Blake on Chaucer

See the woodcut here.

Blake's impression of the pilgrims is far more, um, positive than those of 20th-century readers, who tend to find irony and critique far more palatable than idealism. He begins with an entirely characteristic view of the pilgrims as transhistorical archetypes.

Of Chaucer’s characters, as described in his Canterbury Tales, some of the names or titles are altered by time, but the characters themselves for ever remain unaltered; and consequently they are the physiognomies or lineaments of universal human life, beyond which Nature never steps. Names alter, things never alter. I have known multitudes of those who would have been monks in the age of monkery, who in this deistical age are deists. As Newton numbered the stars, and as Linnaeus numbered the plants, so Chaucer numbered the classes of men. . . . 

Chaucer’s characters live age after age. Every age is a Canterbury Pilgrimage; we all pass on, each sustaining one of these characters; nor can a child be born who is not one or other of these characters of Chaucer.   

But as representative as Chaucer's pilgrims in their characters, Blake felt that they lacked ethnic diversity.

The Painter has consequently varied the heads and forms of his personages into all Nature’s varieties; the horses he has also varied to accord to their riders; the costume is correct according to authentic monuments. . . . 

Which explains why the Miller and Yeoman are black.

He genuinely admires the Knight, Squire, Prioress (despite her "certain peculiarities and little delicate affectations, not unbecoming in her"), Parson, Plowman, and Harry Bailey, "the keeper of the greatest Inn of the greatest City."

Predictably, he has very strong opinions on what Chaucer meant, and seems pretty rankled by misreadings.

Those who can think that the proud huntsman and noble housekeeper, Chaucer’s Monk, is intended for a buffoon or burlesque character, know little of Chaucer. . . .

 By way of illustration I instance Shakespeare’s Witches in Macbeth. Those who dress them for the stage, consider them as wretched old women, and not, as Shakespeare intended, the Goddesses of Destiny; this shows how Chaucer has been misunderstood in his sublime work. Shakespeare’s Fairies also are the rulers of the vegetable world, and so are Chaucer’s; let them be so considered, and then the poet will be understood, and not else. . . .

Chaucer has divided the ancient character of Hercules between his Miller and his Ploughman. Benevolence is the Ploughman’s great characteristic; he is thin with excessive labour, and not with old age as some have supposed: 

 As for the women

The characters of Women Chaucer has divided into two classes, the Lady Prioress and the Wife of Bath. Are not these leaders of the ages of men? The Lady Prioress in some ages predominates; and in some the Wife of Bath, in whose character Chaucer has been equally minute and exact; because she is also a scourge and a blight. I shall say no more of her, nor expose what Chaucer has left hidden; let the young reader study what he has said of her: it is useful as a scarecrow. There are of such characters born too many for the peace of the world. 

He concludes with a bit of polemic against a rival painter that's just too good to pass up.

