Post by urthona2 on Mar 4, 2013 17:59:44 GMT -8
SENSES SHRINK
An image that Blake uses for the Fall of Man (the division into duality or multiplicity), is presented in the limitation of man's sensory acuity. The senses of Eternity are flexible, expanding and contracting at will: their perceptions are infinite.
The Book of Urizen dramatizes the process of the infinite senses becoming the senses five that we recognize and enjoy today. It is not a happy sight to see the powers of Eternity being defined and limited into the narrow range of sight, sound, smell, and taste and touch to which we have access...
...And in reptile forms shrinking together"
The inability to perceive reality shows itself in man's forgetting Eternity from which he originated. This limits his ability to discern the possibility of living as he is meant to live. His limited perceptions further cloud his mind to the distorted conditions which he becomes satisfied with living under in the world he has made for himself.
Letter to Truxler, (E 702)
"As a man is So he Sees.
As the Eye is formed such are its Powers"
ramhornd.blogspot.com/2010/06/senses-shrink.html
Los is seen from Eno, aged mother (an anagram of Eon (Aeon)), an eternal view. The description of Urizen's desire is interesting(on page 90) - "Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid/without fluctuation, hard as adamant /Black as marble of Egypt, impenetrable/Bound in the fierce raging immortal./And the separated fires froze in/A vast solid without fluctuation,/Bound in his expanding clear senses" - So that's the same conception of evil as opacity, as constriction, as a shrinking of senses, solidification, opacity, can't-see-through-it. This is quite interesting - "Solid/ without fluctuation" - it's almost very philosophical, scientific - a conception of evil, or Urizen, or Rudra, or an ego, or self-hood, as a "Solid/ without fluctuation" (well, there's some fluctuation in it, but, it's mostly composed of supposed solids without fluctuation, until you look at it very carefully, and you realize (that) they're all fluctuating waves, and there is no solidity, there's just the appearance of solidity). The reason Los has to create Urizen into a form is because Truth has bounds (Error has no bounds) - "Truth has bounds. Error none; falling falling/ Years on years, and ages on ages/ Still he fell through the void, still a void/ Found for falling day and night without end" - So that's an interesting re-application of that principle of why poetic Imagination had to make a form for unreasonable Error, for Reason's monstrous creation - because Truth has bounds. So if you take falsehood and give it a form, you can see it, bounded, and so you get some sense of the truth of it (whereas, if it's left formless, if you don't find Satan's system, if you don't discern, analyze Satan's system, then you're just dealing with big, vague, you-don't-know-what)
www.allenginsberg.org/index.php?page=william-blake-class---12-urizen-concludes
An image that Blake uses for the Fall of Man (the division into duality or multiplicity), is presented in the limitation of man's sensory acuity. The senses of Eternity are flexible, expanding and contracting at will: their perceptions are infinite.
The Book of Urizen dramatizes the process of the infinite senses becoming the senses five that we recognize and enjoy today. It is not a happy sight to see the powers of Eternity being defined and limited into the narrow range of sight, sound, smell, and taste and touch to which we have access...
...And in reptile forms shrinking together"
The inability to perceive reality shows itself in man's forgetting Eternity from which he originated. This limits his ability to discern the possibility of living as he is meant to live. His limited perceptions further cloud his mind to the distorted conditions which he becomes satisfied with living under in the world he has made for himself.
Letter to Truxler, (E 702)
"As a man is So he Sees.
As the Eye is formed such are its Powers"
ramhornd.blogspot.com/2010/06/senses-shrink.html
Los is seen from Eno, aged mother (an anagram of Eon (Aeon)), an eternal view. The description of Urizen's desire is interesting(on page 90) - "Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid/without fluctuation, hard as adamant /Black as marble of Egypt, impenetrable/Bound in the fierce raging immortal./And the separated fires froze in/A vast solid without fluctuation,/Bound in his expanding clear senses" - So that's the same conception of evil as opacity, as constriction, as a shrinking of senses, solidification, opacity, can't-see-through-it. This is quite interesting - "Solid/ without fluctuation" - it's almost very philosophical, scientific - a conception of evil, or Urizen, or Rudra, or an ego, or self-hood, as a "Solid/ without fluctuation" (well, there's some fluctuation in it, but, it's mostly composed of supposed solids without fluctuation, until you look at it very carefully, and you realize (that) they're all fluctuating waves, and there is no solidity, there's just the appearance of solidity). The reason Los has to create Urizen into a form is because Truth has bounds (Error has no bounds) - "Truth has bounds. Error none; falling falling/ Years on years, and ages on ages/ Still he fell through the void, still a void/ Found for falling day and night without end" - So that's an interesting re-application of that principle of why poetic Imagination had to make a form for unreasonable Error, for Reason's monstrous creation - because Truth has bounds. So if you take falsehood and give it a form, you can see it, bounded, and so you get some sense of the truth of it (whereas, if it's left formless, if you don't find Satan's system, if you don't discern, analyze Satan's system, then you're just dealing with big, vague, you-don't-know-what)
www.allenginsberg.org/index.php?page=william-blake-class---12-urizen-concludes