William Blake was a poet and artist who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was a very spiritual man who found inspiration for his art through Christianity. Even at an early age he spoke of having spiritual visions, causing his parents to notice that he was special. His interest in art grew but financial hardships forced him to become an apprentice engraver to further pursue his dreams where he was exposed to the Gothic styles of Westminster Abbey (“William Blake”). After the turn of the century, while working as an illustrator for poet William Hayley at Hayley’s ocean-side estate at Felpham, Blake wrote and illustrated Milton: a Poem, an epic poem where the spirit of 17th century poet and author John Milton descends from heaven and unites with Blake in order to redefine the relationship between a living poet and past artists that inspired him. Although Milton takes the reader on a mystical journey that jumps from reality to another plane of existence and back again, it gives a glimpse of some of the social factors acting on Blake during the time at which he was writing, such as his knowledge and passion for the Bible and the “dark Satanic mills” that came about during the Industrial Revolution, and shows how he thought he fit into the divine plan as well as how he drew inspiration from his surroundings.
The Holy Bible has had an effect on millions, if not billions, of people over the course of history and William Blake is no different. In the preface of Milton, Blake dismisses the writings of Homer, Ovid, Plato and Cicero as false when compared to the Bible and calls on the reader to resist the ideas presented by these thinkers. He then changes to a poetic prose and describes a scene where God comes to England and rebuilds Jerusalem there. He finishes with a verse from the bible, “’Would to God that all the Lord’s people were Prophets,’ Numbers 11:29. (Milton, 1:16)” This suggests that Blake believed himself to be a prophet with divine power whose purpose is to save his people. We can look to the Bible for clarification. In Numbers chapter 11, the Israelites are constantly lusting for more than what they are given, and Moses, who doesn’t like to see his people suffer, petitions God to give the people what they want. Moses becomes overwhelmed and asks why he must bear the burden of his entire people. God tells Moses to gather seventy elders and he will spread the burden among them. Moses did as he was told and the elders began to prophesize. The young men of the tribe implored Moses to stop the elders, but he wished for all of God’s people to receive the Lord’s spirit and prophecy to their fellows (Numbers 11:1-35 New International Version). It’s reasonable that Blake saw this as a way to explain his prophetic visions and used Moses’ statement at the end of the chapter as justification and inspiration for his ideas. Just as the spirit of the Lord was passed onto the Israeli elders, it was passed onto Blake so that he may prophesize to and save the people of England. We see here one way that Blake is able to draw divine inspiration from the Bible. There are numerous other stories of divine influence in the Bible and it is likely that Blake knew these and in some way incorporated them into his works. When it came to reforming the world Blake had a fundamentally activist view of how the individual should approach the situation and looked to the Hebrew prophets and John Milton for inspiration (Yogev). His activist outlook reinforces the idea that he thinks of himself as a prophet. He holds firmly to the belief that one person really can make a difference if allowed divine influence, just like Moses, David, or any of the other Hebrew leaders.
The role of Satan is an important one in Blake’s writings. In the poem Satan acts as the god of the material world and oversees all of the practicalities that help keep the world moving from day to day. Blake sees this manifested in the real world as “’dark satanic mills’, and in the biographical allegory they encompass areas of art such as portrait painting and other hack work. More generally, Satan takes over Urizen’s role as operator of natural law, which is part of Los’s regenerative activity. He also invents moral virtue, and recreates Urizen’s law-books as he falls. Satan is a more personal being who includes in one figure the blind, selfish natural man and the God that he supposedly creates in his own image. (Friedlander)” The “dark satanic mills” therefore represent banal jobs that don’t offer any real satisfaction. It offers uninspired people a way to go about preserving their own physical security and well-being but does little to inspire them. This can in fact be detrimental to the human spirit. A person who finds joy and inspiration in his work will likely continue to progress and do better and better work each day whereas a worker in the “satanic mills” will likely go through the motions just to survive until the end of the day. This kind of activity leads to monotony and most likely depression and feelings of uselessness. Friedlander describes Blake’s Satan as a “blind, selfish man and the God that he supposedly creates in his own image,” all rolled up into one entity. Since Satan is in control of the laws of nature it makes sense that he would apply his own philosophies, e.g. selfishness, into his way of keeping the world moving. Therefore, these laws would be established so that they preserve the selfish man on earth and in doing so further stifle the human spirit. Jackie DiSalvo explains how these ideas came to Blake through historical context. “As an independent artisan, he is the last of that line of ‘free-born Englishmen’ who as possessors of their own tools and talents insisted that liberalism fulfill its promise of freedom and opposed the power of the new moneyed oligarchy… …On the other hand Blake as a London engraver was witnessing an industrial revolution which was turning artisans like himself into mere laborers in the Satanic mills. (DiSalvo, 221)” It is now clear how Blake was able to bring his own life experiences into his poetry. He worried for the future because he saw oligarchic power replacing freedom and jobs that required passion being replaced by mundane, lackluster jobs that he believes will diminish a man’s soul.
