William Blake vs the World
Metadata
- Author: John Higgs
Highlights
‘The imagination is the true fire, stolen from heaven, to animate this cold creature of clay, producing all those fine sympathies that lead to rapture.’ — location: 1667
She is from a place called the Vale of Har, and in Blake’s emerging mythology Har represented self-love or self-interest. She can only understand meaning centred on herself, rather than the wider ecosystem. — location: 2060
The foot, therefore, is the lowest part of the soul. It is this that we use to step into the ‘vegetative world’ of the physical realm. The feet in ancient times were the vehicle that brought the divine spirit to the otherwise material realm of England’s mountains green. — location: 2673
In this context, the identity of the feet in the poem is not particularly important – they are the soul stepping into the vegetative world. What matters is the extent to which the owner of those feet was illuminated by divine imagination. — location: 2765
Any other city or nation on earth would have equal claim to the status of the New Jerusalem, if they had been seen with Blake’s eyes, or lay under Blake’s feet. — location: 2777
them can be seen as Blake trying to understand his own mental landscape. When the angels and — location: 3313
humanity also has strong echoes with the story of Adam, Eve and the serpent — location: 3538
Tourists are consumers. When they flock to a location, they take away some of its magic and leave it less special than before. Pilgrims, in contrast, travel to places and in doing so add to them. — location: 4140
But for Blake, the proper destination of a pilgrimage was inwards. The imaginative creation of works such as the Divine Comedy and Pilgrim’s Progress were true journeys of pilgrimage. — location: 4145
What is striking about Blake’s choice of both Pilgrim’s Progress and the Divine Comedy is the similarity of their themes. Both are concerned with the journey of the human soul through trials and misfortune, horrors and wonders. Both show how such trials can refine and lighten that soul, bringing them to redemption and union with God. That Blake was drawn to both depictions of this universal story shows how important the narrative must have been to him at that point, in the last years of his — location: 4175
Only Blake understood the psychology behind this act of creation. Only Blake recognised and highlighted the creator’s blind spot, and only Blake understood exactly where the wielder of those compasses resided. — location: 4207
The Greek idea that heaven was above rather than within, for example, became so internalised during formal education that it was never questioned. In these circumstances, it is not surprising that his peers were incapable of understanding his work or seeing the world through his eyes. As the late maverick theatre director Ken Campbell used to insist, ‘I’m not mad, I’ve just read different books.’ — location: 4303
It declares that what exists in the mind is vital, and that ignoring or dismissing it is to fail to have a useful or truthful conception of reality. — location: 4345
If our eyes had evolved to see the light of the imagination rather than sunlight, then we would see ourselves as part of the constellations of the heavens, down here on earth rather than up in the night sky. — location: 4427
From Blake’s perspective, the human universe was a process of continual becoming, whose most vital and fundamental aspect was imagination. — location: 4512