily have conjured up and mixed with the other where, after recounting how the Angels sang first the Father as "Eternal King" and "Author of all being" and "Fountain of light" sitting inaccessible amidst "glorious brightness",217 Milton hails Christ and says:
Thee next they sang, of all creation first, Begotten Son, Divine Similitude, In whose conspicuous count'nance, without cloud Made visible, th' Almighty Father shines, Whom else no creature can behold: on thee Impress'd the effulgence of his glory abides...218
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
Whom else no creature can behold: on thee
Impress'd the effulgence of his glory abides...218
In Blake's sub-symbolic scheme, Christ would be the "holy light", the "first-born" in whom dwells the God who is light eternal and unapproached, and, when this "bright effluence" comes down, the Tyger-sun gets framed to rout the denizens of night, the stars. Such a scheme would render it the most natural process of poetic re-creation that Blake should catch fire from Milton's making of the sun for his own making of the Tyger.
(d)
The third stanza is our next problem of comparative study. Its opening phrase -
And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? -
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? -
sends us first looking for Milton's use of the word "shoulder". Two instances stand out. One refers to Beelzebub, "than whom, / Satan except, none higher sat":219
Sage he stood, With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
Sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
217.Ibid., 11.374-377.
218.Ibid., 11.383-388.
219.Bk. II, 11.305-306.
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The weight of mightiest monarchies...220
There we have a declaration of immense strength such as Blake's "shoulder" also conveys with its ability to shape those mighty heart-sinews. The next instance refers to Uriel, the Angel posted in the Sun, one of the seven who are nearest God's throne and are His eyes running through all the Heavens.221 Milton describes him as seen by Satan:
His back was turn'd, but not his brightness hid; Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar Circled his head, nor less his locks behind Illustrious on his shoulder fledge with wings Lay waving round...222
His back was turn'd, but not his brightness hid;
Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar
Circled his head, nor less his locks behind
Illustrious on his shoulder fledge with wings
Lay waving round...222
The association here of shoulders and wings in the midst of brightness is notable, for we have a somewhat similar though more general association in Blake's
On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art...
And what shoulder, & what art...
But the most striking Miltonic correspondence to the first line of Blake's third stanza when preceded by the last two of his second is in a passage about Satan. In the three lines of Blake the questions introduced by the "what" 's are broadly about competence for a difficult, almost impossible-seeming, job: the poet asks what wings, hand, shoulder, art would suffice for it. Just this problem is posed by Milton with analogous components when Satan's followers discuss the job of someone making the extremely arduous and perilous journey from Hell through Chaos to the earth:
whom shall we find Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandering feet The dark, unbottom'd, infinite Abyss,
whom shall we find
Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandering feet
The dark, unbottom'd, infinite Abyss,
220.Ibid., 11.311-313.
221.Bk. III, 11.622-623, 648-651.
222.Ibid., 11.624-628.
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And through the palpable obscure find out His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight, Upborne with indefatigable wings Over the vast Abrupt, ere he arrive The happy Isle? What strength, what art, can then Suffice...?223
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight,
Upborne with indefatigable wings
Over the vast Abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy Isle? What strength, what art, can then
Suffice...?223
The phrase "what strength, what art" is the exact counterpart of
since "strength" can be perfectly equated to "shoulder" when "art" is its contrary-complement. And not only is it in the identical context of competence or sufficiency, but also preceded at one line's remove by
exactly as Blake's phrase is preceded with one line's interval by
And if it can be of any interest for associative psychology we may add that the very first sentence of Satan's reply to the discussion of his followers contains the Blakean word "seize" and suggests a rising up to luminous regions:
"O Progeny of Heav'n! Empyreal Thrones! With reason hath deep silence and demur Seiz'd us, though undismay'd. Long is the way And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light."224
"O Progeny of Heav'n! Empyreal Thrones!
With reason hath deep silence and demur
Seiz'd us, though undismay'd. Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light."224
We have also the word "deep" here no less than a mention of "Heav'n" and the next four lines give us both "fire" and "burning":
"Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire, Outrageous to devour, immures us round
"Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire,
Outrageous to devour, immures us round
223.Bk. II, 11.403-411.
224.Ibid., 11.430-433.
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Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant, Barr'd over us, prohibit all egress."225
Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant,
Barr'd over us, prohibit all egress."225
Would it be irrational on our part to be reminded not only of
but also of
Thus the opening line of Blake's third stanza discovers in Milton both its own significant affinity and, in connection with that, an affinity, significant or verbal, of the whole of Blake's second stanza.
The second line of the third stanza has no direct correspondence in Milton, but the sense it gives of a massive growing force answering as moulded effect to the cause operative in god-like shoulder-art can be compared to the impression we may imaginatively gather if, fastening on the common and connective word "strength", we juxtapose
what strength, what art, can then Suffice
what strength, what art, can then
Suffice
with those lines about Satan:
And now his heart Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength, Glories...226
And now his heart
Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength,
Glories...226
The next couplet -
And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hands? & what dread feet? -
What dread hands? & what dread feet? -
has already come in for comment. We have recalled Milton's phrase to Christ:
225.Ibid., 11.434-437.
226.Bk. I, 11.571-573.
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Thou that day Thy Father's dreadful thunder didst not spare...227
Thy Father's dreadful thunder didst not spare...227
Here we have a combination of thunder and dreadfulness, as of a giant heart's beating. A combination of such thunder with a dreadful hand occurs in the other phrase about the same occasion - namely, Christ's progression towards Satan's army:
...in his right hand Grasping ten thousand thunders...228
...in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand thunders...228
The sense of dreadful feet combined with Christ's thunderous attack may be felt in what Milton says about the chariot in which Christ was moving. We have already noted that it "forth rush'd with whirlwind sound".229 Also,
the orbs Of his fierce chariot roll'd, as with the sound Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host.230
the orbs
Of his fierce chariot roll'd, as with the sound
Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host.230
Even a direct presence of dreadful feet in connection both with Christ and with thunder is to be guessed from a treading-down power anticipated when Satan asks his army fallen in Hell whether it would lie abject under the gaze of Christ from above
"till anon His swift pursuers from Heav'n-gate discern The advantage, and, descending, tread us down Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?"231
"till anon
His swift pursuers from Heav'n-gate discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?"231
A general association of Supreme Puissance and Divine Wrath with Christ's limbs - answering to "shoulder" and
227.Bk. III, 11.392-393.
228.Bk. VI, 11.835-836.
229.Ibid., 1.749.
230.Ibid., 11.828-830.
231.Bk. I, 11.325-329.
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"hand" and "feet" of Blake's third stanza - may be seen if we take from the speech in which God asks Christ to go in his Father's might the four lines232 referring to his ascending the chariot, guiding its wheels, bringing forth bow and thunder, girding the almighty arms and wearing the sword upon his thigh.
The next stanza we have commented on to a considerable extent while passing backward and forward a little beyond the lines about the stars. We have viewed Miltonically its closing phrase about the Tyger's brain -
What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? -
What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp? -
by quoting the lines233 in which thunders grasped by Christ are not only brought against Satan's hosts but also infix plagues in their souls. We quoted, in addition, the verses234 where Christ's countenance changes into terror as well as those235 where Christ drives these hosts "thunderstruck, pursued / With terrors and with furies".
In treating the opening words -
What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? -
In what furnace was thy brain? -
we paralleled, with Milton's phrase about Christ's restraining his wrath from utterly destroying his enemies, one of the main significances we had read of the chain in Blake's poem. We glanced too at the Miltonic alliance between chain and furnace, no less than at the several collocations of the chain and Christ's hand.
We may now touch on some other points of comparison. The hammer, besides being part of the paraphernalia of a smithy such as is implied by Milton's "work divinely wrought" about Christ's armour, may be considered as present in the striking
232.Bk. VI, 11.711-714.
233.Ibid., 11.835-838.
234.Ibid., 11.823-824.
235.Ibid., 11.858-859.
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power of the Tyger which it has helped to frame. Then we may discern an anticipation of it in Abdiel's words to Satan:
"That golden sceptre which thou didst reject Is now an iron rod to bruise and break Thy disobedience."236
"That golden sceptre which thou didst reject
Thy disobedience."236
Similarly, the chain, one of whose purposes according to us is to keep in position the formidable Tyger-mass during its shaping, may be taken to be active within the shaped Tyger itself as a power to hold fixed the victim. Then we may perceive in Milton a pointer for Blake when immediately after the suggestion of dread feet in the words "tread us down / Thus drooping" we get the phrase:
or with linked thunderbolts Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.237
or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.237
Have we not here Christ's wrath capable of acting like a chain made up of his thunderbolts linked together?
A suggestive prefiguring of the Tyger's brain ablaze in a furnace may be spotted in the lines spoken to Satan by Sin who originally was "shining heav'nly fair, a goddess arm'd" sprung out of his head:238
thy head flames thick and fast Threw forth...239
thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth...239
And it hardly seems a pure coincidence that, just as the stanza in which Blake's
appears is followed at once by the stanza about the defeat and distress of the rebels in Heaven, the Miltonic words about the head throwing forth flames thick and fast are soon followed by the lines from Sin:
236.Bk. V . 11 . 886-888.
237.Bk. I , 11 .328-329.
238.Bk. I I , 1 .757.
239.Ibid., 11.754-755.
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Meanwhile war arose, And fields were fought in Heav'n: wherein remain'd (For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe Clear victory; to our part loss and rout Through all the Empyrean.240
Meanwhile war arose,
And fields were fought in Heav'n: wherein remain'd
(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe
Clear victory; to our part loss and rout
Through all the Empyrean.240
About the next stanza - the fifth - we have said enough. What remains to be said apropos of it is in relation to the one after it, the last in the poem. Miltonism here may be discovered by a look at some of the words Milton uses as a grand finale to his account of Christ's doings with his routed enemies. The grand finale opens with:
he meant Not to destroy but root them out of Heav'n241
he meant
Not to destroy but root them out of Heav'n241
and terminates with:
eternal wrath Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.242
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.242
Blake, after writing of the catastrophe to the stars and asking whether the Tyger's maker smiled at his own work, ends the stanza with a direct reference again to the Tyger:
and, as if remembering the expulsive angry hellward pursuit of the Sons of Darkness by Milton's Christ, winds up his lyric:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
We have considered this repetition of the first stanza a profound artistic necessity in order to underline the "star"-phrase's implication of night and merge the habitat of the stars
240.Ibid., 11.767-771.
241.Bk. VI, 11.854-855.
242.Ibid., 11.865-866.
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with the night's forests. But the necessity may have been rendered especially clear by a recollection of Milton. For, it is indubitable that Blake's grand finale, by its repetition, answers in a general way very closely to Milton's in a splendid intensity of formidableness and catches exactly his two main suggestions of dealing drastically with what is rooted and carrying against it a burning wrath divinely projected.
A matter of further interest is that Milton's grand finale points beyond Heaven to Hell, "the bottomless pit",243 and the passages which follow bring in the human world as a conceivable victim to Satan's wiles. Raphael, immediately after speaking of the "war in Heav'n" and its result to the companions of Satan, tells Adam about that fallen Archangel:
"he who envies now thy state, Who now is plotting how he may seduce Thee also from obedience, that, with him Bereav'd of happiness, thou may'st partake His punishment, eternal misery..."244
"he who envies now thy state,
Who now is plotting how he may seduce
Thee also from obedience, that, with him
Bereav'd of happiness, thou may'st partake
His punishment, eternal misery..."244
Milton thus indicates the possible application of Christ's wrath to man's concerns, just as the last stanza of our lyric, coming as it does after the lines about the punishment and misery of Satan's companions, extends the opposition of the Tyger and the forests of the night beyond the war in Heaven.
(e)
The whole of Blake's poem seems composed with a background - nay, with a basis - in Books V and VI of Milton's epic as well as strong reminiscences here and there of some other Books, particularly Book III. And it appears to be best explicable in its details by a reference to the epic. That does not diminish its own poetic creativity, its own imaginative originality, any more than J. Livingstone Lowe's tracing of innumerable details of The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan in a
243.Ibid.
244.Ibid., 11.900-904.
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variety of books by others lessens the supreme and unique inspiration of these works of Coleridge's in their finally realized form. However, there is one difference. Coleridge's "story" is not clarified by echoes from his varied reading: they do not really anticipate that story, for it is entirely new and arises from the way these echoes hang together as the originals never did. Blake too stands on his own with a number of vivid images that poetically change the overall aspect of the things he has drawn from his reading, yet his story - apart from the attitude of the Tyger-Lamb contraposition - runs broadly parallel to Miltonic matter. The essential meaning of the story shines a little distantly in Blake - as, no doubt, it was intended to do, the poem being a precursor of latter-day Symbolism. When we bring its visions into liaison with Milton, this meaning emerges fully into the foreground, and the emergence completes the clarification brought by a close analysis of the poem itself and sets the stage perfectly for a clarificatory liaison of those visions with passages in Blake's other compositions.
Not that clarification adds anything to the art-quality of the piece: the very nature of this piece is to be somewhat unclear. It would be a mistake to say that without Milton Blake's Tyger is like a glorious body haunted by a still discarnate soul: the poem qua poem is body and soul one flame. But the flame cuts a puzzling shape to the intellect; and intellectually, as distinguished from artistically, the reference to Milton makes the shape totally traceable. Although we cannot say that without Milton Blake's Tyger does no more than prowl splendidly hungry for meaning through our minds, surely with Milton it stands magnificently gorged with significance. So far as intelligibility is concerned, perhaps the best manner of stating the situation is that if we take Blake's poem by itself we have to press his sense out of it, while if we take it in company with Milton the sense Blake has put into it presses upon us on its own.
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5
We come now to a necessary preliminary to the task of setting The Tyger in the general context of Blake's work in order finally to confirm our reading of its symbolism. We shall examine the several alternatives and corrections and additions in Blake's original draft of the poem and then the choice of the ultimate version. Doing so, we shall feel how he has moved towards the deeper meaning and tried at the same time not to lose sight of the physical Tyger altogether but found it as good as impossible to retain any positive phrase about the latter without endangering the supernaturalism of his vision. Next, we shall put the last version side by side with his own illustration of it, compare the poetry with the picture and discover that in no manner does Blake the painter of this piece render suspect our interpretation.
Blake does not appear always to have known what verbal turn took better the fundamental shade of his context. The present second stanza -
In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? -
did not occupy its place definitively from the start. There was an alternative with which Blake played:
Burnt in distant deeps or skies The cruel fire of thine eyes? Could heart descend or wings aspire?
Burnt in distant deeps or skies
The cruel fire of thine eyes?
Could heart descend or wings aspire?
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What the hand dare seize the fire?1
Here the third line, with its clear balancing of "descend" against "aspire", shows Blake to have meant by "deeps" something really below the Tyger's maker. The general suggestion is not only as of hell and heaven but also as if there were genuine uncertainty whether the Tyger's maker brought to his work a power of the infernal and abysmal or drew upon the heavenly and empyreal. A poetic posture like this does not go to frustrate whatever intention we may attribute to Blake of picturing his Tyger as essentially divine and opposing the forests of the night in which the rebel stars are glittering. For, the divine may be conceived as paying the forces of the devilish in their own coin, as it were, or even going one better in crude violence for the sake of the Good. But the mention of a resort to such means does not allow the Tyger to remain everywhere "bright" no less than "burning".
A similar situation arises in regard to the epithet "cruel". Though coloured, it is actually non-committal. Fierce strength, causing injury and pain, may be cruel but does not always on that account become evil: everything depends on the motive, the occasion, the result. Even an act of the most helpful surgery, in the days before anaesthetics, could be cruel, yet it was so in appearance only. War also in a defensive noble cause, cannot be condemned merely because of the cruelty it involves. However, the epithet has unpleasant associations and might prove misleading if the poem were about Divine Wrath and not about a diabolic opposite to the Lamb-Christ. It is significant that Blake ultimately chose a version in which it did not occur. And even more significant is it that he dropped the balancing of "descend" against "aspire" and retained only the latter, so as to avoid all diminution of the Tyger's brightness. This change altered the whole status of the deeps and, without blurring the distinct implications of them, set them and the skies together as two aspects of the same heavenly reality.
1. Keynes, ed. cit., p. 173. Keynes's text has "eye" in 1.2, which is evidently an oversight either by the editor or by the author.
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Again, the lines -
And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet? -
had originally no interrogation-marks and were elucidated by a clear continuation -
Could fetch it from the furnace deep And in thy horrid ribs dare steep2 -
Could fetch it from the furnace deep
And in thy horrid ribs dare steep2 -
and there was a tentative third line -
In the well of sanguine woe?3
which could not get assimilated and which was followed by a couplet meant to complete the stanza:
In what clay and in what mould Were thy eyes of fury roll'd?4
In what clay and in what mould
Were thy eyes of fury roll'd?4
Blake must have found this stanza, as Bateson5 remarks, "a much too melodramatic affair" - and, I should add, an affair much too earthy-sounding and hence tending to be too concretely contradictory of the fine transmutation his mind wanted to produce of the physical Tyger-image. The word "clay", like "cruel", was not in itself objectionable: it would be in accord with a vision in which even the divine artificer could have a body with various limbs: a supernatural body of this kind must be composed of some sort of clay, some supernatural substance or matter. But the word's usual associations were such as might dim the deeper hue of vision. Blake cancelled the entire stanza.6 Afterwards he tried once to tidy up the grammar violated by the cancellation and wrote -
What dread hand Form'd thy dread feet?7 -
2.Ibid., p. 172.
3.Ibid.
4.Ibid.
5.Op. cit., p. 118.
6.Ibid.
7.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 214, fn. 1.
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and in a later engraved version (c. 1803) used "forg'd" instead of "Form'd".8 He also seems to have allowed the same verb in a "selection from the lyrics seen by Wordsworth c. 1803 and by B. H. Malkin not later than 1806".9 However, neither verb was a poetic improvement for his purpose. Despite the forcible language, the process of creation now became, as Bateson10 puts it, "too explicitly a piece of manual labour". No wonder Blake could not make up his mind to let such a process figure as his final choice and lead him to alter his earlier original plate from which we derive the current reading. His non-alteration can serve as a pointer to his wish to leave us suggestively suspended in the "palpable obscure", blending the made with the maker.
The most decisive act in the course of composition was to add on the opposite page what is now the fifth stanza, with the "star"-lines and the next couplet, bringing to the forefront the supernatural motif and fusing the Tyger with Christ. Even here, however, he fumbled a little and the misguiding impulse towards vivifying some kind of manual labour prompted the preposterous line -
What the ancle? what the knee? -
as either a possible part of the same stanza or the embryonic beginning of some other. But he soon rejected all gross interference and rewrote on the right side of the same page the stanza as we know it, together with a fair copy of stanzas i, iii, v and vi, which, except for the change of "and" to "or" in lines 3 and 25 and unimportant differences in capitalization, are identical with the text of the engraved Songs of Experience. In the final shape the whole poem stood in the light of the fifth stanza and subtly breathed supernaturalism and grew religio-occult. Everything tending to go against the supernaturalism was omitted or altered and the physical Tyger remained a presence in the poem by nothing more than a background suggestion so
8.Bateson, op. cit., p. 118.
9.Ibid.
10.Ibid.
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that the poem carried only an echo of its name and a simulacrum of its form.
If one argues that the corrections and additions were made simply because they brought about poetic improvement, we may ask: "Why was not poetic improvement made along the lines of physical or else psycho-physical suggestion and is it sheer coincidence that the poetic improvement submerges more and more the striped carnivorous quadruped of our physical world and increasingly converts its image into an archetypal animal divinely terrorizing perverted heavenly beings in forests of a diabolic darkness?"
Against our view a difficulty may be raised on the score of the illustration with which Blake accompanied the poem as he did all the Songs of Innocence and Experience. The picture is of a tree in the right-hand margin with a Tyger standing at its foot and facing away to the left. On the representation of the animal Joseph H. Wickstead11 has written: "Whereas Blake had certainly seen lambs in the fields and children playing with them, we know that he never had seen a tiger in the forest, and one would almost say, if one judged by the illustration, that he had never seen one, where they were in those days, at the Tower. As one looks at that quaint creature in the design, one almost wishes Blake had chosen to paint its purely spiritual form as he painted the ghost of a flee." Looking at the half-cat half-dog Tyger, one may challenge us: "How can this be the Wrath of Christ against Satan and his followers in Heaven? Surely, if Blake had meant something so superbly dreadful, his beast of prey would not have been such a tame and 'quaint creature'?"
We may frame the counter-challenge: "Is this creature even a proper physical Tyger symbolizing 'fierce strength terrifying in its possibilities of destructiveness but also impressive and admirable, a stupendous part of creation',12 as well as symbolizing by a slight extension beyond the literal sense a quality of
11.Blake's Innocence and Experiences, A Study of the Songs and Manuscripts (London), 1928, pp. 192-193.
12.Harding, op. cit., p. 68.
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fierceness in the human mind contrasted to the quality of gentleness in it for which the Lamb is an emblem?" We may further ask: "Where in this creature is the bright burning and the fearful symmetry and the deadly terrors which the poem ascribes to the Tyger?"
Evidently the illustration fails to bear out in any obvious way the words of the poem. So there is nothing at all to give our reading a complexion of impossibility escaped by any other interpretation. On the contrary, one point is in our favour. The Tyger depicted by Blake is certainly like no physical specimen of Felis Tigris. It shunts our mind completely off anything we may imagine of the intensely and grandly ferocious on the prowl in earthly forests at night. Almost a symbolic enigma in a subdued key is here, negatively rather than positively indicating the divine Mystery that in Supernature fuses Nature's most terrific beast with her most docile animal - the one Godhead who made and manifested himself in both the Christ-Tyger and the Christ-Lamb. With the negative indication Blake may have served his purpose without making himself "Explicit to the Idiot".
That his illustrations do not always correspond literally to his poems, detail for detail, may be taken as universally admitted. Max Plowman,13 holding that "Blake's Poetical Works consist of a succession of words and designs which are not really separable", explains: "Again and again there is alternation between words that expand the meaning of a design, and designs that give to the words their complete significance." Thus w e may expect certain words of The Tyger to exceed the import of the design while some features of the design may contain a direct or oblique , a clear or cryptic focusing of the verbal suggestion . The pictured Tyger's quaintness should be no surprise .
That on occasion Blake made his illustrations actually puzzling vis-à-vis the texts is also a fact. And at least with regard to the poems, The Little Girl Lost and its sequel The Little Girl
13. Poems and Prophecies by William Blake, edited by Max Plowman (Everyman's Library, London), 1939, Introduction , p. XXV.
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Found, two pieces which were ultimately transferred from the group of Innocence to that of Experience, there seems to be a purposive bafflement by Blake of what he calls in a letter to Butts on July 6th, 1803, "the Corporeal Understanding" as opposed to "the Intellectual powers".14 We may elucidate this procedure by summing up Kathleen Raine's interpretation15 of the poems.
Miss Raine has convincingly shown, with a wealth of minutiae what no other commentator appears to have discerned - that "the story of Lyca in the two poems... is... Blake's version of the myth celebrated in the Mysteries of Eleusis, the story of the descent of Persephone into Hades, and the search of the Mother for her lost child".16 Hades or Pluto is material Nature. The Virgin Persephone or Proserpine is the vital animating part, commonly called the Soul, descending into that world of generation. Her mother Demeter or Ceres is the Intellect, the higher part of the consciousness, going in quest of the lost lower part that has entered the profundities of Matter. Basing himself on Thomas Taylor's Dissertation upon the Mysteries of Eleusis and Dionysus (c. 1790) over and above Porphyry's Cave of the Nymphs published in English in 1788 in the Second Volume of Taylor's translation of Proclus's Mathemathical Commentaries, Blake does not make the Soul's descent an unmitigated evil but a necessary part of the divine plan: Lyca lies asleep safe in the caverns. What, according to the Neopla-tonists whom Taylor expounds, draws the Soul downwards into generation is sexual pleasure, for which it is said to drink the waters of forgetfulness and grow defiled and heavy. "Clearly Lyca's desire for sleep is of this order - the irresistible desire of sexual pleasure... Blake describes Lyca as seven summers old; but in the first design she is shown as a nubile virgin, and in the last, as (presumably) the mother of the babes playing round
14.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 825 (The Letters, 27).
15."The Little Girl Lost and Found and the Lapsed Soul" in The Divine Vision, Studies in the Poetry and Art of William Blake, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto (Gollancz, London), 1957, pp. 17-47.
16.Ibid., 24.
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her. The number seven is symbolic in quite another sense."17 This sense becomes perceptible when we consider the Lion that figures in the poem. The Neoplatonist tradition of the Eleusinian Mysteries brings in the signs of the Zodiac and makes descending souls drink the starry cup of intoxication placed between the signs Cancer and Lion which are regarded as being nearest to the earth in the northern part which is the gate of generation. From the sign Capricorn , which begins the year, to the Lion is a space of seven months: "were Lyca's seven 'years' her progress through the heavenly houses, until, between Cancer and Leo , she reached the Northern Gate through which she must descend?"18 "Lyca enters incarnation in the seventh sign; and the parents, also, sought for their daughter seven days, and on the eighth came in their turn to the sign of the Lion . . . The number seven also occurs in Plato's mythology. The souls returning to incarnation, having been allotted their lives, for seven days travel across a desert, hot and dry, and at the end of this journey, reach the waters of Lethe (matter) , whose oblivion they drink and immediately 'descend' into generation."19
The discrepancy, therefore, between the child Lyca of the poem and the nubile and loverlike Lyca of the illustrations appears to be purposive. The same may be the case with the discrepancy noted in connection with our poem.
Another point may be observed. Lyca is the vital Soul, but she is not depicted in the illustrations as anything save a young feminine human being. There is no pictorial suggestion of the Soul come from a world of light into the body that is darkness. Again, there is the Lion which too is symbolic. In the myth of Persephone it is Pluto who bears the virgin away to his subterranean palace: Blake substitutes the Lion because in the Neoplatonist tradition the empire of Pluto begins from the sign Leo where "the rudiments of birth, and certain primary exercises of human nature commence..."20 Blake's Lion symbolizes
17.Ibid., 33.
18.Ibid., 43.
19.Ibid., pp. 43-44.
20.Ibid., p. 36.
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Pluto, but in the designs of the poems we have only a Lion and a Lioness and no indication of the symbolized supernatural power. So there is nothing odd in the absence of a recognizable Christ-suggestion in Blake's illustration of the Tyger.
And if we examine the last "Lyca"-design21 we cannot fail to mark once more a quaint creature, a Lion with bulging sadly grim eyes and a half-embittered half-benevolent grandfather's expression. Our rather enigmatic Tyger, answering to none of the high-lights of the poem either in a naturalistic interpretation or in ours, has here a companion beast. This beast hardly answers to the poem's description of the Lion-King who is
A spirit arm'd in gold,
and has
On his head a crown.22
Nor does this beast answer to Blake's conception - "the revelation to the parents that is the central meaning of the poem"23 -that the King of Hades, "the Zeus of the underworld is in truth the same as the Zeus of Olympus, and Persephone's marriage in truth a marriage to the supreme deity himself."24
Further, even if Blake had introduced into his Lion-picture the golden armour and the crown, it would still have been a Lion wearing them: the kingly spirit, "the supreme deity" symbolized, would not have been drawn. Similarly, even if the illustrated Tyger had been the gloriously fearful creature it is in the poem, its Christ-identity would not have been disclosed in terms of illustration. And from the non-disclosure we should have as little reason to doubt it as to question the presence of the supreme deity in any form of the illustrated Lion. Whether represented as quaint or impressive, the Tyger would equally be the symbol we have made it.
No objection to our thesis on the ground of Blake's picture of his Tyger can be sustained, any more than on the ground of the stages in the verbal making of the poem.
21.Wickstead, op. cit., between pp. 114 and 115.
22.Raine, op. cit., p. 45. 23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
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6
The last stage of our study of The Tyger brings us into the midst of Blake's work in general. We have to support our identification of his beast of prey by whatever links up with our poem from outside it in the context of this work . We shall draw on outside expression to define the various aspects of the poem more clearly or to put our minds in the proper frame to appreciate them. And, weaving everything together, we shall see also what enrichment of detail comes about by taking Blake as a whole. But we shall do so by glancing first at some points from Blake put forward by C. M . Bowra.
Bowra is far from developing any concept like ours of Christ the Tyger at war with a supernatural night holding both forests and stars. His reading appears to be a subtilization and transfiguration of the elementary symbolism criticized by us. But in a certain way he does associate Christ with the entire poem and therefore his Blakean points, on being pressed to their final implication, are likely to terminate in our own concept.
Bowra probes the poem with an eye to what to him is the central idea in Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and several passages in other writings of his. This central idea is that perfection is attainable by a meeting of contraries. Both Innocence and Experience have to be fused in order to produce true wisdom or, as B lake put it, the life of the Imagination. But how are they to be fused and how, once Innocence is lost, is perfection to be attained? Bowra1 has some interesting words
1. The Romantic Imagination (Oxford), 1957, pp. 46-47, 48.
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on the matter:
Blake knows that man's consummation will not come simply from good-will or pious aspirations and that the life of the imagination is possible only through passion and energy. That is why he sometimes stresses the great forces which lie hidden in man and may be terrifying - but are none the less necessary if anything worth while is to happen. He sees that the creative activity of the imagination and the transformation of experience through it are possible only through the release and exercise of awful powers. He chooses his symbols for these powers in violent and destructive things, as when in his Proverbs of Hell he says, 'The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God,' or 'The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man.' It was in such elemental forces that Blake put his trust for the redemption of mankind, and he contrasted them favourably with the poor efforts of the human intelligence: 'The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.' The wrath which Blake found in Christ, his symbol of the divine spirit which will not tolerate restrictions but asserts itself against established rules, was the means by which he hoped to unite innocence and experience in some tremendous synthesis.
The poetry of this desire and of what it meant to Blake can be seen in 'The Tyger'. Here, too, enraptured song conveys in essential vision some themes which Blake presents elsewhere in more detail. This is the pure poetry of his trust in cosmic forces. The images of 'The Tyger' recur in the prophetic books, but in the poem, detached from any very specific context, they have a special strength and freedom. The tiger is Blake's symbol for the fierce forces in the soul which are needed to break the bonds of experience. The 'forests of the night', in which the tiger lurks, are ignorance, repression, and superstition. It has been fashioned by unknown, supernatural spirits, like Blake's mythical heroes, Orc and Los, prodigious smiths who beat out living worlds with their hammers; and this happened when 'the stars threw down their spears,' that is, in some enormous crisis when the universe turned round in its course and began to move
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from light to darkness - as Urizen says in The Four Zoas, when he finds that passion and natural joy have withered under his rule and the power of the spirit has been weakened:
I went not forth: I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath: I call'd the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark; The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away.
I went not forth:
I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath:
I call'd the stars around my feet in the night of councils
dark;
The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away.
If we wish to illustrate 'The Tyger' from Blake's other works, it is easy to do so, and it adds much to our understanding of its background and its place in Blake's development. But it is first and last a poem. The images are so compelling that for most purposes they explain themselves, and we have an immediate, overwhelming impression of an awful power lurking in the darkness of being and forcing on us questions which pierce to the heart of life... The lamb and the tiger are symbols for two different states of the human soul. When the lamb is destroyed by experience, the tiger is needed to restore the world.
In the Songs of Innocence and Experience there are only hints of the final consummation which shall restore men to the fullness of joy. The poems are concerned with an earlier stage in the struggle and treat it from a purely poetical standpoint. What Blake gives is the essence of his imaginative thought about this crisis in himself and in all men. When he completed his whole book in its two parts, he knew that the state of innocence is not enough, but he had not found his full answer to his doubts and questions. From this uncertainty he wrote his miraculous poetry.
Bowra is excellent in several respects, but his account goes quite astray at one place and it suffers from an all-round shortcoming in that it pitches the Christ-significance of the Tyger too low. The place at which he loses his way is where he speaks of the Tyger's having been fashioned when, as a result of the stars throwing down their spears during "some enormous cosmic crisis", "the universe... began to move from light to darkness". According to him, the star-catastrophe preceded
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the creation of the Tyger and marked the defeat not of darkness but of light. Bowra would seem to go by the traditional poetic suggestion of "stars". Our interpretation grants that this suggestion is partly there since the stars who are for us rebels against the light were originally angels, but inasmuch as they are fallen we take the crisis suffered by them as that of Heaven's enemies, not of Heaven itself. This point we shall clarify from Blake's own writings, including the passage which Bowra quotes from The Four Zoas. At the moment we shall dwell on the all-round shortcoming of Bowra's account and pass through it to those writings.
No doubt, the Lamb and the Tyger in the context of human life symbolize states of the soul and the latter stands for fierce elemental passion, power, energy which to Blake is more effective than the moralizing rational intelligence and which in an enlightened form he finds in the anti-conventional wrath of Jesus. But Blake was no mere psychologist or humanist: he was, as we already indicated, a visionary of the supernatural. This point we may briefly clinch apropos of our own interpretation of the word "art" in our poem. We said: " 'Art' connotes skill of execution directed to an end. But what is the end here? As with all that can be called art, the end is ostensibly the making of a significant form, but ultimately the particularized expression of a creative delight arising from some illuminative 'inwardness' of being and driven by a sense of perfection. And because art is such a delight it is always associated with beauty. But beauty is not to be understood in conventional terms: its patterns can be strange, they can even be fearful and twisted." Blake's unconventional idea of beauty may be caught from his pithy definition: "Exuberance is Beauty."2 With it we may couple his other succinct assertion: "Energy is Eternal Delight."3 The epithet "Eternal", however, would supply a new direction - towards a source which is hinted by our phrase: "some illuminative 'inwardness' of being and... a sense of
2.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 152 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Proverbs of Hell, PL 10, 5).
3.Ibid., p. 149 (ibid., Pl. 4; The Voice of the Devil).
