The Book of Urizen

In this epic poem, Blake gives us his own twisted version of Genesis (the book from the Bible, not the prog rock band) and it's batshit crazy... although, no moreso than the original, I suppose. <br /><br /><i> <s><b>Mama</b><br /><br />I can't see you mama<br />But I can hardly wait<br />Ooh to touch and to feel you mama<br />Oh I just can't keep away<br />In the heat and the steam of the city<br />Oh its got me running and I just can't brake<br />So say you'll help me mama<br />'Cause its getting so hard - ohhh!</s> </i><br /><br />Sorry!<br /><br /><i><b>Preludium to the First Book of Urizen</b><br /><br />Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,<br />When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;<br />And gave him a place in the north,<br />Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.<br />Eternals I hear your call gladly,<br />Dictate swift winged words, &amp; fear not<br />To unfold your dark visions of torment.</i><br /><br />My next book: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4058318156" rel="nofollow noopener">Mr. Nosey</a>

i read this and the book of los and the book of ahania but i'm not going to do three entries for three 20 ish pages poems, and i didn't read enough to justify tagging the full illustrated collection. anyway i always liked blake as an artist but i can never remember which of his poems i read, haven't read, or thought i remembered but actually just dreamed up or confabulated out of whole cloth, which i think is a all you need right there from that kind of poet

"The sound of a trumpet the heavens <br />Awoke &amp; vast clouds of blood roll'd<br />Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd<br />That solitary one in Immensity"<br /><br />I read this book aloud, had a quasi-mystical experience in the process. I wrote down some notes for this review, and then re-read it to get some more insight. This was a helpful resource: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://facstaff.uww.edu/hoganj/contents.htm#uricont">http://facstaff.uww.edu/hoganj/conten...</a> <br /><br />The book was absolute brilliance.<br /><br />I picked it up because Urizen initially impressed me via the painting depicting him called Ancient of Days: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Blake_ancient_of_days.jpg">http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...</a><br />He is the divine architect. He measured forth our local universe from void, and in this sense retains a trace of the creative impulse. The Eternals think of him as a "black globe", in that he is firmly committed to the Earthly rather than the Eternal and thus cut off from them, but also in that he is an isolated, atomistic individual. He is an egoist, confident in his own mind. He has the control of Yaweh and the cleverness of Satan. He needs no external justification. I admire Urizen because he reflects what I admire about myself.<br /><br />Additionally, many of his flaws and limitations are ones I see in myself:<br /><br />"I have sought for a joy without pain, <br />For a solid without fluctuation<br />Why will you die O Eternals?<br />Why live in unquenchable burnings?"<br /><br />Urizen seeks to constrain the emotional range to eliminate negatives. He sees the ever-changing Eternals as dying, because to him life is stability and The Discrete (of course the Eternals feel the reverse about him: life is spontaneity and change and therefore Urizen is death) While I identify with his impulses, they are futile. Urizen pursues them anyway and in this sense drowns in futility. He despises death and desire, but is incapable of getting rid of them. In fact, he is sort of subjugated by his own Wills. When he takes on a corporeal form, his body seems to be composed of desires without passion, i.e. Will. Rent from the side of Los (the Creative Spirit), he is fundamentally incomplete without the full creative range afforded by Los<br /><br />"Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on<br />This rock, place with strong hand the Book<br />Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.<br /><br />Laws of peace, of love, of unity:<br />Of pity, compassion, forgiveness. <br />Let each chuse one habitation:<br />His ancient infinite mansion:<br />One command, one joy, one desire,<br />One curse, one weight, one measure<br />One King, one God, one Law."<br /><br />A Rational God is bound by the chains of reason. He lays down the One Law, born out of his axiomatic, solitary reasoning, and his repression of the non-rational. He is the One King. The One God. The Cosmic Fascist. He is too self obsessed to be truly creative in an artistic sense. He measures and maps more than he creates. What creative power he has denies, and isn't happy in his own creation. He is the counterrevolutionary spirit. The reactionary chained to his syllogisms which obscure as much as they reveal. He inscribes his will on plates dead brass only for them to be ignored by mankind, which increases his angst.<br /><br />I love Urizen, because what is lovely in me is lovelier in him, and what pains me puts him into the throes of agony.<br /><br />That said, there are some things about Urizen which go beyond the edge of reason for me. He hates animals for being foreign, stupid, and incapable of worshipping him. He takes egoism to its narcissistic conclusion. Disagreement he sees as combat. Ambiguity causes him pain.<br /><br />I think the Eternals get off easy in this story. They never stop any of the negative events in the story from happening. I actually find their hypocrisy in opposing Urizens rationality, while erecting a Tent roofed by Science to more disgusting than Urizen's rationalist dogmatism. They also erect this tent to protect them from having to see Woman, and to keep Woman (along with Urizen) out of Eternity, which is pretty misogynistic. <br /><br />Los gets off a bit easy as well. Creative spirit has its drawbacks too if taken to an archetypical extreme. He is after all the one who chains up Urizen and gives him form without consent. He also kills his son (unsuccessfully?). Ok maybe he doesn't get off easy.<br /><br />I obviously loved this.<br /><br />You should also check out the illustrations. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Urizen">http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Boo...</a> Blake was an artist as much as he was a poet.

