Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William BlakeThis brilliant outline of Blake's thought and commentary on his poetry comes on the crest of the current interest in Blake, and carries us further towards an understanding of his work than any previous study. Here is a dear and complete solution to the riddles of the longer poems, the so-called "Prophecies," and a demonstration of Blake's insight that will amaze the modern reader. The first section of the book shows how Blake arrived at a theory of knowledge that was also, for him, a theory of religion, of human life and of art, and how this rigorously defined system of ideas found expression in the complicated but consistent symbolism of his poetry. The second and third parts, after indicating the relation of Blake to English literature and the intellectual atmosphere of his own time, explain the meaning of Blake's poems and the significance of their characters. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 43
... Unity,”10 said Blake: the identity of content and form is the axiom of all sound criticism. There is therefore nothing mysterious about the intellectual powers: on the contrary, the one thing they must include is a sense of proportion ...
... Eye, Such the Object. Every thing possible to be believed is an image of truth. The Sun's Light when he unfolds it Depends on the Organ that beholds it.38 Blake does not deny the unity of the material world: THE CflSE flGflIJV'ST LOCKE 19.
A Study of William Blake Northrop Frye. Blake does not deny the unity of the material world: a farmer and a painter, looking at the same landscape, will undoubtedly see the same landscape: . . . All of us on earth are united in thought ...
... unity to the character of the perceiver. Perceptions form part of a logically unfolding organic unit, and just as an acorn will develop only into an oak, and not just any oak but the particular oak implicit in it, so the human being ...
... unity of God. Such ideas as “mankind” and “humanity” are only generalized; but the fact that an acorn produces only an oak indicates the fact of species or class as clearly as it indicates the fallacy of a generalized tree. Blake's word ...