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perfection." This source is evidently what Blake himself included in his artistic credo: "The Man who never in his Mind & Thoughts travel'd to Heaven Is No Artist."4 In short, the artist, in some manner or other, has to visit Supernature. And Blake meant the connection with Supernature in a literal sense. From Supernature he believed himself to be receiving direct messages no less than experiences. About a prophetic book of his -most probably The Four Zoas5 - he wrote to Butts on July 6, 1803: "I may praise it, since I dare not pretend to be any other than the Secretary; the Authors are in Eternity."6 Bowra himself speaks of "supernatural spirits, like Blake's mythical heroes, Orc and Los, prodigious smiths who beat out living worlds with their hammers" and he speaks also of "some enormous cosmic crisis" in connection with which he mentions Urizen, one of the main figures in Blake's prophetic books, among the earliest of which the most important was The Four Zoas (1795-1804). If we are to understand Blake's total meaning we must see how his psychology widens out into the supernatural.
A look at the "mythical" figures he named Zoas will be for us a very apt starting-point, since, as Bowra's quotation shows, the exact phrase about the stars in The Tyger recurs in The Four Zoas.7
The Four Zoas are Los (or Urthona), Urizen, Luvah (or Orc) and Tharmas. Blake regarded them as basic aspects of man's psychology. These aspects have been taken by many Blake-students as corresponding to the psychological divisions proposed by Jung.8 Los represents the Jungian Intuition. Urizen is the Jungian Thought, though we must be careful to
4.Ibid., p. 458 (Annotations to Reynolds).
5.John Sampson, Blake's Poetical Works (Oxford), 1904, pp. xlii-xliii.
6.Keynes, ed. cit. p. 825 (The Letters 26).
7."Zoa" is the Greek for "living creatures", commonly rendered as "animals" or "beasts". The plural Greek form is treated by Blake in English as singular -quite justifiably because its termination is singular-sounding to the English ear. Adopting the literal meaning, he uses in certain contexts the expression "Living Creatures" for his Zoas.
8.Vide W. P. Witcutt's "William Blake and Modern Psychology" in John O'London's Weekly, April 4, 1947, pp. 317-318.
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note that Blake himself used "Thought" in different ways and not invariably as a synonym for what he calls "the Reasoning Power in Man" which, properly speaking, is his Urizen. Luvah represents the Feeling à la Jung. Tharmas is Blake's body-consciousness or bodily instincts and impulses, and corresponds to Jung's Sensation.
But let us remember that to Blake his Zoas were no mental constructs of his own, personifying psychological faculties, and that he did not confine them to man's ordinary life, no matter how well-developed, and that he did not hold them to be functioning in this life as they should. Even for Jung the ultimate human being is not the ordinary consciousness we daily know, with its jangles and clashes, nor just the same level reduced to some order: we deepen and widen into the "Collective Unconscious" ("Unconscious" because our ordinary being is not able to keep its consciousness in it) - a mystery in which all men through all time share and have one life beyond the small surface existence and full of strange ageless "archetypes". Blake always claimed a direct insight into ultra-human realities - the huge recesses of a Supernature. And his Zoas are rather complicated figures. Even as psychological faculties they are at present aberrant:
Urizen cold & scientific, Luvah pitying & weeping, Tharmas indolent & sullen, Urthona doubting & despairing, Victims to one another & dreadfully plotting against each other...9
Urizen cold & scientific, Luvah pitying & weeping,
Tharmas indolent & sullen, Urthona doubting &
despairing,
Victims to one another & dreadfully plotting against each
other...9
Besides being psychological faculties, they are "the Four Eternal Senses of Man"10 and have each a station in an organ of sense: Urthona in the ears, Urizen in the eyes, Luvah in the nostrils and Tharmas in the tongue. But these organs are said by Blake to be narrow and diminished in their functions:
9. Keynes, ed. cit., p. 671 (Jerusalem, 2, 43, 1 1 .2-4).
1 0. Ibid., p. 663 (ibid. , 36, 1 .3 1 ) .
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The Eye of Man, a little narrow orb, clos'd up & dark, Scarcely beholding the Great Light, conversing with the ground: The Ear, a little shell, in small volutions shutting out True Harmonies & comprehending great as very small: The Nostrils, bent down to the earth & clos'd with senseless flesh That odours cannot them expand, nor joy on them exult: The Tongue, a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys, A little sound it utters, & its cries are faintly heard.11
The Eye of Man, a little narrow orb, clos'd up & dark, Scarcely beholding the Great Light, conversing with the
ground:
The Ear, a little shell, in small volutions shutting out
True Harmonies & comprehending great as very small:
The Nostrils, bent down to the earth & clos'd with
senseless flesh
That odours cannot them expand, nor joy on them exult:
The Tongue, a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys,
A little sound it utters, & its cries are faintly heard.11
The Zoas in us, therefore, are not in their full form but are fallen from an original status far greater than ourselves. Blake further tells us that the Four Senses became the Four Elements.12 But, as is evident from the description of the diminished sense-functions, the Elements too cannot be fully realized in our world by the Zoas. They are said to separate from the limbs of man in his present condition13 and to be "in contrarious / And cruel opposition, Element against Element".14 It is in some dimension of existence greater than what is known to us that truly Urthona is Earth, Urizen Fire, Luvah Air and Tharmas Water. About Los, Blake says:
Urthona was his name In Eden;15
Urthona was his name
In Eden;15
and adds that Urthona propagated his "Emanations" in "the Auricular Nerves" which are "the Earth of Eden".16 But here a complication must be registered. Los is associated with the sun in several lines of Blake's as is to be expected about one who is called "the Spirit of Prophecy".17 It is even believed that his name is the reverse of the Latin word "sol" for "sun", just as
11.Ibid., p. 680 (ibid., 49, 11.34-41).
12.ibid., p. 663 (ibid., 36, 11.31-32).
13.Ibid.
14.Ibid., p. 520 (Milton, II, 31, 11.23-24).
15.Ibid., p. 264 (Vala, or the Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.16-17).
16.Ibid.
17.Ibid., p. 510 (Milton, I, 24, 1.71).
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"Orc" is resolved into an anagram of the Latin "cor" meaning "heart", "Luvah" is considered a play on "love" or "lover" and "Urizen" surmized to suggest "your reason".18
There is in Blake still another representation of the activities of the Zoas. Each organ of sense is connected with one of the directions:
...the Eyes are the South, & the Nostrils are the East, And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North.19
...the Eyes are the South, & the Nostrils are the East,
And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North.19
However, in our common world "the Four Zoas clouded rage" and "they change their situations".20 Their activities get into wrong quarters:
But in eternal times the Seat of Urizen is in the South, Urthona in the North, Luvah in the East, Tharmas in the West.21
But in eternal times the Seat of Urizen is in the South,
Urthona in the North, Luvah in the East, Tharmas in the
West.21
The culminative impression we get is that both in depth and in extension, in quality as well as in function, the Four Zoas exceed our habitual psychology. And expressions like "eternal times", "Eden", "the Great Light", point us to the real character of the Zoas. This character stands out in Blake's lines:
18.The learned derivation for "Urizen" is Dorothy Plowman's from the Greek "ourizein" = "to bound or limit", and of "Orc" (regarded as referring to the sexual aspect of Luvah) is the Greek "orkhis" = "testicle" or (if the reference is taken as being to Luvah's fallen state) the Latin "Orcus" = "hell" or "underworld". But a double or even triple intention in Blake's terms is quite possible: it is indeed in keeping with the general ingenuity of his mind. Even about "Lyca" of The Little Girl Lost and The Little Girl Found, whose source Kathleen Raine (in The Divine Vision, p. 26, fn. 1) opines to be the Greek root "luke" ("light") or "leukos" ("light, bright, white") I should claim that it is also an anagram of "Clay". Raine herself says, apropos of the pair of stanzas prefacing the first of the two poems, that the sleeper in this poem is Lyca and yet it is "earth" who will be "awake" and that this in some sense identifies Lyca as the Earth of the poem Earth's Answer (op. cit., p. 26). "Clay" as a synonym for "Earth" could well serve Blake's point. And indeed as early as 1789, in The Book of Thel, he names Earth "matron Clay" (Keynes, op. cit., p. 130, pl. 5, 1.14).
19.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 632 (Jerusalem, I, 12, 11.59-60).
20.Ibid., p. 663 (ibid., II, 36, 11.25-26).
21.Ibid., p. 319 (Night the Sixth, 11.279-280).
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Four Mighty Ones are in every Man; a Perfect Unity Cannot Exist but from the Universal Brotherhood of Eden, The Universal Man, To Whom be Glory Evermore. Amen. What are the Natures of those Living Creatures the Heav'nly Father only Knoweth. No Individual knoweth, nor can know in all Eternity.22
Four Mighty Ones are in every Man; a Perfect Unity
Cannot Exist but from the Universal Brotherhood of
Eden,
The Universal Man, To Whom be Glory Evermore.
Amen.
What are the Natures of those Living Creatures the
Heav'nly Father only
Knoweth. No Individual knoweth, nor can know in all
Eternity.22
We may cite also:
four Wonders of the Almighty, Incomprehensible, pervading all, amidst & round about, Fourfold, each in the other reflected; they are named Life's - in Eternity - Four Starry Universes going forward from Eternity to Eternity.23
four Wonders of the Almighty,
Incomprehensible, pervading all, amidst & round about,
Fourfold, each in the other reflected; they are named
Life's - in Eternity -
Four Starry Universes going forward from Eternity to
Eternity.23
The Zoas are super-personalities older than earth's history, and that is why Blake often terms them "Eternals"24 and each individually "the Immortal"25 and at times all of them collectively "the Immortal Four"26 or "the Four Immortals".27 They are, as it were, the Four Faces of the ultimate Reality which Blake designates "the Universal Man", also "the Eternal Man". And in Biblical language apt to the supernatural he calls them "the Cherubim".28
In speaking of the "Man" who is "Universal" and "Eternal", Blake goes to the very core of his mysticism and connects us as we are to the huge recesses of Supernature. According to him, these recesses not only hold the true and complete existence but are also explorable by an inward look on our part, a plunge
22.Ibid., p. 264 (ibid., Night the First, 11. 9-13).
23.Ibid., p. 364 (ibid., Night the Ninth, 11.281-284).
24.Ibid., pp. 222-223 (The First Book of Urizen, pl. 3, ch. 1, 11.5, 23).
25.Ibid., p. 257 (The Book of Los, Ch. I, pl. 4, 1.7).
26.Ibid., p. 534 (Milton, II, 42, 1.18).
27.Ibid., p. 524 (ibid., 34, 1.45).
28.Ibid., p. 696 (Jerusalem 3, 63, 1.44).
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into our own depths, and by an extension of our consciousness from inside outwards to break its present limits. He writes:
I rest not from my great task! To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the Immortal Eyes Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity For ever expanding in the Bosom of God...29
I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the Immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity
For ever expanding in the Bosom of God...29
God "exists in us and we in him":30 Supernature is, in the deepest connotation of the word, Human, it is the Divine Humanity. If we may use a term of Indian Yoga, the Primal and Perfect Being is our own supreme "Self" which is also a single infinite Spiritual Body. Blake usually speaks of Selfhood as the restricting and dividing consciousness of man which is to be annihilated in order to cleanse the face of the Spirit,31 but in one place32 he has the phrase "real and immortal Self" and in another33 he tells us that man "requires a new Selfhood continually". Blackstone34 sees Blake's essential meaning and writes that he wanted us to have "consciousness of that larger Self which lies behind the fretful individual self, and in which all men share". As we have noted in our first chapter, Kathleen Raine35 recognizes too in Blake's Divine Humanity "the Self of the Upanishads known to mystics both Platonic and Christian as existing beyond the conscious self..." It is interesting to know that even Jung, as Raine36 reminds us, calls our ordinary selfhood the "ego" and our basic unrealised being the "Self" which is the whole, with the ego a part budded from it.
To Blake, with his ultimate in the "larger Self" and its infinite Spiritual Body, even the so-called non-human world is at bottom dishumanized Humanity, our own supreme being in
29.Ibid., p. 623 (Jerusalem, I, 5, 11. 17-20).
30.Ibid., p. 775 (Annotation to Berkeley's "Siris").
31.Ibid., p. 533 (Milton, II, 40, 11.36-37).
32.Ibid., p. 4% (ibid., I, 15, 1.11).
33.Ibid., p. 682 (Jerusalem, III, 52).
34.Op. cit., p. 384.
35.William Blake (Published for the British Council and the National Book League by Longmans Green & Co., London, New York, Toronto), 1951, p. 25.
36.In The Divine Vision, p. 48, fn. 1.
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a delusive mode before us, not only Vegetative as opposed to Eternal but also unlike our own Vegetative condition which at least hints, however distortedly, at the Universal and Eternal Man. Not that the non-human world dissolves its particulars when we have the experience of Eternity: Eternity contains all kinds of shapes and yet they partake of the Spirit of Humanity:
For all are Man in Eternity, Rivers, Mountains, Cities,
Villages,
All are Human & when you enter into their Bosoms you
walk
In Heavens & Earths, as in your Bosom you bear your
Heaven
And Earth & all you behold; tho' it appears Without, it is
Within...37
The world within - which is a reality of spiritual sensation, perception, intuition - is designated by Blake, in a special usage, the Imagination or the Human Imagination, and he could declare that the Without is Within
In your Imagination, of which this World of Mortality is
but a Shadow.38
That Blake's term "Imagination" as a synonym for Eternity is a special usage is overlooked by some of his students who fasten on statements like
there is no other
God than that God who is the Intellectual fountain of
Humanity.39
They try to make out that Blake merely apotheosized human virtue and the higher intellectual and visionary mind of man as he is, rather than that he asserted a condition transcending our life-experience. But these interpreters might remember that Imagination is put over against the World of Mortality and
37.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 709 (Jerusalem, III, 71, 11.15-18).
38.Ibid.
39.Ibid., p. 738 (ibid., IV, 91, 11.10-11).
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must therefore point beyond our life-experience. They might also attend to what Blake writes in the prose introduction to the fourth part of Jerusalem. There he nearly repeats the phrase about the shadowiness of the Mortal World as compared to the Imagination and leaves us in no doubt as to his supernatural drift: "...Imagination, the real & eternal World of which this Vegetative Universe is but a faint Shadow, & in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies when these Vegetative Bodies are no more."40 And this expression occurs in a passage where occurs also a repetition of almost the very phrase on which the non-mystical Blake-scholars fasten. Blake says: "What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain?"41 What we can submit is not that Blake was couching in mystical language a purely humanist message, but that the supernatural Imagination has no discontinuity with our own and hence the latter is our most precious, most divine possession, the one thing worth following in order to reach and realize the former. And this is precisely the implication of Blake himself when in the same passage he says just before the phrase on Imagination: "I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination..."42 He speaks too of "Mental Studies & Performances"43 and exhorts us "to Labour in Knowledge"44 if we would be true Christians. The key to his question whether the Holy Ghost is any other than an Intellectual Fountain comes in the questions he asks soon after: "Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in Spirit & Truth, & are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing to Man? What is the Life of Man but Art & Science? is it Meat & Drink?"45 Blake wishes to emphasize the intellect-part, the soul-side of our being, through which we can progress into the supreme Mind and Spirit of God, our true Self who is the
40.Ibid., p. 717 (ibid., 77).
41.Ibid. (ibid.).
42.Ibid., pp. 716-717 (ibid.).
43.Ibid., p. 717 (ibid.).
44.Ibid., (ibid.).
45.Ibid., (ibid.).
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Intellectual Fountain of Humanity. The Divine Arts of Imagination which are perfect in Eternity have to be pursued by each of us here and now as best we can. Something of the supernatural Imagination we can always have through our mental ability to create and commingle, to be artist and lover, to enter sympathetically into modes of life outside us and to aspire to an ideal.
But our powers are weak and fallible. A division has occurred in us, shutting out the limitless fullness that we really are and giving us a world of finites within and without. What causes the division is the Urizenic faculty in us in a distorted form, the faculty of Reason which measures out and distinguishes and diversifies. The distorted form is often dubbed by Blake "the Spectre":
the Reasoning Spectre
Stands between the Vegetative Man and his Immortal
Imagination.46
As a result of the Reasoning Spectre our very senses are cramped. We cannot say about ourselves what Blake says of Los and his emanation Enitharmon - that they
walk'd forth on the dewy Earth
Contracting or expanding their all flexible senses
At will to murmur in the flowers small as the honey bee,
At will to stretch across the heavens & step from star to
star...47
One who lives in "Imagination, the Divine Humanity",48 can so expand as to unify all things and so contract as to be one thing among many.
But, even contracted, he does not lose the sight of all things under their spiritual forms and even what now to us are animals and objects are both alive and vocal to him: they are not as we find them at present -
46.Ibid., p. 663 (Jerusalem 2, 36, 11.23-24).
47.Ibid., p. 228 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Second, 11.293-298).
48.Ibid., p. 709 (Jerusalem 3, 70, 11.19-20).
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a Rock, a Cloud, a Mountain
[Are] now not Vocal as in Climes of happy Eternity
Where the lamb replies to the infant voice, & the lion
to the man of years
Giving them sweet instructions; where the Cloud,
the River & the Field
Talk with the husbandman & shepherd.49
In those "Climes", there is, as Blackstone50 tells us, a constant interchange between Man and that part of his being which, when he pleases, he sees as exterior to himself:
the Bodies in which all Animals & Vegetations, the Earth
& Heaven
[Are] contain'd in the All Glorious Imagination.51
Nor are those "Climes" devoid of adventure: a wonderful seeking and conquest go on, ever new achievements of Exuberance and Energy are there. Blake52 speaks symbolically of the two Sources of Life in Eternity, Hunting and War, which, perverted, can become
the Sources of dark & bitter Death & of corroding Hell.
We also read:
Lo, the Eternal Great Humanity,
To whom be Glory & Dominion Evermore, Amen,
Walks among all his awful Family seen in every face:
As the breath of the Almighty such are the words of man
to man
In the great Wars of Eternity, in fury of Poetic Imagination,
To build the Universe stupendous, Mental Forms
Creating.53
49.Ibid., p. 315 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Sixth, 11.134-138).
50.Op. cit., p. 62.
51.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 678 (Jerusalem 2, 11.13-14).
52.Ibid., p. 672 (ibid., 43, 11.31, 32).
53.Ibid., p. 519 (Milton, II, 30, 11.15-20).
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There is a tension, there is a dynamism, there is a constant creating of forms in Eternity: not only everlasting existence, not only everlasting energy, but also everlasting invention and novelty seem to be a mode of Eternal Life. Something to the same effect appears to be suggested in one of the final passages of Jerusalem, where "the Four Living Creatures, Chariots of Humanity Divine Incomprehensible" are said to be "fronting the Four Cardinal Points of Heaven" and "going forward, forward irresistible from Eternity to Eternity":
And they conversed together in Visionary forms dramatic
which bright
Redounded from their Tongues in thunderous majesty, in
Visions
In new Expanses, creating exemplars of Memory and of
Intellect,
Creating Space, Creating Time, according to the wonders
Divine
Of Human Imagination...54
The creative tension no less than the beatific harmony of the Eternal Being is again finely characterized by Blake when he makes that Being's own voice say:
"...our wars are wars of life and wounds of love "With intellectual spears, & long winged arrows of thought. "Mutual in one another's love and wrath all renewing "We live as One Man; for contracting our infinite senses "We behold multitudes, or expanding, we behold as one, "As One Man all the universal Family, and that One Man "We call Jesus the Christ; and he in us, and we in him "Live in perfect harmony in Eden, the land of life, "Giving, receiving, and forgiving each other's trespasses."55
"...our wars are wars of life and wounds of love
"With intellectual spears, & long winged arrows of thought.
"Mutual in one another's love and wrath all renewing
"We live as One Man; for contracting our infinite senses
"We behold multitudes, or expanding, we behold as one,
"As One Man all the universal Family, and that One Man
"We call Jesus the Christ; and he in us, and we in him
"Live in perfect harmony in Eden, the land of life,
"Giving, receiving, and forgiving each other's trespasses."55
In this last passage we have not only Blake's insight into Supernature summed up but also the heart of his intuition of Christ. Christ is to him not simply a marvellous spiritual figure
54.Ibid., p. 746 (Jerusalem 4, 98, 11.28-32).
55.Ibid., pp. 664-665 (ibid., 2, 38, 11.14-22).
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in history and in the natural world: his ultimate reality is transcendental. His transcendental character comes out very clearly in relation to the things of history and Nature when we read A Vision of the Last Judgment, where the "World of Imagination", which is "the World of Eternity" and into whose "Divine bosom we shall all go after the death of the Vegetable body", is contrasted as "Infinite & Eternal" to "the world of Generation or Vegetation" described as "finite & Temporal".56 We learn: "There Exist in that Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing which we see reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature. All Things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the divine body of the Saviour, the True Vine of Eternity, The Human Imagination..."57
The concluding words, equating Christ and "The Human Imagination", emphasize how central to Blake's mythology of Supernature is Christ. Elsewhere we find the phrase:
Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for
ever.58
And when we remember the equivalence of "Imagination" to "Divine Humanity" and how "the Eternal Great Humanity,... / Walks among all his awful Family seen in every face" just as, when the senses are expanded, "all the universal Family" is "One Man" - "Jesus the Christ" - beheld by the Eternals, we realise that it is Christ who is described in
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine surrounded by His Cherubim & Seraphim in ever happy Eternity.59
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine surrounded by
His Cherubim & Seraphim in ever happy Eternity.59
There are also the words: "Jesus / The Eternal"60 and "the Divine Lamb, even Jesus, who is the Divine Vision"61 and
56.Ibid., p. 605 (A Vision of the Last Judgment pp. 69-70).
57.Ibid., pp. 605-606 (ibid.).
58.Ibid., p. 482 (Milton I, 3, 77.3-4).
59.Ibid., p. 531 (Milton II, 39, 11.27-28).
60.Ibid., p. 519 ((ibid., 30, 11.30-31).
61.Ibid., p. 287 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Second, 1.261).
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...the Human Imagination, which is the Divine Vision &
Fruition
In which Man liveth eternally.62
Blake's Christ, the same Jesus who appears in history and Nature, is shown everywhere to be essentially the transcendental Unity of Divine Supernature.
He is this Unity in two ways. The first, of course, is when all the Eternals are seen as a single all-comprehending reality. The second is when in each of them this whole is, as it were, reflected, and every individual Eternal stands as a multiplication of the Divine Vision that is Christ: the same Jesus innumerably existing. This second aspect of the Unity, already suggested by a turn like "seen in every face", is explicitly presented to us in the passage where another basic truth of the eternal Transcendence symbolized by Blake as "Jerusalem" is spoken of:
In Great Eternity every particular Form gives forth &
Emanates
Its own peculiar Light, & the Form is the Divine Vision
And the Light is his Garment. This is Jerusalem in every
man,
A Tent & Tabernacle of Mutual Forgiveness, Male &
Female Clothings.
Jerusalem is called Liberty among the children of
Albion.63
Jerusalem too has several aspects. As "Liberty", she is that in all particular Christ-multiplying Forms which allows their meeting and communication, the going forth of each being out of itself towards the rest, their freedom with one another. When the Eternal Man as "Albion" falls from Eternity and struggles to recover his divine status, his children are all of us in the temporal world and Jerusalem as "Liberty" is then whatever in us is not blocked into an obscuring selfhood. This
62.Ibid., p. 521 (Milton II, 32, 11. 19-20).
63.Ibid., p. 684 (Jerusalem 3, 54, 11.1-5).
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character of Jerusalem is pictured in its universal play in the line with which Blake ends the apocalyptic scene where all things awake "in the Life of Immortality":
And I heard the Name of their Emanations: they are
named Jerusalem.64
The precise work of Emanative Jerusalem is brought out in the lines:
Man is adjoin'd to Man by his Emanative portion
Who is Jerusalem in every individual Man and her
Shadow is Vala, builded by the Reasoning power in Man.
O search & see: turn your eyes inward; open, O thou
World
Of Love & harmony in Man: expand thy ever lovely
Gates!65
Thus Jerusalem's work is to accord and interrelate all details into a divine whole. And she is not only the light and liberty that, issuing from each Eternal Man, weaves together all the members of Eternity: she is also the transcendental "World of Love & Harmony" constituting the multitudes woven together. Just as Christ is the Unity of Supernature, she is Supernature's Collectivity or, to cite Blackstone,66 "the Pleroma or aggregate of the minute particulars" of Eternity.
And her relationship here with Christ is put by Blake in three modes. He writes about Christ in continuation of the passage on the universal Family:
he is all in all
In Eden, in the garden of God, and in heavenly
Jerusalem.67
But Blake does not identify Jerusalem with Eden only. He calls her also the Universal Female,68 one
64.Ibid., p. 747 (ibid., 4, 99, 1.5).
65.Ibid., p. 675 (ibid., 2, 44, 11.38-42). 66. Op. cit., p. 63.
67.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 665 (Jerusalem 2, 38, 1.25).
68.Ibid., pp. 345-346 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Eighth, 11.199, 190).
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in whose bosom the Lamb of God Is seen,69
in whose bosom the Lamb of God
Is seen,69
and
happy Jerusalem, The Bride and Wife of the Lamb.70
happy Jerusalem,
The Bride and Wife of the Lamb.70
We have quoted from Blake's prophetic books running over twenty-five years - Vala, or The Four Zoas (1795-1804), Milton (1804-1809), Jerusalem (1804-1820) - in order to hint the richness, the many-sidedness of his Supernaturalism. But actually everything, in one shape or another, is contained in The Four Zoas and almost in the very first of the "Nine Nights" into which the book is divided. In "Night the First" which is close in time to The Tyger we have even the bulk of our Jerusalem-passage which sums up Blake on Supernature and on Christ. We are also told71 how
Terrific rag'd the Eternal wheels of intellect, terrific rag'd
The living creatures of the wheels, in the Wars of Eternal
life,
in contrast to the perverted movements
back revers'd
Downwards & outwards, consuming in the wars of
Eternal Death.
Now we have the broad background, passing far beyond mere psychology and humanism, against which to place Bow-ra's suggestions about our lyric, and bring Christ and the Tyger into rapport. The rapport is along three lines of thought drawn from Bowra.
First, there is the phrase he brings from Blake about "the
69.Ibid., p. 362 (ibid., Night the Ninth, 11.205-206).
70.Ibid., p. 676 (Jerusalem 3, 46, 11.27-28).
71.Ibid., p. 280, 11.571-574.
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roaring of lions" and "the destructive sword" being "portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man". Secondly, there are the phrases "the wrath of the lion" and "the tygers of wrath." Thirdly, there is the Christ in whom, as Bowra says, Blake saw the anger of the Divine Spirit which will tolerate no restrictions and asserts its truth against established rules. When we combine these three lines of thought and refer to our background, there should hardly be a doubt about what the poet's beast of prey could signify in the deepest or highest terms such as the poem itself offers with its "distant deeps or skies". On the strength of that background, the Tyger, whatever relevance it may have outside the poem to physical or psychological facts, would be - within the milieu which the poem itself mentions, namely, "the forests of the night" and the "heaven" of the "stars" - the wrath of Christ brought forth destructively in Eternity, in an occult Beyond, as the complement-contrary of the supernatural Lamb-Christ's gentleness, and the object of this transcendental wrath would be the spear-bearing stars that are pictured as defeated and distressed, and these stars would be offending angels who wanted to impose ignorant restrictions and establish deadening rules.
Nor does the mystical background stop in its elucidating effect with making the poem reveal through Bowra's clues the meaning we have extracted from it. It provides extra clues of its own to render this meaning plausible. For, it does not only show Christ as much more than a high state of man's soul as we normally are aware of it in earth-life: it does not only show him as a truth of Eternity, either - Eternity which was for Blake an occult existence and experience. It also shows the Lamb and the Lion to be forms already present in Supernature and expressive of the Divine Vision. In addition, it shows war and wrath to be intrinsic activities of Eternity and a new creation of "Mental Forms" "bright" and of "thunderous majesty" to be a constant part of Eternity's "Great Wars" and of the Divine Humanity's "going forward, forward irresistible" in His "Chariots" fronting "the Four Cardinal Points of Heaven". Of course, according to our sketch of the mystical background, in
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the original "Climes" of "Eden" which is Blake's synonym for the eternal, the Lion no less than the Lamb is "vocal" of "sweet instructions", and the wounds of the wrathful "War" are those of the give-and-take of illumined mind or heart in contrapuntal dynamic. But if the beast of prey and the warring "wrath" are already there, and if bright thunderous majestic forms are newly created there to meet warlike or other occasions, then with a possible disturbance of the blissful unity-in-multiplicity that is Christ and of the loving harmony-in-difference that is Jerusalem a beast of prey could come in bright-burning anger, fashioned by the poetic "fury" of the "immortal Imagination", the One Divine Vision, to fight in earnest against those members of the Heavenly Family who, revolting, might have turned enemies of the living light and liberty of Supernature.
The decisive question now is: Does Blake's supernatural mythology accept a bright-burning anger making war in Heaven against Heaven's enemies? Like Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost, are readers of Blake to prepare themselves to hear of
things to their thought So unimaginable as hate in heav'n, And war so near the peace of God in bliss, With such confusion...72?
things to their thought
So unimaginable as hate in heav'n,
And war so near the peace of God in bliss,
With such confusion...72?
Of course, everybody admits that Blake has the myth of a Fall of heavenly beings. The action of the Fall is presented in several ways and Blackstone73 remarks that Blake is not always consistent in his presentation, but, as Blackstone74 himself recognizes, a certain element is clear-cut in its centrality during the early period covering The Tyger and persists as a component through all later qualifications or complications and does not lose its inherent strength and momentousness. This element is dubbed by Blake, as Bateson75 tells us, "the State
72.Paradise Lost, Bk. VII, 11.53-56.
73.Op. cit., p. 66.
74.Ibid., pp. 67, 136.
75.Op. cit., p. 134.
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call'd Satan" and it plays in his mythology the role that is the Devil's in Milton's story. The point, however, is whether there is for Blake a war upon his Satan before that "State" goes out of Eternity.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell which belongs to the same period as The Tyger gives an answer clear enough. Although in that book Blake topsyturvies Milton and makes a Satan of his Messiah and vice versa, the essential Miltonic vision is retained. In terms of this vision Blake sees how Desire, restrained by Reason, becomes passive and shadowy:
"The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, & the Governor or Reason is call'd Messiah...
"It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out; but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss."76
Here, in addition to the explicit acceptance of the "history" in Paradise Lost, the critical turn for us is: "was cast out." This means an attack in Supernature before the fall from it and before the formation of another world by the fallen one. Blake's mythology in the time of The Tyger accepts the battle between Desire, the true Messiah, and Reason, the real Devil, in the Hell that is the original Heaven or Eternity - Desire whose battling could most appropriately be pictured as a Tyger.
In this heavenly Hell we have "corrosives, which... are salutary & medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, & displaying the infinite which was hid",77 and we have "Lions of flaming fire, raging around & melting the metals into living fluids".78 Again, to repeat in another manner what we already know, "portions" of this "Eternity" of "Energy" and "Exuberance" are "the roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy sea, & the destructive sword".79 Why are they portions of Eternity? Because in Eternity there are, for Blake, the archetypal "tygers of wrath" which are "wiser than
76.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 150 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 5-6).
77.Ibid., p. 154 (ibid., 14).
78.Ibid., p. 155 (ibid., 15-17).
79.Ibid., p. 151 (ibid., 7).
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the horses of instruction"80 and whose destructive divine fire went forth against the Satan of Reason and cast him out.
In another work, The First Book of Urizen (1794), overlapping with The Tyger, we have in explicit terms the story of Blake's Satan and of the Fall in Eternity. The fall began with the disruption of the primeval unity-in-diversity within which the Four Zoas were living. Blackstone81 explains: "One of the Four living Creatures, the rational principle to which Blake gives the name of Urizen, was not content: he wished to usurp all power and conform all things to his own image. As a result he brought about a division in Eternity, was cast out by his indignant peers and organized the material world where reason should reign supreme."
Blackstone uses exactly the words Blake has employed in The Marriage: "...was cast out." And a fight in Heaven leading to Urizen's expulsion is definitely implied in the very first four lines of the "Praeludium" to The Book of Urizen:
Of the primeval Priest's assum'd power, When Eternals spurn'd back his religion And gave him a place in the north, Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.82
Of the primeval Priest's assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.82
There are three steps here, with a fourth implied: 1) Urizen's assumption of priest-power, 2) the spurning of his religion by the Eternals, 3) their giving him a place in the north, where his separate and dark creation begins. In this context the critical words for us are: "spurn'd back." It suggests an assault by Urizen and a repulse of him from the Eternals' side precedent to the isolation within which he organizes the material world. And the mode of the repulse, the spurning back, is hinted in a line of the passage where Urizen says:
"Why will you die, O Eternals? "Why live in unquenchable burnings?
"Why will you die, O Eternals?
"Why live in unquenchable burnings?
80.Ibid., p. 152 (ibid., 9).
81.Op. cit., p. 66.
82.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 222 (The First Book of Urizen, 2, 11.1-4).
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"First I fought with the fire, consum'd "Inwards into a deep world within: "A void immense, wild, dark, & deep, "Where nothing was: Nature's wide womb."83
"First I fought with the fire, consum'd
"Inwards into a deep world within:
"A void immense, wild, dark, & deep,
"Where nothing was: Nature's wide womb."83
Mark the phrase: "First I fought with the fire..." The "fire" is evidently the "unquenchable burnings" in which the Eternals live the life which seems like death to Urizen. A little later also we have a reference to this fire, when Urizen attempts to cool
The eternal fires, beating without From Eternals,84
The eternal fires, beating without
From Eternals,84
and then brings about this new creation:
like a black Globe, View'd by sons of Eternity... The vast world of Urizen appear'd.85
like a black Globe,
View'd by sons of Eternity...