As there is a class of men whose whole delight is in the destruction of men, so there is a class of artists whose whole art and science is fabricated for the purpose of destroying Art. . . . But to show the stupidity of this class of men, nothing need be done but to examine my rival’s prospectus.
	38
The two first characters in Chaucer, the Knight and the Squire, he has put among his rabble; and indeed his prospectus calls the Squire ‘the fop of Chaucer’s age’. Now hear Chaucer:          ‘Of his Stature, he was of even length, And wonderly deliver, and of great strength; And he had be sometime in Chivauchy, In Flanders, in Artois, and in Picardy, And borne him well, as of so litele space.’ Was this a fop?          ‘Well could he sit a horse, and faire ride, He could songs make, and eke well indite, Just, and eke dance, pourtray, and well write.’ Was this a fop?          ‘Curteis he was, and meek, and serviceable, And kerft before his fader at the table.’ Was this a fop?	39
It is the same with all his characters; he has done all by chance, or perhaps his fortune, money, money. According to his prospectus he has three Monks: these he cannot find in Chaucer, who has only one Monk, and that no vulgar character, as he has endeavoured to make him. When men cannot read, they should not pretend to paint. To be sure Chaucer is a little difficult to him who has only blundered over novels and catchpenny trifles of booksellers; yet a little pains ought to be taken, even by the ignorant and weak. He has put the Reeve, a vulgar fellow, between his Knight and Squire, as if he was resolved to go contrary in everything to Chaucer, who says of the Reeve:          ‘And ever he rode hinderest of the rout.’	40
In this manner he has jumbled his dumb dollies together, and is praised by his equals for it; for both himself and his friend are equally masters of Chaucer’s language. They both think that the Wife of Bath is a young beautiful blooming damsel; and H—— says that she is the ‘Fair Wife of Bath’, and that ‘the Spring appears in her cheeks’. Now hear what Chaucer has made her say of herself, who is no modest one:          ‘But Lord! when it remembereth me Upon my youth and on my jollity, It tickleth me about the heart root. Unto this day it doth my heart boot That I have had my world as in my time; But age, alas, that all will envenime, Hath me bireft, my beauty and my pith Let go; farewell! the devil go therewith! The flower is gone; there is no more to tell: The bran, as best I can, I now mote sell; And yet, to be right merry, will I fond Now forth to tell of my fourth husbond.’	41
She has had four husbands, a fit subject for this painter; yet the painter ought to be very much offended with his friend H——, who has called his ‘a common scene’, ‘and very ordinary forms’; which is the truest part of all, for it is so, and very wretchedly so indeed. What merit can there be in a picture of which such words are spoken with truth?	42
But the prospectus says that the Painter has represented Chaucer himself as a knave who thrusts himself among honest people to make game of, and laugh at them; though I must do justice to the Painter, and say that he has made him look more like a fool than a knave. But it appears in all the writings of Chaucer, and particularly in his Canterbury Tales, that he was very devout, and paid respect to true enthusiastic superstition. He has laughed at his knaves and fools, as I do now; but he has respected his true Pilgrims, who are a majority of his company, and are not thrown together in the random manner that Mr. S—— has done. Chaucer has nowhere called the Ploughman old, worn out with ‘age and labour’, as the prospectus has represented him, and says that the picture has done so too. He is worn down with labour, but not with age. How spots of brown and yellow, smeared about at random, can be either young or old I cannot see. It may be an old man; it may be a young one; it may be anything that a prospectus pleases. But I know that where there are no lineaments there can be no character. And what connoisseurs call touch, I know by experience must be the destruction of all character and expression, as it is of every lineament.	43
The scene of Mr. S——’s picture is by Dulwich Hills, which was not the way to Canterbury; but perhaps the Painter thought he would give them a ride round about, because they were a burlesque set of scarecrows, not worth any man’s respect or care.	44
But the Painter’s thoughts being always upon gold, he has introduced a character that Chaucer has not—namely, a Goldsmith, for so the prospectus tells us. Why he has introduced a Goldsmith, and what is the wit of it, the prospectus does not explain. But it takes care to mention the reserve and modesty of the Painter. This makes a good epigram enough:          ‘The fox, the owl, the spider, and the mole, By sweet reserve and modesty get fat.’	45
But the prospectus tells us that the Painter has introduced a ‘Sea Captain’; Chaucer has a Shipman, a sailor, a trading master of a vessel, called by courtesy Captain, as every master of a boat is; but this does not make him a Sea Captain. Chaucer has purposely omitted such a personage, as it only exists in certain periods: it is the soldier by sea. He who would be a soldier in inland nations is a sea-captain in commercial nations.	46
All is misconceived, and its mis-execution is equal to its misconception. I have no objection to Rubens and Rembrandt being employed, or even to their living in a palace; but it shall not be at the expense of Raphael and Michael Angelo living in a cottage, and in contempt and derision. I have been scorned long enough by these fellows, who owe to me all that they have: it shall be so no longer.          I found them blind, I taught them how to see; And now they know me not, nor yet themselves.

