Allen Ginsberg on William Blake continues from here
AG: – “he wrote/In silence his book of iron…”
Before we go further, we’ve got some interesting stuff there. The “book of iron”, incidentally, according to Alicia Ostriker recurs over and over and wherever you have iron it’s the Book of War. So Rules of War, or War Code. The tree occurs over and over again, and there’s a little more description of the tree for another ten lines or so, so let’s finish that and then I’ll check out the tree with you.
“Till the horrid plant bending its boughs/Grew to roots when it felt the earth/And again sprung to many a tree.”
AG: So, in other words, a lot of suckers grew down. You know (suckers)? What kind of tree (has suckers)?
Student: Banyan tree.
AG: Banyan tree does that, yes.
Student (2): Bamboo?
AG: Bamboo, no. It’s sort of the branches go out and suckers go down from the branches. So that would be more like the banyan. Also in Russia there’s the poison tree, the Upas tree, that Pushkin wrote about also, that the prophet had to deal with, the Russian prophet.
“Amaz’d started Urizen! When/He beheld himself compassed round/And high roofed over with trees”
So the trees grew around him and made a cage for him
“He arose but the stems stood so thick/He with difficult and great pain/Brought his Books, all but the Book/ Of iron, from the dismal shade
The Tree still grows over the Void/Enrooting itself all around/An endless labyrinth of woe!
The corse of his first begotten/On the accursed Tree of MYSTERY/: On the topmost stem of this Tree/Urizen nail’d Fuzon’s corse.”
to be continued