We return today to transcription of Allen’s analysis of Willam Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” – continuing from here
AG: ” They Plow’d in tears, the trumpets sounded before the golden Plow…” – (That’s the plow of reason, of true reason, sweet science. “They Plow’d in tears”- that is the plow, or the turning over of reality by the mind) – “They Plow’d in tears, the trumpets sounded before the golden Plow/And the voices of the Living Creatures were heard in the clouds of heaven/ Crying: Compell the Reasoner to Demonstrate with unhewn Demonstrations/Let the Indefinite be explored. and let every Man be Judged/By his own Works, Let all Indefinites be thrown into Demonstrations/To be pounded to dust & melted in the Furnaces of Affliction:/He who would do good to another, must do it in Minute Particulars/General Good is the plea of the scoundrel hypocrite & flatterer:/For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars/And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power./The Infinite alone resides in Definite & Determinate Identity’ – (“Eternity is in love with the productions of time”)
– “The Infinite alone resides in Definite & Determinate Identity/Establishment of Truth depends on destruction of Falshood continually/On Circumcision: not on Virginity, O Reasoners of Albion/ So cried they at the Plow..”
That’s a great passage. And that’s maybe the ultimate idealic (or) the ultimate ideal passage in all of Blake. Toward Chapter III of Jerusalem, the announcement, this great trumpet-like chorale on minute particulars (which is basically saying, just everybody come down, come back down to earth, and enter the space where we actually are, with a definite one-hand clapping. Actually, being in the space where we are, with no rationalistic criticism and denunciation, or put-down, or embarrassment, of that majesty of that space).
So, “Eternity is in love with the productions of time” could be correlated with “The Infinite alone resides in Definite & Determinate Identity,” which is the great principle of all poetry also, which is to say, if you want to write big mad classic poetry about infinite emotions you can only do it through direct perceptions of the little details, and the assemblage of detailed noticings. If you want to make flower arrangements you have to make use of flowers and wood and actual objects. So it would be mindfulness of particulars.
to be continued