Toward the Dualistic Synthesis : William Blake's Mystical Poems

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Recent scholarly concerns emphasize that William Blake's religious belief is heavily influenced by the principal alchemists, such as Paracelsus or Jacob Bohme. Certainly the fundamental matter to decipher Blake's mystical lines is the most essential condition of Western spiritual thought, that is to say, the unending strife between the mind and the body. This question proposes one of the most confused problems as we face the entire body of Blake's writings. Considering "Thel," we can see the heroine's unchangeable belief to praise the sensible experience of the flesh. It is no exaggeration to say that she is a character in the paradisiacal state that exists only in Eden. In this poem Blake proposes the consistent theme to reject the self-centered state of mind. He makes a great effort to confirm that mortal extinction is just a sign to discard one's egocentric attitude and access the unpredictable resource of mysticism. However, the heroines in Blake's early works inevitably partake of regrettable timidity, and Thel's case is not an exception. Then the controversial poem called Visions of the Daughters of Albion gives us the good place to investigate another dimension of Blake's mythology. The recurrent insistences of Oothoon, such as "every thing that lives is holy" or "each joy is a Love," indicate the fact that for Blake every single event is considerably valuable, even as much as th e whole system of his universe. Naturally, this kind of recognition reminds us of the cosmological view proposed by Alfred North Whitehead about a century later. Also we should admit that in Blake's poetry the repressive force arises as a prompting element in human behavior. Unlike Freud, who saw repression as an output of the conflict between our unconscious desires and the need to restrain our behavior so that we may adapt ourselves to environmental norms, Blake set forth a radical faith to emphasize his stance against any repression. "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is week enough to be restrained; and restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling," so we read in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The renunciation of creative force is as despicable as the forfeit of physical union, because man is destined to devote himself to the creation of visionary universe. Milton focuses upon the mythological process of man's corruption and his subsequent redemption. Blake begins to depict how Milton, the hero as the eternal being, is inspired to undertake his quest as he hears a bard's song about Satan's depravity. In the lines quoted above, Milton clearly indicates that humanity is neither manly nor womanly, but something uniting both of them. Ololon, the feminine representation of Milton, insists that her carnal force is powerful enough to sustain "the severe contentions of Friendship." That is why Blake perceives that eroticism is an unavoidable means to connect the male and the female. As self-sacrifice is carried out mutually, the self-centered state is demolished so that divine nature appears as something inherent in human nature. Of course we should not ignore the fact that sexuality is double-edged. It may be the gate to eternal beatitude and secular destruction. As much as it is an origin of unity and delight, it is also an origin of disorder and sadness. Blake parallels the primal cause of the bad incidents in our world with sexual jealousy, and he perceives this jealousy as the emotion coming out of fearful insecurity. At the same time, that insecurity leads us to the recognition that it is inescapable state of mind as it is sacrificed to gain the sacred aspect. The recognition as above proves that Blake's mystical experience always urges him to get toward the dualistic synthesis, which has extensive impulse beyond history.
2001-07-31

著者

山内功一郎
静岡大学人文学部

Toward the Dualistic Synthesis : William Blake's Mystical Poems

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