‘Walking in my Cottage Garden, sudden I beheld
The Virgin Ololon & address’d her as a Daughter of Beulah’
Well, it could happen to anybody, couldn’t it?
Yes, I went to the blockbuster William Blake show at Tate Britain – that quotation from ‘Milton a Poem’ can be found on a wall of the exhibition.
As I staggered out after 90 minutes or so, I’m pretty sure I was displaying marks of weakness, marks of woe. It seems I have a bit of blind spot for Blake. I mean, yes some of the paintings and engravings are OK, some of the poetry is fine, it’s just is his personal mythology that really gets me down. I mean I have enough trouble with the convolutions of basic Christian mythology, but when I’m confronted with Orc and Los and Urizen and Nobodaddy and indeed the Daughters of Beulah, and all the other stuff he just you know made up, I want to say enough already.
Clearly this is a minority view, my own failing no doubt, and one not shared by the throng packing into the Tate.
But really, did Albion have to be quite so effete?
And in the illustration below from ‘Paradise Lost,’ what exactly is Adam doing? Saying ‘Hello clouds, hello trees’? And what's with the jazz hands? One thing he’s not doing is paying attention:
And as for what Eve has in her mouth – well I think we know what it’s supposed to be, but I think we also know what it very much looks like.
Incidentally, should you ever find yourself in Manningtree, in Essex and you feel the need for the lineaments of gratified desire, you can always to walk up to Blake close: the walk will do you good.
