Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau

Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, Mock on, 'tis all in vain.
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a Gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.

The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of light
Are sands upon the Red sea shore
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.

I’ve never much appreciated the Romantics, because of the way they seemed to seek to replace the universal with the personal, emotional, Utopian and subjective and their resulting near paganism. But I listened to this excellent podcast the other day, Episode 249: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by S. T. Coleridge, Part 2 (The Literary Life, November 5, 2024), and was reminded that when we throw out dross we risk missing pearls. One of which is this brief poem by William Blake that puts paid to The Enlightenment/Age of Reason generally and the French in particular.

Whatever his other myriad peculiarities, the artist gets props for this thoroughly Anglospheric skepticism, the culture of which saved us from the Cartesian dead end that proved so murderous on the Continent.

(Reviewed:06-Nov-24)

Grade: (A) Orrin C. Judd

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William Blake Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: William Blake
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    -ENTRY: William Blake Artist and Poet (Westminster Abbey)
    -ENTRY: FEATURED EXHIBITION: William Blake: Visionary (October 17, 2023–January 14, 2024, GETTY CENTER)
    -ENTRY: William Blake British writer and artist (G. E. Bentley, Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -INDEX: William Blake (Imaginative Conservative)
    -INDEX: William Blake (1757–1827) (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Met)
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    -INDEX: Choral Settings of William Blake (CPDL.org)
    -INDEX: William Blake (Poetry Foundation)
    -INDEX: William Blake (My Poetic Side)
    -INDEX: William Blake (All Poetry)
    -POEM: Poem of the week: Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau: William Blake was no enemy of science, but he also recognised the limits to Enlightenment rationality, as this poem shows (Carol Rumens, 15 Sep 2008, The Guardian)
    -POEM: Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau (All Poetry)
    -POEM: Today’s Poem: Science and Poetry: William Blake and the Doctrine of Double Truth (Joseph Bottum, Apr 15, 2024, Poems Ancient and Modern)

One can believe, as I do, that science provides incomplete, even truncated, understandings of reality. But even if poetry is a higher wisdom, that does not mean that science is false. Where science gives us truths, poetry (like theology) must account for them.

This provides an interesting way to read Today’s Poem, “Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau.” The physical atom and “Newton’s Particles of light” are not Blake’s target in his three quatrains of tetrameter verse, rhymed abcb. Science is surmounted, “sands upon the Red sea shore / Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright,” but not thereby made false. The poet’s scorn is rather for those who would take science as ultimate knowledge and use it as a handy tool with which to mock religion — and, I think, poetry. Democritus and Newton are not mockers. But Voltaire? Rousseau? These non-scientist users of science as an Enlightenment device for mocking religion — they are blinded by the sand they threw into the wind, blown back into their eyes.