Playlist: Romanticism & Science (Part 1)

I was bored, and when I'm bored, I make playlists. No Spotify link-- I do apologize--  but I'm committed to a group of like-minded, angry audiophiles who're abjuring the co. until they offer songs in a halfway decent (viz., lossless) quality. But my compunction is tempered by an assurance that you know to use, as my father would say, "the Google."

1. Rilo Kiley-- "Science vs. Romance" 
2. Anything by the Sex Pistols or Savage Garden (for Erasmus Darwin)
3. New Order-- "Bizarre Love Triangle" (for The Anti-Jacobin Review)
4. David Axelrod-- "The Sick Rose" (for William Blake)
5. AC/DC- "If You Want Blood (You've Got It)" (for John Hunter)
6. Captain Beefheart-- "Electricity" (for Joseph Priestley)
7. Black Uhuru-- "What Is Life" (for John Thelwall)
8. Missy Elliott-- "Bring the Pain" (for Thomas Paine)
9. Iron Maiden-- "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (for S. T. Coleridge)
10. Rush-- "Kubla Kahn" (ibidem)
11. Anything by Sublime (for Edmund Burke)
12. James Blunt-- "You're Beautiful" (ibidem)
13. The Notorious B.I.G.-- "Hypnotize" (for Franz Anton Mesmer)
14. Sebadoh-- "Magnetic Coil" (for Percy Bysshe Shelley)
15. New York Dolls-- "Frankenstein" (for Mary Shelley) 
16. Kanye West-- "Monster" (ibidem)

"ah me kitty ah": Phonological Translation

Sound Translation was a cool modernist experiment, even if no takes it seriously anymore. The best stuff was often quite clever-- and always good for a laugh (if not a hearty chortle). The master was Louis Zukofsky. This is from "Catallus 100" (yes, there are 115 more).

Caelius Aufilenum et Quintus Aufilenam 

flos Veronensum deperunt iuvenum,

hic fratrem, ille sororem, hoc est, quod dicitur, illus

fraternum vere dulcem sodalitium

cuit faveam potius? Caeli, tibi: nam tua nobis

perspecta egregiest unica amicitia

cum vesana meas torret flamma medullas 

sis felix, Caeli, sis in amore potens

Caelius Aufilenus’s mate, Quintius Aufilena’s am

flow’rs Vernoa’s sum they pair and hunt (you venom)

“he” ‘ll frat him, he’ll lace her or hum. ‘Who quest,’ quoth thick with ore, ‘a lewd

frater new way re th’whole cuss’t sodality mm.’

Who we favor--whom--put to us? Caeli, tibby: now to your (know bees?)

perspective egregious “best” unique ah me kitty ah,

come wasting on my eas t’her reared at flame my medulla’s

Seize fay licks, Caeli, see as in  and more potence.

Marginalia: An Early Modern Annotator of "Piers Plowman"

British Library Additional 35157. I've only included a small fraction of the annotations-- this manuscript is more marked up than my undergrad copy of The Four Quartets ("SYMBOLISM," "IRONY," "like the Fool [tarot card]"). So I'm highlighting my favorite (= most interesting) annotations, which are highlighting the annotator's favorite (= most interesting) passages of the poem. Am I postmodern or what?

