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"The Human Abstract" is a poem written by the English poet
"The Human Abstract" is a poem written by the English poet William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
. It was published as part of his collection ''Songs of Experience
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...
'' in 1794. The poem was originally drafted in Blake's notebook and was later revised for as part of publication in ''Songs of Experience''. Critics of the poem have noted it as demonstrative of Blake's metaphysical poetry
The term Metaphysical poets was coined by the critic Samuel Johnson to describe a loose group of 17th-century English poets whose work was characterised by the inventive use of conceits, and by a greater emphasis on the spoken rather than lyric ...
and its emphasis on the tension between the human and the divine.
Poem
Context and interpretation
The poem was engraved on a single plate as a part of the ''Songs of Experience
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...
'' (1794) and reprinted in Gilchrist's Life of Blake in the second volume 1863/1880 from the draft in the ''Notebook of William Blake
The Notebook of William Blake (also known as the Rossetti Manuscript from its association with its former owner Dante Gabriel Rossetti) was used by William Blake as a commonplace book from (or 1793) to 1818.
Description
The Notebook The human Image'' substituted. The title ''The Human Abstract'' appeared first in the ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience''. In the commentary to his publication of the ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'', D. G. Rossetti described this poem as one of "very perfect and noble examples of Blake's metaphysical poetry".
The illustration shows a gowned old man with a long beard who kneels with his legs outspread. He raises his arms to grip the ropes as if he tries to free himself. There is a tree trunk with a broad base on the right and the edge of another on the left. The colour of the sky suggests sunrise or sunset. A muddy river runs along the lower edge of the design in front of the man. The picture portrays the supreme God of Blake's mythology and the creator of the material world, whom Blake named "
There are the explicit antitheses in this poem and ''
In the second stanza the word "baits" is a replacement of the deleted word "nets":
Third, fourth and fifth stanzas arranged exactly as in the last etched version, however with no punctuation marks:
The last quatrain of the poem is the replacement of the following passage:
As was observed by the scholars, the ideas of the poem correspond with some other works of Blake which show deeper insight. For example:
Here is the mentioned fragment from Chap: III of ''
A comparison of extant copies of The Human Abstract
from th
William Blake Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Human Abstract, The 1794 poems Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Urizen
In the mythology of William Blake, Urizen () is the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensna ...
" (probably from ''your reason''), struggling with his own nets of religion, under the Tree of Mystery, which symbolically "represents the resulting growth of religion and the priesthood (the Catterpillar and the Fly), feeding on its leaves".
The previous title of the poem "The Human Image" shows clearly that it is a counterpart to "The Divine Image
"The Divine Image" is a poem by the English poet William Blake from his book ''Songs of Innocence'' (1789), not to be confused with "A Divine Image" from ''Songs of Experience'' (1794). It was later included in his joint collection ''Songs of I ...
" in the ''Songs of Innocence
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...
''. There is a great difference between two worlds: of Innocence and of Experience. In "The Divine Image" of Innocence Blake establishes four great virtues: mercy
Mercy (Middle English, from Anglo-French ''merci'', from Medieval Latin ''merced-'', ''merces'', from Latin, "price paid, wages", from ''merc-'', ''merxi'' "merchandise") is benevolence, forgiveness, and kindness in a variety of ethical, relig ...
, pity
Pity is a sympathetic sorrow evoked by the suffering of others, and is used in a comparable sense to ''compassion'', '' condolence'' or ''empathy'' – the word deriving from the Latin ''pietas'' (etymon also of ''piety''). Self-pity is pity ...
, peace
Peace is a concept of societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence. In a social sense, peace is commonly used to mean a lack of conflict (such as war) and freedom from fear of violence between individuals or groups. ...
, and love
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love o ...
, where the last one is the greatest and embraces the other three. These four virtues represent God as well as a Man:
However, as Robert F. Gleckner pointed out, “in the world of experience such a human-divine imaginative unity is shattered, for the Blakean fall, as is well known, is a fall into division, fragmentation, each fragment assuming for itself the importance (and hence the benefits) of the whole. Experience, then, is fundamentally hypocritical and acquisitive, rational and non-imaginative. In such a world virtue cannot exist except as a rationally conceived opposite to vice.”Gleckner, p. 374.
Blake made two more attempts to create a counterpart poem to ''The Divine Image'' of Innocence. One of them, ''A Divine Image
"A Divine Image" is a poem by William Blake from ''Songs of Experience'', not to be confused with "The Divine Image" from ''Songs of Innocence''. The poem only appeared in copy BB of the combined ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience.''
Ralp ...
'', was clearly intended for ''Songs of Experience
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...
'', and was even etched, but not included into the main corpus of the collection:The poem only appeared in copy BB of the combined ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience''.
There are the explicit antitheses in this poem and ''The Divine Image
"The Divine Image" is a poem by the English poet William Blake from his book ''Songs of Innocence'' (1789), not to be confused with "A Divine Image" from ''Songs of Experience'' (1794). It was later included in his joint collection ''Songs of I ...
'' of the ''Songs of Innocence
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...
''. "The poem's discursiveness, its rather mechanical, almost mathematical simplicity make it unlike other songs of experience; the obviousness of the contrast suggests a hasty, impulsive composition..."Gleckner, p. 379.
