From Piper to Poet

            On Wednesday morning the pain in my thumb of the day before was gone but I was feeling quite raw in the throat.

            Professor Weisman was later than usual for class and the economics class before ours started clearing out before she had to step in and motivate them to wrap things up.

            This time we began looking at the poetry of William Blake.
            She said that Wordsworth and Coleridge were a good introduction to Romanticism because they show the movement towards the democratization of text. William Blake is a departure and a bit of a step back as he was just ending his life when Wordsworth and Coleridge were coming of age.

            Blake’s work is visionary Romanticism and he brought an astonishing energy to the idea of spiritual transcendence. For him reality was not about sense perception and he believed one must proceed from both outer and inner sight. He was deeply invested in the visual spectacle and in spiritual life.

            Blake had no formal education other than in the arts. He went to drawing school at the age of ten and later studied at the Royal Academy of Arts. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to an engraver and that’s when he started to write poetry. He married an illiterate woman named Catherine Boucher whom he taught to read and she became his assistant.

            Blake developed a new engraving technique now known as relief etching but he called it illuminated printing. He did his drawings on copper plates in relief, burned them with acid and then coloured them. In addition to illustrating his own work he also made illustrations of Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Divine Comedy and The Book of Job, among others.

            He published his Songs of Innocence in 1789 and added Songs of Experience to it in 1794. Innocence stands alone but experience does not. The subtitle of the two books combined is “Showing the two contrary states of the human soul”. But are they contrary states or does our reading experience create a synthesis between them?

            We looked at the Introduction to Songs of Innocence. It’s in ballad stanzas, in quatrains with short lines. Ballad stanzas convey primitive sincerity and openness.

            She asked who the speaker is in the poem. I didn’t think till later that he is the first poet.

            The poem is pastoral.

            The child on the cloud asks for a song about a lamb. The lamb is associated with Jesus, with innocence and with sacrifice.

            Blake said, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.”

            The child is mediated by the narrator.

            After his vision of the child he is no longer just a piper.

            Conventionally the poet invokes the muse but in this poem the muse appears to the poet. But epic poetry is more about invocations to the muse whereas this is different because it is a lyric.

            I pointed out that since it was a laughing child that encouraged the narrator to play songs about a lamb, the meaning of the lamb in this case would be more about innocence than sacrifice.

            I observed that there is a gradation or degradation from the piper beginning as simply a natural musician and then after his vision playing songs about something specific, leading to singing the songs with words and finally writing those words down.
            I added that the pipe that he was playing was made from a reed and so was the pen that he made in order to write the songs down. He was effectively writing songs with something that is also a musical instrument. He is bringing music and poetry together.

            It wasn’t until the 18^th Century that childhood was discovered as we now see it. It wasn’t until this time that people started thinking that the early education of children might be a good idea.

            Romantics like Blake are Christian but mostly against organized religion.

            Hymns specifically written for children to sing were common during this period.

            The glee club movement began in the early 18^th Century. A “glee” was a kind of song for three or more voices.

            We looked at the Introduction to Songs of experience.

            In this case the audience is being commanded and the rhythm is very different from the other Introduction. It’s written with a lot of monosyllables. The bard is a prophet and it speaks of stopping the natural cycle of light and darkness.

            The professor asked how we experience reading these two poems together.

            I wrote that the Experience poem is more complex, serious, ominous, adult and less joyful. The Innocence Introduction could be successfully read to a child but the Experience Introduction would probably not get through to a pre-adolescent.

            I suggested to Professor Weisman as we were packing up that the piper in the first poem might be the bard that is referred to or speaking in the second poem.

            For the last few days I’ve been carrying my extra scarf and my winter gloves in my backpack in case the weather suddenly got colder while I was out someplace. I felt proud of myself for being that conscientious as I went outside to unlock my bike because it felt cold enough to use them. I was quite comfortable with two scarves on and wearing my Wind River gloves on the way home.

            While riding I worked out some ideas for the conclusion of my essay.

