Allen Ginsberg’ Naropa class on William Blake’s “Europe”. continues from here
Student (John W) (reading Blake): “I took him home in my warm bosom: as we went along/ Wild flowers I gatherd; & he shew’d me each eternal flower:/ He laugh’d aloud to see them whimper because they were pluck’d./ They hover’d round me like a cloud of incense: when I came/Into my parlour and sat down, and took my pen to write:/ My Fairy sat upon the table, and dictated EUROPE.
AG: So that’s how he got Europe written. – Is there an illustration of this in Europe ? It’d be funny. I’ve forgotten if there is. Well, not quite. Not quite. Let’s see. No, apparently he doesn’t have any fairy sitting on a table.
There is… There have been elsewhere some such illustrations of Blake. Yes, let’s see, yes, there is a color illustration of Blake running around with his hat like a butterfly net, catching a fairy, or a young man with a hat and dandy’s clothes in a meadow near Oxford, perhaps, running through the meadow with his big hat upraised in the air and he’s going to catch this little butterfly-fairy. It’s a little female figurine fairy flying in the air with butterfly wings. Get her. – Well, let’s see what happens here.
Student: That’s from page 260 in Bloom (sic) , isn’t it?
AG: Which?
Student: The guy trying to catch the fairy with his hat.
AG: (Page) 260.
Student: Yeah. In Bloom?
AG: In the Illuminated?
Student: (This one here)
AG: Oh. Let’s take a look. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, that’s one of them. Trying to catpture as many.. The symbolism of that – ( it’s on page 260 in Bloom). In the text… it’s actually… One thing is, there’s a Garuda above it..
Actually these are quite interesting, these little (drawings). They’re very late. But it’s a rationalist attempting to capture the imagination, to trap it. “He who binds to himself a joy does the winged life destroy.” So it’s a picture of a young student trying to destroy the winged life by trying to understand it, rationally.
Student: It looks like he already killed one.
AG: Yeah. He’s got one behind him.
Student: Which plate is that?
AG: This is page 260 of the Erdman text book. The Erdman, yeah (with commentary y Bloom)
to be continued
Audio for the above can be heard here, beginning at approximately seventy-seven minutes in and concluding at approximately seventy-nine-and-three-quarters minutes in