• "will the catt ye king and the kittines destroy" (I)
• "harlottes are sonnest hole"
• “against bawdy Jesters”
• "famous Kinge Henvry Viij fulfilled in his time"
• "Reson always ruleth in beast but not in Man for man surfeteth [surfeits] in meate, drynke in women, aparel and in wordes"
• "no muritt [merit] in any works instisinige faith only working" (I)
• "Meed a durtie common Strumpit both in siuill [civil] laws and common" (I)
• “Meed ye Pops Darlinge” (I)
• "Peers liued in Henri the sixt his daies who lost his heritage in Fraunce which his father had wonne"
• "If men of holye Church wold do nought but right then Wold Lordes, Lawyers, and merchauntes, do lyke"
• "henri the 6 was a simpel Religious man, which was the loose of his fathers heritage in Fraunce
• "peres became a protestant  and loued his lyke" (on the following: Thus y awaked . . . clothed as a lollard . . . among lollards of londone and lewwde Ermytes)
• "no basterds"
• "basterds fitt for slauerye" 
• "the pore haue right to parte of Christes treasure in prestes handes"
• “ye dronken roge”
• "Lecherye loveth not the pore"
• "A wench ought to be A virgine butt hardly in this wickitt age"
• "truth is directly against purgatory and limbo"
• “pastors muste do as they teche”
• “ye Purpill whore of Rome”
• “not Wytte but ye grace of god”
• “England harboreth more theues and beggers then any countrie”
• "women can kepe no counsell"
• “fryers & theire orders wiped out of gods booke”
• “Doo well is better than ye Popps [Pope's] bulles”
• “bisshopes should haue no more lands then Christe hadd”
• "Aynest Monkes and Chanons"
• “nota the riche are comonly the enimies to rigt [righteousness] and truthe”
• “sterringe [stirring] the simple pepell to almes for there owne profitt”
• “theologye is no Scyeunce [Science] but a sothfast beleofe [true belief]
• "Justyce in hell Mercye in heven"
• “mercye above all godes workes”
• "Saloman and Aristotell in wysdom & workes both good yet dyed evelly"
• “the pore is euer redye to please ye Riche” (2nd annotator)
• “but ye rich hateth ye poore” (3rd annotation)
• "an Vnsownd opynion"
• “propertie bredeth singularitie & pride”
• Charitie seldom sene in ye freres [friars]"
• "an Vnsownd opynion"

List: Unarmed Citizens Killed by U.S. Law Enforcement Officers

I'm sure I'm not the only person who finds himself at a loss of words right now, feeling simultaneously outraged, saddened, and powerless, so I'll keep this brief. The issue is deep-rooted as American racism itself, and several people have discussed it more eloquently and trenchantly than I ever could.

Of course, no amount of jail time can restore life to Trayvon Martin or compensate for the suffering and grief inflicted on his loved ones. But the message sent by the "not guilty" verdict of the Zimmerman trial is clear: it is often both illegal and fatal to be young, black, and male in this country. So long as the American justice system continues to allow cops (technically Zimmeran wasn't a cop but a cop-wannabe) who murder unarmed citizens to get off with a light slap on the wrist, the number of Zimmermans-- and the number of Treyvons-- will only continue to grow.

This list is by no means complete, even without including the several cases which have gone undocumented. Also left out are the countless victims like Rodney James who were beat, shot, or otherwise brutalized by cops but have survived with their lives. It does not pretend to begin to tackle the systematic racism of the American legal system, the law enforcement agency, or the prison industrial complex. Just a list.