The vast world of Urizen appear'd.85
Urizen's fight with the fire of the Eternals precedes his getting "consum'd inwards into a deep world within", which is the "void immense", the space constituting the first form of the natural world. Perhaps the fight is implied too in the phrase where a rebellion by Urizen is indicated in the midst of eternal life before any universe of death was created:
Earth was not: nor globes of attraction; The will of the Immortal expanded Or contracted his all flexible senses; Death was not, but eternal life sprung. The sound of a trumpet the heavens Awoke...86
Earth was not: nor globes of attraction;
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses;
Death was not, but eternal life sprung.
The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke...86
And a counter-movement occurring on the part of the Eternals is implied when Los is said to "keep watch" for them
83. Ibid., p. 224 (ibid., 4, 11 . 12-17).
84. Ibid., p. 226 (ibid., Ch. III, 5, 11.32-33).
85. Ibid., p. 226 (ibid., 11 . 33-34, 37).
86. Ibid., p. 223 (ibid., Ch. II, 11 .36-41 ) .
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to confine
The obscure separation alone...87
In these words we have the same thing as the Eternals' spurning back Urizen and setting him in the north, "obscure, shadowy, void, solitary".
Thus a bright-burning anger making war in Heaven against rebels and bringing about their defeat and expulsion is undeniably accepted by Blake's early supernatural mythology.
Such a war, starting in Eden and continuing after on the part of loyal Eternals, is also mentioned by some lines Blake inserted into the earliest section of The Four Zoas. In words reminding us of Urizen's reference to the "unquenchable burnings" of eternal life where "the sons of Eternity" seem to him as good as dying, Urizen tells Los after his own Fall from Eternity:
"Why should the Divine Vision compell the sons of Eden "To forego each his own delight, to war against his spectre? "The Spectre is the Man. The rest is delusion & Fancy."88
"Why should the Divine Vision compell the sons of Eden
"To forego each his own delight, to war against his
spectre?
"The Spectre is the Man. The rest is delusion & Fancy."88
Blackstone89 comments: "In these words Urizen lays bare the motive which has led him to rebel against the unity of Eden. The Divine Vision will not allow Man to identify himself with his Spectre (i.e. his naked reasoning power), but insists that every element in the human totality must be respected." Blackstone explains here a constant movement in Eternity against the isolation of Urizen in any of the Eternals - a standing action to counter and restrain the tendency which the reasoning power harbours to separate itself and dominate the other powers. But surely something more is present in Blake's passage? When Urizen actually rebelled in Eden and the reasoning power's tendency was realized, the standing action was bound to become a direct dynamic opposition, a war to overcome and expel
87.Ibid., p. 226 (ibid., Ch. III, 11.39-40).
88.Ibid., p. 273 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.339-341).
89.Op. cit., pp. 82-83.
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the Spectre. And what is of special interest to us is that the war here against the Urizenic faculty breaking or broken loose is prompted by the Divine Vision which is Christ.
So The Tyger's drama may legitimately be pitched in Heaven and interpreted as the going forth of the Divine Fire in a destructive symbol-form expressive of Christ, the heavenly unity-in-multiplicity, to quell Satan-Urizen and his partners in revolt. Our essentially Miltonic reading of the poem gets certainly a general support in Blake's other writings.
Do these writings support also our seeing of Satan and his company in the "spear"-bearing "stars" of the poem and our linking up of the "stars" to the "night" in the opening and closing stanzas? When we treated the poem as a self-contained whole, we considered whether a metaphorical naturalism would suffice, in which the throwing down of the spears by the stars would be just a poetic mode of saying that the material stars shed their rays on earth. We may grant that Blake has locutions likening rays to spears:
... the sunny rays that point their spears on Udanadan,90
Or where the Comets of the night or stars of asterial day Have shot their arrows or long beamed spears in wrath & fury.9
Or where the Comets of the night or stars of asterial
day
Have shot their arrows or long beamed spears in wrath
& fury.9
But even here have we nothing except a metaphorical naturalism of a kind that any poet might occasionally indulge in? "Udanadan" is surely on no map of earth as we know it, and the "wrath & fury" suggest personification. In either case, symbolism seems to peep out. But, even otherwise, we should be free to reject such naturalism here if Blake has non-naturalistic passages too and if they relate more specifically to our Tyger-lines.
The quotation which Bowra has made from The Four Zoas
90. Keynes, ed. cit., p. 485 (Milton. Book the First. 5, 1 .29).
91. Ibid. , p. 358 ( Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth, 11.40-4 1 ) .
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and which we have noticed more than once in other contexts should really be enough to indicate - all the more if a couple of words immediately after it are added - that the followers of Urizen, the speaker of the phrases, are those stars and that they belong to the night of our lyric:
"I went not forth: I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath: "I call'd the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark; "The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away. "We fell."9
"I went not forth: I hid myself in black clouds of my
wrath:
"I call'd the stars around my feet in the night of councils
"We fell."9
In confirmation of Blake's use here of "stars" as well as "night" in connection with Urizen who is his Satan we may draw several instances from his poetry. The epithet "starry" is on a few occasions employed in a general way in connection with all the Zoas; but the star-association in a particular way is confined to Urizen. The earliest open occurrence of it is in America (etched 1793), already a year before The Songs of Experience was etched - and it goes together with the night-association. Here Orc, who is called the "Terror" and is the genius of revolt against the spirit of mere rationality and brings liberation from that spirit's moralized religion, declares himself defiantly:
"The times are ended; shadows pass, the morning 'gins to break; "The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten commands, "What night he led the starry host thro' the wide wilderness, "That stony law I stamp to dust; and scatter religion abroad "To the four winds as a torn book, & none shall gather the leaves..."93
"The times are ended; shadows pass, the morning 'gins to
break;
"The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten commands,
"What night he led the starry host thro' the wide
wilderness,
"That stony law I stamp to dust; and scatter religion
abroad
"To the four winds as a torn book, & none shall gather the
leaves..."93
From the same poem's cancelled plates we get the line -
92. Ibid., p. 3 1 1 ( Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Fifth, 1 1 .222-225) .
93 . Ibid ., p . 198 (America, 8 , 1 1 .2-6) .
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In that dread night when Urizen call'd the stars round his feet"9
In that dread night when Urizen call'd the stars round his
feet"9
which anticipates the phrase preceding in The Four Zoas the one about the stars' flight after throwing down their spears. In Europe (1794) we read of "the stars of Urizen"95 and, in The Four Zoas, "the stars of Urizen in Power".96 Again, in the latter we find Urizen saying to Los - just a few lines before those in which he talks about the Divine Vision compelling the Sons of Eden to war against the Spectre:
"Lo, these starry hosts, " They are thy servants if thou wilt obey my awful Law."97
"Lo, these starry hosts, "
They are thy servants if thou wilt obey my awful Law."97
Then there is in the same poem the passage which is even more pertinent to our lyric, because it pictures Urizen and his hosts going to war:
Thus Urizen in self deceit, his warlike preparations fabricated; And when all things were finish'd, sudden wav'd among the stars, His hurtling hand gave the dire signal...98
Thus Urizen in self deceit, his warlike preparations
fabricated;
And when all things were finish'd, sudden wav'd among
the stars,
His hurtling hand gave the dire signal...98
Most pertinent of all are the lines in a long context which is concerned with the deeds of Urizen's followers:
loud the Stars Shout in the night of battle, & their spears grow to their hands...99
loud the Stars
Shout in the night of battle, & their spears grow to their
hands...99
The extreme pertinence comes from the fact that here Urizen's stars are not only battling in the night but also doing it with spears.
94.Ibid., p. 204 (ibid., pl. b, 1.5).
95.Ibid., p. 244 (Europe, 14, 1. 33).
96.Ibid., p. 338 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Seventh, b, 1.216).
97.Ibid., p. 273 (ibid., Night the First, 11.327-328).
98.Ibid., p. 342 (ibid., Night the Eighth, 11.86-88).
99.Ibid., p. 704 (Jerusalem 3, 67, 11.31-32).
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And we may remark that the use of spears by Urizen's followers is exactly what we may expect from the frequent association of Urizen himself with the spear. In The Four Zoas we meet with the pouring of
The spears of Urizen from the Chariots round the Eternal tent.100
The spears of Urizen from the Chariots round the Eternal
tent.100
Again, we note that
... Urizen arose, & leaning on his spear explor'd his dens.101
... Urizen arose, & leaning on his spear explor'd his
dens.101
In another place he "rais'd his spear"102 and, later,
Darken'd his brows with his cold helmet, & his gloomy spear Darken'd before him.103
Darken'd his brows with his cold helmet, & his gloomy
spear
Darken'd before him.103
Now what about the "forests" which Blake explicitly gives to the night but which we have made him imply for the stars as well? If our Miltonic reading of the poem is correct, Blake should be found mentioning forests in combination with Urizen and his comrades no less than with a night-suggestion in some shape or other. We do not have far to seek. In The Book of Urizen forests combine with darkness in a description of Urizen's revolt in Eternity:
Dark, revolving in silent activity: Unseen, in tormenting passions: An activity unknown and horrible, A self-contemplating shadow, In enormous labours occupied. But Eternals beheld his vast forests...104
Dark, revolving in silent activity:
Unseen, in tormenting passions:
An activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied.
But Eternals beheld his vast forests...104
100.Ibid., p. 306 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Fifth, 1.44).
101.Ibid., p. 311 (ibid., Night the Sixth, 1.1).
102.Ibid., p. 312 (ibid., 1.20).
103.Ibid., p. 313 (ibid., 11.52-53).
104.Ibid., p. 223 (The First Book of Urizen, Ch. I, 11.18-22).
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In The Book of Ahania (etched 1795) we hear of Urizen's "dark solitude" and his lying "obscur'd in his forests";105 we also get the phrase about him:
"I see thy dark clouds ascend, "I see thy black forests..."106
"I see thy dark clouds ascend,
"I see thy black forests..."106
Even in direct combination with night we get "forests" in Blake's Europe which brings along with them Urizen and stellar bodies. There Urizen is pictured as established arbiter of man's destiny, lord of the Ten Commandments, with his religion of "serpent-form'd" temple spread over the earth, a religion which perverted godhead and alienated man from it in the time when the physical universe was organized, so that
...man fled from its face and hid In forests of night: then all the eternal forests were divided Into earths rolling in circles of space... Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite Shut up in finite revolutions...107
...man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night: then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space...
Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions...107
These "forests of night" are Urizen's and their division by him opens a cosmic prospect - stellar bodies seen moving in their fixed orbits through darkness. And what the prospect signifies is the shutting up of the Infinite in the limited movements of these bodies. As an "image" of this change, says Blake, the serpent temple was formed. And within that temple, as we are told in the passage immediately preceding the one from which we have quoted, "stones precious"
give light in the opake Plac'd in the order of the stars...108
give light in the opake
Plac'd in the order of the stars...108
Thus we have the complete ensemble we need: stars and night-forests combined with the story of Urizen's defection from the true Infinite.
105.Ibid., p. 250 (The Book of Ahania, Ch. II, 11.5, 6).
106.Ibid., p. 254 (ibid., Ch. V, 11.57-58).
107.Ibid., p. 241 (Europe, 10, 11.17-19, 21-22).
108.Ibid., p. 241 (ibid., 11.9-10).
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When, side by side with the pointer to a fiery war of the Divine Vision against rebellious Urizen in Eternity's Eden, we put all the lines telling us of stars and night and spears and forests, the fate that overtook Urizen and his fellow-stars in Heaven after their revolt against Christ seems most definitely the subject of Blake's "star"-lines in The Tyger. And then the fearful animal itself seems with equal definiteness a visitation of divine anger in Eternity on this Satanic Zoa and his companions.
Beginning with Bowra's clues we have passed far beyond him to found firmly our supernatural reading.
Yes, our reading is firmly founded. But certain details remain to be seen in clear concreteness. Two in particular must be thrown into relief from Blake's writings. First, "the forests of the night" where we have placed the rebel-stars and against which we have pitted the bright-burning Tyger-Christ were Urizen's habitat in very Heaven the moment he rebelled. Second, the Tyger-symbol stands for an anti-Urizen wrath. Of course, these details follow logically from all that we have said. But we shall not rest satisfied with mere implication, however unescapable. To make our case proof against every possible objection we must deal with the details on their own, bring them into focus independently of what we have said, show them to be direct suggestions for our poem from Blake's other writings.
Here we come up against the most accomplished of Blake-students - Kathleen Raine, some of whose views we have already glanced at from a certain standpoint. She has given The Tyger itself the subtlest and most comprehensive treatment possible within the framework of a general Blake-interpretation according to Blake's affinities with the sources in the Neoplatonic, Gnostic, Hermetic, Cabbalistic and Alchemical traditions. She has explored these traditions with admirable thoroughness and is the first to bring many of them to
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bear revealingly on Blake's writings. Interpreted by her, his writings stand out in a splendid unity, clear in spite of being complex. The only criticism one can make in her own field is that certain small shades of conception and vision she has missed because she has not taken into total account his Miltonic affinities and sources. This shortcoming can perhaps be best pin-pointed by examining in brief her whole many-sided reading109 of The Tyger before concentrating on the two details we have mentioned as conflicting with her views.
Raine finds several passages in Blake from which the Tyger would seem an embodiment of evil and a corruption of the true divine character of humanity. In The Four Zoas we are told that in the natural creation, in the universe fashioned by Urizen, "the Human form is no more", and what opposes the divine character of Humanity is suggested in the phrase:
The Tyger fierce Laughs at the Human form...110
The Tyger fierce
Laughs at the Human form...110
Like "Lions" and "Wolves", "Tygers" are said to be "the monsters of the Elements"111 and we may take the beast of prey in our poem to symbolize the all-perverting natural creation by Urizen just as the sweet and gentle animal of The Lamb may be regarded as symbolizing the true eternal creation by Christ. Symbolically, the two are "states" of contrasting Experience and Innocence, the Vegetative World corresponding to the former state and the Land of Life or Eden to the latter.
The relation between the symbolic Tyger and the forests of the night as well as the fire from which it is made may be gathered from a passage in Europe where Nature who is designated "the Shadowy Female" cries:
"Unwilling I look up to heaven, unwilling count the stars: "Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine "I sieze their burning power
"Unwilling I look up to heaven, unwilling count the stars:
"Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine
"I sieze their burning power
109. "Blake's Debt to Antiquity", The Sewanee Review, Summer 1963, Vol. LXXI, No. 3, pp. 424-436. In Bollingen Paperback (Princeton 1977), pp. 75-87.
110.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 275 (Vala, or The Four Zoas. Night the First, 11.402-403).
111. Ibid., p. 344 (ibid., Night the Eighth, 1.120).
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"And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery kings, "Devouring & Devoured, roaming on hard and desolate mountains, "In forests of eternal death, shrieking in hollow trees. "Ah mother Enitharmon! "Stamp not with solid form this vig'rous progeny of fires! "I bring forth from my teeming bosom myriads of flames..."11
"And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery
kings,
"Devouring & Devoured, roaming on hard and desolate
"In forests of eternal death, shrieking in hollow trees.
"Ah mother Enitharmon!
"Stamp not with solid form this vig'rous progeny of fires!
"I bring forth from my teeming bosom myriads of
flames..."11
Burning Tygers created from the fire of the night-sky are evidently among the terrible howling devourers that roam in "forests of eternal death". And, to strengthen Raine's case, we may add from the same poem Europe the later lines overlooked by her, in which the very phrase of The Tyger about forests is matched but in conjunction with another not yet quoted by us, which renders the whole passage extremely pertinent to her arguments:
Thought chang'd the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid In forests of night: then all the eternal forests were divided Into earths rolling in circles of space..."113
To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid
Into earths rolling in circles of space..."113
Here The Tyger's "forests of night" are linked with "a devouring flame" which links up with the earlier lines' "all devouring fiery kings" and "forests of eternal death". The two passages prove that the night-forests could be the habitat of a burning Tyger-power of Urizen and that, like this power, they could symbolize the world of Nature cut off from the Divine Existence, the Infinite.
Raine informs us that forests are the classical symbol of natural existence and their night is the night of the Hades of the temporal world. According to her, forests in Blake's symbolic landscape are invariably evil and can have no place in the
112.Ibid., p. 238 (Europe, 2, 11.1-9).
113.Ibid., p. 24 1 (ibid., 10, 11 . 16-19).
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landscape of eternity. Also, since they are a state separated from eternity's light, there could never be day in a forest. And so we find everywhere in Blake the combination of darkness, forests and beasts of prey. But the forests of Nature are to him the multiplication of the one tree which he calls "The Tree of Mystery" and associates always with the fallen Zoa Urizen and his perverse creation. And there goes with this ramifying tree or the resulting forests the image of "smoke" or "fire", and that image again brings in lions and tygers. Thus his lions and tygers "roam in the redounding smoke, in forests of affliction".114 All these manifold combinations Raine traces principally to Paracelsus's Philosophia ad Athenienses, the Alchemical book whose theme is the "mystery" of Nature. Paracelsus likens Nature, "the great mystery", to a forest burning as it grows, issuing from nothing and returning to nothing once more, "as a forest which the fire burneth into a little heap of ashes...such is the beginning, such is the end of the creatures". Paracelsus further writes: "all bodies shall pass away and vanish into nothing but smoke, they shall all end in a fume." Blake too speaks of "the fire of Generation or Vegetation", which is "an Eternal Consummation".115 Thus the Tyger burning bright is the denizen of Nature's night-forests which are themselves fire: the bright-burning of the Tyger is but this animal's participation in that natural world which is for ever kindling and consuming.
As to Urizen, maker of both the Tyger and night-forests, Raine relates him to the "Demiurge" of the Gnostic philosophies, the "Workman Mind" of the Hermetica and the "Mortal God" of Paracelsus - the universe's creator who is not the supreme God but a power descended from the latter. The only difference is that Blake's Urizen, though ultimately redeemable, is more markedly evil and, whatever grandeur may be in this work of his that is the temporal world, he is to Blake "a very cruel being". The Gnostic Demiurge or the Hermetic Workman Mind is not so much evil as ambiguous: in spite of
114.Ibid., p. 320 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Seventh, 11.9-10).
115.Ibid., p. 609 (A Vision of the Last Judgment).
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being fallen he retains something of the supreme light from which he fell. Raine perceives this ambiguity as conveyed in The Tyger and, together with the ambiguity, a suggestion of the Alchemical doctrine of the identity of opposites. She refers to one of the early drafts -
Here the deeps and the skies are contrasted and it is left ambiguous whether the Workman drew forth his Tyger from above or beneath. In the final draft -
In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? -
Blake implied an identity of the deeps and skies, intending the paradox that Heaven and Hell may be aspects of the One Thing.
In consonance with this implication are two facts pointed out by Raine. She believes that The Tyger was written under the immediate excitement and delight which Blake felt on reading Everard's translation of the Hermetica, particularly a passage in The Fifth Book, entitled That God is not manifest and yet most manifest. The book as a whole is in praise of God as creator and the passage which Raine emphasizes describes the cunning of the Workman who frames man in the womb: "Who circumscribed and marked out his eyes? Who bored his nostrils and ears? Who opened his mouth, who stretched out and tied together his sinews? Who channelled the veins? Who hardened and made strong the bones? Who clothed the flesh with skin? Who divided the fingers and the joints? Who flatted and made broad the soles of the feet? Who digged the pores? Who stretched out the spleen, who made the heart like a Pyramis?" The rhetorical question-form in The Tyger as well as the details of the imagery, especially in the stanza -
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And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet -
What dread hand? & what dread feet -
leave Raine in no doubt that Blake had the Hermetica's passage in mind.
The next fact Raine points out is: the Workman of The Tyger is not only a blacksmith but, as the early drafts about "clay" and "mould" show, also a potter and this potter-blacksmith suggests the Zoa Los of the Prophetic Books, with his hammer, anvil and chain as well as his furnace which in one passage is called "the Potter's Furnace".116 True, Los is said to take over his furnaces originally from Urizen who had ruined at the beginning of creation the divine powers:
Then Los with terrible hands siez'd on the Ruin'd Furnaces Of Urizen: Enormous work, he builded them anew, Labour of Ages...117
Then Los with terrible hands siez'd on the Ruin'd
Furnaces
Of Urizen: Enormous work, he builded them anew,
Labour of Ages...117
But throughout Blake's writings it is Los who is predominantly the lord of the smithy and his "enormous work" is to help the fallen world to recover. Thus the Workman of The Tyger foreshadows not only the Urizen of the later poetry: he foreshadows also the later Los and, in doing so, involves an anti-Urizen force, a touch of what Urizen has rebelled against.
But both Los and Urizen are demiurgic: even the former cannot be equated to the supreme divinity. The poem relates the Los-Urizen maker of the Tyger to the Shadowy Female: it gives us the same creative Nature in a male form. Besides, the lines -
On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? -
What the hand dare sieze the fire? -
suggest one who in order to create must possess himself of fires
116.Ibid., p. 684 (Jerusalem 3, 53, 11.28).
117.Ibid., p. 301, (Vala, or the Four Zoas, Night the Fourth, 11.165-167).
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not his own: aspiring to them and seizing them, he is a rebel and a thief. In thus stealing the fire he is like Prometheus. Blake must have been familiar with the Prometheus-theme: there is that daring aspirer, Satan or the false Messiah, who in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell "formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss".118 The Abyss here, like most things in The Marriage, reminds us of a conception of that Alchemical mystic, Jacob Boehme, who greatly influenced Blake and is, with Paracelsus, actually mentioned in The Marriage under his Englished name Behmen: Boehme associates the Abyss with God the Father's flaming fires. We have also Orc and Luvah saying to Urizen in The Four Zoas:
"I well remember how I stole thy light & it became fire "Consuming."119
"I well remember how I stole thy light & it became fire
"Consuming."119
So the "he" of The Tyger is, to Raine, undoubtedly a demiurgic thief and not Jesus the Logos, God the Son.
Apropos of the double Demiurge or Workman, Los-Urizen, Raine considers the "stars" of the poem. The furnaces of Los are seven in number, and so are Boehme's qualifying spirits or creative fountains which Lucifer corrupted when he fell just as Urizen ruined the furnaces. Indeed, Blake's furnaces are identical with Boehme's fountains, for when at the end of the time-process Blake saw their purity as restored,
the Furnaces became Fountains of Living Waters flowing from the Humanity Divine.120
the Furnaces became
Fountains of Living Waters flowing from the Humanity
Divine.120
But the seven fountain-spirits are also the seven planetary principles of the old mystical tradition and, in the Hermetica, the Workman governs these principles and the furnaces of Los have a strange affinity with the planetary spheres, and the "starry wheels" of Blake's Prophetic Books are related to those furnaces:
118.Ibid., p. 150 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pl. 5-6).
119.Ibid., pp. 323-324 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Seventh, 11.147-148).
120.Ibid., p. 744 (Jerusalem 4, 96, 11.36-37).
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Los roll'd furious His thunderous wheels from furnace to furnace...121 Then wondrously the Starry Wheels felt the divine Hand... And Los beheld the hand of God over his furnaces...122
Los roll'd furious
His thunderous wheels from furnace to furnace...121
Then wondrously the Starry Wheels felt the divine
Hand...
And Los beheld the hand of God over his furnaces...122
But, like the furnaces, the starry wheels are originally Urizen's and, as Satan, he is called "prince of the starry wheels" - the wheels being the orbits of the planets over whom he rules from the eighth sphere which is that of the fixed stars of the firmament enclosing the universe. In this he resembles Boehme's God the Father who is also described as the ruler of the stars. Referring to Urizen as the "starry jealousy" of Blake's poem Earth's Answer and the "starry king" of his Song of Liberty, Raine says that Blake never writes of the stars without intending us to think not of the landscape of the sky but of the rulers of destiny within a spiritual darkness. What then, she asks, of the action described in
When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see?
When the stars threw down their spears
Raine alludes to the passage in The Four Zoas where occurs the throwing down of the spears by the stars and she identifies the action there with the action here. She quotes in full, as we have clearly seen, the next three lines of Urizen's speech:
We fell, I siez'd thee, dark Urthona. In my left hand falling I siez'd thee, beauteous Luvah; thou art faded like a flower And like a lilly is thy wife Vala wither'd by winds.123
We fell, I siez'd thee, dark Urthona. In my left hand
falling
I siez'd thee, beauteous Luvah; thou art faded like a
flower
And like a lilly is thy wife Vala wither'd by winds.123
Drawing attention to the names here, Raine informs us that the stars of The Tyger are the Zoas who fell with Demiurge Urizen:
121.Ibid., p. 302 (Vala. or The Four Zoas, Night the Fourth, 11. 175-176).
122.Ibid., p. 305 (ibid., 11.275-278).
123.Ibid., p. 311 (ibid., Night the Fifth, 1 1 .225-227).
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Urizen drew down with him the planetary spirits whom he governs, and with their fall the creation of the temporal world comes to pass and the Tyger is created in the dark forests of Nature. Then Raine brings her comment to a head: " 'Did he smile?' He may have done so; for Urizen's fall was a voluntary 'descent'; but from the long lament from which the above lines are quoted we know that remorse followed."
Raine is also aware of the Miltonic echo in the "star"-lines. She even points out the lines in Milton where Christ's "pernicious fire" shooting among Satan's hosts
wither'd all their strength, And of their wonted vigour left them drain'd, Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fall'n,124
Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fall'n,124
and remarks that Blake, in his description of Luvah and Vala as "faded" and "wither'd", echoes Milton's "wither'd" and "exhausted" Seraphim. She further asserts that Blake was certainly thinking of the fall of Milton's Rebel Angels as one and the same event as the fall of his own Demiurge and the planetary governers. But she does not see Christ as reducing through a Tyger-wrath the stars of Blake to defeated distress before their being flung out of Heaven. Night, forests and the Tyger are to her unequivocally symbolic in Blake of the temporal world: they could never precede this world's creation.
She moves on to her final resolution of Blake's question to the Tyger:
Her comment is already known to us in gist. Let us now follow it in some detail. We may answer "Yes" if we think of the God of the Alchemist, who is beyond good and evil and unites contraries. As Boehme lays down: "the God of the holy World and the God of the dark World are not two Gods; there is but one only God." This God is the "Father" of Boehme with His creative "wrath-fires" without whose energy there cannot be
124. Paradise Lost. Bk. VI, 11.850-852.
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any life and to which the "Proverbs of Hell" in Blake's Marriage - that eminently Boehmesque book - seems to relate the Tyger: "the tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." The Platonic answer to Blake's question will be "No": there are two worlds and the Tyger, unlike the Lamb, belongs to the time-world where, otherwise than in the Lamb's Eternity, the principle of selfhood preys upon other lives. The Gnostics and the Hermetica draw also a line between the pure eternal creation by the Supreme and the imperfect creation by the Demiurge, the Workman. Yet on the deepest level all these traditions converge, for the Demiurge's creation of the time-world, with its clash of opposites, exists only by the permission of the Supreme. Blake leaves his question unanswered precisely because there is a complex play of No and Yes on various levels. He presents his problem in Gnostic, Hermetic and Alchemical terms and goes beyond the dualism of the eighteenth-century English churches to open up the profound perspectives that make possible the contemplation simultaneously of the perfect eternal world and an imperfect temporal one, as two modes of being within one harmonious whole.
We have also remarked that a piece of magnificent literary insight pointing towards such contemplation is contained in Raine's comment almost at the end: "Nor must we overlook, in analyzing the meaning of the text, all that is conveyed by the powerful exaltation of the metre, by the fiery grandeur of the images. If the discoverable meaning of the poem suggests that the Tyger is the work of a creator ambiguous or evil, the emotive force of metre and image is all affirmation, praising the fiery might, the energy and the intelligence of the Mortal God. The Tyger is preparing the way for the Marriage with its vindication of 'Hell or Energy': 'The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy seas, and the destructive sword, are portions of eternity, too great for the eye of man.'"
We may start our comment on Raine's fascinating treatment of the poem by comparing this piece of insight with our interpretation. We too have marked, on integral evidence, a tension
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between "all affirmation" - the sense of the undeniably divine as well as deathless - and a haunting doubt in the heart, a resisting tremor in the nerves about one who could let loose such dreadful wrath upon creatures. Our sole difference from the terms accepted by Raine is, in the first place, that the Tyger's maker is not any "Mortal God", any Demiurge ambiguous or evil, who creates mortal things, but the Supreme Himself and, in the second place, that the creatures against whom the wrath burns bright are explicitly not denizens of the temporal world but Angels rebellious in Heaven itself. At the same time we agree with Raine that the Tyger's maker is an intermediate divinity: even though he is not a Demiurge of the Gnostic and Hermetic kind, he is the Supreme's second and not first aspect, the Son and not the Father of the Christian theological vision. Again, inasmuch as we see the Son as out-Sataning Satan, so to speak, in his angry blazing forth against the revolted stars we are essentially at one with Raine's view of The Tyger in relation to the "Hell or Energy" of The Marriage.
Are we justified in our "sole difference" or has Raine brought anything to show that the intermediate divinity cannot be the Son and that the Tyger in the night-forests is not his work in Eternity but the destructive force of the natural creation cut off from the true light?
Raine is sure that Blake's "sieze" means "steal" and must indicate a rebel and a thief. But the equation depends entirely on our assuming already on other grounds that Urizen is involved in the seizing act. For, nowhere in Blake does "sieze" explicitly or incontrovertibly connote "steal". Only along one line is it possible to suggest that seizing does duty for stealing. The phrase quoted by Raine about Orc or Luvah stealing Urizen's light which became consuming fire may be put side by side with the other in which Urizen was sleeping
"And Luvah siez'd the Horses of Light & rose into the Chariot of Day."125
"And Luvah siez'd the Horses of Light & rose into the
Chariot of Day."125
125. Keynes, ed. cit.. p. 271 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 1.264).
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But it is curious that the very next phrase after this runs:
"Sweet laughter siez'd me in my sleep; silent & close I laugh'd..."126
"Sweet laughter siez'd me in my sleep; silent & close I
laugh'd..."126
There is no question of "stealing" here in spite of the "sleep"; the sense is "to take strong hold of" - and the same sense would be equally appropriate to the seizing in the just preceding sentence. To assume stealing is not only incongruous in the context from the purely literary viewpoint, the viewpoint of comparative expression: it is also superfluous and unnecessary according to the demands of meaning in the story. And if we ask how then the story of Luvah and Urizen's light could permit the word "steal" to appear elsewhere, the simple answer is: "Blake has several versions of the story and it is arbitrary to transfer meanings from one to another in a very precise manner." Thus, in a passage already cited by us we get Urizen telling Luvah:
"In silent of this night "I will infold the Eternal tents in clouds opake, while thou, "Siezing the chariots of the morning, Go, outfleeting ride "Afar into the Zenith high..."127
"In silent of this night
"I will infold the Eternal tents in clouds opake, while
thou,
"Siezing the chariots of the morning, Go, outfleeting
ride
"Afar into the Zenith high..."127
In this passage Urizen is not at all taken advantage of, without his knowledge or against his will: nothing is stolen from him, and again "sieze" in the sense of taking strong hold of a thing is all that is required. Other passages too can be drawn upon to show not the slightest soupcon of stealing:
"When Urizen gave the horses of Light into the hands of Luvah..." 128
"When Urizen gave the horses of Light into the hands of
Luvah..." 128
126. Ibid., p. 271 (ibid., 1 .265) .
127. Ibid., p. 278 (ibid. , 11.492-495) .
128. Ibid., p. 300 (ibid. , Night the Fourth, 1 . 113).
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"Why didst thou listen to the voice of Luvah that dread morn "To give the immortal steeds of light to his deceitful hands?"129
"Why didst thou listen to the voice of Luvah that dread
morn
"To give the immortal steeds of light to his deceitful
hands?"129
Even a mere two or three pages after the mention of stealing, we get the line:
"But Luvah close conferr'd with Urizen in darksome night..."130
"But Luvah close conferr'd with Urizen in darksome
night..."130
The same idea comes in:
"But Urizen awoke, & Luvah woke, & they conferr'd..."131
In one place Urizen says to Luvah:
"Because thou gavest Urizen the wine of the Almighty "For Steeds of Light, that they might run in thy golden chariot of pride, "I gave to thee the Steeds, I pour'd the stolen wine "And drunken with the immortal draught fell from my throne sublime."132
"Because thou gavest Urizen the wine of the Almighty
"For Steeds of Light, that they might run in thy golden
chariot of pride,
"I gave to thee the Steeds, I pour'd the stolen wine
"And drunken with the immortal draught fell from my
throne sublime."132
Looking at all these statements, one does not know how seriously or literally one should take the matter of stealing Urizen's horses: Urizen's connivance or co-operation, deliberate or deceived, seems to have been there. But it is pretty certain that nowhere is "siezing" a synonym for "stealing".
Besides, when Orc or Luvah is said to steal, it is not fire but light that he steals, and this light becomes fire only when it is stolen, whereas the fire that is Blake's beast of prey burns from the beginning in the distant deeps or skies: it is fire even before it is seized. Again, the light stolen by Orc is Urizen's and not the Supreme God's - a most crucial point which spoils the whole analogy with The Tyger. Finally, what is the impression
129.Ibid., p. 292 (ibid., Night the Third, 11.31-32).
130.Ibid., p. 363 (ibid.. Night the Seventh, 1.255).
131.Ibid., p. 277 (ibid., Night the First, 1.487).
132.Ibid., p. 311 (ibid., Night the Fifth, 11.234-237).