The four virtues of ''The Divine Image
"The Divine Image" is a poem by the English poet William Blake from his book ''Songs of Innocence'' (1789), not to be confused with "A Divine Image" from ''Songs of Experience'' (1794). It was later included in his joint collection ''Songs of I ...
'' (mercy, pity, peace, and love) that incorporated the human heart, face, form, and dress were abstracted here from the corpus of the divine, become selfish and hypocritically disguise their true natures, and perverted into cruelty
Cruelty is the pleasure in inflicting suffering or inaction towards another's suffering when a clear remedy is readily available. Sadism can also be related to this form of action or concept. Cruel ways of inflicting suffering may involve ...
, jealousy
Jealousy generally refers to the thoughts or feelings of insecurity, fear, and concern over a relative lack of possessions or safety.
Jealousy can consist of one or more emotions such as anger, resentment, inadequacy, helplessness or disgus ...
, terror, and secrecy.
Another poem dealing with the same subject " I heard an Angel singing..." exists only in draft version and appeared as the eighth entry of '' Blake's Notebook'', p. 114, reversed, seven pages and about twenty poems before "The Human Image" (that is the draft of "The Human Abstract"). "Blake's intention in 'The Human Abstract' then was to analyze the perversion while making it clear at the same time that imaginatively (to the poet) it was a perversion, rationally (to fallen man) it was not. In 'A Divine Image' he had simply done the former. 'I heard an Angel singing...' was his first attempt to do both, the angel speaking for 'The Divine Image', the devil for 'A Divine Image'":Gleckner, p. 376.
In a draft version of "The Human Abstract" (under the title "The human Image") the word "Pity" of the first line is written instead of the word "Mercy". The second line "If we did not make somebody poor" in the first version was written above the struck-through line "If there was nobody poor".
In the second stanza the word "baits" is a replacement of the deleted word "nets":
Third, fourth and fifth stanzas arranged exactly as in the last etched version, however with no punctuation marks:
The last quatrain of the poem is the replacement of the following passage:
As was observed by the scholars, the ideas of the poem correspond with some other works of Blake which show deeper insight. For example:
Here is the mentioned fragment from Chap: III of ''The Book of Ahania
''The Book of Ahania'' is one of the English poet William Blake's prophetic books. It was published in 1795, illustrated by Blake's own plates.
The poem of the book consists of six chapters. The content concerns Fuzon, a son of Urizen, a ''Zoa' ...
'':
Sampson noticed that "the 'Tree of Mystery' signifies 'Moral Law'", and cited the relevant passage from Blake's ''Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion
''Jerusalem'', subtitled ''The Emanation of the Giant Albion'' (1804–1820, with additions made even later), is the last, longest and greatest in scope of the prophetic books written and illustrated by the English poet, artist and engraver W ...
'':
Gleckner concluded his analysis with the statement that the poem "The Human Abstract", as a whole, is “a remarkably ambitious experiment in progressive enrichment, and a revealing document for the study of Blake's two contrary states of the human soul.”
Musical settings
* David A. Axelrod (b.1931), USA: ''The human abstract''. No. 6 from ''Songs of Experience
''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' is a collection of illustrated poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases: a few first copies were printed and illuminated by Blake himself in 1789; five years later, he bound these poems with a ...
'', for orchestra. Rec. Capitol stereo SKAO-338 (1969)
* Timothy Lenk (b. 1952), USA: ''The human abstract''. No. 12 from ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience'', for tenor and bass soli, flute (piccolo), clarinet (and bass clarinet) and violin, 1977
* Gerard Victory
Thomas Joseph Gerard Victory (24 December 1921 – 14 March 1995) was a prolific Irish composer. He wrote over two hundred works across many genres and styles, including tonal, serial, aleatoric and electroacoustic music.
Biography
Victory ...
(1921 –1995), Ireland: ''The human abstract''. No. 5 from ''Seven Songs of Experience'', for soprano and tenor soli, and SATB a capella, 1977/78
* Mike Westbrook
Michael John David Westbrook (born 21 March 1936) is an English jazz pianist, composer, and writer of orchestrated jazz pieces. He is married to the vocalist, librettist and painter Kate Westbrook.
Early work
Mike Westbrook was born in Hig ...
(b. 1936), UK: ''The human abstract'', for jazz ensemble and singing, Rec. 1983
* William Brocklesby Wordsworth (1908 –1988), UK: ''Pity would be no more (The human abstract)'', No. 4 from ''A Vision'', for women's voices (SSA), strings and piano, Op. 46 (1950)Fitch, p. 252
See also
* The Human Abstract (song) *The Human Abstract (band)
The Human Abstract was an American progressive metalcore band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 2004, the group was originally signed to the independent label Hopeless Records, the band then released the two albums '' Nocturne'' (2006) an ...
(metal band)
Notes
References
Works cited
* * * * * * * Swinburne, A. C. William Blake, a critical essay (Chapter: Lyrical poems), 1868.External links
A comparison of extant copies of The Human Abstract
from th
William Blake Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Human Abstract, The 1794 poems Songs of Innocence and of Experience