1973: Clifford Grover, age 10, black male. Shot. Officer acquitted.
1976: Randolph Evans, age 15, black male. Unarmed-- no apparent reason. Shot. Officer served 2 years.
1983: Michael Stewart, age 25, black male. Unarmed-- altercation after painting graffiti in a subway station. Beat to death. Officers acquitted.
1993: Johnnie Cromartie, age 40, black male. Unarmed-- became “agitated” after being arrested for arms possession and sent to the hospital due to an epileptic seizure. Beat to death.
1993: Don Myrick, age 53, black male. Unarmed-- during narcotics investigation, officers mistook lighter for gun. Shot. CIty paid fine of $400,000.
1994: Anthony Baez, age 29, hispanic male. Unarmed-- altercation after he and his brother hit a police car more than once with his football. Strangled. Officer served 6.5 years.
1994: Ernest Sayon, age 22, black male. Unarmed-- resisted arrest. Beat to death. No charges filed by city.
1996: Nathaniel Levi Gaines, age 25, black male. Unarmed-- altercation on subway. Officer sentenced to 5-15 years.
1999: Amadou Diallo, age 23, black male. Unarmed-- officers mistook his wallet for a gun. Shot 41 times. Officers acquitted of all charges.
2000: Patrick Dorismond, age 26, black male. Unarmed-- confrontation with undercover cops after they asked him where they could buy drugs. Officers acquitted.
2003: Orlando Barlow, age 28, black male. Unarmed. Shot from 50 ft. while surrendering on his knees. Officers acquitted.
2003: Alberta Spruill, age 57, black female. Unarmed-- officers mistakenly threw a stun grenade into her apartment. City paid fine of $1.6 million.
2003: Ousmane Zongo, age 43, black male. Unarmed-- officers were investigating an operation he was not involved in. Shot. Officer put on probation for 5 years.
2004: Timothy Stansbury, age 19, black male. Unarmed-- no apparent reason. Shot. Officer suspended for 30 days.
2005: Rigoberto Alpizar, age 44, hispanic male. Unarmed-- officers allege he claimed to have a bomb at an airport. No explosives were found, and no passengers who witnessed the incident heard the word “bomb.” Shot. No charges pressed.
2005: Aaron Campbell, age 25, black male. Unarmed. Shot while facing backwards with hands on head. Officer acquitted.
2005: Henry Glover, age 31, black male. Unarmed-- no apparent reason. Shot. Officers awaiting appellate court.
2006: Joseph Erin Hamley, age 21, black male. Unarmed-- no apparent reason. Shot. Officer served 54 days in jail and fined $1000.
2005. Travares McGill, age 16, black male. Unarmed-- confrontation in parking lot. Shot in the back.
2006: Sean Bell, age 23, black male. Unarmed-- officers were investigating the strip club where he was having his bachelor party and thought they heard someone say “gun.” Shot 50 times. Officers found not guilty.
2007: Fermin Arzu, age 41, black male. Unarmed-- fled arrest in his car. Shot. Officer sentenced to 15 years.
2008: Robbie Tolan, age 23, black male. Unarmed-- falsely suspected of driving a stolen vehicle. Shot. Officer acquitted.
2009: Oscar Grant, age 22, black male. Unarmed. Shot while lying face down after confrontation on train. Officer sentenced to 2 years minus time served.
2009: Victor Sheen, age 17, black male. Unarmed-- refused to pull over on his bicycle. Tasered and ran over. Officer acquitted.
2010: Tyrone Brown, age 32, black male. Unarmed-- groped an off-duty officer’s female friend. Shot 12 times.
2010: Aiyana Jones, age 7, black female. Shot during raid. Officer awaiting trial.
2010: Steven Eugene Washington, age 27, black male. Unarmed-- the autistic man approached officers and appeared to remove something from his waistband. Shot.
2011: Alonzo Ashley, age 28, black male. Unarmed-- refused to stop splashing water from a drinking fountain on his face and then threw a trash can. Shot. No Charges filed.
2011: Michael Nida, age 31, black male. Unarmed-- mistakenly accused of robbery. Shot in the back with a submachine. No charges filed.
2012: Wendell Allen, age 20, black male. Unarmed. Shot.
2012: Remarley Graham, age 18, black male. Unarmed-- was trying to flush a bag of marijuana down the toilet. Shot. Officer acquitted.
2012: Ervin Jefferson, age 18, black male. Unarmed. Shot. Officers acquitted.
2012: Kendrac McDade, age 19, black, male. Unarmed. Shot. Officers acquitted.
2012: Trayvon Martin, age 17, black male. Unarmed. Shot. Officer acquitted.
2013: Kimani Grey, age 16, black male. Unarmed. Shot 11 times.
2013: Timothy Russell, age 43, black male. Malissa Williams, age 30, black female. Unarmed. Shot 137 times in car chase. Awaiting verdict.