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we get from "sieze" when it occurs as an action of Urizen whom Raine makes the seizer in our poem? She has herself quoted the lines spoken by him:
"...I siez'd thee, dark Urthona. In my left hand falling "I siez'd thee, beauteous Luvah..."133
"...I siez'd thee, dark Urthona. In my left hand falling
"I siez'd thee, beauteous Luvah..."133
Then there are the instances:
"... Rushing back, redd'ning with rage, the Mighty Father "Siez'd his bright sheephook studded with gems and gold..."134 "...his strong right hand came forth "To cast Ahania to the Earth: he siez'd her by the hair...135 "...Then a lion he would sieze "By the fierce mane, staying his howling course...136 "But still his books he bore in his strong hand, & his iron pen, "For when he died they lay beside his grave, & when he rose "He siez'd them with a gloomy smile...137 "... he strove to sieze the shadow in vain..."138
"... Rushing back, redd'ning with rage, the Mighty Father
"Siez'd his bright sheephook studded with gems and
gold..."134
"...his strong right hand came forth
"To cast Ahania to the Earth: he siez'd her by the hair...135
"...Then a lion he would sieze
"By the fierce mane, staying his howling course...136
"But still his books he bore in his strong hand, & his
iron pen,
"For when he died they lay beside his grave, &
when he rose
"He siez'd them with a gloomy smile...137
"... he strove to sieze the shadow in vain..."138
Nowhere shall we find Urizen do anything except grip forcibly. Thus there are grave difficulties all round in the way of interpreting from anywhere in Blake the seizing in our poem as stealing.
Even in the passage from Europe in which the action of the Shadowy Female seems to come nearest to what is done in The Tyger -
133. Ibid., p. 311 (ibid., Night the Fifth, 11 . 225-226).
134. Ibid., p. 275 (ibid., Night the First, 11 . 13-14).
135. Ibid., p. 294 (ibid., Night the Third, 11 . 110-111).
136. Ibid., p. 3 1 5 (ibid., Night the Sixth, 11 . 132-133).
137. Ibid., p. 316 (ibid., Night the Sixth, 11 . 167-169).
138. Ibid., p. 352 (ibid., Night the Eighth , 1 .427).
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"And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery kings" -
kings" -
in this very passage there appears to be no question of stealing since the Shadowy Female is sitting in her abyss and looking up to heaven and does not go to the stars to do anything to them: in fact, the lines immediately preceding the passage suggest an effluence to her from the stars instead of any theft by her from them - a free coming down of their burning power to produce in her the creative travail, the pains of labour:
"I wrap my turban of thick clouds about my lab'ring head, "And fold the sheety waters as a mantle round my limbs; "Yet the red sun and moon "And all the overflowing stars rain down prolific pains."139
"I wrap my turban of thick clouds about my lab'ring head,
"And fold the sheety waters as a mantle round my limbs;
"Yet the red sun and moon
"And all the overflowing stars rain down prolific pains."139
We may also remark that though the seizing act occurs both here and in The Tyger and though the act is in relation to a burning power, the power seized in The Tyger cannot at all be of the stars as in this passage: the stars there are defeated and distressed, whether by the Tyger as we hold or in consequence of the Demiurge's fall as Raine believes, and are certainly not the sources to which the Tyger's maker could aspire in order to seize from them the fire he needs: they are Urizen's own companions existing on the same level as he and equally fallen.
When we come to Satan or the false Messiah of The Marriage who steals from the Abyss, we have a conception drawn, as Raine tells us, from Boehme who speaks of Lucifer exalting himself and corrupting the fountains of creation, the life-principle's flaming fires belonging to God the Father. A genuine case of some sort of theft is here, but can we be sure that the aspiring and seizing which The Tyger recounts has anything to do with it? It may very well be a totally different episode: no sense of stealing or corrupting of the fire seized by the winged aspirant stands out of our poem. The fire of the Tyger is not said to be in any respect different from the fire burning in the distant deeps or skies: the Tyger burning bright manifests perfectly the power and the beauty, the terror and the glory
139. Ibid., p. 238 (Europe, pl. 1, 11 . 12-15).
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which may be read in that doubly designated region above to which the animal's maker flies: the fearful symmetry which is set ablaze from this ultimate region belongs to a kind that is unlike the flawed handiwork of any Demiurge.
What lends greater strength to the possibility that a totally different episode is here is the fact that Boehme himself cannot be said to exclude the very episode of battle in Heaven which we have read in The Tyger. In the same sentence where the false Messiah's stealing from the Abyss is mentioned we have the words already quoted about the Fall from Heaven: "It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out..." If The Marriage is fundamentally Boehmesque, we may legitimately conjecture Boehme to have believed in Christ's attack in Supernature on Satan, as leading to the latter's banishment from Eternity. Indeed, such a belief should be inevitable to Boehme as it would be to anyone who amalgamates the Hermetic or any other tradition and Christianity. Raine contends that in Boehme the wrath-fire operates only in Hell and what is wrath there is nothing save love in Heaven: according to her reading, Boehme cannot have a Christ-Tyger blazing wrathfully in Heaven against rebellious Satan and then throwing him into Hell. But let us look at some passages in Boehme's Signatura Rerum. First "... the elected throne of God in the royal office, from which Lucifer was taken, and thrust into the darkness."140 Next: "And thus hell is even an enemy of the devil, for he is a strange guest therein, viz. a perjured fiend cast out of heaven..."141 A violent retribution meted out to Satan in God's kingdom is clear in the first quotation. The last seven words of the second signify unmistakably that the devil's perjury occurred in Heaven and that because of it he was expelled. And we may note that the exact Blakean phrase - "cast out" - is found in Boehme. The whole Christian tradition - of Lucifer's revolt and God's war (wrath-fire) against him and God's ultimate
140.Signatura Rerum and Other Discourses (Everyman's Library, London), p. III, Ch. X, 14 (from the translation of Boehme's works by William Law, first published in 4 vols., 1764-1781).
141.Ibid., p. 215 (Ch. XIV, 23).
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expulsion of him from Heaven - is implicit here.
And when Boehme says that God's "love-fire... is a poison, and a fire of anger to the devils and to hell",142 we must understand that the love-fire becoming the wrath-fire is not confined to hell but applies also to the battle in Heaven terminating in the casting out of Satan and his company ("the devils"). But, of course, the wrath-fire of that battle is not an established part of Heaven: it is an incident of heavenly history and what burnt forth then became a permanent action of fire in the form of hell. In one sense, however, all heaven is eternally a wrath-fire; for, as Boehme puts it: "heaven is evil to the hellish creatures, for it is their poison and death, an eternal dying, and an eternal captivity. Therefore, there is an eternal enmity, and God is only called God according to the light of his love; he is indeed himself all, but according to the darkness he saith, T am an angry jealous God, and a consuming fire.' "143
All in all, Boehme is essentially Christian-Miltonic no less than Alchemical-Hermetic. Hence a reading of Milton (theologically topsyturvied) in The Tyger is entirely in tune with the Boehmesque turn of Blake's vision.
Thus far we can find no reason in Raine to doubt this reading: quite the contrary. But what about Raine's central evidence against our taking Christ to be the Tyger's maker and setting the whole Tyger-drama in Heaven - namely, her demonstration that the forests of the night in which the Tyger is ablaze are exclusively the natural world and can have no place in Eternity?
It would be futile on our part to flout Blake's repeated description of the natural world as either night or forests. The forests of the night are certainly symbolic of Urizen's temporal creation which is shut off from the divine illumination. But can they be fixed down to symbolizing nothing else? Can we not regard the temporal creation as an established form of what was foreshadowed in Eternity when Urizen-Satan revolted there? Can they not be the symbolic ambience, so to speak, of
142. Ibid., p.214, ibid. , 19.
143. Ibid., p.215 , ibid., 20, 21 .
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the revolting spirit in Heaven itself and then transferred into terms of Nature on this spirit's expulsion from Supernature? Can they not symbolize the Fall in Heaven as well as the Fall from Heaven? To Raine there is for Blake only one event: Urizen's revolt, his abandonment of Heaven and his creation of Nature are the same thing in various aspects or phases and all of them come under the designation of created Nature: "the forests of the night." Blake does have passages which may suggest such a view: for example, in The Book of Urizen -
But Eternals beheld his vast forests; Ages on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown, Brooding, shut in the deep; all avoid The petrific, abominable chaos.144
But Eternals beheld his vast forests;
Ages on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown,
Brooding, shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific, abominable chaos.144
But we have already shown how in the same poem there is a fiery spurning back of Urizen's assumption of power and giving by the Eternals to him of "a place in the north, / Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary". So, logically, the night-forests, before they became Nature, should be Urizen's state as attacked by the divine fire with which he is said to have first fought. Yes, logic demands prototypal night-forests in Heaven as Urizen's psychological habitat before their conversion into Nature. But can we prove Blake to have borne out this logic in his very expression?
To begin with, night has not invariably an evil connotation in Blake. Nor is it always associated with a Urizen-mood - even when stars, the rulers of destiny, are spoken of in the same breath with it. There is hardly a suggestion of spiritual darkness pricked out with ominous presences in phrases like:
Silent, Silent Night Quench the holy light Of thy torches bright145 -
Silent, Silent Night
Quench the holy light
Of thy torches bright145 -
or,
144.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 223 (The First Book of Urizen, pl. 3, Ch. I,
145.Ibid., p. 168 (Poems from the Note-book 1793, 14, 11.1-3).
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The moon like a flower In heaven's high bower, With silent delight Sits and smiles on the night.146
The moon like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.146
And what about that superb passage:
Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wonderous Night: They rise in order & continue their immortal courses Upon the mountains & in vales with harp & heavenly song, With flute & clarion, with cups & measures filled with foaming wine. Glitt'ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude, And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful waves...147
Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wonderous
Night:
They rise in order & continue their immortal courses
Upon the mountains & in vales with harp & heavenly song,
With flute & clarion, with cups & measures filled with
foaming wine.
Glitt'ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude,
And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful
waves...147
Are not the lines intended to evoke an image like Wordsworth's beautiful and serene "waters on a starry night" or the rapture of Hopkins's "Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!"?
The very stars by themselves figure once in a simile to correspond to the Eternals as against Urizen and his created Nature when the former seek to confine his "obscure separation alone":
For Eternity stood wide apart, As the stars are apart from the earth.148
For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth.148
It would seem that even in Nature the constellated night-sky could bring Blake a non-Urizenic suggestion as if something of a divine reality hung out through it, as if there were in Eternity itself a counterpart of night which Nature held mostly in a perverted form but occasionally manifested in a pure glimpse.
And in fact Blake unequivocally shows us such a counterpart. Just as in Paradise Lost Heaven has its own night in the course of its daily existence, so also Blake's Eternity of unfallen being has its phases of day and night. After speaking of the
146.Ibid., p. 118 (Songs of Innocence, Night, 11.5-8).
147.Ibid., p. 511 (Milton I, 25, 11.66-71).
148.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 226 (The First Book of Urizen, Ch. III,pls. 5,6,11.41-42).
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Four Zoas in general, Blake mentions Los in particular:
Los was the fourth immortal starry one, & in the Earth Of a bright Universe, Empery attended day & night, Days & nights of revolving joy. Urthona was his name In Eden; in the Auricular Nerves of Human Life, Which is the Earth of Eden, he his Emanations propagated...149
Los was the fourth immortal starry one, & in the Earth
Of a bright Universe, Empery attended day & night,
Days & nights of revolving joy. Urthona was his name
In Eden; in the Auricular Nerves of Human Life,
Which is the Earth of Eden, he his Emanations
propagated...149
The reference is to Eden, the Land of Life, Eternity and to the divine analogue in it of the Earth-element and to the Auricular Nerves which are constituted by it in the Divine Humanity and in which Los has his special function. Unmistakably a joyous revolution of day and night in Heaven is declared.
Again, if such a revolution were not there, Tharmas in his fallen condition would hardly be able to talk of Eternity and tell about his emanation Enion:
"A portion of my Life "That in Eternal fields in comfort wander'd with my flocks "At noon & laid her head upon my wearied bosom at night, "She is divided."150
"A portion of my Life
"That in Eternal fields in comfort wander'd with my flocks
"At noon & laid her head upon my wearied bosom at
night,
"She is divided."150
Nor would Urizen himself in his lament about his Fall be able to recollect his former happy condition in Supernature thus:
"Then in my ivory pavilions I slumber'd in the noon "And walked in the silent night among sweet smelling flowers..."151
"Then in my ivory pavilions I slumber'd in the noon
"And walked in the silent night among sweet smelling
flowers..."151
Now, if there is a blissful night in Eternity we do not have to posit created Nature in order to account for the night-symbolism of Urizen's Satan-state. Night as spiritual obscurity can be true of this state wherever Urizen in a revolted condition may be. Supernature itself may house a perversion of its blissful night: it would be as if the experience of this night in Urizen got
149.Ibid., p. 264 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.14-18).
150.Ibid., p. 301 (ibid., Night the Fourth, 11. 137-140).
151.Ibid., p. 310 (ibid., Night the Fifth, 11.202-203).
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changed and the first consequence were not the creation of the natural world but a new unheavenly state of his own being, an anti-divine obscurity, prior to that creation and existing in Eternity, the symbol of a Fall in Heaven before the Fall from Heaven, exactly as in Milton's epic Satan and his crew are called "Sons of Darkness"152 even when they have not yet been driven out from "all Heav'n's bounds".
Of course, in Paradise Lost the designation "Sons of Darkness" gets a subtle support and rationale from the fact that Satan's conspiracy of revolt occurs when "ambrosial Night, with clouds exhal'd",153 has come over the bright face of Heaven:
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolv'd With all his legions to dislodge, and leave Unworshipp'd, unobey'd, the Throne supreme...154
Unworshipp'd, unobey'd, the Throne supreme...154
The theme of night-revolt is further pursued when Satan, whispering to "his next subordinate", says:
"Assemble thou Of all these myriads which we lead the chief; Tell them that, by command, ere yet dim night Her shadowy cloud withdraws, I am to haste, And all who under me their banners wave, Homeward with flying march where we possess The quarters of the North..."155
"Assemble thou
Of all these myriads which we lead the chief;
Tell them that, by command, ere yet dim night
Her shadowy cloud withdraws, I am to haste,
And all who under me their banners wave,
Homeward with flying march where we possess
The quarters of the North..."155
We may remember too the association of Satan with night in Heaven in the line:
His potentates to council call'd by night...156
Have we any corresponding night in Blake's story of Urizen's Fall, a night definitely preceding and therefore differing from
152.Paradise Lost, Bk. VI, 1.715.
153.Ibid., Bk. V, 1.643.
154.Ibid., 11.667-670.
155.Ibid., 11.683-689.
156.Ibid., Bk. VI, 1.416.
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the departure from Heaven which we may identify with the natural creation cut off from Eternity's light?
Yes, and even its Miltonic character is beyond dispute. Let us listen to the news brought - about "Albion", "the Eternal Man" - by messengers to "those in Great Eternity" who are one in "Jesus the Christ". Before "the Council of God", met "as One Man" to receive them, they declare:
"The Eternal Man wept in the holy tent: Our Brother in Eternity, "Even Albion whom thou lovest, wept in pain; his family "Slept round on hills & valleys in the regions of his love. "But Urizen awoke, & Luvah woke, & they conferr'd: " 'Thou Luvah,' said the Prince of Light, 'behold our sons & daughters "'Repos'd on beds; let them sleep on; do thou alone depart " 'Into thy wished Kingdom where in Majesty & Power " 'We may erect a throne; deep in the North I place my lot, " 'Thou in the South; listen attentive. In silent of this night "I will infold the Eternal tent in clouds opaque, while thou " 'Siezing the chariots of the morning, Go, outfleeting ride "Afar into the Zenith high, bending thy furious course " 'Southward, with half the tents of men inclos'd in clouds " 'Of Tharmas & Urthona. I, remaining in porches of the brain, " 'Will lay my scepter on Jerusalem, the Emanation, " 'On all her sons, & on thy sons, O Luvah, & mine " 'Till dawn was wont to wake them; then my trumpet sounding loud, " 'Ravish'd away in night; my strong command shall be obey'd "'For I have plac'd my centinels in stations; each tenth man
"The Eternal Man wept in the holy tent: Our Brother in
Eternity,
"Even Albion whom thou lovest, wept in pain; his family
"Slept round on hills & valleys in the regions of his love.
"But Urizen awoke, & Luvah woke, & they conferr'd:
" 'Thou Luvah,' said the Prince of Light, 'behold our sons
& daughters
"'Repos'd on beds; let them sleep on; do thou alone
depart
" 'Into thy wished Kingdom where in Majesty & Power
" 'We may erect a throne; deep in the North I place
my lot,
" 'Thou in the South; listen attentive. In silent of this night
"I will infold the Eternal tent in clouds opaque,
while thou
" 'Siezing the chariots of the morning, Go, outfleeting ride
"Afar into the Zenith high, bending thy furious course
" 'Southward, with half the tents of men inclos'd in clouds
" 'Of Tharmas & Urthona. I, remaining in porches of the
brain,
" 'Will lay my scepter on Jerusalem, the Emanation,
" 'On all her sons, & on thy sons, O Luvah, & mine
" 'Till dawn was wont to wake them; then my trumpet
sounding loud,
" 'Ravish'd away in night; my strong command shall be
obey'd
"'For I have plac'd my centinels in stations; each tenth
man
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" 'Is bought & sold, & in dim night my word shall be their law.'"157
" 'Is bought & sold, & in dim night my word shall be
their law.'"157
Then a report is given of Luvah's answer to Urizen and of Urizen's action following it and of what happened to Urthona. Lastly, there is the account:
"But Urizen, with darkness overspreading all the armies, "Sent round his heralds secretly commanding to depart "Into the north. Sudden with thunder's sound his multitudes "Retreat from the fierce conflict, all the sons of Urizen at once "Must'ring together in thick clouds, leaving the rage of Luvah "To pour its fury on himself & on the Eternal Man. "Sudden down fell they all together into an unknown Space, "Deep, horrible, without End, separated from Beulah, far beneath. "The Man's exteriors are become indefinite, open'd to pain "In a fierce hungry void, & none can visit his regions."158
"But Urizen, with darkness overspreading all the armies,
"Sent round his heralds secretly commanding to depart
"Into the north. Sudden with thunder's sound his
multitudes
"Retreat from the fierce conflict, all the sons of Urizen
at once
"Must'ring together in thick clouds, leaving the rage
of Luvah
"To pour its fury on himself & on the Eternal Man.
"Sudden down fell they all together into an unknown
Space,
"Deep, horrible, without End, separated from Beulah, far
beneath.
"The Man's exteriors are become indefinite, open'd to
pain
"In a fierce hungry void, & none can visit his regions."158
There is a very significant sequence of states and events made clear by these two passages. We begin with the time of night in Eternity. Urizen and Luvah awake and confer "in silent of this night" while all are asleep, just as Milton's Satan and "His next subordinate" do in midnight's "dusky hour / Friendliest to sleep and silence". Urizen tells Luvah that taking advantage of the sleep all around he "will infold the Eternal tent in clouds opake" and he again refers to "night" and "dim night" as well as to "clouds". This reminds us of Satan's reference to "dim night" and "her shadowy cloud" under
157.Keynes, ed. cit., pp. 277-278 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.484-503).
158.Ibid., p.279(ibid., 11.535-544).
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which his plans are to be carried out. Urizen says that his "strong command", like Satan's "command", shall be obeyed. Like Satan, he mentions also the North for himself, and before that he speaks of erecting a throne: his words are reminiscent of the phrases Milton puts into the mouth of God the Father telling his Son about Satan:
"such a foe Is rising, who intends to erect his throne Equal to ours, throughout the spacious North..."159
"such a foe
Is rising, who intends to erect his throne
Equal to ours, throughout the spacious North..."159
Then we hear of Urizen "with darkness overspreading all his armies" and soon there is a "fierce conflict", and "with thunder's sound his multitudes / Retreat". Several separated phrases of Milton's float into our mind. We are told of Night "over Heaven / Including darkness"160 and how at that time
Satan with his rebellious disappear'd, Far in the dark dislodg'd161
Satan with his rebellious disappear'd,
Far in the dark dislodg'd161
and also how at another time, "dire was the noise / Of conflict"162 and, earlier, God seeing
what multitudes Were banded to oppose his high decree...163
what multitudes
Were banded to oppose his high decree...163
Finally, we remember Christ in his chariot rushing "with whirl-wind sound"164 and driving his enemies "before him thunder-struck" to the bounds of Heaven where the walls, rolling inward, "a spacious gap disclos'd / Into the wastful Deep":165 the enemies shrank back at "the monstrous sight" but, urged by far worse from behind,
159.Paradise Lost, Bk. V, 11.724-726.
160.Ibid., Bk. VI, 11.406-407.
161.Ibid., 11.414-415.
162.Ibid., 11.211-212.
163.Ibid., Bk. V, 11.716-717.
164.Ibid., Bk. VI, 1.749.
165.Ibid., 11.858, 861-862.
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Down from the verge of Heaven166
into "the bottomless pit".167 This brings us to the close of Blake's second passage where Urizen and his associates "down fell... into an unknown Space, / Deep, horrible, without End."
Yes, there is a good deal of Miltonism variously running through Blake's sequence of states and events. But the most important point about the sequence is not verbal Miltonic resemblance. The point of extreme momentousness is that the falling down into the "unknown Space" which is Urizen's obscure state of Chaos preceding and preparing the physical world created by him comes after the night in which there occur the conspiracy, the battle, the defeat of Urizen. If this night comes before the very first form in which Nature exists -namely, the "unknown Space" - then the night that is Nature has to be distinguished from a night in Supernature and regarded as a later development. The night-symbol in an anti-divine sense must stand first for the Fall in Heaven - Urizen's rebellion in Eternity - and secondly for the Fall from Heaven -his creation of the natural universe. The anti-divine night must primarily be considered a perversion in Heaven itself of the happy and holy night which is part of Heaven's manifold phases.
It is significant that the "silent night" in which Urizen walked "among sweet smelling flowers" before his rebellion is met with again in "the silent of this night" when the rebellion takes place. But, when the night of rebellion is designated, we get not only "dim night" but also, later, the lines:
"that deadly night "When Urizen gave the horses of Light into the hands of Luvah."168
"that deadly night
Luvah."168
And in the same context as "the silent night" and "sweet
166.Ibid., 11.864-865.
167.Ibid., 1.866.
168.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 300 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Fourth, 11.112-113).
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smelling flowers" we have the phrases which we have quoted several times and which Raine too has cited:
"...I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath; "I call'd the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark; "The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away. "We fell."
"...I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath;
"We fell."
Evidently, "the night of councils dark" is the perversion of "the silent night among sweet smelling flowers" - and, viewed in the light of the two passages analysed by us, the former no less than the latter precedes the Fall from Heaven whose consequence is Chaos and the temporal world shaped within it.
Even without those passages, the precedence by both is strongly suggested. For, the falling from Heaven takes place after the calling of the stars in the night of councils dark: in fact, between the two events there is even another - "The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away." The series follows in a compressed way the very one we find in Milton:
Satan with his rebellious disappear'd, Far in the dark dislodg'd, and, void of rest, His potentates to council call'd by night...169 ...They, astonish'd, all resistance lost, All courage; down their idle weapons dropt... ...headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of Heav'n... Nine days they fell...170
Far in the dark dislodg'd, and, void of rest,
His potentates to council call'd by night...169
...They, astonish'd, all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idle weapons dropt...
...headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of Heav'n...
Nine days they fell...170
Raine's contention that we cannot separate the night of revolt from the Fall from Heaven which is the night of the natural universe is contradicted by detailed Blake-analysis: such analysis brings the two into line with the Miltonic vision.
Raine is similarly mistaken about the forest-symbol. Logically, once we grant a Urizenic night in Supernature distinct from the Nature-night, this symbol must have a double bearing. And
169.Paradise Lost, Bk. VI, 11.414-416.
170.Ibid., 11.838-839, 864-865, 871.
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detailed Blake-analysis confirms the theoretical conclusion. We may demonstrate the confirmation by a two-pronged approach.
Raine has shown "smoke" to be a symbol for generative Nature and to be another name for Nature's forests. But "smoke" connects up straight with the cloud-symbol through lines like the following from Jerusalem:
Jerusalem is scatter'd abroad like a cloud of smoke thro' non-entity...171 Attracted by the revolution of those Wheels, the Cloud of smoke Immense and Jerusalem & Vala weeping in the Cloud Wander away into the Chaotic Void...172
Jerusalem is scatter'd abroad like a cloud of smoke thro'
non-entity...171
Attracted by the revolution of those Wheels, the Cloud
of smoke
Immense and Jerusalem & Vala weeping in the Cloud
Wander away into the Chaotic Void...172
In the Hermetica itself, after the creation by the Logos of divine "light", "a certain moist cloud... like smoke" appears, the beginning of the natural creation. Hence the "black clouds of my wrath" and the "clouds opake" which Urizen speaks of and which we have found to be part of the night of revolt must imply forests as a state of Urizen in Heaven before the creation of the physical universe. And just as this night is the perversion in Supernature of a divine darkness, so these forests must be the perversion of a divine wood-depth.
That the cloud-symbol could serve for divine things is clear from lines like
A Rock, a Cloud, a Mountain Were now not Vocal as in Climes of happy Eternity173
A Rock, a Cloud, a Mountain
Were now not Vocal as in Climes of happy Eternity173
or
"Thy Clouds of Blessing, thy Cherubim of Tender-mercy"174
171.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 623 (Jerusalem 1, pl. 5, 1.13).
172.Ibid., p. 624 (ibid., 11.61-63).
173.Ibid., p. 315 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Sixth, 11.134-135).
174.Ibid., p. 647 (Jerusalem 1, pl. 24, 1.21).
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"Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills "When Jerusalem was thy heart's desire in times of youth & love."175
"Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills
"When Jerusalem was thy heart's desire in times of youth
& love."175
or - at the very start of The Songs of Innocence -
On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me: "Pipe a song about a Lamb!"176
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:
"Pipe a song about a Lamb!"176
Indeed, all of Blake's symbols are flexible. We have already seen the simile in which "stars" - a repeated pointer to Urizen's followers - represent Eternity. And even the Oak-symbol which is so frequent in Blake as a substitute - e.g., Urizen's "dark rooted Oak"177 - for the Tree-symbol of obscured Nature has been used by him in opposition to it:
"As the Mistletoe grows on the Oak, so Albion's Tree on Eternity."178
"As the Mistletoe grows on the Oak, so Albion's Tree on
Eternity."178
Here Eternity is equated to the usually Satanic Oak.
We can go still further to direct statements putting trees and oaks and forests in Heaven as divine elements. Urizen laments in the midst of Chaos:
O what a world is here, unlike those climes of bliss "Where my sons gather'd round my knees! O thou poor ruin'd world! "Thou horrible ruin! once like me thou wast glorious, "And now like me partaking desolate thy master's lot. "Art thou, O ruin, the once glorious heaven? are these thy rocks "Where joy sang on the trees and pleasure sported in the rivers, "And laughter sat beneath the Oaks, & innocence sported round
O what a world is here, unlike those climes of bliss
"Where my sons gather'd round my knees! O thou poor
ruin'd world!
"Thou horrible ruin! once like me thou wast glorious,
"And now like me partaking desolate thy master's lot.
"Art thou, O ruin, the once glorious heaven? are these
thy rocks
"Where joy sang on the trees and pleasure sported in the
rivers,
"And laughter sat beneath the Oaks, & innocence sported
round
175.Ibid., p. 647 (ibid.. 11.36-37).
176.Ibid., p. 111 (Songs of Innocence, Introduction, 11.3-5).
177.Ibid., p. 250 (The Book of Ahania, pl. 3, Ch. IId, 1.16).
178.Ibid., p. 703 (Jerusalem 3, pl. 66, 1.55).
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"Upon the green plains...?179
We may observe that here Blake mentions "climes of bliss" and "glorious heaven": they are the very "Climes of Happy Eternity" where a Rock, a Cloud, a Mountain are vocal unlike their state in present times and in the natural world - they are the original state from which Urizen has lapsed and must be distinguished from any future condition when the physical cosmos will be redeemed and the phenomenon will not disappear but persist in a transfigured form as "one continu'd vision of Eternity". So trees and Oaks exist in the divine original creation, they were growing before the phenomenal world came into existence and, if a transfiguration of Nature will occur at the end of time, there will then be trees and Oaks in Eternity not as something new which was never known before but as a reappearance, under certain novel conditions, of what is native to Heaven. And it is not only Urizen's lament that makes it impossible to doubt this: we also read elsewhere—
"The Oak is cut down by the Axe, the Lamb falls by the Knife, "But their Forms Eternal Exist For-ever..."180
"The Oak is cut down by the Axe, the Lamb falls by the
Knife,
"But their Forms Eternal Exist For-ever..."180
Most interestingly, these lines put together two objects which Blake often uses as symbols of two opposing realities: the Lamb symbolizes the Eternal World, the Oak the temporal. Now both are said to exist in both Time and Eternity -perishable things in the former, everlasting Forms in the latter.
Trees in general and Oaks in particular as part of "glorious Heaven" must imply forests in Eternity, the divine counterpart of "Albion's Forests of Oaks"181 mentioned by Blake as covering the earth. In connection with Albion we get even an open naming of forests existing in the divine world which Albion lost. Blake holds that in the divine world Man contained all
179.Ibid., p. 317 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Sixth, 11.208-215).
180.Ibid., p. 522 (Milton II, 32, 11.37-38).
181.Ibid., p. 735 (Jerusalem 4, 89, 1 .23).
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things in his infinite body, but the all-comprehending consciousness and being were lost: Albion believed that there was a physical external universe outside him and thus he broke apart his own soul, reducing himself to a small entity and emptying of spiritual life what he conceived as other than himself. Blake describes this "disease" of Albion as either the shrinking of man or the wandering away of creatures and things. Thus he speaks of Albion:
His inward eyes closing from the Divine Vision, & all His children wandering outside, from his bosom fleeing away.182
His inward eyes closing from the Divine Vision, & all
His children wandering outside, from his bosom fleeing
away.182
And Albion himself is made to speak:
"First fled my Sons & then my Daughters, then my Wild Animations, "My Cattle next, last ev'n the Dog of my Gate; the Forests fled, "The Corn-fields & the breathing Gardens outside separated, "The Sea, the Stars, the Sun, the Moon, driv'n forth by my disease."183
"First fled my Sons & then my Daughters, then my Wild
Animations,
"My Cattle next, last ev'n the Dog of my Gate; the
Forests fled,
"The Corn-fields & the breathing Gardens outside
separated,
"The Sea, the Stars, the Sun, the Moon, driv'n forth by
my disease."183
Mark the phrase: "the Forests fled." It proves that unfallen Albion, the Eternal Man, contained in his divine existence the very forests which come to symbolize the temporal world split from the light of the All.
Now, if forests no less than night are a phase or aspect of Heaven, surely we should put forests of the night in Eternity. They would first be a divine depth and afterwards, with the revolted Urizen and his hosts, "black clouds" in which they hide themselves, a secrecy of "councils dark", the prototype in Supernature of what becomes the labyrinthine obscurity of Nature after the rebels' "assum'd power" has been "spurn'd back" by the Eternals with whose "fire" they have "fought" and under whose attack "the stars threw down their spears"
182.Ibid., p. 279 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.558-559).
183.Ibid., p. 643 (Jerusalem 1, 21, 11.7-10).
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and "down fell they all together" from Heaven.
Thus our interpretation of The Tyger takes the chief hurdle Raine's reading sets up. Doubtless, Blake mostly telescopes the two Falls and concentrates the world of Nature in his "night" and "forests". When one approaches him - as Raine with good reason does-Neoplatonically, Gnostically, Hermetically, Cab-balistically, Alchemically, one can hardly be blamed for missing the fine distinctions we have drawn. But the disinctions are legitimate in the ultimate scrutiny, become even inevitable on one's approaching him Miltonically and justify themselves in full in an appreciation of The Tyger's "minute particulars" both independently and from a Christian-Miltonic viewpoint.
As to the carnivore addressed in our poem, have we in Blake's writings a recognizable support to interpret it as an anti-Urizen force? In other words, is the Tyger-symbol a part - open or oblique - of an anti-Urizen context anywhere in Blake?
In the very Abyss where Urizen has plunged himself and where
...he beheld the forms of tygers & of Lions, dishumanized men,184
...he beheld the forms of tygers & of Lions, dishumanized
men,184
and stood questioning a fierce scorpion and a fierce-maned lion185 he is attacked:
these attack'd him sore, Siezing upon his feet, & rending the sinews, that in Caves He has to recure his obstructed powers with rest & oblivion.186
these attack'd him sore,
Siezing upon his feet, & rending the sinews, that in Caves
He has to recure his obstructed powers with rest &
oblivion.186
The attack is said to be quite contrary to what used to happen "in climes of Happy Eternity" - that is, before he had broken away from the Divine Harmony. Of course the beasts that have
184.Ibid., p. 116 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Sixth, 1.116).
185.Ibid., p. 315 (ibid., 11.131-134).
186.Ibid., p. 315 (ibid., 11.138-140).
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seized upon his feet and rent his sinews are themselves creatures fallen because of Urizen's Fall, but their violent action upon a fallen Urizen is a highly suggestive picture in relation to our reading of The Tyger. A Urizen set upon by a Tyger after his Fall is a possibility quite within Blake's vision.
Perhaps more pertinent to our purpose are lines in The Book of Ahania. There we have tygers associated with an attack on Urizen by a supernatural being and some elements are present which, though combined not exactly as in The Tyger, recall the singularities of that poem. Here Urizen's enemy is Fuzon who represents passion indignant with the former's laws of repression. His attack is thus described:
Fuzon on a chariot iron-wing'd On spiked flames rose; his hot visage Flam'd furious; sparkles his hair & beard Shot down his wide bosom and shoulders. On clouds of smoke rages his chariot And his right hand burns red in its cloud Moulding into a vast Globe his wrath... So he spoke in a fiery flame, On Urizen frowning indignant, The Globe of wrath shaking on high; Roaring with fury he threw The howling Globe; burning it flew Length'ning into a hungry beam...187
Fuzon on a chariot iron-wing'd
On spiked flames rose; his hot visage
Flam'd furious; sparkles his hair & beard
Shot down his wide bosom and shoulders.
On clouds of smoke rages his chariot
And his right hand burns red in its cloud
Moulding into a vast Globe his wrath...
