Ralph on Blake again

["Chris, London" <100423.2040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for coming back on Blake and "Jerusalem", including
on the music. I had a vague feeling it was Elgar but
could not remember. Parry.

My point was not that "you" personally but "one" has an additional
political experience by standing in England and singing "Jerusalem".
I am sorry that I do not know the Robeson version.

The reason why I posted on Blake's politics in two installments
was to try to understand separately 1) Blake's political
position. 2) the political position that Blake's "Jerusalem"
came to represent, as a possible anthem for democratic hopes in England,
which may not be quite the same thing.

>>>>
I had planned to upload some of the juiciest metaphysical passages
from "Jerusalem", but there was just so much I could do on his
birthday.  Blake completely unravelled ruling class metaphysics.
<<<<<

I presume you mean the longer poem called "Jerusalem". That sounds
highly relevant.

You will not be surprised to know I have my usual difficulties about
your comments on Carrol. Without some sharpness on this list there
would be no-debate. But to my ears, too high a volume of denunciation
deafens me to the essence of the criticism. I just hear that the man
is despised as a whole. It is a "communication problem".

In my encouragement to him to keep on posting
I did not intend to imply I agreed totally, but I thought it was an important
debate. In particular I doubt his equation of "decorum" with "bourgeois
decorum". This is potentially a very big issue about the marxist appreciation
of culture.

In fragmented form at least Carrol IMO is laying himself vulnerable to a
charge of reductionism, (eg at its simplest, The Internationale in
fact uses the second person plural far more often than the third
person plural, but that is hardly the main question for judging its
artistic quality, nor is its artistic quality the main reason for
judging the Internationale)

I have tried reconstructing Carrol's post, but it is still in bits.
My sense is I am more likely to agree with you on the substance of the
matter, but I would like to see the criticism spelled out cogently.


Am I a Marxist-Leninist creep or a real human being? Are these
necessarily exclusives? I am resigned to being a mass of unresolved
contradictions. That is perhaps why, I am glad to say, art can still
touch me. But whether it touches me the same way as you, or Jeff, or Carrol,
that is very hard to predict.


Chris, London.



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