William Blake and the Idea of Poetic Vision* And they conversed together in Visionary forms dramatic which bright Redounded from their Tongues in thunderous majesty, in Visions In new Expanses, creating exemplars of Memory and of Intellect Creating Space, Creating Time according to the wonders Divine Of Human Imagination, throughout all the Three Regions immense Of Childhood, Manhood & Old Age; & the all tremendous infathomable Non Ens Of Death was seen in regenerations terrific or complacent varying According to the subject of discourse & every Word & Every Character Was Human according to the Expansion or Contraction, the Translucence or Opakeness of Nervous fibres such was the variation of Time & Space Which vary according as the Organs of Perception vary & they walked To & fro in Eternity as One Man reflecting each in each & clearly seen And seeing: according to fitness & order. -William Blake, Jerusalem, plate 98 * Univ. of Washington Lecture by Leroy Searle, 2007 Visionary Forms Redounded from their tongues Exemplars of Memory Exemplars of Intellect The Divine wonders of Human Imagination Every Word & Every Character Was Human Time & Space...vary according as the Organs of Perception vary They walked/To & Fro in Eternity as One Man Reflecting each in each & clearly seen and Seeing According to fitness and order

Seeing Through not With the Eye What it will be Questioned: When the Sun rises do you not see a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea? O no no! I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty. I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would question a Window concerning a Sight. I look thro it & not with it. ( Punctuation added) To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour From Auguries of Innocence, p. 490 Now I a fourfold vision see And a fourfold vision is given to me Tis fourfold in my supreme delight And three fold in soft Beulahs night And twofold Always. May God us keep From Single vision & Newtons sleep – Letter to Thomas Butts, , p. 722

The Two Contrary States of the Human Soul Title Page: Songs of Innocence and of Experience (copy z)Frontispiece to Innocence (copy z)

Introduction & The Lamb The Lamb

Experience Innocence Experience

Intro to ExperienceEarth’s Answer

InnocenceExperience

Vision (3 terms) Speaker in Innocence Speaker in Experience What State is the Reader IN? Reader sees I & E, and can recognize that BOTH are real, Neither is REALITY. The error in innocence is exactly complementary to the error in experience: each thinks their view IS REALITY.

Vision 4 terms As FELT (1)As FELT (2) AS READ/ SEEN (3) CritiqueCritique New State: the need for a POEM (4) Things are (will be) OK (if I’m Good) Things SUCK, And it is Somebody’s FAULT Innocent vision Contains Its own defeat & will generate Its contrary The vision of Experience Will poison Its own World. The reader can See all this: there Is NO choice Between Innocence and Experience: NEW CREATION Visionary forms Dramatic