To counteract the effects of the satanic mills Blake often used his poetry to enhance is prophetic abilities. Using a new technology called MOOing readers can fully immerse themselves into the poem because the line between reality and non-reality is skewed. Creator Ron Broglio says, “In brief, Blake’s Milton is about spiritual inspiration through poetry and apocalyptic revelations that result from following such inspiration. (Broglio)” To me this means that Blake uses poetry to force his ideas to the surface and in doing so has visions based on his own surrounding circumstances and ideas. The part that really stands out to me is “apocalyptic revelations that result from following such inspiration,” because it implies that he doesn’t fully understand what he’s writing about until he is finished. Since Blake frequently comes in and out of reality in his poem I can infer that he moves in and out of reality himself as he writes. He draws inspiration from the poetry as he writes and uses that inspiration to better focus his “apocalyptic revelations.” This can be extremely useful because the sharper the image of the revelation is, the easier it will be to learn and grow from. Another interesting point is Blake’s argument that he did not even write the poem, “Blake insisted that the poem itself was not his own work at all, but had been ‘dictated’ to him by beings from another world. (Friedlander)” In a way this still fits the profile of using poetry as inspiration. If he is telling the truth then a divine being is giving him the words to write and as he does this he interprets the messages and sees them as prophetic visions. We again see Blake as a prophet who uses his artistic and mystical abilities to fight back against the monster that is the physical realm of Satan. This “dictation” shows a direct connection from Blake to a higher power and a resistance to the way Satan runs things on Earth. Because he is able to find inspiration in his work, he is not hindered spiritually and therefore is a qualified leader to show people the true path to spiritual happiness.
In a world moving toward materialism, William Blake believed in spirituality for everyone and created magnificent poems and paintings to help guide ordinary people out of the dark. He had seen divine influence passed down in the Bible and felt that he was no different from any person who was written about in the Bible. He saw his poetry as the vessel to get people to a closer connection with God and he saw himself as the captain of that vessel. Much like Moses freed the Israelites from man and Jesus freed Christians from sin, Blake saw himself as the savior that will free all mankind from the shackles of the material world. Using his poetry as inspiration he is able to have prophetic visions and a level of closeness with God that many people dream of their whole lives but are never able to master. It is due to this closeness with the Almighty that he is able to keep his individuality and fight back against the self-centered world created by the “dark satanic mills.”
Bibliography
Blake, William. “Milton: A Poem.” Blake’s Illuminated Books. By William Blake. Princeton, N.J.: William Blake Trust/Princeton UP, 1998.
Broglio, Ron. “Living inside the Poem: MOOs and Blake’s Milton.” Digital Designs on Blake Broglio 2006-1-3467 ser. Romantic Circles Praxis Series. Jan. 2005. 21 Apr. 2009 <http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/designsonblake/broglio/broglio.html>.
DiSalvo, Jackie. “William Blake on the Unholy Alliance: Satanic Freedom and Godly Repression in Liberal Society.” Wordsworth Circle 3: 212-22.
Friedlander, Edward Roberd, M.D. William Blake’s Milton: Meaning and Madness. The Pathology Guy. 1986. 21 Apr. 2009 <http://www.pathguy.com/blake/blakemil.txt>.
Yogev, Michael. “Covenant of the Word: The Bible in William Blake’s Late Prophetic Poems.” Dissertation Abstracts International 52.8: 2938A . Dissertation Abstracts International 52 (1992).
“William Blake.” Poets.org. 2009. the Academy of American Poets. 29 Apr. 2009
<http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/116>.
The Holy Bible, “New International Version”.
Chicago: International Bible Society, 1984.
