So, how went the exam. I am reading Count Lautreamont books, hehe, now he is the evil Blake...
yeap, it is great, his fame should be bigger than the white whale (Melville)...
I have no idea, I think even revolutionary guys like Blake are rooted in their universes. He could not imagine what kind of cultural relation united states would develop or the politically correct notion. I think a good evidence of that is how writers after him keep following this thread. I often see on Blake an strugle to find a freedom, and this may be because he is eager for future, but not there. Devil's side, or the mistakes of present. Interesting read (as Herman Melville can be). He had a lot with Blake, perhaps a good analogy. Melville was between the white supremacy of XIX century and a deep admiration of wildness and the natives (Mostly related to his sea travel). In this book, a big allegory, the evil is represented by a black slave, who is at sametime atractive to the european captain who is giving us a narrative. Short story, from the unreliable narrator point of view, with a deep psychological horror, in the style Poe or Henry James would like. Melville would say a hundred times africans are inferior to europeans (Or north-americans) but his admiration for them (present also in Moby Dick) would allow a turn of interpretation and analogy with Black boy poem.
What I mean as backward reading is how some works are reanalysed by the new notions we have. Today, placing a black subservent boy is certainly shocking, at Blake time, it was maybe meaningless. So, he could not be thinking of anything with real vallue there... Of course, it is more credit to him, since it allows living interpretations today. Have you read Herman Melville's Benito Cereno?
What I mean with hypocrisy is him suggesting that anything related to slavery. It can be that he saw subservience as a good trait before good, and not before (White-european) - the imagery is always improtant - the black (dark) who is good inside is, i think, more important than the social vallue of african criticism. If we, today, reckonize it as nasty - itis backwards reading, pretty much like what is did with Mark Twain or Herman Mevlille. I do not think the theme is showing the african as bad, no more than showing the european is flawed despite his light (Or civilization, which make him unable to bow before god, which is probally where he is arming his irony: we europeans are superior to africans, so be it)...
I think that is possible, but dont you consider that visions of slavery or not are still so alien to what we think - I think the Black boy had suffering - experience, and learning. The white boy had to be helped and that is a superiority of the white boy. Assuming that it is subservience is too radical. We do not have Blake defending slavery or racism elsewhere - more even - He was well learnt of Rousseau and Voltaire, who are hypocrits about subject and he was critical of them, so I doubt he would repeat the hypocrisy...
The little black boy is closer, maybe, because he was able to understand it better, dont you think so?
I do not think he is far from Swenderborg here. The question about evil in the world and god existence was one of the main philosophical question in the XVIII century. Spawned Optimism and Pessimism notions- Liebiniz and Voltaire discussing the matter. But this poem I would say God is not racist but when placing the black boy from africa as a natural good (his mother) he may be attacking european distance from God (the futher we move from good or god, the more he will be flawed like a human) and trying to imply there is nothing in the is world that we should take as granted to access light (the white skin will also going to fade). Also, it is good to notice how the poem is about a boy who learns from his mother a lesson and apply it to another situation... That is pretty much the root of pedagogy...
Oh, I know. The whole Shakespeare controversy started with a joke, just like there is a joke about the (More acceptable) homer identidy. They took too seriously and there is a controversy... Pretty much if people take seriously "William Blake went to france, changed his name to Baudelaire and wrote poetry" and start discussing it... I guess, when one gets drunk it is hard to not do such things
Well, considering the theories reggarding the identidy of Shakespeare and the authorship of his plays, one more, coming from future would be quite possible. Perhaps it was Joyce who wrote them after all...