            I stopped at Freshco, specifically to buy milk but I also got some grapes and yogourt. I forgot to buy honey though.

            When I got home the Ethiopian guy who I used to see at the food bank but who now just stands around in front of the Coffeetime getting drunk, was standing next to my door. We chatted a bit and he complained about how cold it was. I took my groceries upstairs and was going to step out again to but a can of beer when I got the idea to give the Ethiopian guy one of my old pairs of winter gloves. They’re a little worn out in the palms but still warm. He was still outside when I stepped out and so I gave him the gloves. He seemed to appreciate them, but who knows whether he'll get drunk and leave them someplace. It's out of my hands now anyway.

In front of me at the liquor store checkout was a guy who turned to me and said, “I’m not supposed to say hi to strangers in Toronto!” and then he explained that he’s from Down East. I told him I am too. He asked whereabouts and I told him just north of Woodstock. Interestingly he located Woodstock with a United States reference, saying, “That’s near where 95 starts, isn’t it?” I confirmed that Woodstock is near Houlton, Maine, where interstate route 95 starts. Seeing that I only had one can of beer he let me go ahead of him but then he engaged the cashier in conversation anyway as he declared that Nova Scotia and PEI are the biggest tourist locations in the world outside of Hawaii. She was sceptical and suggested that might be true per capita. She said a friend of hers went to Hawaii and hated it. What he said about PEI and Nova Scotia doesn’t seem to be even true within Canada, let alone on a world scale. Canada’s biggest tourist attraction is Niagara Falls, followed by the CN Tower.

            I got caught up on my journal.

            I had an egg and toast for dinner with a beer and watched Peter Gunn.

            Carlo is the leader of a union uncorrupted by organized crime and he’s up for re-election next week. He comes home to a dark house and calls out for his wife Maria. Suddenly the lights come on and several people yell “Surprise!” and “Happy birthday!” After a toast by his father, Maria says she's going to go to Angelo’s to pick up the pizzas. Carlo insists on going but when he turns the ignition his car explodes. Carlo is rushed to the hospital. The family is there waiting for word on his condition and so is Lieutenant Jacoby and Peter Gunn. They discuss the prime suspect being a mobster named Lynch who tends to muscle in on unions. Carlo dies and after offering condolences to Maria, he leaves, only to be forced into a car and taken to see Lynch. Lynch swears he had nothing to do with Carlo’s murder and offers Gunn $5000 to clear him. Gunn goes to Mother’s where Edie is singing “Day In, Day Out” again like she did in the first episode. Gunn gets a call from Carlo’s cousin Benny, who had been at the birthday party and hospital. He tells Gunn he’s got information and to meet him at a certain warehouse. He goes there only to find Benny dead and then he is attacked by two thugs. Carlo’s brother Sal just happens to show up and helps Gunn fight them off. After they beat the two assailants, Sal forces one of them to say who sent him and is surprised to hear him say it was Maria. Gunn calls Maria to tell her that he’s just gotten a tip that the lead to who planted the bomb is in some papers in Carlo’s office. She agrees to meet him there. Before going, Gunn calls Jacoby to tell him what he’s doing. When Gunn arrives, Carlo’s best friend Vince is waiting with a revolver. Vince is going to kill Gunn but Jacobi arrives and after a few shots are fired there is a cat and mouse game among boxes in the warehouse until Vince is finally brought down.

            I don’t like Gunn’s relationship with Jacoby. The cop saves him so much and he’s involved in so many finishes that it’s as if Peter Gunn is a cop himself. The whole appeal of private detectives is that they work independently of the police. Gunn would be more interesting if he got himself out of his own jams.

            Maria was played by Maxine Cooper, who played Mike Hammer’s secretary Velda in Kiss Me Deadly.

            Nick Cushing had left me a message earlier saying he would drop by before 21:00. I cleaned the toilet in anticipation of his arrival but it wasn’t until 21:45 that he called and so I told him it was a little late for a visit. He reminded me that I am old and so he understood.