In short, The Book of Urizen is an allegory for the drawbacks of logic and empiricism in relation to spiritual thought. Urizen is a rational, immortal creator that systematically causes the narrowing of perception in the human mind in order for us to experience fewer forms of misery and suffering. <br />I always have a soft spot for Blake, even if he likes to repeat "Manacles" or "delight" at any given point...

Penned and illustrated with fire and bile. Creation as fall, sex and gender as body horror, law as chain, existence as chaos. The formation of flesh -- Blake's description of the heart and the bloodstream like the creation of stars and galaxies -- all pukes up upon itself to create chaos and unhappiness. Orc is born and immediately shackled. A Prometheus born to a world in which fire in nigh inconceivable. Infant humanity, immediately distressed and helpless, succumb to a horrifically stifling and rigid, oppressive system as a way to avoid the insurmountable madness of this new world. This desperation doesn't save them from deluge. Blake at his best has much the same energy as Goya at his best. Tormented images and prophetic yet blinded staggering in the darkening confines of a shrinking room. Erupting asphyxiated magnificence onto the flicker-lit walls of solitary caverns.

<i>Os Eternos disseram: «Que será isto? A Morte, <br />Um pedaço de barro - Urizen é isso.»<i></i></i>

Fascinating, enigmatic, visionary, this would probably be incomprehensible without the commentary that takes up almost half the book--and even <i>with</i> the commentary, it is hard to wrap one's head around what Blake is trying to achieve with this revisionist take on the creation myth. Densely allusive, and furthermore intensely interested in challenging the very notion of the book, according to the commentary, this account of the birth and struggles of various godlike figures--invoking classical mythology, the bible, and Milton's <i>Paradise Lost</i>--is more suggestive than assertive. The images (produced from copy G, one of the handful of surviving copies--all of which differ substantially from each other) especially have an inexplicable power and reward careful attention. Blake without the pictures loses a lot, so most anthology selections really don't give one a sense of what he is doing.

<b>Books/Authors to read before/after or during "The First Book of Urizen":</b><br /><br /><b>"The Book of Genesis"</b><br /><br /><b>"Paradise Lost"</b> by <b>John Milton</b><br /><br /><b>Jakob Böhme</b><br /><br />"Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake" by <b>Northrop Frye</b><br /><br />"A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake" by <b>S. Foster Damon </b><br /><br />"The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake" by <b>G.E. Bentley Jr</b><br /><br />"The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry" by <b>Harold Bloom</b>

Una de las copias originales de este libro está entre los 20 libros más caros que se han comprado en la historia. <br /><br />Por encima de los USD $2.5 MM que se pagaron por este libro hay 3 copias de Birds Of America de John James Audabon, 1 Biblia de Gutenberg, Los Cuentos de Canterbury de Chaucer (y yo vi estos 3 en Huntington Library *goosebumps*), 4 libros de evangelios y salmos, 1 de Shakespeare, cartas originales, un comic y las reglas del basketball (¿?), pero despertó suficiente interés en mí como para investigar al respecto y cuando vi que la versión de Kindle cuesta USD $0.69 dlls me dije ¿por qué no?<br /><br />No soy fanático de la poesía. Menos en inglés y MENOS en inglés de 1794, pero con mucha ayuda de internet y el diccionario de Kindle, pude leerlo y entenderlo. <br /><br />Más que escribir de qué se trata (lo cual pueden ver aquí: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Urizen">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boo...</a>), quiero compartir que me pareció un libro oscuro, tétrico y lúgubre para hablar de la creación del mundo y del hombre. En una parte, Urizen se da cuenta que sus hijos, carne y espíritu no son capaces de seguir sus leyes y en el siguiente acto, crea una red de metal, tan enredada y pesada que atrapa a la mente y a esa red le llama religión. Y caray, me pareció bastante intenso para tener solo 24 páginas.<br /><br />Los grabados son impresionantes y creo que ahí reside el valor de la copia de USD $2.5 MM y la edición de Kindle los reproduce todos, lo cual es un plus. Vale la pena darle una ojeada y creo que definitivamente, cuando ejercite más mi músculo poético, tendré que regresar a él.<br />

A grandiose, confident fantasy version of the creation of the world. I enjoyed it, although it really is mostly poetry. It doesn't contain the philosophy of other creation myths, and doesn't contain the drama of, say, th eGreek pantheon. It is, however, a great source of beautifully written scripture.