Censorship? William Blake? Seriously? Hm...

A week or so ago, I wrote a post here on my blog that garnered me a warning from FB. Since then, it's been restored, and my request for review either a/ must have been honored, or b/ it disappeared-- I've heard nothing. That said, today, Vox Populi had a poetry post blocked-- for "inappropriate subject"-- and the poem that triggered this blocking and warning was a poem by English pre-Romantic/ Mystic William Blake. The poem, titled "Auguries of Innocence," is quite familiar, at least in excerpt form, at least to those of us (geeks?) who study canon literature. 

It begins with, 

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
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage...

Now, then. Blake was a true visionary, in the sense that he literally had visions. As a young boy, he said he saw a tree full of angels. His artwork graces the early printings of his poetry (he was a skilled engraver), and the images are both complicated and not always "beautiful." The poems are also deeply philosophical. Most readers of literature are at least familiar with some of his Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience-- my students are-- with such questions as "Little Lamb, who made thee?" and the Tyger images, "Did He who made the Lamb make thee?"

Most readers of Romantic poetry have not wrestled with Blake's longer, darker works, such as The Book of Urizen. Blake invented a whole new mythology, a different creation story for the world. Urizen, as a character, represents Reason as an oppressed and alienated entity, one that creates his own realm of restrictive religious dogma as a reaction to being separated from the other Eternals. Later characters in the story create a safe space for the spirit of revolution and freedom to be born. 

Whaaaat??? Now we are talking. Blake wrote a lot of work that is considered prophetic, but this is fascinating. Given the current state of affairs both nationally and globally, how prescient is this? The Book of Urizen is a sort of parody of the Book of Genesis, but not written as a parody to entertain. It shows a different vision for how mankind has become trapped by indoctrination. 

Now that is deep stuff. I read it in my undergrad days, when I was a student of the gifted professor Jim Doyle, and it really made a huge impression on me. Blake upended all of the expectations that we have about the creation of the world, at least as the Judeo-Christian tradition tells it. It might be time to read it again. Y'know, before the random censors decide we can't.

Have a good day,

C