    -POEM: Today’s Poem: The Sick Rose: William Blake’s intimations of mortality (Joseph Bottum, Jul 15, 2024, Poems Ancient and Modern)
    -ESSAY: "Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau" A Poem for Our Times (Fr. Stephen Paine, Mar 10, 2023, Fr’s Newsletter)
    -AUDIO: Appealing to the Public: William Blake in 1809 symposium audio Recordings (Audio recordings from Tate Britain's conference Appealing to the Public: William Blake in 1809)
    -ETEXT: William Blake By G.K. Chesterton (Project Gutenberg)
    -ESSAY: William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience: Take a closer look at several of Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience in their original illustrated form (Tate Modern)
    -ESSAY: Blake’s religion (G. E. Bentley, Encyclopedia Britannica)
    -ESSAY: The Artful Religion of William Blake (Leo Damrosch, November 2, 2016, Yale University Press)
    -ESSAY: The Radical Sex and Spiritual Life of William Blake (Alison Nastasi,| November 29, 2015, Flavorwire)
    -ESSAY: Alan Moore on William Blake and the Supernatural Poetry of Place: The Painter Was Haunted By More Than a Few Spirits (Alan Moore, November 4, 2019, LitHub)
    -ESSAY: William Blake was the emblem of Englishness – but his art was intrinsically European (Nicholas Wroe, 19 Feb 2024, the Guardian)
    -CHAPTER: 7 Mock on Voltaire Rousseau (Harold Fisch, The Biblical Presence in Shakespeare, Milton, and Blake: A Comparative Study)
    -ESSAY: William Blake, Radical Abolitionist: Blake’s works offer an alternative to the failures of the Enlightenment, which couldn’t muster a consistent argument for abolition. (Ed Simon June 5, 2019, Jstor Daily)
    -ESSAY: On Blakes We Want and Blakes We Don't (Morris Eaves, 1995, Huntington Library Quarterly)
    -ESSAY: Blake's Vision of Slavery (David V. Erdman, 1952, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes)
    -ESSAY: Seeking a Spiritual Connection with Nature (Robin Bates, March 3, 2010, Better Living Through Beowulf)
    -ESSAY: On Throwing the Sand in “Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau”: An Analysis of Two Translations of One Poem by William Blake (ALEKSANDER GOMOLA)
    -ESSAY: Anti-empire, anti-fascist, pro-suffragist: the stunning secret life of Proms staple Jerusalem (Jason Whittaker, 5 Sep 2022, The Guardian)
    -EXHIBITION REVIEW: William Blake review – a rousing call to arms: Tate Britain, London: This magnificent exhibition of 300 images reveals Blake’s inspiring vision at its most vivid and strange (Laura Cumming, 15 Sep 2019, The Guardian)
    -EXHIBITION REVIEW: William Blake review – blazing heresies from the artist who blows Constable and Turner away: Tate Britain, London: We rightly acclaim his writing, but this exhibition brings us Blake the consummate visual artist, depicter of humanity’s divided nature (Jonathan Jones, 9 Sep 2019, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: William Blake’s best poems: Often dismissed as mad during his lifetime, Blake’s mystical imagery continues to enthral (The Week, November 28, 2018)
    -ESSAY: The 4 States of Mind in William Blake’s Mythology: William Blake was an incredibly prolific artist of the 18th and 19th-century art world, expressing his spirituality and creativity through many mediums. (Susanna Andrews, 9/23/22, The Collector)
    -ESSAY: William Blake: Poet, Artist, Prophet: Visionary poet, painter, and printmaker William Blake conjured up mystical worlds full of drama and danger, and is now considered one of the most legendary figures of the Romantic era. (Rosie Lesso, 8/16/21, The Collector)
    -ESSAY: Philip Pullman: William Blake and me: As an exhibition of Blake’s paintings opens in Oxford, Philip Pullman reflects on how his poetry has influenced and intoxicated him for more than 50 years (Philip Pullman, 28 Nov 2014, The Guardian)
    -ESSAY: Poem Sampler: William Blake 101: Tracing the full scope of his visionary poetry, from the pastoral to the prophetic. (Poetry Foundation, December 02, 2016)
    -ESSAY: William Blake and the Doors of Perception (Roderick Tweedy, Young Poets Network)
    -ARTICLE: William Blake’s final stop on the road to Jerusalem is recognised at last (Dominic Kennedy, July 23 2018, The Times)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: The Greatness of William Blake: My Blake, the radical visionary poet of the 1960s, seems almost old-fashioned now. (Richard Holmes, December 3, 2015, NY Review of Books)
    -AUDIO: William Blake by G. K. Chesterton (LibriVox)
    -ETEXT: William Blake by G. K. Chesterton (Project Gutenberg)
    -ESSAY: Lecture 18: William Blake (Dale Ahlquist, Chesterton University)
    -EXCERPT: from William Blake Vs The World by John Higgs)
    -ESSAY: William Blake: "Art is the tree of life" (Ann Jacobus, September 9, 2009)
    -ESSAY: Exhibition note: On “The Human Form Divine: William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection” at the Yale Center for British Art. (Roger Kimball, June 1997, New Criterion)
    -ESSAY: Blake reconsidered: On “William Blake: Visionary” at the Getty Center, Los Angeles. (Julia Friedman, December 22, 2023, New Criterion)
    -ESSAY: The two William Blakes: On the duality of William Blake’s life and legacy. (Daniel Mark Epstein, October 1994, New Criterion)
    -ESSAY: Today’s Poem: The Chimney Sweeper: William Blake and the larger vision of experience (Sally Thomas, Nov 29, 2024, Poems Ancient and Modern)
    -STUDY GUIDE: William Blake (eNotes)
    -REVIEW ARCHIVE: William Blake (Publishers Weekly)
    -ARCHIVES: “william blake” (Tait Modern)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: Some Recent Blake Books: An Essay Review (on The Letters of William Blake by Geoffrey Keynes; Blake’s Humanism by John Beer; William Blake: Essays for S. Foster Damon by Alvin H. Rosenfeld; & Blake and Tradition by Kathleen Raine (Rodney M. Baine, Spring 1970, Georgia Review)
    -REVIEW: of Poems by William Blake (Roy Lotz, Lotz in Translation)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake: A Selection of Poems and Letters by Jacob Bronowski (Bernie Gourley, Tiger Riding for Beginners)
    -REVIEW: of Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake (Book Lovers Boudoir)
    -REVIEW OF Songs of Innocence (Impressions in Ink)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake’s Universe by David Birdman and Esther Chadwick (Morning Star)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake’s Gothic Imagination: Bodies of horror by Chris Bundock and Elizabeth Effinger (Kathleen Reynolds, The Polyphony)
    -REVIEW: of Blake by Peter Ackroyd (Penelope Fitzgerald, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Blake (Ann Skea)
    -REVIEW: of Blake (Publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Blake (Eva Lucia)
    -REVIEW: of Blake (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of Blake (Morton D. Paley, Blake)
    -REVIEW: of Blake (Dreamflesh)
    -REVIEW: of Blake ()
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake by Leo Damrosch (Susanne Sklar, ArtsFuse)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (Michael Wood, NY Times Book Review)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (William Pritchard, WSJ)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (Richard Holmes, NYRB)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (Diane Piccitto, Modern Philoology)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (publishers Weekly)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (Brian Burnes, Kansas City Star)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (James Ward, Dublin Review of Books)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (R Paul Yoder, Blake Quarterly)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (Nicholas Roe, Literary Review)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake: Masterpieces Of Art by Michael Kerrigan (SF Crow’s Nest)
    -REVIEW: of Eternity’s Sunrise: William Blake’s Vision of Christ by Lloyd C. Welling (Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, Christian Feminism Today)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World by John Higgs (Chris Nunn, Imprint Academic)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Rachel Campbell-Johnston, times uk)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Frances Wilson, The Spectator)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Nick Groom, TLS)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Diane Scharper, Washington Examiner)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Rosie Schaap, NY Times Book Review))
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Right Wing Knit Job)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Ed Voves, Art Eyewitness)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (Andy Wilson, The Traveller in the Evening)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake vs. the World (The Dead Pixels)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake by Jack Lindsay (Kirkus)
    -REVIEW: of William Blake – Visionary: The Catalogue for the latest Blake exhibition at the J. Paul Getty museum is a beautiful and erudite contribution to Blake's art. (Jason Whittaker, January 5, 2024, Global Blake Network)
    -REVIEW: of Divine Images: The Life and Work of William Blake by Jason Whittaker (Bill Marx, artFuse)
    -REVIEW: of
    -REVIEW: of William Blake – Dante’s Divine Comedy (yonghow, Halcyon Realms)

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