So he spoke in a fiery flame,
On Urizen frowning indignant,
The Globe of wrath shaking on high;
Roaring with fury he threw
The howling Globe; burning it flew
Length'ning into a hungry beam...187
This description gives us almost the Tyger's maker, with his wings, hand, shoulders: Fuzon's right hand burning red and moulding into a vast globe his wrath is nearly a counterpart of that maker's dread grasp with the deadly terrors of the Tyger's furnace-forged brain held in it, and Fuzon's globe howls and burns and is a long hungry beam, quite like a Tyger burning bright and streaking towards its quarry.
What makes our comparison more relevant is the fact that the fiery wrath-globe is, as it were, expressive of an ensemble
187. Ibid., p. 249 (Ch. I, 11. 1-7, 14-19).
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composed not only of indignant Fuzon but also of his raging chariot and the beasts of prey mentioned later as belonging to him and serving evidently to pull his chariot fiercely against Urizen:
...Fuzon, his tygers unloosing, Thought Urizen slain by his wrath.188
...Fuzon, his tygers unloosing,
Thought Urizen slain by his wrath.188
And we have here an indication of what the "chain" in The Tyger must signify beyond something with which to tug at the bellows or even to control the material during its shaping. Fuzon's act of unloosing his tygers implies both their being joined to the chariot as if by a chain and their being held on a chain-like rein to be set moving against any foe.
Nor is this all that the picture has in store for us. Blake tells us that Urizen shot a poisoned rock at Fuzon while he was unloosing his beasts of prey under the impression that his "exulting flam'd beam"189 had torn fatally through "the cold loins of Urizen".190 The result of Urizen's counterattack was that Fuzon's beautiful visage and luminous tresses
Were smitten with darkness, deform'd And outstretch'd on the edge of the forest.191
Were smitten with darkness, deform'd
And outstretch'd on the edge of the forest.191
Whose forest? Near the beginning of the same Chapter Urizen is spoken of as a being "obscur'd in his forests"192 and later too his "black forests"193 are mentioned. Then he is also said to be "high roofed over with trees"194 caused by himself. No one else in the poem is connected with forests or brings about the growth of trees. So it must be on the edge of Urizen's forest that Fuzon's beauty and luminosity lay smitten and outstretched. This means that the rein-held tygers drawing Fuzon's charioted anger, ready with its burning "Globe of wrath", had been
188.Ibid., p. 251 (Ch. II,
189.Ibid., p. 249 (Ch. I. 1.20).
190.Ibid., p. 249 (ibid., 1.29).
191.Ibid., p. 251 (Ch. II,
192.Ibid., p. 250 (ibid., 1.6).
193.Ibid., p. 254 (Ch. V, 1.4, 1.58).
194.Ibid., p. 252 (Ch. III, 1.3. 1.70).
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rushed against the dark forest-habitat of Urizen.
We have only to transpose the situation into an overtly Christian framework and turn the offensive into a direct Tyger-attack, to get our poem's action: Christ, the fashioner of the Lamb, fashioning the Tyger of his divine dreadfulness, keeping it afterwards chain-held for an offensive and then setting it upon Satan and his hosts within the forests of the night.
Even a picture directly put by Blake himself in a semi-Christian frame and including tygers under control is provided us in Jerusalem. There we are vouchsafed a vision of "those who disregard all Mortal Things", the companies of Eternity among whom "the Eternal Man Walketh". They decide to come down and see certain "changes":
...Others said, "If you do so, prepare "For being driven from our fields; what have we to do with the Dead?..." But others said: "Let us to him who only Is & who "Walketh among us, give decision: bring forth all your fires!" So saying, an eternal deed was done: in fiery flames The Universal Concave raged such thunderous sounds as never Were sounded from a mortal cloud, nor on Mount Sinai old,... And they elected Seven, call'd the Seven Eyes of God, Lucifer, Moloch, Elohim, Shaddai, Pahad, Jehovah, Jesus. They nam'd the eighth: he came not, he hid in Albion's Forests. But first they said: (& their Words stood in Chariots in array Curbing their Tygers with golden bits & bridles of silver & ivory) "Let the Human Organs be kept in their perfect Integrity...
...Others said, "If you do so, prepare
"For being driven from our fields; what have we to do
with the Dead?..."
But others said: "Let us to him who only Is & who
"Walketh among us, give decision: bring forth all your
fires!"
So saying, an eternal deed was done: in fiery flames
The Universal Concave raged such thunderous sounds as
never
Were sounded from a mortal cloud, nor on Mount Sinai
old,...
And they elected Seven, call'd the Seven Eyes of God,
Lucifer, Moloch, Elohim, Shaddai, Pahad, Jehovah,
Jesus.
They nam'd the eighth: he came not, he hid in Albion's
Forests.
But first they said: (& their Words stood in Chariots in
array
Curbing their Tygers with golden bits & bridles of silver &
ivory)
"Let the Human Organs be kept in their perfect
Integrity...
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"Every one knows we are One Family, One Man blessed for ever."195
"Every one knows we are One Family, One Man blessed
for ever."195
Here too there are Tygers held by supernatural beings and they represent the martial power of these beings' charioted "Words" - though the holding is again not directly on a chain but by reins and a harness. And the term used with the reins and harness - "curbing" - is apt to the implication we have read in The Tyger that the Christ-animal was restrained from expressing its full fury against the stars. The mention of the name "Jesus" and the reference to the Eternal Man, of One Man and his One Family, relate the picture very suggestively to that which we have built up from The Tyger. And an extremely interesting curiosity in the picture is the occurrence of "Forests", as if certain associations remained dominant in Blake's mind ever since the composition of the early poem.
In the later Blake we have even three lines not only associating Christ with a supernatural carnivore but also suggesting a merger of the two, a sort of Tyger-Christ, a Divine Beast of Prey. In The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818) we read how Jesus is a fury of fire and how his voice is loud as thunder when he defies Satan and refuses to worship him:
Thunders & lightnings broke around, And Jesus' voice in thunders' sound: "Thus I sieze the Spiritual Prey, "Ye smiters with disease, make way. "I come your King & God to sieze..."196
Thunders & lightnings broke around,
And Jesus' voice in thunders' sound:
"Thus I sieze the Spiritual Prey,
"Ye smiters with disease, make way.
"I come your King & God to sieze..."196
Satan, the "King & God" of the "smiters with disease", is called "the Spiritual Prey" of Jesus who comes with a thundering voice to "sieze" him. No doubt, the word "Prey" is also employed in this poem for other things than those that Jesus would destroy; but a non-restricted employment of the word does not cancel the fact of its use in relation to Jesus' own activity. And such Tyger-activity on his part is brought out in
195.Ibid., p. 686 (Jerusalem 3, Plate 55, 11.5-6, 17-21, 31-36, 46).
196.Ibid., p. 749 (The Everlasting Gospel, b. 11.25-29).
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more than one pointed line. In the section which asks "Was Jesus Humble...?", Blake equates conventional humility to the virtue of the false religion of the Synagogues and the Elders and Priests, a Satanic virtue proper to the Serpent, the lover of Dust and Clay, that Satan is. Blake tells us that if Christ had been "Creeping Jesus", he would have
Gone sneaking into Synagogues And not us'd Elders & Priests like dogs, But Humble as a Lamb or Ass Obey'd himself to Caiaphas.197
Gone sneaking into Synagogues
And not us'd Elders & Priests like dogs,
But Humble as a Lamb or Ass
Obey'd himself to Caiaphas.197
Here on the one side we are told what animal Jesus was not like: he was not like a "creeping" snake, he was not "as a Lamb or Ass". On the other side he was as one who held "dogs" in contempt. Evidently he is likened to or identified with a haughty and predacious animal - a Lion or a Tyger. And we get about him in this very context the phrase - "his wrath began to burn"198 which is reminiscent of The Tyger.
Divinity embodied as a beast of prey - a lion - is also suggested in Blake's America. Albion's Angel who is a representative of Urizen's religion which falsely claims to be that of Christ denounces Orc as Antichrist, Orc who comes to restore
"The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten commands,"199
"The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten
commands,"199
and is really the spirit of Christ. The freedom-giving and falsehood-fighting forms which Orc can take are listed by him when he unites with "the shadowy daughter of Urthona" lying dumb up to this moment:
"Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion "Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale, I lash "The raging fathomless abyss; anon a serpent folding
"Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a
lion
"Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale, I
lash
"The raging fathomless abyss; anon a serpent folding
197. Ibid ., p. 752 (ibid ., d, 11. 61 -64) .
198. Ibid ., p. 752 (ibid ., 1.56).
199. Ibid ., p. 198 (America, pl. 8, 1.3) .
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"Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs..."200
"Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark
limbs..."200
Nature recognizes Orc's liberating divinity - "the shadowy daughter of Urthona" cries to him:
"I know thee, I have found thee, & will not let thee go: "Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa, "And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death."201
"I know thee, I have found thee, & will not let thee go:
"Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of
Africa,
"And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark
death."201
It is also notable that in America Blake, speaking of Ore, brings in verbal turns that send us twice back to the stars' mishap in The Tyger and in The Four Zoas, as well as to the furnace in the former. There are two lines describing Orc:
Intense! naked! a Human fire, fierce glowing, as the wedge Of iron heated in the furnace: his terrible limbs were fire...202
Intense! naked! a Human fire, fierce glowing, as the
wedge
Of iron heated in the furnace: his terrible limbs were
fire...202
In this description we seem to be before a new version of the Tyger "burning bright" and with eyes of fire, with deadly terrors, with limbs hammered out as if hot iron and with a brain from a furnace. Again, we are told how "the Demon red" who is Orc "burnt... rejoicing in its terrors,... & gath'ring thick / In flames as of a furnace..."203 On the other hand, we learn that Ore's enemies
sent up a howl Of anguish, threw their swords & muskets to the earth & ran From their encampments and dark castles, seeking where to hide From the grim flames, and from the visions of Orc...204
sent up a howl
Of anguish, threw their swords & muskets to the earth &
ran
From their encampments and dark castles, seeking where
to hide
From the grim flames, and from the visions of Orc...204
200.Ibid., p. 196 (ibid., pl. 1, 11.13-16).
201.Ibid., p. 196 (ibid., pl. 2, 11.7-9).
202.Ibid., p. 197 (ibid., pl. 4, 11.8-9).
203.Ibid., p. 201 (ibid., pl. 12, 11.9. 10, 11, 12).
204.Ibid., p. 201 (ibid., pl. 13, 11.6-8).
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Once more, there is the picture of other enemies of Orc:
The millions sent up a howl of anguish and threw off their hammer'd mail, And cast their swords & spears to earth, & stood a naked multitude...205
The millions sent up a howl of anguish and threw off their
hammer'd mail,
And cast their swords & spears to earth, & stood a naked
multitude...205
We are reminded not only of The Tyger's stars throwing down their spears and weeping in heaven: we are reminded too of the line in The Four Zoas:
"The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away."
Talking of Orc's divine avatarhood in America, we may add that in the companion piece, Europe, where he is the son of Los and the spirit of revolution, Los invokes him against Urizen in the words:
"Arise, O Orc, from thy deep den!"206 -
Further, we hear of the "flames of Orc" and find that Orc, whose arising is desired by Los in order to stop the teeming of "howling horrors" that derive from Urizen, is identified with Christ. Blackstone,207 after speaking of the lament of Nature on being compelled to bring forth so many strange forms in such vast suffering, continues his explanation: "Only the prophetic vision of a birth which will compass the infinite, the birth of Christ (identified with Orc), is able to console her. The Pro-phecy208 itself begins with a passage imitative in matter and manner of Milton's Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity."209
205.Ibid., p. 202 (ibid., pl. 15, 11.4-5).
206.Ibid., p. 239 (Europe, pl. 3, 7.24).
207.Op. cit., p. 57.
208.As distinguished from the Preludium (K. D. S.)
209.Cf. Milton -
It was the winter wild
While the heaven-born child
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies -
and Blake:
The deep of winter came,
What time the secret child
Descended thro' the orient gates of the eternal day...
Page 204
A beast of prey as an anti-Urizen symbol is found in Europe in connection also with the supernatural being named Rintrah, another son of Los and Enitharmon. Enitharmon addresses him:
"Arise! O Rintrah, eldest born, second to none but Orc! "O lion Rintrah, raise the fury from thy forest black!.... "Arise, my son! bring all thy brethren, O thou king of fire..."210
"Arise! O Rintrah, eldest born, second to none but Orc!
"O lion Rintrah, raise the fury from thy forest black!....
"Arise, my son! bring all thy brethren, O thou king of
fire..."210
Bateson,211 apropos of annotating the phrase "forests of the night" in The Tyger, recalls the second line with its "forests black" in this passage: "Rintrah, the symbol of primitive energy, is addressed in similar terms by his mother Enitharmon in Europe..."
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell too has Rintrah in addition to another shade of the carnivore-symbolism. It starts with the line:
Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air.212
We hark back at once to the Tyger and are soon confirmed in our impression by the verse which is part of the same initial "Argument" and which is followed by the same line as the first:
Now the sneaking serpent walks In mild humility, And the just man rages in the wilds Where lions roam. Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air...213
Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility,
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.
Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air...213
Bateson's comment214 on the whole "Argument" runs: "The contrast is between primitive Christianity, when the just man could be meek, and the eighteenth century, when (owing to the corruption of Christianity) humility has become the mark of the
210.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 240 (Europe, pl. 8, 11.1-2, 8).
211.Op. cit., p. 118.
212.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 148 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pl. 2, 7.1).
213.Ibid., p. 149 (ibid., 11.17-21).
214.Op. cit., p. 130.
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'sneaking serpent' (the time-serving clergy) and the just man must be filled with a righteous, destructive anger." On Rintrah Bateson215 has the note: "an important figure in Blake's mythological system, which was still embryonic at this date; like the Tyger, he stands for the natural energies such as those liberated by the American and French Revolutions."
So, whether we agree or not with Bateson's interpretation of our poem's carnivore as being no more than primitive or natural energy, we may point out that if it is Blakean to figure "the just man" or the supernatural Rintrah as a Lion our Tyger could well stand for the Lord of Supernature, Christ, in a drastic movement of energy in Heaven against Urizen, the revolted unrighteous rationality.
Thus we have, in Blake's writings, a sufficiently broad support to our interpretation. No doubt, we have been able to demonstrate Urizen's perversion in Supernature itself of a heavenly night and forests: we have not similarly demonstrated by straight quotation from Blake a fiery Tyger-form attacking Urizen in Supernature. Yet an attack as such on him there, no less than the fieriness of it, has been demonstrated, and so too has been the presence there not only of night and forests but of Lions and Tygers. Finally, we have demonstrated a persistent play of wrath and fury and a constant creation of bright, majestic, thunderous forms. In view of the wide ground prepared, the Tyger-form of Christ contra Urizen in Supernature itself, rather than in Nature where Blake's other writings project it at times as an anti-Urizen symbol, may well be allowed, without cavil, as a small novelty peculiar to our poem.
Especially may we allow the novelty vis-a-vis Blake's various Lamb-references. Take the earlier piece, The Lamb in The Songs of Innocence, which The Tyger in The Songs of Experience appears to counterbalance. The counterbalancing becomes as good as explicit when we have in the later poem that
215. Ibid.
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juxtaposition of the Tyger and the Lamb:
This is the most momentous question in the lyric, and part of its wording is undoubtedly affined to that portion of the earlier one which indicates Jesus to be the maker of the animal spoken of and which too has a small h wherever the pronoun does not begin a line:
Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?... Little Lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb.216
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?...
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb.216
Here a double point is first to be noted. Christ is not only the Lamb's maker but is himself symbolized by the Lamb and designated a Lamb. And there is a further implication: not only the made Lamb but also the maker Lamb, that is Christ, owes its existence to Christ's creativity, for it is he who gives himself the name "Lamb" and is known by that name because he has taken it by his own choice. Then comes the last suggestion: as the Divine Creator he belongs to Heaven and it is in Heaven itself that he the Maker is the self-made Divine Lamb. Analogously, The Tyger's "he who made the Lamb" is Christ who is himself the Lamb of Heaven - and then, if the Tyger also is Christ, the Christ-Tyger who is an anti-Urizen force belongs not merely to Nature but as well to Supernature.
That the Lamb-Christ pertains originally to Eternity is quite clear from the mentions of him in Blake's later poetry. Thus:
There is from Great Eternity a mild & pleasant rest Nam'd Beulah,... Eternally created by the Lamb of God...217
There is from Great Eternity a mild & pleasant rest
Nam'd Beulah,...
Eternally created by the Lamb of God...217
In Supernature surely the Lamb of God functions as the creator of Beulah. Again, when Urizen's natural world - "wondrous
216.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 115, 11.9-10, 12-14 (Songs of Innocence).
217.Ibid., p. 266 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.94-95, 97).
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work" - is seen to "flow forth like visible out of the invisible", Blake comments:
For the Divine Lamb, Even Jesus who is the Divine Vision, Permitted all...218
For the Divine Lamb, Even Jesus who is the Divine
Vision,
Permitted all...218
The permission could come only from Eternity, Supernature -and it is as the Divine Lamb there that Jesus gave it. One more quotation - the words of Los to Enitharmon:
"behold! take comfort! "Turn inwardly thine Eyes & there behold the Lamb of God "Cloth'd in Luvah's robes of blood descending to redeem."219
"behold! take comfort!
"Turn inwardly thine Eyes & there behold the Lamb of
God
"Cloth'd in Luvah's robes of blood descending to
redeem."219
If "Jesus, / The Lamb of God, blessed for ever", as we read elsewhere,220 descends to redeem, it must be from above, from Supernature.
Hence the complement of Heaven's Lamb-Christ - the Tyger-Christ - can most legitimately act contra Urizen in Supernature itself.
(f)
One point, however, we have to discuss in order to fix the precise shape and function of our anti-Urizen Tyger and its maker. This point is forced on us by a certain aspect of Raine's interpretation: she has seen Los together with Urizen in the maker of the animal and, inasmuch as a supernatural smith is undeniable in our poem, we have to assimilate Los into our Christ while rejecting Urizen. A grateful task, indeed, for us: Raine's vision of Los actually brings us a gift of the anti-Urizen power which our reading requires. Yet, from its place in her overall Urizenic view, it lays five demands upon us if our
218.Ibid., p. 287 (ibid.. Night the Second, 11.281-82).
219.Ibid., p. 330 [ibid.. Night the Seventh, 11.414-16).
220.Ibid., p. 279 (ibid.. Night the First, 11.555-56).
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reading is to be totally convincing.
First, we have to refute Raine's argument not only that primacy with the furnaces lies with Urizen and that Los becomes the master smith by seizing on Urizen's furnaces but also that Urizen who is the chief Demiurge must have a major hand in the Tyger's making since there is a strong parallel in some of the Hermetica's phrases about the Demiurge to those that leap to us in some of Blake's questions. Secondly, we have to show that in Blake's other writings Los may be figured as a born smith even beyond and before Nature. Thirdly, we have to draw upon them for figuring him as a fighter against Urizen in Heaven. Fourthly, we have to prove Los to be such in those writings that he can be conceived in our poem as fused with Christ and as appropriately serving for a frontal aspect of Christ's Tyger-creativeness against Urizen in Supernature. Fifthly, we have to exhibit Los in an anti-Urizen creativeness comparable in general to the making of the bright-burning carnivore in our poem.
As regards the Hermetica's phrases, could not Blake have transferred them to the activities of Los, whom too Raine calls demiurgic, because the language struck him as suiting the occasion? Further, if the Hermetica's Demiurge is ambiguous rather than evil, there would be a Los-side to him blended with a Urizen-side and the Hermetica's verbal turns could be applicable to him by right. So far as these turns are concerned, there seems no reason why the Tyger's smith-creator should not be Los alone. Nor, we may add, would they in themselves pin Los or any other demiurgic power down to activity only in Nature. Their sheer bearing would be on form-creativeness whether in Nature or elsewhere, for, we have already quoted Blake as referring to movements in Eternity "Mental forms Creating".221 Raine's argument for Urizen from the description of the Demiurge's moulding of form tan be - to say the least - completely neutralized.
But, of course, Los must be shown to be a smith primarily and not by furnace-transference from Urizen, as well as a smith
221. Keynes, ed. cit., p. 519 (Milton II, 30, 11.15-20).
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in very Supernature and not simply in the Vegetative Universe. The context of the lines Raine has quoted about Los seizing on the ruined furnaces of Urizen to build the natural creation anew is itself a help to us. Almost immediately before the seizure Tharmas says to Los:
"Take thou the hammer of Urthona: rebuild these furnaces..."222
"Take thou the hammer of Urthona: rebuild these
furnaces..."222
The furnaces to be seized on are Urizen's but Los as Urthona is already possessed of a hammer: so he is a smith before the seizure. And actually Los declares himself a smith a little earlier. Some 37 lines previous to the verse about the hammer we have those about the "deadly night / When Urizen gave the horses of Light into the hands of Luvah", and in the passage prior to them Los, "the spectre of Urthona", refers to the same time and event and relates to Tharmas what happened to that Zoa as well as to himself:
"...I well remember the Day, "The day of terror & abhorrence... "When fleeing from the battle, thou fleeting like the raven "Of dawn, outstretching an expanse where ne'er expanse had been, "Drew'st all the Sons of Beulah into thy dread vortex, following "Thy Eddying Spirit down the hills of Beulah. All my sons "Stood round me at the anvil, where, new heated, the wedge "Of iron glow'd furious, prepar'd for spades & mattocks. "Hearing the symphonies of war loud sounding, All my sons "Fled from my side; then pangs smote me unknown before..."223
"...I well remember the Day,
"The day of terror & abhorrence...
"When fleeing from the battle, thou fleeting like the raven
"Of dawn, outstretching an expanse where ne'er expanse
had been,
"Drew'st all the Sons of Beulah into thy dread vortex,
following
"Thy Eddying Spirit down the hills of Beulah. All my sons
"Stood round me at the anvil, where, new heated, the
"Of iron glow'd furious, prepar'd for spades & mattocks.
"Hearing the symphonies of war loud sounding, All my
sons
"Fled from my side; then pangs smote me unknown
before..."223
Here we have not only the mention of a battle in Heaven but
222.Ibid., p. 301 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Fourth, 1.149).
223.Ibid., pp. 299-300 (ibid., 11.84-93).
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also a clear description of Los as a smith, precedent to the division of his "sons" comparable to Albion's "disease" - and a fortiori precedent to his seizing on Urizen's ruined furnaces. Thus Los is a smith primarily and not by furnace-transference from Urizen; also, he is a smith in Eternity, one with anvil and glowing iron when yet the pangs that mark the Fall are unknown.
This conclusion is suggested too by some lines still earlier, anticipating the division of Los's sons. In between the two passages which we have submitted as proving a night in Heaven distinguishable from Nature's night, we come across the verses:
"Beside his anvil stood dark Urthona; a mass of iron "Glow'd furious on the anvil prepar'd for spades & coulters. All "His sons fled from his side to join the conflict; pale he heard "The Eternal voice; he stood, the sweat chill'd on his mighty limbs. "He drop'd his hammer; dividing from his aking bosom fled "A portion of his life... "Urthona stood in terror, but not long; his spectre fled "To Enion, & his body fell..."224
"Beside his anvil stood dark Urthona; a mass of iron
"Glow'd furious on the anvil prepar'd for spades &
coulters. All
"His sons fled from his side to join the conflict; pale he
heard
"The Eternal voice; he stood, the sweat chill'd on his
mighty limbs.
"He drop'd his hammer; dividing from his aking bosom
fled
"A portion of his life...
"Urthona stood in terror, but not long; his spectre fled
"To Enion, & his body fell..."224
Here is Los becoming or being made a participant in the change of consciousness brought about by Urizen and Luvah: the very adjective "dark" at the beginning indicates the participation. But the fall occurs a little later and links up with the fall of Urizen and others "into an unknown Space". What is to be noted is that Los is already a smith, with not only anvil and iron glowing but also hammer: evidently he has furnaces too of his own from the start, his possession by right and by function in Supernature.
He could very well be the sole smith-creator of a Tyger that gives no sign of any flawed handiwork such as would be
224. Ibid., pp. 278, 279 (ibid.. Night the First. 11.519-524, 530-531).
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unavoidable under the conditions of Nature. "Sole", of course, in relation to Urizen but not to Christ the Son and Logos who is the basic, the ultimate, creator of everything divine in Eternity. A perfect heavenly Tyger fashioned to be set upon rebellious angels may be imagined as created by Christ employing in fusion with himself Los the divine smith for a frontal aspect of action.
Such a frontal aspect would be eminently in tune with what we know explicitly from Blake of Los's role in the entire incident of Urizen's revolt. In one sense Los falls with Urizen; in another he is the counter-agent not only in Time but also in Eternity. We may dwell awhile on Los's role and on its relation to Christ's activity in general.
We may remember how, in The First Book of Urizen, Urizen fought with the fire of the Eternals, whose unquenchable burnings seemed to him a living death, and how when he formed like a black globe his own world he tried to cool
The eternal fires, beating without From Eternals...225
From Eternals...225
Immediately after the appearance of Urizen's world we are told:
And Los, round the dark globe of Urizen, Kept watch for Eternals to confine The obscure separation alone...226
And Los, round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine
The obscure separation alone...226
Blackstone227 comments: "it is appropriate that this task should be entrusted to Los, for in Eden he and Urizen were ultimately connected, as reason should always be with inspiration and vision." Blake himself says about Los:
Urizen was rent from his side...228
So Los is implied to be the main being against whom a wrong
225.Ibid., p. 226 (The First Book of Urizen, Ch. III, pl. 5, 11.32-33).
226.Ibid., p. 226 (ibid., 11.38-40).
227.Op. cit., p. 73.
228.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 226 (The First Book of Urizen, Ch. III, pl. 6, 1.4).
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was committed by Urizen, and the Eternals' fire which the latter fought with may be understood as mainly Los's. At least the only Eternal other than the revolted Urizen to be associated by name with fire in any state is he: "Los rouz'd his fires..."229
If one asks why Blake has not openly mentioned Los as attacking Urizen's "assum'd power", the answer is: Blake's theme is the creation of the physical universe by Urizen, as the first lines of Chapter I say:
Lo, a shadow of horror is risen In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific, Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what Demon Hath form'd this abominable void, This soul-shudd'ring vacuum?...230
Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum?...230
Whatever goes before it, including the spurning back of Urizen by the Eternals, is packed into the short "Preludium". And we may affirm that Blake's theme in his longer poems is, in different garbs, the same as in The First Book of Urizen -essentially the combating of the Bacon-Locke-Newton philosophy of a mechanical universe outside Mind, independent of Mind, instead of being organic part of it within an infinitude of Universal Divine Humanity. The Christian-Miltonic antecedents to the story of Urizen's rational-scientific lapse from the original Oneness of spiritual life are brought in almost incidentally, by summary suggestion. Their presence plays an openly symbolic and significant role only in The Tyger. So we must not look for a precise correspondence to The Tyger's drama in other works of Blake. If the elements of this drama are found elsewhere, we have all that is necessary to read it in those works and bring them into harmony with our poem. This need not seem odd, for, on any interpretation the poem stands out by itself in several respects "and does not at all join to Blake's concern with the rational-scientific materialism of Bacon,
229.Ibid., p. 226 (ibid., pl. 7, 1 .8).
230.Ibid., p. 222 (ibid., pl. 3, Ch. I, 11.1-5).
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Locke and Newton. Even Raine's reading does not bring in that concern: it centres upon the problem of evil in the world or, in broader terms, the relation of the ambiguous time-world to the luminous world of Eternity.
Yes, it is nothing odd that the anti-Urizen Los-movement which we see reflected in The Tyger through the smith-actions before Urizen's Fall from Heaven should be unique to the poem and have no full-fledged counterparts elsewhere. But, of course, it would be everything odd if the rest of Blake did not reflect in idea, image and even word, variously employed, that very movement under different circumstances. Let us note the reflections both in general and in particular.
"Los," writes Blackstone,231 "takes pity on the world of generation as it is created, and enters it along with Urizen... The course of history now takes the shape of a struggle between these two great opponents; imagination for ever attempting to define error so that, when it is understood, it may be cast out: preparing a way for man to return to Eternity" out of the Vegetative Universe, "the order of law which is death"232 and out of Vala, the Shadow-Nature that is "opaque to the Divine Vision".233 Also, "Los stands creating the glorious Sun"234 -"'twas outward a Sun, inward Los in his might"235 - "Los stood in that fierce glowing fire"236 - he is the Poetic and Prophetic Sun-spirit who makes any soul, possessed by his "terrors", arise "in fury & strength".237 In the natural order he is Time which "is the mercy of Eternity", for "without Time's swiftness... all were eternal torment"238 in a world built by Urizen the "Schoolmaster of souls, great opposer of change".239 At one point of the world's history he could even say, "both Time &
231.Op. cit., p. 71.
232.Ibid., p. 84.
233.Ibid., p. 216.
234.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 517 (Milton I, 29, 1.41).
235.Ibid., p. 818 (The Letters, 24, 1.58).
236.Ibid., p. 505 (Milton, I, 22, 1.8).
237.Ibid.
238.Ibid., p. 510 (ibid., 24, 11.72-73).
239.Ibid., p. 360 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth, 1.131).
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Space obey my will."240 In his eternal station he "was Urthona, keeper of the gates of heaven".241 Once he is made to announce that actually, even here below, he retains his station in secret:
"I know I am Urthona, keeper of the Gates of Heaven, "And that I can at will expatiate in the Gardens of bliss..."242
"I know I am Urthona, keeper of the Gates of Heaven,
"And that I can at will expatiate in the Gardens of
bliss..."242
He means that not from necessity but through love he has entered the world of Generation. That is why he says also:
"I am inspired. I act not for myself; for Albion's sake "I now am what I am!"243
"I am inspired. I act not for myself; for Albion's sake
"I now am what I am!"243
But, whatever his voluntary fall, he is able to compel his Spectre, as Blackstone244 states, "to help him at his work in the furnaces, in the building of Golgonooza" in the midst of the stricken universe. "His city of art, which is also a citadel of forgiveness where the rhythm of Eternity may be made real and preserved in this world":245 this is Golgonooza. There Los is acknowledged by his Spectre as "the sole, uncontroll'd Lord of the Furnaces"246 - furnaces that play in Blake's mythology a multiple role: afflictive, retributive, destructive, formative, redemptive, transmutative. Los, again, though only one of the Four Zoas, is the most potent; for, though the other two, Luvah and Tharmas, are also perpetually in revolt against Urizen, "they would be powerless without the aid of Los".247 Eternity, as a spirit of illumining Unity and Blissful Harmony, is thus chiefly embodied in him and he therefore approximates to the Divine Humanity, the One Man, who is Christ. How else indeed could he help it when, as Raine grants, his job is precisely to restore what was lost in the beginning?
240.Ibid., p. 505 (Milton I, 22, 1.17).
241.Ibid., p. 298 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Fourth, 1.42).
242.Ibid., 727 (Jerusalem 4, 82,11.81-82).
243.Ibid., p. 627 (ibid., 1, 8, 11.17-18).
244.Op. cit., p. 161.
245.Ibid.
246.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 627 (Jerusalem 1, 8, 7.26).
247.Blackstone, op. cit., p. 200.
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In a certain matter of great importance to universal history we hear of "the Divine Saviour" acting formatively "by Los's Mathematic power".248 Los also strives to draw Christ into "a mortal form" and declares his birth a certainty in the fullness of time,249 and "he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble":250 he is delegated to "watch... till Jesus shall appear".251 At one place Blake writes: "the Divine Vision appear'd with Los"252 -and at another: "the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los".253 So Los gets assimilated into Christ. And elsewhere too, when Blake refers, without giving names, to Tharmas as the Strong Man, Luvah as the Beautiful Man and Urizen as the Ugly Man, he says: "They were originally one man, who was fourfold;... and the form of the fourth was like the Son of God."254 The identification of Los with Christ is suggested in full when we hear of "the Poetic Genius, which is the Lord"255 -
the Poetic Genius Who is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity256 -
the Poetic Genius
Who is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity256 -
"the Poetic Genius, which is everywhere call'd the Spirit of Prophecy",257 and when we come to read about Los: "he is the Spirit of Prophecy".258 Christ shades off into Los the Sun-spirit also when Christ is named not only "the Lord of Love" but "the God of Fire".259
From all these facets of Blake's vision we may reconstruct the Tyger's maker - the "he" - as Christ incorporating in one anonymous avatar a quintessential Los and hammering out in
248.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 517 (Milton I, 29, 11.37-38).
249.Ibid., p. 272 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.293-294).
250.Ibid., p. 656 (Jerusalem 2, 30, 1.15).
251.Ibid., p. 674 (ibid., 44, 11.29-30).
252.Ibid., p. 655 (ibid., 30, 1.19).
253.Ibid., p. 743 (ibid., 4, 96, 1.7).
254.Ibid., p. 578 (A Descriptive Catalogue).
255.Ibid., p. 90 (Annotation to Swedenborg's Divine Love, p. 10).
256.Ibid., p. 495 (Milton I, 14, 11.1-2).
257.Ibid., p. 98 (All Religions Are One, Principle 5th).
258.Ibid., p. 510 (Milton I, 24, 1.71).
259.Ibid., p. 621 (Jerusalem 1, 3).
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his furnace and on his anvil the Wrath-form of himself - Christ the Tyger - that should attack and expel Urizen and his "myriads" who have revolted in Heaven. Christ, to Blake, is essentially the Divine Being who, on the one side, is mildness and mercy and, on the other, the fiery anger against that portion of Supernatural life, the Zoa Urizen, when this Zoa rebels in Supernature or when he and all that derives from him in Nature and history grow predominant with their "restrictions" and "established rules" - the fiery anger breaking from the Vision of the Whole and acting especially through the Zoa Los.
The Los who could be Christ's frontal aspect in the working out of the Tyger's "fearful symmetry" is he who is addressed by Enitharmon, his "Emanation", in terms like:
"O Lovely terrible Los, wonder of Eternity, O Los, my defence & guide, "Thy works are all my joy & in thy fires my soul delights; "If mild they burn in just proportion, & in secret night "And silence build their day in shadow of soft cloud & dews, "Then I can sigh forth on the winds of Golgonooza piteous forms "That vanish again into my bosom; but if thou, my Los, "Wilt in sweet moderated fury fabricate forms sublime, "Such as the piteous spectres may assimilate themselves into, "They shall be ransom for our Souls that we may live."260
"O Lovely terrible Los, wonder of Eternity, O Los, my
defence & guide,
"Thy works are all my joy & in thy fires my soul delights;
"If mild they burn in just proportion, & in secret night
"And silence build their day in shadow of soft cloud &
dews,
"Then I can sigh forth on the winds of Golgonooza
piteous forms
"That vanish again into my bosom; but if thou, my Los,
"Wilt in sweet moderated fury fabricate forms sublime,
"Such as the piteous spectres may assimilate themselves
into,
"They shall be ransom for our Souls that we may live."260
And the Los who could be working at one of the "forms sublime" - the Tyger - with "sweet moderated fury" (like our poem's combined "shoulder" and "art") is he who is described further in the lines just following the above:
So Enitharmon spoke, & Los, his hands divine inspir'd, began To Modulate his fires; studious the loud roaring flames
So Enitharmon spoke, & Los, his hands divine inspir'd,
began
To Modulate his fires; studious the loud roaring flames
260. Ibid., p. 331 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Seventh, a, 447-455).
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He vanquish'd with his strength of Art, bending their iron points And drawing them forth delighted upon the winds of Golgonooza From out the ranks of Urizen's war...261
He vanquish'd with his strength of Art, bending their iron
points
And drawing them forth delighted upon the winds of
Golgonooza
From out the ranks of Urizen's war...261
The Los of The Tyger flashes upon us most directly when we read the concluding part of The Book of Los etched in 1795. Although the theme is not quite the same, there is Los not only acting against Urizen but also making a bright-burning instrument with the help of a smithy:
Then Light first began: from the fires, Beams, conducted by fluid so pure, Flow'd around the Immense. Los beheld Forthwith, writhing upon the dark void, The Black bone of Urizen appear Hurtling upon the wind Like a serpent!... Upfolding his Fibres together To a Form of impregnable strength, Los, astonish'd and terrified, built Furnaces; he form'd an Anvil, A Hammer of adamant: then began The binding of Urizen day and night. Circling round the dark Demon with howlings, Dismay & sharp blightings, the Prophet Of Eternity beat on his iron links. And first from those infinite fires, The light that flow'd down on the winds He siez'd, beating incessant, condensing The subtil particles in an Orb. Roaring indignant, the bright sparks Endur'd the vast Hammer; but unwearied Los beat on the Anvil, till glorious
Then Light first began: from the fires,
Beams, conducted by fluid so pure,
Flow'd around the Immense. Los beheld
Forthwith, writhing upon the dark void,
The Black bone of Urizen appear
Hurtling upon the wind
Like a serpent!...
Upfolding his Fibres together
To a Form of impregnable strength,
Los, astonish'd and terrified, built
Furnaces; he form'd an Anvil,
A Hammer of adamant: then began
The binding of Urizen day and night.
Circling round the dark Demon with howlings,
Dismay & sharp blightings, the Prophet
Of Eternity beat on his iron links.
And first from those infinite fires,
The light that flow'd down on the winds
He siez'd, beating incessant, condensing
The subtil particles in an Orb.
Roaring indignant, the bright sparks
Endur'd the vast Hammer; but unwearied
Los beat on the Anvil, till glorious
261. Ibid., p. 331 (ibid., 11.456-461).
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An immense Orb of fire he fram'd. Oft he quench'd it beneath in the Deeps, Then survey'd the all bright mass, Again Siezing fires from the terrible Orbs, He heated the round Globe, then beat While, roaring, his Furnaces endur'd The chain'd Orb in their infinite wombs. Nine ages completed their circles When Los heated the glowing mass, casting It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled Away in redounding smoke: the Sun Stood self-balanc'd. And Los smil'd with joy. He the vast Spine of Urizen siez'd, And bound down to the glowing illusion.262
An immense Orb of fire he fram'd.
Oft he quench'd it beneath in the Deeps,
Then survey'd the all bright mass, Again
Siezing fires from the terrible Orbs,
He heated the round Globe, then beat
While, roaring, his Furnaces endur'd
The chain'd Orb in their infinite wombs.
Nine ages completed their circles
When Los heated the glowing mass, casting
It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled
Away in redounding smoke: the Sun
Stood self-balanc'd. And Los smil'd with joy.
He the vast Spine of Urizen siez'd,
And bound down to the glowing illusion.262
Of course, some differences are evident. The Deeps here are obviously liquid and are below and have nothing to do with the origin of the Orb fashioned by Los. Los himself is in a mood somewhat at variance with that of the Tyger's fashioner: at least, being terrified or dismayed could have no place in the latter. The serpent-like black bone of Urizen too has no parallel in The Tyger. But all else is remarkably reminiscent in a transposed manner. We begin with a light and fire set over against a vast darkness. Then there is the suggestion of limbs of a close-knit grandiose strength at labour, with hammer and anvil and chain and furnace, to frame a glowing form. The fire and light of this form come originally from above, they flow down to Los and he seizes them to condense the subtle stuff into an Orb, a Sun, which may be likened to a flaming eye or heart or brain of terrific power, at once intense in heat and gloriously bright. In the end, after the flowing mass is ready for the Prophet of Eternity to use against the dark Demon, the maker is associated with a smile at the sight of it. So much basic correspondence, both in idea and word, could hardly be accidental.
262. Ibid., pp. 259-260 ( The Book of Los, Ch. IV, 11 . 16, 18-47).
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What is said about the chain is of special interest. For it partly elucidates a point which we were left to guess in The Tyger. the function of the chain. Now the function is suggested to be control over the material while it is being heated and moulded. We may remember that, just as here the hammer-beating and the Furnace-heating accompany the mention of the "chain'd Orb", we have in The Tyger the statement effecting a similar quadruple combination:
What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain?
What the hammer? What the chain?
The "brain" here appears to answer to the "Orb" there, and we have also likened the "Orb" to a flaming eye or heart such as The Tyger deals with. But we may add that the "chain'd Orb" would not be far away in Blake's mind from the whole bright-burning Tyger held with a chain. In a longer poem of his, Blake again speaks of Los's Sun. He tells of how "the Sun that glow'd o'er Los" is taken by priests and priestesses and put into Urizen's temple to give light to the Abyss. And the phrase used about "the terrible Orb / Compell'd" is:
...The Sun, redd'ning like a fierce lion in his chains...
Yes, Los creating the anti-Urizen Sun can be very strikingly seen as harking back to the smith-creator of the Tyger. And if the Sun made by him suggests "a fierce lion" we may recollect from the opposite side what we have said apropos of the creation of Blake's Tyger and the creation of the sun in Milton's Paradise Lost. In passing, we may mark also the Miltonic touches in the account of Los's sun-creation. Milton starts with
Light Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure...263
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure...263
Blake starts with:
263. Paradise Lost. Bk. VII, 11.243-244.
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Beams, conducted by fluid so pure...
Milton continues about Christ's creative process:
For, of celestial bodies, first the Sun A mighty sphere he fram'd...264 Of light by far the greater part he took, Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and plac'd In the Sun's orb...265
A mighty sphere he fram'd...264
In the Sun's orb...265
Blake continues:
And first from those infinite fires, The light that flow'd down on the winds He seiz'd... ...till glorious An immense Orb of fire he fram'd.
He seiz'd...
...till glorious
Milton makes the general statement about the creation of the heavenly bodies:
God saw. Surveying his great work, that it was good.266
God saw.
Surveying his great work, that it was good.266
Blake writes that Los, having created the Sun-Orb,
Then survey'd the all bright mass... ...And Los smil'd with joy.
Then survey'd the all bright mass...
...And Los smil'd with joy.
These Miltonic touches of Blake's join Los's Sun-creation all the more to the Tyger-creation in our poem in view of the affinity we have found between the latter and Milton's description but the main point with which we are concerned is the converse of Blake's comparison of Los's Sun to a blazing beast of prey: the fiery carnivore of our poem, whose "fearful symmetry" like the "mighty... Sun's orb" of Milton was framed from fire obtained by a going up to a mass of light burning on high, could figure in a parable of sunrise. A burning brightness
264.Ibid., 11.354-355.
265.Ibid., 11.359-361.
266.Ibid., 11.352-353.
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breaking into a depth of night, like a Tyger into a dense forest, and overwhelming the stars which were a-glitter like spear-tips and which had remained undispelled by the white fleece-like lustre of a Lamb-mild moon - such indeed might be a sub-symbolism read on a superficial level in The Tyger. Then Los's creation of the "fierce lion" of the anti-Urizen Sun would most aptly echo the creation of our bright-burning Tyger by a supernatural smith.
Thus everything converges on our idea of a Los-incorporating Christ as the maker of a heavenly Tyger. Perhaps a last plea for Urizen's being the ultimate maker of a Nature-symbolizing carnivore may be based on the word "work" in Blake's lyric. We may be told: "Blake calls Urizen 'the great Work master'267 and therefore he should be considered the author of the 'work' that is the Tyger!" Admittedly Blake's Urizen corresponds predominantly to the Workman of the old traditions about the Demiurge; but, even apart from the fact that Los is the master smith in Blake, the single word "work" is hardly enough to form a direct link with Urizen's role as "the great Work master": it can just as appositely be brought into relation with Blake's use of "work" in various non-Urizenic contexts. We can neutralize the connection of this term with Urizen by quoting a number of lines. There is the one about Luvah:
The workmanship of Luvah's hands in times of everlasting...268
The workmanship of Luvah's hands in times of
everlasting...268
Raine herself has referred to the "Enormous work" of Los in building anew the "Ruin'd Furnaces" of Urizen. We have drawn upon Enitharmon's phrases to Los, including the line:
"Thy works are all my joy & in thy fires my soul delights..."
"Thy works are all my joy & in thy fires my soul
delights..."
Now we may add:
267. Keynes, ed. cit., p. 280 ( Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Second, 11 .22).
268. Ibid. , p. 282 (ibid. , 1.82).
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Enormous works Los contemplated inspir'd by the holy Spirit...269
Enormous works Los contemplated inspir'd by the holy
Spirit...269
the immortal works Of Los...270
the immortal works
Of Los...270
What is most pertinent in our poem, we have even those lines on Christ himself, "my Lord", as Urizen calls him in the self-censuring lament about his own closing up to the Light and his subsequent fall:
"O Fool! to think I could hide from his all piercing eyes "The gold & silver & costly stones, his holy workmanship!...."271
"O Fool! to think I could hide from his all piercing eyes
"The gold & silver & costly stones, his holy
workmanship!...."271
No, the Tyger of our poem need not be Urizen's work on any score.
We have now finished dealing with Raine's interpretation, enriching ourselves with its perspicacities, exceeding the range of its application, discerning what is defective in it. Our scrutiny of it has fundamentally cleared our own way of all obstacles: we have now only a few minor features of The Tyger to examine in the light of Blake's other writings.
(g)
Our idea of Los incorporated in Christ may account to some extent for Christ's wingedness in The Tyger. Rather we may say that the incorporation renders it all the more natural for Blake to give Christ the wings which either by identification with the Angel Michael during the war in Heaven or through rising in an ensemble with the Cherubim or as the creative divinity one in action with the Holy Spirit or for any other reason doctrinal or poetic the Son of God would tend to acquire in Christological
269.Ibid., p. 343 (ibid., Night the Eighth, 1.108).
270.Ibid., p. 332 (ibid., Night the Seventh, 11.473-474).
271.Ibid., p. 310 (ibid., Night the Fifth, 77.214-125).
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thought. Before we look at Los's contribution we may see what factors Blake openly shows to be influencing him towards a winged Christ.
Blake clearly implies the winged Holy Ghost to be the Spirit of Christ in one of his longest "Prophecies", Jerusalem. There are some passages where he speaks of the inspiration he draws for his poem. In two of them he mentions Jesus directly:
...I see the Saviour over me Spreading his beams of love & dictating the words of this mild song...272 O Saviour, pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love! Annihilate the Selfhood in me: be thou all my life! Guide thou my hand, which trembles exceedingly upon the rock of ages, While I write...273
...I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love & dictating the words of this
mild song...272
O Saviour, pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love!
Annihilate the Selfhood in me: be thou all my life!
Guide thou my hand, which trembles exceedingly upon
the rock of ages,
While I write...273
In a third passage Blake invokes for his poetic and prophetic mission the help of a winged divineness -
...O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings...274
If Jesus dictates the song and is asked to be all the poet's life and to guide the writing hand, then his Spirit which he is invoked to pour upon the poet must be the same as the Divine Spirit whose wings are sought for sustenance. This conclusion is borne out by another phrase combining the latter with Christ:
Teach me, O Holy Spirit, the Testimony of Jesus! let me Comprehend wonderous things out of the Divine Law!275
Teach me, O Holy Spirit, the Testimony of Jesus! let me
Comprehend wonderous things out of the Divine Law!275
So it is almost as if Blake were addressing a winged Christ to grant him grace for artistic and spiritual creativity.
We may add that a symbolic association of wings with divinity is found also in a design of Blake's for Jerusalem. The fallen condition of "Albion" who represents the race of man is
272. Ibid., p. 622 (Jerusalem, 1 , 4, l l .4-5).
273. Ibid., p. 623 (ibid. , 1, 5 , 11 .21-24).
274. Ibid., p. 635 (ibid. , 1, 15, 1 .9) .
275. Ibid., p. 714 (ibid. , 3, 74, 11. 14-15).
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shown below an emblem in which man upheld by Christ the Divine Humanity is resting on a winged disk. The winged disk, illustrated both in Bryant's Mythology and in Stukeley's Ave-bury and Stonehenge, represents God the Father. If even God the Father could thus be associated with wings, the analogy to a winged Christ should not be difficult in case the poetic situation called for such a figure.
Now for Los. To conceive Los as winged is not only consistent with Blake's particular images of the other Zoas: it is also directly prompted by certain passages on the Zoas collectively. Even otherwise we should be forced to give wings to all the Zoas, for Blake speaks of them as "the Four Living Creatures, the Cherubim"276 and speaks elsewhere of "Wings of Cherubim"277 and "Cherubim of Tender-Mercy / Stretching their Wings sublime".278 In a scene concerned with Urizen's fallen state we have "his shudd'ring waving wings"279 and in his final transfigured state he rises on "wings of tenfold joy" and claps "his radiant wings".280 Tharmas flies with "wing'd speed" and stretches his "wings".281 As for Luvah or Orc, Witcutt282 tells us about "the mighty winged figure of Orc" in the picture which forms the frontispiece of America (1793). And if three out of the four Zoas carry wings, it is logical to believe that Los does the same. Indeed, all of them are on a par in regard to wingedness in the passages about whose action Blackstone283 writes: "Los, who 'was the friend of Albion who most lov'd him', and the other Zoas are also willing to sacrifice themselves; and when it is found that the Fallen Man rejects their counsel and love, they try to bear him back on their wings 'against his will thro' Los's Gate to Eden'. But this they cannot do..." The actual verses, while repeatedly showing the four
276.Ibid., p. 696 (ibid., 3, 63,1.44).
277.Ibid., p. 645 (ibid., 1, 22, 1.36).
278.Ibid., p. 647 (ibid., 1, 24, 11.22-23).
279.Ibid., p. 248 (The Song of Los, Asia, 7, 1.10).
280.Ibid., p. 366 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth, 1.248).
281.Ibid., p. 380 (ibid., Additional Fragments, 11.14, 16).
282.Blake: A Psychological Study (London, 1946), p. 38.
283.Op. cit. p. 166.
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Zoas as winged, clinch our point about their being winged because they are Cherubim:
With one accord in love sublime, &, as on Cherubs' wings, They Albion surround with kindest violence to bear him back Against his will thro' Los's Gate to Eden. Fourfold, loud, Their Wings waving over the bottomless Immense, to bear Their awful charge back to his native home...284 the immortal Wings labour'd against Cliff after cliff & over Valleys of despair & death.285
With one accord in love sublime, &, as on Cherubs' wings,
They Albion surround with kindest violence to bear him
back
Against his will thro' Los's Gate to Eden. Fourfold, loud,
Their Wings waving over the bottomless Immense, to bear
Their awful charge back to his native home...284
the immortal Wings labour'd against
Cliff after cliff & over Valleys of despair & death.285
Thus Los can contribute to make Christ fly on wings in The Tyger - Christ who, in the mythology including both him and Los, gets, as we have mentioned, completely identified at times with this Zoa.
In connection with Los we get too a sidelight on winged-ness as part of a supernatural power in creative activity. Blake has spoken of "Los, who is of the Elohim"286 and mentioned "Elohim, who created Adam".287 Now, Bateson288 writes: "Blake's fine colour-print known as 'The Elohim Creating Adam' (1795) depicts the creator as a majestic winged human figure hovering in the air immediately above the newly created Adam." Christ as the Tyger's creator would most appropriately be winged because of his fusion with Los.
The Los-element in the Tyger's creator may also add to the aspiring we have attributed to the Christ of the poem. No theological problem could arise from the idea of Los the Zoa desiring earnestly to gain the fire of the topmost empyrean: indeed such desiring is precisely what we should expect. Aspiration in the sense of mounting up is also what a Zoa would be expected to do on his wings or in any other way. Both the senses of the word can be traced in Blake. We hear Los saying:
284.Keynes, ed. cit. p. 674 (Jerusalem 2, 44, 11.1-5).
285.Ibid., p. 674 (ibid., 2, 11.12-13).
286.Ibid., p. 713 (ibid., 3, 73, 1.26).
287.Ibid., 351 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Eighth. 1.401).
288.Op. cit., p. 118.
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"We therefore, for whose sake all things aspire to be & live, "Will so receive the Divine Image..."289
"We therefore, for whose sake all things aspire to be &
live,
"Will so receive the Divine Image..."289
And we hear about Urizen as a Dragon:
his folding tail aspires Among the stars.290
his folding tail aspires
Among the stars.290
In the shorter poems we get, as in The Tyger, the word so used as simultaneously to admit of both the meanings. There is "that sweet golden clime"
Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow Arise from their graves, and aspire Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.291
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.291
A fragment has the line:
And there to Eternity aspire...292
Even without bringing in the Zoa Los we may draw from Blake support for our picture of Christ aspiring, as the Son may to the Father in the dynamics of divinity although essentially they may be one and equal. We have already quoted the line in which the incarnate Christ says:
"I am doing my Father's business..."293
A mission received is here, and the relationship of difference-in-identity which permits it on earth need not debar it in Heaven. And if a mission can be received as by the Godhead's Second Person from the First, it can also be sought from the latter by the former. Actually we have a passage where the
289.Keynes, ed. cit. p. 272 (Vaia, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.296-297).
290.Ibid., p. 352 {ibid.. Night the Eighth, 11.447-448).
291.Ibid., p. 215 (Songs of Experience, Ah! Sun-flower, II.5-8).
292.Ibid., p. 421 (Poems and Fragments from the Note-book, 1800-1803,8, 7.5).
293.Ibid., p. 750 (The Everlasting Gospel, c, 1.8).
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seeking is suggested. Terrified by the events of the Fall of Albion, the "Daughters of Beulah" who are the emanations of Eternity, address the Divine Vision, the Saviour:
"Lord Saviour, if thou hadst been here our brother had not died, "And now we know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God "He will give it thee..."294
"Lord Saviour, if thou hadst been here our brother had
not died,
"And now we know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of
"He will give it thee..."294
At this point some general remarks will be in order about Blake's attitude to God the Father and God the Son. We may be told: "Blake's final system holds Christ as the supreme divinity and there is no explicit place for God the Father, even in the shape of an ultimate empyrean higher in some sense than the power of Christ though in another sense his own domain. Blake has even a strong animus against the father-concept: fatherhood, kinghood, priesthood - all these meant to him repression and hypocrisy. And, as Blackstone295 notes, it is "Urizen to whom, most commonly, he applies the title 'father': 'Father of jealousies', 'cruel Father of men'. Further, as is well known, 'Urizen is Blake's version of the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the creator of this world, a mistaken demon not to be worshipped... At times, indeed, he sets Jesus up in contrast to Jehovah."296 Would we then not be wise to suspect an interpretation which openly makes Christ the secondary Godhead?
The answer is that the Christian tradition with its theology of Father and Son was really never submerged in Blake's system at any stage. Nor was the title "father" debarred from applying to the highest spiritual being. What are we to make of "the Heav'nly Father" in the lines about the "Four Mighty Ones", the "Living Creatures" at the beginning of The Four Zoas (begun 1795)?297 Surely there is no question in them of Urizen
294.Ibid., p. 304 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Fourth, 11.253-255).
295.Op. cit., p. 367.
296.Ibid., pp. 66, 36.8.
297.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 264 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the First, 11.9-13).
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being "the Heav'nly Father" who exceeds the Zoas and is the sole Being who can know their "Natures". In the same poem we hear the Eternals announcing the truth:
"Not for ourselves, but for the Eternal Family we live. "Man liveth not by Self alone, but in his brother's face "Each shall behold the Eternal Father & love & joy abound."298
"Not for ourselves, but for the Eternal Family we live.
"Man liveth not by Self alone, but in his brother's face
"Each shall behold the Eternal Father & love & joy
abound."298
The verses, sent in a letter to the sculptor Flaxman on 12th September 1800, commence:
I bless thee, O Father of Heaven & Earth! that ever I saw Flaxman's face....299
I bless thee, O Father of Heaven & Earth! that ever I
saw Flaxman's face....299
In a letter to Flaxman of October 19, 1801, Blake expresses the faith that, with the peace concluded with Napoleon, the millennium itself is dawning: "The Kingdoms of this World are now become the Kingdoms of God & his Christ..."300 Here Christ is spoken of in distinction from God to whom, as if Son to Father, he belongs. In a letter to Butts, April 25, 1803, Blake writes: "I see the face of my heavenly Father; he lays his Hand upon my Head & gives a blessing to all my works."301 Again, in Milton (begun 1804), when speaking of the divine inwardness of things like even "the little winged fly" that has "a brain open to heaven & hell, / Withinside wondrous & expansive", he has the words to "Mortal man":
Seek not thy heavenly father then beyond the skies, There Chaos dwells & ancient Night & Og & Anak old.302
Seek not thy heavenly father then beyond the skies,
There Chaos dwells & ancient Night & Og & Anak old.302
In Jerusalem (begun a little later in the same year), there are the lines:
For not one sparrow can suffer & the whole Universe not suffer also
For not one sparrow can suffer & the whole Universe not
suffer also
298. Ibid., p. 374 (ibid., Night the Ninth, 11 .640-642).
299. Ibid., p. 799 ( The Letters , 11 , 1 . i).
300. Ibid., p. 810 (ibid., 21 ) .
301. Ibid., p. 823 (ibid., 26).
302. Ibid., p. 502 (Milton I. 20, 11 .32-33).
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In all its Regions & its Father & Saviour not pity and weep.303
In all its Regions & its Father & Saviour not pity and
weep.303
To make the Heavenly Father an aspect of Christ instead of the latter being an aspect of the former or both essentially identical co-members of a Trinity does not erase the Father-sense. And what except that sense leads Blake to call Christ "the Eternal Father",304 "the Universal Father"?305 It would seem that even though God the Father had no explicit place side by side with Christ in Blake's final religio-mythological scheme He was not quite absent from Blake's own mind. And when he spoke of Christ within some sort of traditional framework he did not hesitate to bring in God the Father at even a very late stage. Thus The Everlasting Gospel, with the phrase "I am doing my Father's business" dates to 1818. In one place, at the very beginning of Milton, we have a phrase whose implication is God who is not only the Father as distinguished from the Son but also the Deity differing from Christ by being hidden away from sight, such as we have put in the "distant deeps or skies" of our lyric. The phrase is: "Jesus, the image of the Invisible God."306 A similar phrase about Jesus is in Jerusalem: "the Divine Similitude"307 - an echo from the traditional nomenclature in Paradise Lost:
Begotten son. Divine Similitude...308
The other phrase throws our minds back at once to the Christian tradition expressed in the lines of Milton just following the above -
In whose conspicuous count'nance without cloud Made visible, the Almighty Father shines -
In whose conspicuous count'nance without cloud
Made visible, the Almighty Father shines -
and derived from St. Paul's phrase about Christ: "the image of
303. Ibid. , p. 648 (Jerusalem I , 25. 11 .8-9 ) .
304. Ibid. . p. 374 ( Vala, o r The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth. 1 . 642 ) .
305. Ibid. , p. 744 (Jerusalem 4. 97. 1 . 6 ) .
306. Ibid. , p. 481 ( Milton 1. 2 .1. 12 ) .
307. Ibid. , p. 664 (Jerusalem 2 . 38, 1 . II ) .
308. Paradise Lost. Bk . II . 1 . 383.
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the invisible God"309 - as well as from the saying in The Gospel of St. John: "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."310 So, taking a comprehensive view, we need not be surprised at tracing in The Tyger a traditional Christian tinge in the midst of the theme of Christ-Los versus Urizen.
Here perhaps another point may be raised in connection with our reading of Los and Urizen in The Tyger. It may be objected: "The Tyger is too early a poem to permit the alignment of its symbolism with Blake's mythology." We may first remark that Raine herself is not averse to talking about both Urizen and Los in discussing our poem. And we may justify her as well as ourselves by laying out a certain pattern of facts. Although it is not unlikely that The Tyger was written between the summer or autumn of 1791 and November or December of 1792,311 the sole certainty about the terminus ad quem is that the poem was written before October 1793 when Blake announced in a "Prospectus" or sale catalogue of his engravings The Songs of Experience to which the poem belonged.312 Prior to its composition the name "Luvah" appeared in The Book of Thel (etched 1789).313 Also, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (etching completed by about 1793) was mostly written:314 it was begun as far back as 1790, the date which in Butts' copy Blake put against an opening passage which has a chronological reference.315 Now, in "The Argument" which precedes even this passage we twice have Rintrah roaring and shaking his fires316 - Rintrah who is an important figure in Blake's mythology and who openly functions as a part of it only in Europe (etched about 1794).317 And in "A Song of Liberty"318 with
309. Colossians, I:15. 310. I:16.
311.Bateson, op. cit., p. 108.
312.Ibid., p. 104.
313.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 128, (The Book of Thel, 3, II, 1.8).
314.Bateson, op. cit., p. 128.
315.Ibid.
316.Keynes, ed. cit., pp. 148-149 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 2, 11.1, 21).
317.Ibid., pp. 240, 242 (Europe, 12, 1.24; 5, 1.4; 8, 1.5).
318.Ibid., p. 159 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 25-27:16).
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which The Marriage ends "we have the first mention of Urthona, the noblest of the Four Zoas, while Urizen, Tharmas, Vala and the revolutionary Orc are referred to in unmistakable terms."319 This "Song" also says320 about its nameless Urizen: "the jealous wings wav'd over the deep" and "Down rush'd, beating his wings in vain, the jealous king..." In the body itself of The Marriage Satan is already implied to be "Ratio", the rational principle. So, besides some other mythological ideas, the essential Zoa-conception, though not the whole Zoa-nomenclature, antedates The Tyger. In The Songs of Experience itself, the second poem Earth's Answer dating to 1791321 has the expressions "Starry Jealousy"322 and
"Selfish father of men! "Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!"323
"Selfish father of men!
"Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!"323
which at once join up with "the jealous king" as well as "the starry king"324 of "A Song of Liberty" and thus undeniably bring in Urizen. Another poem The Human Abstract,325 mentioning the Tree of Mystery and a personification of Cruelty, can be proved in the light of subsequent writings to have Urizen for its theme. Hence at least one of the Zoas definitely figures twice in the very series that contains The Tyger. And Urizen is present even by name in The Visions of the Daughters of Albion (etched in 1793).326 He is also called "Creator of men"327 and "Father of Jealousy',328 as if to clinch the reading of his presence in "A Song of Liberty" and in Earth's Answer.
Further, it is somewhat tricky to limit a vision or conception of Blake's to the date when it gets expressed for the first time. In Europe (1794) Urizen is already established on the earth
319.Blackstone, op. cit., p. 52.
320.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 159 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 25-27:9, 15).
321.Bateson, op. cit., pp. 112, 109.
322.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 211 (Songs of Experience, Earth's Answer, 1.7).
323.Ibid., p. 211 (ibid., 11.11-12).
324.Ibid., p. 159 (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 25-27, 15, 10).
325.Ibid., p. 217 (Songs of Experience, The Human Abstract, 77.7-8, 16, 22).
326.Ibid., p. 192 (The Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 5, 1.3).
327.Ibid., p.
328.Ibid., p. 194 (ibid., 7, 1.12).
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with his false religion,329 and Los, whose name first occurs here,330 figures as "the prophetic genius... attempting to restore Urizen to his place in the South (to restore, that is, reason to its right sphere, the intellect)."331 But the original defection of Urizen from the heavenly unity and his getting a place in the North, creating a material universe, being chained by Los and then getting free are recounted in The First Book of Urizen which followed Europe in the same year. Los's own entry into the material universe, the entry which is a fact in Europe, is pictured not before 1795 when The Book of Los is produced. The Song of Los, which belongs also to 1795, "is clearly anterior in its action to the two earlier books Europe and America."332 Again, America, dated 1793, assumes events that are recorded a full year later: "the symbolic action of the poem is puzzling to those who read Blake chronologically, for the vision of Orc in chains with which it begins is only comprehensible when we are acquainted with the events in The Book of Urizen (1794)."333 Blake's visions or conceptions are not always to be dated according to the time-sequence of his books. Things might exist in his mind at one time and get recorded at another, and we have no chronological gauge in some matters of his inner life in "Eternity".
Considering all this, we need not hesitate to align in fundamental spirit Blake's later mythology with The Tyger.
(h)
We may now make a few comments on The Tyger in connection with the lines on Christ which, though written nearly twenty-five years later, bring again the temper and imaginative movement and even a few word-turns of the early lyric to our minds:
329. Ibid. , p. 241 (Europe, 10, 11 . 1-31).
330. Ibid. , p. 239 (ibid., 4, 1 .7) .
331. Blackstone, op. cit. , p. 57.
332. Ibid. , p. 76.
333. Ibid., p. 55.
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Became a chariot of fire... And Satan in his Spiritual War Drag'd at his Chariot wheels:... And in his hand the Scourge-shone bright;... And thus with wrath he did subdue The Serpent Bulk of Nature's dross...334
Became a chariot of fire...
Drag'd at his Chariot wheels:...
And in his hand the Scourge-shone bright;...
And thus with wrath he did subdue
The Serpent Bulk of Nature's dross...334
The first two lines present us with a projection of "ire" into a concrete shape moving, as it were, apart from though under the control of the one whose state of being is expressed by it. The projected and expressive shape which here is the "chariot of fire" makes a perfect analogue to the Tyger in our poem. And the analogue is all the more perfect because, just as here it is Christ's "ire" that becomes "a chariot of fire", it is Christ's dreadfulness that in our reading becomes a fire-eyed bright-burning carnivore. The imaginative movement we have seen in The Tyger gets full support.
Then there is the turn: "shone bright". It is akin to our poem's "burning bright". Applied to the Scourge of Christ, it suggests a pointed association of not only intense heat but also keen light with the Divine, and imports into the kindred expression of our poem a presence of divinity.
We catch a similar gloss on that expression from what we read in Jerusalem about the regeneration of the fallen universal manhood of Albion the Giant into the Divine Humanity:
The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills. Albion rose In anger, the wrath of God breaking, bright flaming on all sides around His awful limbs; into the Heavens he walked, clothed in flames, Loud thund'ring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms in direful
The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills.
Albion rose
In anger, the wrath of God breaking, bright flaming on all
sides around
His awful limbs; into the Heavens he walked, clothed in
flames,
Loud thund'ring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning
& pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms
in direful
334. Keynes, ed. cit., p. 749 (The Everlasting Gospel, b, 77.33-34, 42-43, 52-53).
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Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro' the Four Elements on all sides Surrounding his awful Members.335
Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro' the Four Elements
on all sides
Surrounding his awful Members.335
There is nothing to distinguish this wrath of God, bright-flaming on all sides around limbs, loud-thundering in the Heavens, from the Tyger as we have viewed it. To burn or flame or shine bright is for Blake an essentially divine act - just as to be like the Sun is. In The Four Zoas the Divine Countenance is seen as "the bright Light" and in it "a Human Form" which is known to be "the Saviour, Even Jesus".336 In the same poem Blake speaks of "the bright visions of Eternity" in which, at the time of the universal regeneration, all limbs will be bathed by "flames of mental fire".337
A letter to Butts on October 2, 1800, contains a poem whose vision gives the apprehension of Christ as the unity of all things, "One Man", and we get the lines:
Soft consum'd in delight In his bosom Sun bright I remain'd.338
Soft consum'd in delight
In his bosom Sun bright
I remain'd.338
This poem has also the phrase:
Heavenly Men beaming bright...339
And the identical phrase in a transposed shape we get when we hear of the disunited Zoas coming together in a regenerated Albion: even Urizen resumes his divinity in the Fourfold Vision and then he is "bright beaming Urizen".340 Elsewhere Blake tells us what the fallen Gods have to do: the first thing is -
"...in stern repentance They must renew their brightness..."341
"...in stern repentance
They must renew their brightness..."341
335.Ibid., p. 742 (Jerusalem 4, 95, 11.2-11).
336.Ibid., p. 342 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Eighth, 11.43-44).
337.Ibid., p. 359 (ibid., Night the Ninth, 11.89-90).
338.Ibid., p. 805 (The Letters, 16, 11.57-59).
339.Ibid., p. 805 (ibid., 1.50).
340.Ibid., p. 744 (Jerusalem 4, 97, 1.7).
341.Ibid., p. 366 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth, 11.370-371).
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And the divine character of burning, flaming, shining, beaming bright or, in some way or other, manifesting brightness and of being like the Sun is indicated negatively, so to speak, from Blake's references to False Religion. He says that Satan has been "permitted... to imitate / The Eternal Great Humanity Divine": hence this False God's advent
from midst of a bright Paved-work Of precious stones by Cherubim surrounded...342
from midst of a bright Paved-work
Of precious stones by Cherubim surrounded...342
Nor is it an accident that Blake writes how "Rahab Babylon" -the delusive and cruel Religion of Rational Morality - appeared:
Glorious as the midday Sun in Satan's bosom glowing, A Female hidden in a Male, Religion hidden in War, Nam'd Moral Virtue, cruel two-fold Monster shining bright, A Dragon red & hidden Harlot which John in Patmos saw,343
Glorious as the midday Sun in Satan's bosom glowing,
A Female hidden in a Male, Religion hidden in War,
Nam'd Moral Virtue, cruel two-fold Monster shining
bright,
A Dragon red & hidden Harlot which John in Patmos
saw,343
Being like the Sun in glory and shining bright are an imitation here, and indeed it is by parading in the appearance of Truth that the false Religion can impose itself and get followed -Truth whose Eternity alone has brightness for its inherent manifestation.
Our notion of a divine Tyger as a work of Christ expressive of his anger is in tune with the movement of Blake's poetic vision.
Quite relevant here is a fine piece of intuitive interpretation by Sir Geoffrey Keynes while discussing the idea embodied in that masterpiece of Blake as Painter - the Illustrations of the Book of Job. What Keynes says can be adduced as one more point to persuade us that Blake could never have intended Urizen to be the Tyger's maker and that this maker could be none else than Christ (with Los incorporated). In the course of explaining "the argument of the spiritual drama of Job as seen
342.Ibid., p. 531 (Milton II, 39, 11.24-25).
343.Ibid., p. 532 (Milton II, 40, 77.19-22).
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by Blake", Keynes remarks: "Blake's God is Divine Humanity (which he sometimes identifies as the Poetic Genius)..."344 After completing his explanation Keynes writes: "Below a pencil sketch of the supreme design of 'When the Morning Stars sang together' Blake has put a 'symbolic' signature - the words done by followed by a series of symbols (1) a straight line, the simplest figure with natural limit, i.e. immortality; (2) a hand; (3) a B, i.e. Blake; (4) an eye; (5) a circle, i.e. symmetry. This indicates Blake's belief that this drawing, the climax of a supreme effort, was created by the Poetic Genius in his own person. It was about 1794 that Blake had written in his poem 'The Tyger' the lines:
What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Twenty-five years later it was his own mortal hand and eye that dared the impossible - and succeeded. The inspired symmetry of this design and of the whole Job series could only have been carried through by the breath of God, that is, of the Poetic Genius, or Imagination."345
If Keynes's reading is right, the "immortal hand or eye" of The Tyger must be Christ's. And an extra consideration in Keynes's favour is that this particular Job-design is such as naturally to recall to Blake's mind The Tyger and prompt a reference in his "symbolic" signature to the creator in the poem. For, the full text illustrated by his picture runs: "When the Morning Stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted for joy." The text cannot but join up by way of contrast with the poem's
When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears...
Indeed, according to Raine, it is these same fallen stars, described as "faded" and "wither'd" in the parallel passage of The
344.Blake Studies (London, 1949), p. 147.
345.Ibid., pp.. 148-149.
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Four Zoas, who in the Job-design are shown as risen again in their brightness.
(i)
Two last touches remain to be added to the commentary which we have constructed from Blake's writings to confirm, clarify and complete our interpretation of The Tyger.
But before we add them we may complete the support we have sought in Blake's works for the meanings we have read in individual turns of language in the poem taken as a self-sufficient unit. Our reading of "deeps" has to be directly supported, though several discussions of ours may have already borne it out in their own course. We have said the "deeps" can truly contrast to the "skies" as hell would to heaven, something abysmal and infernal to something empyreal and glorious. Yet we have added: "if the Tyger is the enemy of the forests of the night, a real depth of hell, a real abysmal existence cannot be put into our 'deeps': the infernal and abysmal would go... with those forests rather than with their opponent... Moreover,... anything lower than the skies is out of place when we have the line -
On what wings dare he aspire?"
We may take a cue from a description346 - outside The Tyger - of a "glorious heaven" turned a "horrible ruin" of "burning dungeons" and "burning wastes" and "fiery cities" and several other frightful or desolating things. There, among "serpents" and "worms" "drawn out from deep to deep", are beheld "the forms of tygers and of Lions". In such a "Chaos" the beings refuse to return to the experience of "Eternity", the possible
golden ascent winding round to the heavens of heavens Within the dark horrors of the Abysses, lion or tiger or scorpion.347
golden ascent winding round to the heavens of heavens
Within the dark horrors of the Abysses, lion or tiger or
scorpion.347
346.Keynes, ed. cit., pp. 313-319 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Sixth).
347.Ibid., p. 318 (ibid., 11.250).
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It is the "Abysses", the "nether world" with its "monsters of the deeps", that alone can be suggested as an alternative to the "skies" or "heavens of heavens" for the origin of the eye-fire of Blake's Tyger. Else this alternative would be a mere poeticism, a rhetorical superficiality: the "deeps" would lack depth.
And the general usage of Blakean poetry allows the needed profundity - a paradox of the godlike which would deserve to be called the glare of a hellish heaven or the sheen of a heavenly hell. For, in this poetry the nouns "deeps" and "deep", which are frequent and completely convertible terms, carry shifting significances. Their convertibleness, already de-ducible from the mention of "monsters of the deeps" and of "serpents" and "worms" "drawn out from deep to deep", can be clinched from the phrases:
Tharmas threw his impetuous flight thro' the deeps of immensity...348 Above, beneath, on all sides round in the vast deep of immensity...349
Tharmas threw his impetuous flight thro' the deeps of
immensity...348
Above, beneath, on all sides round in the vast deep of
immensity...349
The significance required by us is, in general, approached closest in a very early poem of Blake's, To Summer -
when noon upon his fervid car Rode o'er the deep of heaven350 -
when noon upon his fervid car
Rode o'er the deep of heaven350 -
as well as in A Little Girl Lost which is contained in the same series as The Tyger -
When the silent sleep Waves o'er heaven's deep...351
When the silent sleep
Waves o'er heaven's deep...351
Here we have the ethereal sense which could put our "deeps" essentially on a par with "skies" and lead to the profundity we have particularized.
348.Ibid., p. 320 (ibid., Night the Seventh, 1.3).
349.Ibid., p. 318 (ibid., Night the Sixth, 1.275).
350.Ibid., p. 2 (Poetical Sketches, To Summer, 11.8-9).
351.Ibid., p. 219 (Songs of Experience, A Little Girl Lost, 11.22-23).
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(j)
Now for the two last touches - the "finishing" ones, as it were.
The first elucidates the character of the whole antagonist activity of Urizen-Satan which evoked from Los-Christ the forging of a supernatural Tyger-wrath in the furnace of a celestial smithy out of the flames of a topmost Empyrean whose two aspects of fierce fathomless burning and beautiful limitless brightness are described as "deeps" and "skies". This activity which is of warriors symbolized as stars glittering in forests of the night may be figured forth in terms of what Blake in The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem has dubbed "Entuthon Beni-thon", (sometimes spelt "Benython"), a name seeming to mean - from the Greek "Entuthein" and "Benthos" - "thenceforth in the depths" and matching in diabolical power the one we meet with in the description of Chaos in Paradise Lost:
the dreaded name Of Demogorgon.352
the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon.352
Entuthon Benithon represents the really hellish deeps whose "terrors"353 are, as it were, outdone in a heavenly way by the "deeps" from which Los-Christ fetches the Tyger's eye-fire. The divine harmony disrupted in this hostile state of "Gloom"354 is pictured by Blake:
Mourning for fear of the warriors in the Vale of Entuthon- Benython Jerusalem is scattered abroad like a cloud of smoke thro' non-entity... Till the cloud reaches afar outstretch'd among the Starry Wheels Which revolve heavily in the mighty Void...355
Mourning for fear of the warriors in the Vale of Entuthon-
Benython
Jerusalem is scattered abroad like a cloud of smoke thro'
non-entity...
Till the cloud reaches afar outstretch'd among the Starry
Wheels
Which revolve heavily in the mighty Void...355
These Wheels are of Satan who is called
352.Paradise Lost, Bk. II, 11.964-965.
353.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 623 (Jerusalem 1, 1.24).
354.Ibid., p. 309 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Fifth, 1.149).
355.Ibid., pp. 623-24 (Jerusalem, 5. 11.52-53).
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Prince of the Starry Hosts And of the Wheels of Heaven...356
Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven...356
We are also told:
the abstract Voids between the Stars are the Satanic Wheels.357
the abstract Voids between the Stars are the Satanic
Wheels.357
In these Voids Blake places various symbols of Error:
There is the Cave, the Rock, the Tree, the Lake of Udan Adan, The Forest and the Marsh...358
There is the Cave, the Rock, the Tree, the Lake of Udan
Adan,
The Forest and the Marsh...358
In connection with Udan Adan we hear of
Spectrous cloudy sails which drive their immense Constellations over the deadly deeps of indefinite Udan-Adan359
Spectrous cloudy sails which drive their immense
Constellations over the deadly deeps of indefinite
Udan-Adan359
and again:
The Lake of Udan-Adan, Entuthon Benithon, a Lake not of Waters but of Spaces, Perturb'd, black & deadly...360
The Lake of Udan-Adan,
Entuthon Benithon, a Lake not of Waters but of Spaces,
Perturb'd, black & deadly...360
as well as:
The Lake of Udan-Adan in the Forests of Entuthon Benython.361
The Lake of Udan-Adan in the Forests of Entuthon
Benython.361
So Entuthon Benithon, with its Forests, is closely related to, if not even identical with, those "abstract Voids", holding the stars. To define it further we may quote the phrases: "Entuthon of Urizen"362 and
Entuthon Benithon,
356.Ibid., p. 483 (Milton I,
357.Ibid., p. 633 (Jerusalem 1,-13,1.37).
358.Ibid., p. 634 (ibid., 11.38-39).
359.Ibid., p. 625 (ibid., 7, 11.21-22).
360.Ibid., p. 346 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Eighth, 11.224-226).
361.Ibid., p. 512 (Milton, I,
362.Ibid., p. 734 (Jerusalem 4, 88, 1.48).
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A world of deep darkness where all things in horrors are rooted...363
A world of deep darkness where all things in horrors are
rooted...363
Now we come to the cumulative expression about the star-populated, warrior-infested forest-world of spacious gloom belonging to Urizen, and with that expression we return to our starting-point, Jerusalem:
the deeps of Entuthon Benython, A dark and unknown night, indefinite, unmeasurable, without end, Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination (Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for ever), And there Jerusalem wanders...364
the deeps of Entuthon Benython,
A dark and unknown night, indefinite, unmeasurable,
without end,
Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against
Imagination
(Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus, blessed for
ever),
And there Jerusalem wanders...364
Here we have the central theme of our lyric as read by us: it is stated at once symbolically and explicitly, with regard to both sides of the supreme conflict. Only, the statement bears here on the cosmos which is now the scene of the battle between the supernatural opponents. But may we not discern in the very name "Entuthon Benithon" with its suggestion of "thenceforth in the depths" the pointer to a fallen condition in conflict with "the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus" before the cosmos comes into being, a condition marking the stage after which that "dark and unknown night", Urizen's mind of "Abstract Philosophy", can be described as existing "thenceforth" in a cosmic form as distinguished from a previous form in Heaven
When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears?
And water'd heaven with their tears?
As for Los in combination with Christ against Urizen and Entuthon Benithon, we find in the very context of the "dark and unknown night" where "Jerusalem wanders" the presence
363.Ibid., p. 296 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Third, 11. 180-181).
364.Ibid., p. 624 (Jerusalem 1, 5, 11.56-60).
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of Los. There are "the Furnaces of Los"365 and "the Starry Wheels" revolving over them and drawing away Jerusalem.366 Then
Los heard her lamentations in the deeps afar!...367
And we see him fighting with his own "Spectre" -
the Reasoning Power, An Abstract objecting power that Negatives every thing. This is the Spectre of Man, the Holy Reasoning Power, And in its Holiness is clos'd the Abomination of Desolation...368
the Reasoning Power,
An Abstract objecting power that Negatives every thing.
This is the Spectre of Man, the Holy Reasoning Power,
And in its Holiness is clos'd the Abomination of
Desolation...368
About this Spectre we read elsewhere in the same poem Jerusalem:
The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man, & when separated From Imagination and closing itself as in steel in a Ratio Of the Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws & Moralities To destroy Imagination, the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars.369
The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man, & when
separated
From Imagination and closing itself as in steel in a Ratio
Of the Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws &
Moralities
To destroy Imagination, the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms
& Wars.369
Against this "Spectre" - linking up with the earlier phrase "spectrous clouds" in the lines about Udan-Adan, just as Urizen links up with the "constellations" in those lines through the phrase "the Constellations of Urizen" in The Four Zoas370-against this "Spectre" we may drive part of the speech of Los beginning with "O Spectre" and continuing:
"I know thy deceit & thy revenges, and unless thou desist "I will certainly create an eternal Hell for thee. Listen!
365.Ibid., p. 624 (ibid., 1.50).
366.Ibid., p. 624 (ibid., 11.46-47).
367.Ibid., p. 624 (ibid., 1.66).
368.Ibid., p. 629 (ibid., 10, 11.
369.Ibid., p. 714 (ibid., 3, 74, 11.10-13).
370.Ibid., p. 342 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Eighth, 1.68).
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"Be attentive! be obedient! Lo, the Furnaces are ready to receive thee! "I will break thee into shivers & melt thee in the furnaces of death... "I am inspired. I act not for myself..."371
"Be attentive! be obedient! Lo, the Furnaces are ready to
receive thee!
"I will break thee into shivers & melt thee in the furnaces
of death...
"I am inspired. I act not for myself..."371
"The furnaces of death" here may be taken as a counterpart to the Tyger that in our poem embodies destructive furnace-heat. And we may observe that
Los beheld the Divine Vision among the flames of the Furnaces372
Los beheld the Divine Vision among the flames of the
Furnaces372
and that
within the Furnaces the Divine Vision appear'd On Albion's hills, often walking from the Furnaces in clouds And flames among the Druid Temples & the Starry Wheels, Gather'd Jerusalem's Children in his arms & bore them like A Shepherd in the night of Albion which overspread all the Earth.373
within the Furnaces the Divine Vision appear'd
On Albion's hills, often walking from the Furnaces in
clouds
And flames among the Druid Temples & the Starry
Wheels,
Gather'd Jerusalem's Children in his arms & bore them
like
A Shepherd in the night of Albion which overspread all
the Earth.373
As the closing stroke of our picture we may take the verses that follow soon on the contention of Los with the Spectre:
So Los in fury & strength, in indignation & burning wrath. Shudd'ring the Spectre howls, his howlings terrify the night...374
So Los in fury & strength, in indignation & burning wrath.
Shudd'ring the Spectre howls, his howlings terrify the
night...374
So we return to the theme not only of Jerusalem and the Starry Wheels and the night but also of the defeated and distressed power of Urizen under the action of Christ-Los.
There we have the whole drama of The Tyger. The symbols
371.Ibid., p. 627 (Jerusalem 1, 8, 11.7-10, 17).
372.Ibid., p. 696 (ibid., 3, 62, 1.35).
373.Ibid., p. 692 (ibid., 11.5-9).
374.Ibid., p. 629 (ibid., 1, 10, 11.22-23).
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are different in places and the constituent elements of the story do not all hail from the same sources, but all the moods of our lyric clustering round the central theme are repeated - except that our lyric sets its stage in Heaven, not earth, and that there is one mood unique to it: the poet's anxiety and half-doubt at the simultaneous contemplation of Christ the Tyger and Christ the Lamb.
(k)
Finally, the second of the last two touches from Blake's writings. An enriching side-light on the sense in our poem, in distinction from the poet's mood of anxiety and half-doubt, is thrown by an entire lyric of Blake's, which, next to our poem, is his most famous. This lyric is of especial interest to us because it brings out further the Miltonic background and basis of that poem. It is made up of the four stanzas Blake prefixed, very suggestively from our Miltonic standpoint, to his own Milton:
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen? And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here? Among these dark Satanic Mills? Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold: Bring me my Chariot of fire. I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green & pleasant Land.375
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here?
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire.
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green & pleasant Land.375
375. Ibid., p. 480-481 (Milton I, Preface).
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Before we attempt, within a milieu of Milton, a rapport between these stanzas and The Tyger, it may not be out of place to touch on a point often discussed: "Whose feet are spoken of in the opening line?"
Bateson376 writes: "A poem that needs to be read in its historical context. Like its two sequels in Jerusalem it follows and clinches symbolically a passage of prose commentary - in this case the 'Preface' to Milton (1804) - in which Blake had expounded aspects of his general theme in more or less non-mythological language. The three lyrics are semi-mythological, the public allegory of the 'mental fight' - a positive pacifism like that preached by Boehme ('fighting must be the watchword, not with tongue and sword, but with mind and spirit') -merging into the private symbols of Albion (the giant who represents mankind as well as England), Jerusalem (the Holy City that is also Albion's 'Emanation' or spiritual counterpart), and Satan (who symbolises at this stage in the mythology the human Reason divorced from Imagination)... the feet of 1.1 are generally taken to be those of Christ (the 'Lamb of God'), but the logic of the poem's structure - a pattern, similar to that in London, of four parallel instances, each two lines long - will not permit this interpretation. The feet are presumably those of Albion who had walked England's mountains in the same period of prelapsarian Innocence when Jerusalem had been built in England. In that case the structural pattern is: (i) human (Albion), (ii) divine (Christ), (iii) 'the Countenance Divine' (God), (iv) human (Jerusalem). A similar interpretation has been proposed by Denis Seurat, Blake and Modern Thought, 1926, p. 85."
It seems to me that Albion has nothing to do with line 1. Nor is Christ there. The simplest and most logical procedure would be to see in the first stanza the same pair as in the second. "The Countenance Divine" of the latter is "the Holy Lamb" of the former and the Jerusalem of the second stanza is the one whose "feet" occur in the first. This uniform interpretation becomes
376. Op. cit., pp. 133-134.
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inevitable as soon as we take the two other lyrics377 which Bateson calls the sequels of our stanzas. They are not only affined in spirit to them but have even some turns of speech in common. The one beginning "The fields from Islington to Marybone" says in its second stanza:
Her little-ones ran on the fields,
The Lamb of God among them seen,
And fair Jerusalem his Bride
Among the little meadows green,378
And the fifth tells us:
She walks upon our meadows green,
The Lamb of God walks by her side,
And every English child is seen
Children of Jesus & his Bride.379
The other lyric also refers to Jerusalem who is called England's Sister. England is told in the second stanza:
Thy hills & valleys felt her feet380
and the lyric closes:
And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult, & London's towers
Recieve the Lamb of God to dwell
In England's green & pleasant bowers.381
It is clear that Christ and Jerusalem are the walkers side by side in both the lyrics: Jerusalem's "feet" in the second are on England's "hills & valleys", and she in the first "walks" upon England's "meadows green". The indications appear to be positive that the "feet" which walk together with "the holy Lamb of God" in the Milton-poem are none else than Jerusalem. Moreover, there are phrases in the body of Blake's
377.Keynes, ed. cit., pp. 649-652 (Jerusalem 27), p. 718 (ibid., 11.5-8).
378.L1.7.5-8.
379.L1.16-20.
380.L.5.
381.L1.9-12.
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Jerusalem itself that show "England's mountains" in the lyric to be walked upon by her "in ancient time" and prove Albion or even Christ impossible as the possessor of the lyric's "feet". We find not only Jerusalem saying:
"Albion gave me to the whole Earth to walk up & down, to pour "Joy upon every mountain..."382
"Albion gave me to the whole Earth to walk up & down,
to pour
"Joy upon every mountain..."382
We find also the words:
"Goshen hath follow'd Philistea. Gilead hath join'd with Og. "They are become narrow places in a little and dark land, "How distant far from Albion! his hills & his valleys no more "Receive the feet of Jerusalem..."383
"Goshen hath follow'd Philistea. Gilead hath join'd
with Og.
"They are become narrow places in a little and dark land,
"How distant far from Albion! his hills & his valleys
no more
"Receive the feet of Jerusalem..."383
Finally, we find Jerusalem asked to "overspread all Nations as in Ancient time".384
If it is objected in connection with the Milton-poem that Jerusalem is a city in stanza 2 and cannot have feet, we may point to the fact that in the lyric about the fields from Islington to Marybone "Jerusalem's pillars"385 are mentioned without Jerusalem's being prevented from pairing with Christ and walking with him and even bearing him children. (Surely, nobody would suggest that the "pillars" are her two legs?) In Jerusalem too she is many things, a multiple symbol, and in The Four Zoas she is "a City, yet a Woman".386
There should be no doubt at all that the Milton-poem is about Christ and Jerusalem and their disappearance from England and the ideal of restoring them. This ideal comes into play in the form of "Mental Fight" to be carried on by the speaker, the "I" who is the hero of the piece, against an enemy whose nature is concentrated in a symbol of mechanism. At first sight,
382.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 720 (Jerusalem 4, 79, 11.36-37).
383.Ibid., p. 720 (ibid., 11.13-15).
384.Ibid., p. 744 (ibid., 97, 1.2).
385.Ibid., p. 649 (ibid., 27, 1.2).
386.Ibid., p. 362 (Vala, or The Four Zoas, Night the Ninth, 1.222).
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the hero is the poet or else Blake fused with the author of Paradise Lost returned and regenerate, into whose mouth Blake in Milton puts the lines:
"I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration, "To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour, "To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration, "To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albion's covering, "To take off his filthy garments & clothe him with Imagination... "These are the destroyers of Jerusalem, these are the murderers "Of Jesus, who deny the Faith & mock at Eternal life..."387
"I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of
Inspiration,
"To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the
Saviour,
"To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration,
"To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albion's
covering,
"To take off his filthy garments & clothe him with
Imagination...
"These are the destroyers of Jerusalem, these are the
murderers
"Of Jesus, who deny the Faith & mock at Eternal life..."387
At first glance the scene of the battle in the lyric is industrial England of the early nineteenth century. But the mechanism symbolized by the general phrase "These dark Satanic Mills" can hardly be confined to the conditions of a local industrial exploitation in Blake's day; and then the poem's hero can be no single person but must be the Blakean temper in anybody or, to be more Blakean in our terms, this temper in the giant Albion representing mankind no less than the English race. In Jerusalem we meet the regenerate Albion not only
In anger, the wrath of God breaking, bright flaming on all sides around His awful limbs...388
His awful limbs...388
We meet him also using arms and gathering war-cars:
And he Clothed himself in Bow & Arrows, in awful state Fourfold, In the midst of his Twenty-eight Cities, each with his Bow breathing.
And he Clothed himself in Bow & Arrows, in awful state
Fourfold,
In the midst of his Twenty-eight Cities, each with his Bow
breathing.
387.Ibid., p. 533 (Milton II, 41, 11.2-6. 21-22).
388.Ibid., p. 742 (Jerusalem 4, 95, 11.6-7).
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Then each an Arrow flaming from his Quiver fitted carefully... ... & at the clangour of the Arrows of Intellect The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appear'd in Heaven...389
Then each an Arrow flaming from his Quiver fitted
carefully...
... & at the clangour of the Arrows of Intellect
The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appear'd in
Heaven...389
And there is a simile about Albion when he arises in anger:
Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds Struggling to rise above the Mountains; in his burning hand He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold...390
Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains; in his burning
hand
He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming
gold...390
In addition we hear Albion calling:
"Awake, Awake, Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion, "Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient time; "For lo! the Night of Death is past and the Eternal Day "Appears upon our Hills. Awake, Jerusalem, and come away!"391
"Awake, Awake, Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of
Albion,
"Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient time;
"For lo! the Night of Death is past and the Eternal Day
"Appears upon our Hills. Awake, Jerusalem, and come
away!"391
However, we cannot stop at this layer of understanding. In Albion was "the wrath of God" and, with "Bow & Arrows", his state was "Fourfold". What is more, just before his cry to Jerusalem we read:
...Then Albion stood before Jesus in the Clouds Of Heaven, Fourfold among the Visions of God in Eternity392
...Then Albion stood before Jesus in the Clouds
Of Heaven, Fourfold among the Visions of God in
Eternity392
- and just after that cry we read:
So spake the Vision of Albion, & in him so spake in my hearing The Universal Father.393
So spake the Vision of Albion, & in him so spake in my
hearing
The Universal Father.393
389. Ibid. , p. 744 (ibid. , 97, l l . 16- 17 ; 98 , 1 . 1 ; p. 745, 98, 11 .7-8).
390. Ibid. , p. 742 (ibid. , 95, 11 . 11 - 1 3 ) .
391. Ibid. , p. 744 (ibid. , 97, l l . l-4).
392. Ibid. , p. 744 (ibid. , 96, J J .43-44).
393. Ibid. , p. 744 (ibid. , 97, l l .5-6).
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What is still more, the "dark Satanic Mills" in the poem itself point us to a yet deeper layer. Bateson394 has well remarked on these "Mills": "a recurrent symbol in the later Prophecies of the mechanical and merely analytical rationalism that Blake described as 'the state called Satan'. The mills are sometimes water-mills, occasionally windmills, usually handmills worked by slave labour, but the symbolic core is always their 'dark Satanic wheels' (Jerusalem, f. 1 2)." To grasp this core we have to mark again from Jerusalem the expression -
And the abstract Voids between the Stars are the Satanic Wheels395
And the abstract Voids between the Stars are the Satanic
Wheels395
and add another from the same work -
...the space of the terrible starry wheels396 -
and reiterate one from Milton:
"O Satan, ... art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts "And of the Wheels of Heaven...?"397
"O Satan, ... art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
"And of the Wheels of Heaven...?"397
At once the "starry King" Urizen and his opponent Los-Christ are evoked and the atmosphere of The Tyger is essentially around us. The hero of the Milton-lyric deepens from BlakeMilton and the Blakean-tempered Albion to the presence of Los-Christ up in arms against Urizen-Satan in the physical universe and against the outlook which he engenders in the scientific-philosophical mind and to which Blake refers when he writes of
...the Newtonian Voids between the Substances of Creation.398
...the Newtonian Voids between the Substances of
Creation.398
The sole difference between this lyric and The Tyger is that, in
394.Op, cit., p. 134.
395.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 633 (Jerusalem 1, 13, 1.37).
396.Ibid., p. 632 (ibid., 12, 1.51).
397.Ibid., p. 483 (Milton I, 4, 11.9-10).
398.Ibid., p. 528 (ibid., II, 37, 1.46).
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the latter, Los-Christ in direct person is at war in Heaven with the defecting star-angels of Urizen-Satan and with the night in which they are entrenched. But fundamentally the theme in the Milton-lyric is the same as there, and even its "Mental Fight" by means of "Spear" and "Arrows" of inner inspiration echoes the "wars" that are part of "Eden, the land of life"
"With intellectual Spears, & long winged arrows of thought!"399
"With intellectual Spears, & long winged arrows of
thought!"399
Indeed all this is what we may expect from the words in Blake's prose "Preface", which stand immediately before and after the lyric. As if to hint at the sort of activity which the poem would want of us, the immediately preceding words make the exhortation to be "just and true to our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever in JESUS OUR LORD." And, as if to clarify the nature of the activity expressed in the poem, the immediately succeeding words are the Biblical quotation: " 'Would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets.' NUMBERS, xi. ch. 29 v." This is a prayer that cannot but recall to our mind Los, "the Spirit of Prophecy",400 "the Eternal Prophet".401
Yes, the air of The Tyger's Supernature touches the terrestrial breath of the later lyric and we feel through all the differences the basic affinity of the two compositions. The Milton-poem starts with a mention of Christ the Lamb and his collective divine manifestation - the Pleroma, the perfect world, Jerusalem. It goes on to the Satanic subversion of this manifestation in our world whose concentrated symbol is England. It continues with an assertion of a bright-burning wrath, the Tyger-spirit, against that subversion, in order to restore the spiritual wholeness of being and life. Separated from the astonished awe, the religious puzzlement of the earlier poem, Blake's vision here gives us, though without the actual Tyger-image, the sense of Christ's Tyger-spirit openly as the com-
399. Ibid . , p. 644 (Jerusalem 2, 38, 1 . 1 5 ) .
400. Ibid . , p. 510 (Milton I , 24, 1 . 7 1 ) .
401. Ibid . , p. 230 (The First Book of Urizen, 13, C h . V , 1 .35).
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plement and champion of his Lamb-spirit.
In this respect the poem re-creates, in its own terms, The Tyger in a more directly Miltonic mood. And the imagery too is more directly Miltonic. Put beside
Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my Arrows of desire: Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold! Bring me my Chariot of fire,
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire,
and beside
I will not cease from Mental Fight, Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
a few expressions from Book VI of Paradise Lost, several of which are in passages we have already pressed into service. Commence with God's words to Christ:
"...bring forth all my war: My bow and thunder, my almighty arms, Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh..."402
"...bring forth all my war:
Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh..."402
Follow up with phrases on Christ's martial expedition against the "godless":
Forth rushed with whirlwind sound The chariot of Paternal Deity, Flashing thick flames...403 He, in celestial panoply, all arm'd... Ascended;... ...beside him hung his bow And quiver, with three-bolted thunder stor'd... He onward came; far off his coming shone...404 Under his burning wheels The steadfast Empyrean shook throughout... Full soon
Forth rushed with whirlwind sound
The chariot of Paternal Deity,
Flashing thick flames...403
He, in celestial panoply, all arm'd...
Ascended;...
...beside him hung his bow
And quiver, with three-bolted thunder stor'd...
He onward came; far off his coming shone...404
Under his burning wheels
The steadfast Empyrean shook throughout...
402.Paradise Lost, Bk. VI, 11.712-714.
403.Ibid., 11.749-751.
404.Ibid., 11.760, 762, 763-764, 768.
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Among them he arriv'd, in his right hand Grasping ten thousand thunders,...405 Drove them before him thunderstruck pursu'd With terrors and with furies...406 eternal wrath Burnt after them...407
Grasping ten thousand thunders,...405
Drove them before him thunderstruck pursu'd
With terrors and with furies...406
Burnt after them...407
Milton's warrior Christ of Heaven stands behind Blake's Mental Fighter of earth. And the explicit clue to their intimate relationship may be offered from the language of The Everlasting Gospel, which in part we have already related to The Tyger. There we have not only stray phrases on Christ militant, which are in both Milton's Book VI and Blake's Miltonic poem:
his wrath began to burn In Miracles throughout the Land,408
his wrath began to burn
In Miracles throughout the Land,408
"Awake, arise to Spiritual Strife "And thy Revenge abroad display "In terrors at the Last Judgment day..."409
"Awake, arise to Spiritual Strife
"And thy Revenge abroad display
"In terrors at the Last Judgment day..."409
We have also a sustained passage mediating between Milton and Blake and Christologizing the latter's anti-Satanic "Chariot of fire", its darkness-piercing and day-releasing "O clouds unfold!", its Satan-subduing "Mental Fight", its smiting weapons' "burning gold" and its wrathful sleepless "hand":
He bound Old Satan in his Chain, And bursting forth, his furious ire Became a chariot of fire... Where'er his Chariot took its way, These Gates of death let in the day, Broke down from every Chain & Bar;
These Gates of death let in the day,
405.Ibid., 11.832-836.
406.Ibid., 11.858-859.
407.Ibid., 11.865-866.
408.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 752 (The Everlasting Gospel, d, 11.56-57).
409.Ibid., p. 753 (ibid., 11.78-80).
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And Satan in his Spiritual War Drag'd at his Chariot Wheels: loud howl'd The God of this World: louder roll'd The Chariot Wheels, & louder still His voice was heard from Zion's hill, And in his hand the Scourge shone bright...410
Drag'd at his Chariot Wheels: loud howl'd
And in his hand the Scourge shone bright...410
Certain themes are fundamental in Blake's mind and, with varying attitudes and within different frameworks, they keep recurring. Christ contra Satan, Los versus Urizen are two of them, and on occasion they merge either explicitly or implicitly. We can recognize them at all times by their common essentials which often show themselves in identical or similar or analogous verbal movements. These movements are unusually apparent in lines from the Milton-lyric and the expressions quoted from The Everlasting Gospel, and they go back in both to Book VI of Paradise Lost. At the same time they draw us subtly into The Tyger which, even more than they, is basically affined to the War in Heaven in Milton's epic. As between the expressions from The Everlasting Gospel and the lyric prefixed to Blake's Milton, the latter is obviously a more clearly defined re-creation of the Miltonic theme, with the earth-scene under an English guise substituted for the battlefield in the Empyrean. As such, it is organically linked through Milton with The Tyger and illuminates its sense. Suppose the sense were conveyed in the Miltonic imagery of Christ's battle, yet were transposed ostensibly to the human and psychological key. Suppose it were changed from the context of a spiritual "quiz" to the straightforward one of an idealistic manifesto, and a symbol of dark mechanism replaced the warrior stars and that of hill-cloudedness the forests of the night. Then the sense of The Tyger, as we have read it, can be caught in a new and less enigmatic form which also shows with a compact vision from Blake's own works the Miltonic basis of our poem.
410. Ibid., p. 749 (ibid., b, 11.32-34, 39-47).
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7
A Retrospect:
The Resolution of
We have completed our study of The Tyger. We may conclude with a brief retrospect. The starting-point in our treatment of the poem was an analysis of its "Minute Particulars, Organized", and the analysis resolved the poem's symbolism into a mytho-poeic vision of Christ's battle in Heaven with revolted angels.
The details of this vision - the ultimate empyrean of the supreme lustre-hidden Godhead, the winged intermediate Creator who is essentially one with that Godhead yet existen-tially secondary and who aspiring from his existential status to the primary blaze and brightness that are his own right by essence draws from them the heat and light of the destructive power needed to fight warrior stars in the forests of the night, the smithwise forging of this power in the shape of a terrible supernatural Tyger which is at once contrary and complementary to a supernatural Lamb-shape - all these details are supported with elements of Christian religious tradition. After picking out some lines from T. S. Eliot and Christopher Smart, the former of whom has actually the phrase "Christ the tiger", we looked mainly at the Old and the New Testaments, cast a glance at some early theologians and referred in passing to a few phrases from poetic literature.
We next took up the most explicit as well as the most massive literary treatment in English of the subject we had discerned in The Tyger. We traced the poem's inspiration to a pregnant phrase - "devouring fire" - used in Milton's Paradise Lost for God's anger going out against Lucifer-Satan. And we set forth a close correspondence between Blake's composition and Mil-
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ton's account of Christ's wrathfully burning war with and defeat of Satan's army in Heaven. It seemed to us that Blake was influenced by Milton at almost every step and even Miltonic words and images were absorbed into The Tyger for a new and individual creation. In this creation the chief person of the drama assimilated certain aspects of both the Satan and the Christ of Milton's epic. Milton gave to his Satan a boundless energy of Desire. Blake held that this energy, rather than the Rationality which Milton considered proper, pertained to the Messiah. He also found apt to his purpose the warrior energy which Milton attributed to his Messiah in Book VI. So, Miltonic ideas and expressions in relation to both Christ and Satan got fused in the poetic reconstruction of the Miltonic theme by Blake.
Then we scrutinized the growth of The Tyger from the early drafts and examined the illustration Blake made of the final version. We found nothing in them against our reading: on the contrary, they bore it out in some respects.
Finally, we proceeded to fit our Christological view of the poem into Blake's general mythology of Supernature. In this mythology too Christ is the central figure, but four basic aspects of him are also given prominence and called the Four Zoas. They are named Los (or Urthona), Urizen, Luvah (or Orc) and Tharmas. Among these, Los who is the Spirit of Prophecy and the Poetic Genius as well as the Divine Smith is closest to Christ and occasionally gets identified with him.
In the context of Blake's general mythology we discovered in the Tyger's maker a fusion of Christ and Los, and in the revolted angel-stars we recognized under various aspects the followers of Urizen who is said by Blake to have broken away from the Fourfold Christ-oneness of Eternity into a separate existence of mere rationality. Urizen is associated with spear-bearing warrior stars within a supra-terrestrial darkness, a forest of the night, symbolic of his defection in Heaven. The same symbol stands in Blake on a large scale for the world of Nature, where the Tyger also represents frequently the discordant force of a life in which beings prey on one another instead
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of forming a harmony. But we demonstrate that Blake does not confine himself to the Fall from Heaven, which is equivalent to Urizen's creation of the physical universe such as the mechanical philosophy of Newtonian science in the eighteenth century conceived, making it independent of Mind. The fall from Heaven was preceded by a Fall in Heaven itself. With regard to this first Fall the Tyger is an anti-Urizen power in Supernature just as on certain occasions it can be shown to be such in even Blake's mythology of Nature.
Elaborating the symbolic opposition of the Tyger and the Night-forests in Supernature, we confronted Kathleen Raine's interpretation of our lyric from Neo-platonic, Gnostic, Hermetic, Cabbalistic and Alchemical sources. Her interpretation is, in our eyes, the most convincing possible if we overlook the traditional Christian-Miltonic background of Blake's treatment of these sources, a background not always easily discernible but, on very close analysis, unmistakable.
At the end of our section on Blake's other writings we referred to the lyric prefixed by Blake to his own "Prophecy" Milton. We found the fundamentals of it indirectly elucidating the sense of The Tyger with a direct harking back, though in a new setting, to the account of Christ contra Satan in Paradise Lost.
Thus our total reading of The Tyger is a complex one. We believe that the complexity is fully demanded by our research. But criticism of some matters in parts of our thesis would not affect our chief contribution to the subject of the poem's symbolism: this contribution lies in the supernatural Christological interpretation of The Tyger and a general seeing of its basis in Milton. "A general seeing" - for, all the minutiae of our Miltonic view are not vital to its validity: they render it more varied and rich, but what is really vital is the overall Miltonism of Blake's Christological vision. We are not required essentially to go beyond the Miltonism comprized in the luminously fierce attack of Christ the Son with the might gathered from God the Father, and the excessive distress of his enemies who yet are on purpose not destroyed.
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The poem in our reading, expresses an intense conflict in the poet's religious being. The conflict has a particular aspect and a general one. The latter includes the problem of God's punishment of the human soul for its sin, but though important in the total picture it is rather an extension of the main problem which constitutes the former. The conflict has its source in the poet's seeing of Wrath gone incandescently forth in Heaven against rebellious forces that are a supernatural darkness there. Simultaneously terrible and splendid in the extreme is this Wrath which cannot but be Christ's, yet which strikes strangely on the poet's sensibilities. Despite his awareness of the Divinity within and behind this manifestation, he is spurred to a set of questions wondering who could be responsible for it. He cannot quite bring himself to accept what he knows. How could Christ combine so much ferocity and so much beauty? - that is the puzzle. Then the poet further concentrates on the ferocity by comparing the ireful Godhead to the gentle Godhead of our usual conception, the loving kindness that dwells in Heaven and may be considered the original face of the Supreme. Here the poem reaches its climax of critical vision. The poet is profoundly shaken, almost bewildered, because, as Milton tells us, the revolted angels, after being mercilessly vanquished, were spared annihilation only to be everlastingly banished from Heaven by one who, though remaining gloriously divine, seems to out-Satan Satan in dreadful power - the deity who is no longer Christ the Lamb but Christ the Tyger.
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A Letter from Kathleen Raine
47 Paultons Square, London S.W.3. 5DT.
Feb. 4th, 1979
Dear Mr. Sethna,
Please forgive my long delay in replying to your letter and acknowledging your Tyger manuscript. It has been a pleasure to pick up again the threads of our old exchange of ideas, and to see what you have now made of the poem. You may of course be right in seeing the Tyger as the form taken by Jesus the Imagination in the world of Experience. This could very well be so.
I liked best of all your first chapter, in which you so minutely and beautifully go through the poem before you begin to look at sources. It is a finely argued reading of the text and imaginatively true to Blake's thought in essence. I do not wish to argue my way with you through the rest of the book - all that ground we covered before - and I am bound to say that your Milton quotations richly illustrate the extent to which Blake's mind and thought was filled with Miltonic mythology and Miltonic language. A good point, too - Bateson's, I think - about the pages of the Notebook being filled with thumbnail sketches of Miltonic themes. I only differ from you in thinking that Milton was by no means the only source of Blake's ideas and symbols at the time of his writing the Songs of Experience. No poet ever draws exclusively upon a single source. But you have enriched our realisation of the immense debt to Milton, both in the Tyger and in other poems you quote.
I still think the book needs much cutting. There are repetitions, and in some cases you weaken your general argument by almost too many quotations. The last chapter, too, is in many ways a recapitulation. But all lovers of the Tyger must thank you for your illuminating reading.
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I think some problems which continue to exist between us would be resolved (for myself as for you) by a clearer understanding of the fact that there are four "worlds" or levels in play in Blake. In the world of generation (created by the demiurge Urizen) the "fallen" Zoas or "starry ones" including Urizen himself have one aspect; in the "eternal" world not only Los but all four are the four "faces" of the Eternal Man. Jesus the Imagination is the universal transcendent spirit, and united to the humanity of Albion through the soul - Jerusalem. And so oh. Each world has its own symbolic landscape (this is Swedenborgian) which as in dreams comes into existence as a "correspondence" of the state of mind which produces the symbol; so that it is vain to argue that the "forests of the night" existed "before" the symbolic situation in which they appear, since they are part of that situation and exist only as its symbolic form. So with other symbols.
I don't accept what you write about Jesus "aspiring" to the Father. This may be Milton's view of Jesus (though to me you have not proved it) but it is certainly not Blake's, for whom Jesus is the Imagination of God in man. "Jesus is God." As to seizing, it may not necessarily be a "theft" but it is certainly a "taking possession" of something with a prior existence, which cannot be attributed to the creation of God or in and by Jesus the Imagination. These are my main points of difference. But that does not lessen the pleasure with which I read your thoughts on the poem you and I both love and have studied perhaps more carefully than anyone else living in the present world of generation.
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A Comment by K. D. Sethna based on his
reply on 10.2. 1 979.
Naturally I was delighted to hear from Miss Raine and thankful to her for going through the final form of the book which had been instrumental in bringing us together. Once again, she had read my exposition with an attitude at once deeply sympathetic and critically alert. She is right in holding that "Milton was by no means the only source of Blake's ideas and symbols at the time of writing the Songs of Experience". Her monumental study, Blake and Tradition, amply proves her point. I do not dispute it. What I must be taken to imply by my thesis is simply that Milton was the predominant source for The Tyger and therefore might justifiably be concentrated upon to the practical exclusion of the other sources.
These sources may have lent some minor shades or else emphasized certain modes of expression (like the detailed dwelling on the various parts of the animal's anatomy), but can they be said to have contributed vitally to the myth and the symbol which for me are affined to Milton? Do they in any manner deflect the Miltonic line of vision I trace throughout the poem? If, as Miss Raine frankly concedes, Blake's mind and thought was to a substantial extent "filled with Miltonic mythology and Miltonic language" and he owed an "immense debt" to Milton in The Tyger as well as elsewhere, this line of vision may legitimately stand without serious alteration by the Alchemical-Hermetic lore she has disclosed in Blake. Being antithetical, either Miltonism or that lore must be seen as determining the central theme. In my view, a full-fledged hybrid is not feasible. Blake's animal must be, in the main, one thing or the other. Only small secondary interminglings can be admitted.
As for "much cutting" being still needed, I myself had the sense here and there that to consider a theme so minutely was to consider it too curiously. Yet I could not help pouring out the whole store of my discoveries so as to leave nothing relevant unsaid - even if such a procedure entailed fatiguing the
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reader at places. Perhaps the impression that my general argument gets weakened in some cases is due to the reader's fatigue rather than to any fault in the citations themselves? In my Preface I have already warned the reader against this possible strain on his attention by the long chapter on the Miltonic basis. If the quotations there are taken not in one gulp but in a series of sips, I may be better served.
In regard to the recapitulation in the last chapter, I incline to believe that, while a sharp and rich mind like Miss Raine's in the Blakean field would not require any repetition, however skilfully framed, the average Blake-student who too is expected to turn my pages would appreciate some return in brief to the central vision at the end of the lengthy and multi-directioned journey.
I am afraid the problems which continue to exist between Miss Raine and me would not be so easily resolved as she thinks by what she calls "a clearer understanding of the fact that there are always four 'worlds' or levels in play in Blake" and that "each world has its symbolic landscape... which as in dreams comes into existence as a 'correspondence' of the state of mind which produces the symbol". From this statement I am supposed to realise that the "forests of the night" could never have been a reality of "heaven" before the world of generation came into being, the world in which are the "fallen" Zoas or "starry ones", since these forests are part of the situation of the "fall" and are only its symbolic form. But my very point is that, although there is a "fallen" world of generation and there is an "eternal" world where the Four Zoas are the united aspects of the Fourfold Divine Humanity, the Blakean "fall" is a la Milton for whom a revolt and fall in heaven precede the fall from heaven which is for Blake the world of generation. The Miltonic strain of Blake's mythology modifies the symbolism derived from the Alchemical-Hermetic tradition. Hence we cannot explain away in terms of the latter the explicit mention I have shown in Blake of night and forests not only in the world of generation but also in the eternal world, Blake's heaven or Eden. As Miltonism is almost omnipresent in Blake and as
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Miss Raine herself speaks of "Miltonic mythology" no less than "Miltonic language" as filling Blake's "mind and thought", it should surely not be "vain to argue that the 'forests of the night' existed 'before' the situation" she characterises as the "fallen" world of generation. Can there be any doubt of their pre-existence in a mythology deep-rooted in Milton? They are divine prototypes whose perversion by Urizen marks his revolt in Eternity and is reproduced in Nature when he is driven out of Supernature1.
Miss Raine's perspective of the problem concerning Jesus and God seems somewhat mixed-up. Milton, the avowed Arian of De Doctrina Christiana, would have no scruple in making Jesus "aspire" to the Father as to a superior. No proof is required there. But the poet of Paradise Lost is not recognizably a follower of Arius and I never attempt to prove him to be one. Escaping any formulable charge of Arianism, his theology can easily be matched with Blake's. Whatever qualified sense of Jesus' aspiring can be read in Paradise Lost in a general Christian fashion will not go against the grain of Blake's concept of Jesus. To him, as Miss Raine urges, "Jesus is God", and yet this "God" can say:
"I am doing my Father's business"2
and Blake can write of "the kingdoms of God & his Christ".3
From the subtlety of the aspiring by Jesus we can derive the subtle seizing which allows the sense of "a 'taking possession' of something with a prior existence" - a prior existence implied by the relationship of "Jesus the Imagination" to God the Father, in which he is secondary in function while being equal in essence. Through that delicately poised secondariness the "fire" seized can be seen as clearly there even though the equality in essence renders the secondary status a kind of mirror in which this fire itself is as if rightfully held.
One would think that the phrase "Divine Similitude" for
1.See in particular my pp. 192-197.
2.Keynes, ed. cit., p. 750 (The Everlasting Gospel, c, 1.8).
3.Ibid., p. 810 (The Letters, 21).
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Jesus, common to both Milton and Blake,4 should suffice to permit all the play of difference-in-sameness and unity-in-duality that could be read in God the Son aspiring and seizing God-the-Father's fire which ultimately is his own.
Lastly, I should like to put in a word on the remark Miss Raine makes almost at the beginning of her letter. She concedes that I "may of course be right in seeing the Tyger as the form taken by Jesus the Imagination...This could well be so." But after "Imagination" she adds the qualifying phrase: "in the world of Experience" - to round off her concession. Is this rounding-off inevitable? According to Miss Raine's own reading, the "he" who manifests himself in the Tyger is not the Supreme Divinity but a Demiurge who, if not an evil being, is at least an ambiguous one. He can hardly be Jesus the Imagination, the Logos, God the Son, a genuine facet of the Supreme Divinity, whom it would be an error to dub demiurgic in any definite sense or to look upon as at all ambiguous, leave aside evil. To introduce Jesus into The Tyger in whatever manner and even go so far as to say, as Miss Raine did to Sir Geoffrey (January 21, 1961) at her first contact with my central Jesus-thesis: "I think he has found a profound truth not seen by any of us hitherto" - to incline to grant my fundamental point and then try to adapt it to "the world of Experience" which is integral to her interpretation of the poem is a risky no less than dubious venture. It at once breaks open a possible path into Milton, where Jesus wars against the anti-God rebels in Heaven itself.
I cannot be grateful enough to Miss Raine for giving me a generous hearing and the opportunity of attending constructively to whatever a Blake-expert might regard in the final reckoning as joints in my armour.
4. Ibid., p. 664 (Jerusalem, ch. 2. 38. 1.11).
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Aurobindo, Sri
Collected Poems (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry), 1972. The Future Poetry and Letters on Poetry, Literature and Art (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry), 1972.
Bateson, F. W.
Selected Poems of William Blake, Edited with an Introduction and Explanatory Notes (Heinemann, London), 1957.
Blackstone, Bernard
English Blake (Cambridge), 1949.
Boehme
Signatura Rerum and Other Discourses (Everyman's Library, London). Translation by William Law, first published in 4 Vols., 1764-1781.
Bowra, E. M.
The Romantic Imagination (Oxford), 1957.
Brown, Raphael (Translator)
The Little Flowers of St. Francis by Brother Matthew (Image Books, New York), 1958.
Damon, Foster S.
"Blake and Milton" in The Divine Vision, Studies in the Poetry and Art of William Blake, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto (Gollancz, London), 1957.
Eliot, T. S.
Selected Poems - T. S. Eliot (Penguin Poets, Harmondsworth), 1948. Ezekiel
Frye, Northrop
"Blake After Two Centuries" in English Romantic Poets, Modern Essays in Criticism, edited by M. H. Abrams (New York), 1960.
Grierson, Sir Herbert
Milton and Wordsworth (Cambridge), 1938.
Hanford, J. H.
A Milton Handbook (Fourth Edition, New York), 1946.
Harding, D. W.
"William Blake" in From Blake to Byron, edited by Boris Ford (Pelican Books, Harmondsworth), 1957.
Hastings, J. (Editor)
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh), 1934.
Hopkins, Gerard Manley
Poems and Prose, Selected with an Introduction and Notes by W. H. Gardner (Penguin Books, Harmondsworth), 1953.
Page 267
Kazin, Alfred
The Portable Blake, Selected and Arranged with an Introduction by Alfred Kazin (The Viking Press, New York), 1946.
Kelley, Maurice
The Great Argument (Princeton), 1941.
Keynes, Geoffrey
Blake Studies (London), 1949.
The Complete Writings of William Blake, Edited with all the variant readings (The Nonesuch Press, London), 1957.
Lewis, C. S.
A Preface to Paradise Lost (Oxford Paperbacks), 1960.
McColley, C.
"Milton's Battle in Heaven and Rupert of St. Herbert", Speculum, XVI, 1941.
Paradise Lost (Chicago), 1940.
Milton, John
De Doctrina Christiana
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained
Monk, F. F.
Representative English Poetry (London), 1927.
Plowman, Max (Editor)
Poems and Prophecies by William Blake (Everyman's Library, London), 1939.
Psalms
Raine, Kathleen
Blake and Tradition, Two Volumes (Bollingen Series XXXV -No.11, Princeton University Press, U. S. A.), 1968.
"Blake's Debt to Antiquity", The Sewanee Review, Summer, 1963, Vol. LXXI, No. 3. Also Bollingen Paperback (Princeton, 1977):
Blake and Antiquity.
"The Little Girl Lost and Found and the Lapsed Soul" in The Divine Vision, Studies in the Poetry and Art of William Blake, edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto (Gollancz, London), 1957.
William Blake (Published for the British Council and the National Book League by Longmans Green & Co., London, New York, Toronto), 1951.
Rajan, B.
Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth Century Reader (London), 1947.
Rosenthal, M. L., Smith, A. J. M.
Exploring Poetry (The Macmillan Company, New York), 1957.
St. John
First Epistle
Gospel
Page 268
The Revelation
St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early Biographies - English Omnibus of the Sources for the Life of St. Francis, translated by several hands and edited by Marion A. Habig (Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago).
St. Paul
Colossians, I.
Sampson, John
Blake's Poetical Works (Oxford), 1904.
Seturaman, V. (Editor)
Critical Essays on English Literature (Orient Longman, Madras), 1965.
Shakespeare, W.
King Henry the Fifth, Act III, Scene 1.
Swinburne, A. C.
William Blake (Chatto & Windus).
Wickstead, Joseph H.
Blake's Innocence and Experience, A Study of the Songs and Manuscripts (London), 1928. Williamson, George
A Reader's Guide to T. S. Eliot (London), 1955.
Witcutt, W. P.
Blake: A Psychological Study (London), 1946.
"William Blake and Modern Psychology" in John O'London's Weekly, April 4, 1947.
Page 269
Abdiel, 56, 73, 74, 76, 77, 86, 104, 105
Abrama, M . H . , 42 fn. 127
Adam, 56, 57, 126, 157
Adam and Eve, 54, 99, 107, 157
Ahania, 1 80
Albion, 153, 188, 195-96, 202, 224, 234, 246, 249, 250, 262
Alchemic and Hermetic thought, iii, viii
Alchemical philosophy, 27
America, 163, 202, 203
Ancient Mariner, The, 126
"And did these feet in ancient time . . ."
(interpretation), 245-53
"Angel Tiger", 42
Annotations to Swedenborg's Divine
Love, 70 fn. 58
Anti-Trinitarianism, 101-02
Arianism, 101 , 102
Arius, 102
Art, Artist, 10, 140, 141
"aspire", 96, 98, 99, 100, 104, 105, 107, 111 , 129, 226-27, 162
Aurobindo, Sri, 4, 5
Bacon, 249
Basu, Arabinda, vii
Bateson, F. W . , 5 , 1 3 , 54, 5 5 , 130, 13 1 , 157, 205, 246, 251 , 261
Beauty, 9, 10, 70, 1 40
Beelzebub, 118
Beulah, 207, 210
Blackstone, Bernard, 53, 146, 150, 154, 157, 159, 161 , 212, 214. 215 , 228
Blake: A Psychological Study, 225 fn .282
Blake and Modern Thought, 246
Blake and Tradition , v. 25 fn. 11 , 263
Blake as Artist, 3, 5 , 54, 132-33, 135, 136, 236
Blake Studies, 344
"Blake's Debt to Antiquity", 25 fn. 11 ,
168 fn . 109, l
Blake's Innocence and Experience, 132 fn. 11
Blake's Poetical Works, 141 fn. 5
Boehme, iii, 28, 171 , 173, 175, 181 , 182, 183, 246
Book of Ahania, The, 1 16, 166, 198
Book of Job, Illustrations of the, 236
Book of Los, The, 218, 233
Book of Thel, The, 231
Bowra, C . M . , 137, 139, 140, 141, 155, 156, 162, 167
Brown, Raphael , 48 fn. 17
"burning bright" , 4-1 1 , 34, 35
Butts, 141, 231 , 235
Buxton, J . H . , i
Canteenwalla, Dr. Ferdauz N . , vii
Cat Jeffery, 42
Cave of the Nymphs, 134
chain, 36, 68, 123-4
Cherub, 105
Cherubim , 48, 105, 225
"Cherub Cat", 42
Christ, 33, 40, 43, 5 1 , 61, 64, 66, 68, 92- 1 10, 1 5 1 -53, 247. 261
"Christ the tiger", 4 1 , 42, 256
Christian Doctrine, 102
Christology , 40, 69
"climb", 150, 157
Coleridge, 5, 127
Colossians , 102, 231 fn. 309
"Collective Unconscious" , 4, 142
Collected Poems of Sri Aurobindo, 4 fn. 7
Complete Writings of William Blake, The, 2 fn. l
Confessions, 73
Critical Essays on English Literature, iv, fn. 1
"Daughters of Beulah", 228
David, 46, 49
"David and Goliath", 5
De Doctrina Christiana, 45, 100-02, 265
De Victoria Verbi Dei, 45
"deep", 14, 89, 90, 91, 120, 239
"deeps", 13-16, 33, 77, 78, 88, 90, 9 1 , 92, 1 10, 238-39
Page 271
Demiurge, 27,170,173,177,209,222, 266
Demogorgon, 23,240 Desire, 70,158
deus absconditus, 28 Devil, 44
"devouring fire", 74,75
"devouring flame", 74,75,169
Dissertation upon the Mysteries of
Eleusis and Dionysus, 134 "Divine Humanity", 4,70,146,152,
156,216
"Divine Similitude", 84,97,118,265
"Divine Vision, The", 157,161,162, 167
Divine Vision, The, 53 fn. 2,146 fn. 36,
244
Druidism, 83
Duraiswamy, M.S., i, iv fn. 2
Dyne,Sonia,48fn. 17
Earth's Answer, 54,174,232
Eden,157,162
Eliot, T.S., 40,41,42,43,256
Elohim, 220
"Elohim Creating Adam, The", 226 Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics,
The, 50 fn. 25
Energy, 70,140
English Blake, 53 fn. 1
English Romantic Poets, 42 fn. 27
Enitharmon, 169,208
Entuthon-Benithon, 240,241,242
"Eternals", 159, 160,161,165,212,213
Eternity, 145-47,156,159,169,232,
233
Europe, 76,166,168,169,205
Everard, 171
Everlasting Gospel, The, 71, 72, 103,
201,254,255
Exploring Poetry, 22 fn. 6, 41
Ezekiel, 49
Father, Heavenly, 229
"fearful symmetry", 9-12, 86
First Book of Urizen, The, 159,233
Flaxman, 229
Ford, Boris, 2 fn. 2
"forests", 9-13,16,23,32,35,80, 82, 83,165,166,169,170,184,192,196, 199
Foster, Damon S., 53 fn. 2
Four Zoas, 4,140,141,144 fn. 18
Four Zoas, The, 55,164,168,173,174,
203,204,235,248,257
From Blake to Byron, 2 fn. 2
Frye, Northrop, 42 fn. 27,53 fn. 2
Future Poetry and Letters on Poetry,
Literature and Art, The, 4 fn. 8
"furnace", 91,124,172,173
Fuzon, 198-99
Gabriel, 90,92
Garden of Eden, 56,75,99
Genesis, 54,63
Gerard Manley Hopkins, 50 fn. 24
Gerontion, 40,41
"Ghost of a Flea, The", 5
Gnostics, 27,176
God, 147,148,175,228-30
Godwin, Jocelyn, 50 fn. 23
Gospel of John, The, 231
Gospel of Luke, The, 22
Grierson, Sir Herbert, 101
H, capital, 44,69
Habig, Marion A., 48 fn. 17
"hand or eye", 18,19,36,123
Hanford,J.N.,102
Harding, D.W., 2-3.7-8,24,30
"he", "him", 17-19,27,43,44,69.108,
110
Hell, 65
Hermetica, 28,170,171,176,193,209, 219
Holy Ghost, The; Holy Spirit, The, 50, 148,224
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 50,185
Hound of Heaven, The, 73
Human Abstract, The, 57, 232
"Human Imagination, The", 70, 152
Illustrations of the Book of Job, 236
Imagination, 4,147-49,152,153
Isaiah, 47,48, 104
Page 272
Jeffrey, 42
Jerusalem, 65,75,151,155,193,248
Jerusalem, Emanative, 1,53,55,244,
245,246,247,248,251,262
Jesus, Jesus the Imagination, 262,265,
266
Jesus of the Bible, 51-52
Job,47
John o' London's Weekly, 141 fn. 8
John the Baptist, 108
Jung, 4,141,142,146
Kazin, Alfred, 22
Kelley, Maurice, 101
Keynes, Geoffrey, i, ii, iii, iv, 2 fn. 1,
18,236-37
King Henry the Fifth, 40,41 fn. 23
Kubla Khan, 126
Lamb, The, 168,207-08
Lamb and the Tyger, The, 30,31,33,
35, 37,38,40,44,45,46,47,206-08,
"Lamb of God", 207, 245,246,247
Learned derivations of the names of the
Zoas, 144 fn. 18
Lewis, C.S., 102
Light, 116,117
Lion, 136
Lion of Juda, 46
Little Flowers of St. Francis, The,
48 fn. 17
Little Girl Found, A, 134
Little Girl Lost, A, 133,239
"Living Creatures", 4
Logos, 43
Locke,249
Los, Los(-Christ), 4,28,141,142,172, 208-23,225,231,233,242,243,244, 252,257
Lowe, J. Livingstone, 126
Lucifer, 40,47,48, 59,104,181-82
Luvah, 4,141,142,177,178,180,189,
236
Lyca, 134-36
Malkin,B.H.,131
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The, 29. 137,158,173,176,205,231
Mathematical Commentaries, 139
Matthew, Brother, 48
McColley, C, 45
Mellon Lectures, A.W., ii
Michael, 44,45,48,90,93,113,114
"Mills, Satanic", 245, 249,251
Milton, 155,240,245,247,248,249,
251,252,255
Milton, iii, 32,55,58,59,64,65,75,76,
83, 84,90,91,92,94,95,99,101;
102,103,104,106,107,113,114,
116,119,121,126,127,175,190-91,
204,254,257,261,262-63,264
Milton and Wordsworth, 101 fn. 158
Milton Handbook, A, 102 fn. 161
"Milton's Battle in Heaven and Rupert
of St. Herbert", 45 fn. 7
"Minute Particulars Organized", 6,43,
197,256
Monk,F.F.,23,24,30
Moon, 115
"mortal god", 27,170,177
Mythology, Blake's, 221
Nature, 168,170,184
Neoplatonist tradition, 135,258
New Testament, The, 47 Newton,
Newtonian science, 102,249, 258
Nicodemus, 40
Night, 8,184-87,191,192,196
Nimrod, 107
Nonesuch Press, ii
Oaks, 83,194-95
"Ode on the Morning of Christ's
Nativity", 204
Old Testament, The, 47
Orc, 131,163,179,202-04
Original draft of The Tyger, 128-31
Paracelsus, 27,170
Paradise Lost, iii, 52,53,54,64,66,69,76,89,101,102,106,108, 111, 117,
157,158,185,187,220 221,230, 246,253,255,256,258,265
Paradise Lost and the Seventeenth Century Reader, 45 fn. 8
Page 273
Paradise Regained, 102,108
Persephone, 134, 135
"Pestilence: the Death of the First-Born", 5
Philosophia ad Athenienses, 170
Pluto, 135
Platonists, 28
Pleroma, 252
Plowman, Dorothy, 144 fn. 18
Plowman, Max, 133,134
Pluto, 134,135
Poems and Prophecies by William
Blake, 133 fn. 13
"Poetic Genius, the", 70,216
Porphyry, 134
Portable Blake, The, 22 fn. 5
"Preludium", 159
Preface to Paradise Lost, A, 102 fn.
162
Proclus, 134
Prophecy, 264
'Prospectus", 231
Proverbs of Hell, 138
Psalms of David. 49 fns. 19,20,21
Psychology, 4, 141,142,146
Puritan, Puritanism, 59
Raine, Kathleen, i, ii, vii, 4,25-29, 50
fn. 23, 134,144 fn. 18, 146,167-97, 222,231,237,258,261, 262,263-65
Rajan, B., 45,101
Ratio, Reason, 70,71
Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot, A, 41
Representative English Poetry, 24 fn. 9
Revelation of St. John the Divine, The, 44, 45,46,59 fn. 20
Rintrah, 205-06,231
Romantic Imagination, The, 137 fn. 1
Rossetti Ms., 54,55, 92
Rosenthal, M.L., 22,33-35,41
Sampson, John,T41 fn. 5
Satan, 40,44,47,56,57,58,65,66,68, 180,182
"Satan defying God the Father", 54
"Satan exulting over Eve", 54
"seize", "sieze", 17,26, 111, 112,113, 177-80,262,264,266
Selected Poems of William Blake, 5 fn. 12
Selected Poems - T.S. Eliot, 41 fn. 24
Self, 4,146
Seraphim, 48,95
Sethna, K.D. iii, v
Seturaman, V.S., i, iv fn. 1
Seurat, Denis, 246
Sewanee Review, The, 25 fn. 11,168 fn. 109
Shabda Brahman, 43
"Shadowy Female, The", 168,172,
180-81
Shakespeare, 40
Shelley, 14
"shoulder", 10,119,122
shoulder-art, 10,120
Signatura Rerum, 182
"skies", 12,13,14,16,77,88,92
Smart, Christopher, 42,43,256
Smith, A.J.M., 22,33-35,41
snakes, 5
Sola Pinto, Vivian de, 53 fn. 2
Son and Father, 43
Songs of Experience, The, 57,131,137,
163,206,231
Songs of Innocence, The ,139,206
Song of Liberty, 174
Song of Los, The, 233
"spears", 31, 32,60,61,162,164,166
Spectre, The (Reasoning Power), 149,
161,164,243,244
Sri Aurobindo, 4,5
Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, iv
Sri Aurobindo International Centre of
Education, i
St. Athanasius, 50
St. Augustine, 73
St. Bonaventure, 48 fn. 17
St. Francis, 48
St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Early
Biographies, 48 fn. 17
St. John, 43
St. John's Gospel, 43,231
St. Paul, 43,44,102,230
"stars", 15,20-26,29,30,31,32, 36,37,
39, 58, 59,162,163,164,173-75,
180-81, 185
Page 274
Stukely, 225
Summer, 239
Sun,115,118
Supernature,3,4,5,38,141,142,146, 151,153, 157,207,208,252
Symbol,Symbolism,Symbolization,2,127
symmetry, 9
Synecdoche,18, 85
Synesius, Bishop, 50
Swedenborg, 262
Swinburne, 23,24, 30
Taylor, Thomas, 134
Temenos, 50 fn. 23
That Night, 49
Tharmas, 4,141,142
Thompson, Francis, 73
Todd, 102
Traditions,Neoplatonic,Gnostic, Hermetic, Cabbalistic and Alchemical, 167
Trinitarianism, 101
Trinity, The, 54,96,102
Trusler, J., 3
Tutiensus, Rupertus, 45
Tyger's Artificer, Creator, Maker, The, 14,16-17,18,21,27,30,36
"Tygers", 197-200,238
Tyger, The, i, ii, iv, v, vi, vii, 30,33,43,
52,54,55,57,61,64,69,70,71,72,
73,74,75,81,82,89,91,133,157,
158,159,167,168,169,171,172,
173,176,177,179,181,201,202,
203,205,206,207,213,214,218,
219,220,223, 231,232,233,234,
237,238,239,241,242,253,255,
256,258,263,268
Udanadan,Udan-Adan, 162,241,243
Upanishads, 4,146
Urim, 63
Urthona, 141,142,174,180,213
Vala or the Four Zoas, 79,155
Vaughan, 48
Vision of the Last Judgment, A, 152
Visions of the Daughters of Albion,
The, 232
Voids, Newtonian, 251
War in Heaven, 158-67,182-88,192-97
Wars of Eternity, 150,151
Wheels, of Heaven, Satanic, starry,
173,174,241,244,251
William Blake, 4 fn. 10,23 fn. 8,146 fn.
35
"William Blake and Modern
Psychology", 141 fn. 8
Williamson, George, 41
Wickstead, Joseph H., 132,136 fn. 21
wings, 49,50,51,92,93-96,105,106,
120,224-26
Witcutt, W.P., 141 fn. 8,225,282
Word, the, 43
Wordsworth, 131
"work", 29,30,31,62,63,110,222
Workman, Workman Mind, 170,171,
173,222
Wrath, Divine, 39,49,50
Yoga, 4
Zeus of the Underworld and Olympus, 136
"Zoa", 141 fn. 7
Zoas, 4,143-45,257,262,264
Page 275
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