An Island in the Moon
Encyclopedia
An Island in the Moon is the name generally assigned to an untitled, unfinished prose
satire
by William Blake
, written in late 1784. Containing early versions of three poems later included in Songs of Innocence
(1789) and satirising the "contrived and empty productions of the contemporary culture", An Island demonstrates Blake's increasing dissatisfaction with convention and his developing interest in prophetic modes of expression. Referred to by W.B. Yeats and E.J. Ellis
as "Blake's first true symbolic book," it also includes a partial description of Blake's soon-to-be-realised method of illuminated printing. The piece was unpublished during Blake's lifetime, and survives only in a single manuscript
copy, residing in the Fitzwilliam Museum
, in the University of Cambridge
.
society of Harriet Mathew
, who, along with her husband, Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew organised 'poetical evenings' to which came many of Blake's friends (such as John Flaxman
, Thomas Stothard
and Joseph Johnson
) and, on at least one occasion, Blake himself. The Mathews had been behind the publication in 1783 of Blake's first collection of poetry, Poetical Sketches
, but by 1784, Blake had supposedly grown weary of their company and the social circles in which they moved, and chose to distance himself from them. This theory can be traced back to an 1828 'Biographical Sketch' of Blake by his friend in later life, the painter J.T. Smith, published in the second volume of Smith's biography of Joseph Nollekens
, Nollekens and his times. Smith's references to the Mathew family's association with Blake were taken up and elaborated upon by Blake's first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist
, in his 1863 biography Life of William Blake, Pictor Ignotus.
, and from that point forth, the prevailing belief as to the primary background of An Island is that it dramatises Blake's disassociation from the social circles in which he found himself.
Critical work in the second half of the twentieth century, however, has often challenged the assumption that An Island originated in Blake's rejection of a specific social circle. Foremost amongst such work is that of David V. Erdman
, who suggests instead that the main background to the An Island is Blake's belief in his own immanent financial success. In early 1784, Blake opened a print shop at No. 27 Broad Street
with James Parker, alongside whom he had served as an apprentice to the engraver
James Basire
during the 1770s. At the time, engraving was becoming an extremely lucrative trade, accruing both wealth and respectability for many of its practitioners, and Erdman believes that the increasing prosperity for engravers in the early 1780s represents the most important background to An Island, arguing that the confidence which Blake and Parker must have felt informs the content more so than any sense of social rejection; "the kind of envy that breeds satire is that of the artist and artisan who is anticipating the taste of success and is especially perceptive of the element of opportunism." Erdman also sees as important the fact that the character based on Blake, Quid the Cynic, partially outlines a new method of printing, not unlike Blake's own, as yet unrealised, illuminated printing. Quid argues that he will use this new method of printing to outdo the best known and most successful of artists and writers, such as Joshua Reynolds
, William Woollett
, Homer
, John Milton
and William Shakespeare
. Behind this claim, argues Erdman, "lies the vision of a man [...] who begins to see a way to replace the division of labour with the harmony of One Man, to renew and join together the arts of poetry and painting without going outside his own shop and his own head." As such, it is Erdman's contention that the primary background factor for An Island is the sense of anticipation and exuberance on the part of Blake, expectation for his new business venture and excitement regarding his new method of printing; An Island was thus borne from anticipation.
Nevertheless, writing in 2003, Nick Rawlinson, who also disagrees with the 'rejection theory', points out that "the general critical consensus is that the eleven surviving chapters of this unpublished manuscript form little more than Blake's whimsical attempt to satirise his friends, neighbours and fellow attendees of 27 Rathbone Place, the intellectual salon of the Reverend and Mrs AS Mathew; a kind of pleasing cartoon wallpaper on which he couldn't resist scrawling a few grotesque caricatures of his favourite scientific and philosophic bugbears."
Also of interest is that on the last page of the MS are found numerous small pencil drawings of horses, lambs, lions and two human profiles. Additionally, the word "Numeration" has been written in the centre of the page, the word "Lamb" in tiny script between the two human profiles (partly obscrued by a large "N"), and two signatures of Blake himself at the top of the page. Also present are various random letters (especially the letter "N") which may be examples of Blake's attempts to master mirror writing
, a skill which was necessary for his work as an engraver. However, it is thought that at least some of the sketches and lettering on this page could have been by Blake's brother, Robert; "the awkwardness and redundancy of some of the work, the bare geometry of the head of the large lion in the lower pair of animals in the upper left quadrant of the page, and the heavy overdrawing on some of the other animals are among the features that may possibly reflect Robert's attempts to draw subjects that had been set as exercises for him by older brother William, and, in some instances, corrected by one of them."
Although the MS contains no date, due to certain topical references, An Island is generally believed to have been composed in late 1784. For example, there is a reference to the Great Balloon Ascension of September 15, when England's first airship
rose from the Artillery Ground
in Finsbury
, watched by 220,000 Londoners. Other topical allusions include references to a performing monkey called Mr. Jacko, who appeared at Astley's Amphitheatre
in Lambeth
in July, a performing pig called Toby the Learned Pig
, a Handel
festival in Westminster Abbey
in August, lectures on phlogiston
, exhibitions of the microscope
, and the Golden Square
parties of Chevalier d'Eon
.
Especially important in dating the text is Miss Gittipin's reference to Miss Filligree; "theres Miss Filligree work she goes out in her coaches & her footman & her maids & Stormonts & Balloon hats & a pair of Gloves every day & the sorrows of Werter & Robinsons & the Queen of Frances Puss colour." Stormonts were a type of hat popular in the early 1780s but falling out of fashion by 1784. Balloon bonnets (linen cases stuffed with hair) had become extremely popular by late 1784, as had Robinson hats and gowns (named after the poet and actress Mary Robinson
). The mention of Werter is also a reference to a hat, not the 1774 novel
. The balloon bonnet and the Robinson hat were in vogue from late 1783 to late 1784, when they overlapped slightly with the increasing popularity of the Werter. By mid 1785, however, all three had fallen out of fashion. This serves to situate An Island in late 1783-late 1784, and taken in tandem with the topical references, seems to confirm a date of the latter half of 1784.
An Island was unpublished during Blake's lifetime, and there is no evidence that it ever got beyond the MS stage. Extracts were first published in The Light Blue, Volume II (1867), a literary magazine published by Cambridge University, however, it has been suggested that perhaps Blake never intended for An Island to be published at all. Speaking of the sketches and poetry in Blake's Notebook, John Sampson
writes they "are in the nature of rough jottings, sometimes mere doggerel set down from whim or to relieve a mood, and never probably [...] intended to see the light in cold print. Such without doubt is the fragment known as An Island in the Moon." Peter Ackroyd
agrees with this suggestion, strongly believing that Blake never intended the piece to be read by the public.
The provenance of the MS is unknown prior to 1893, when it was acquired by Charles Fairfax Murray, who gifted it to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1905. At some stage prior to that time, at least one page was removed or lost, as page seventeen does not follow directly from page sixteen. A diagonal pencil inscription at the bottom of page seventeen, not in Blake's hand, reads, "a leaf is evidently missing before this one".
classifies it as "an incomplete burlesque novel". Martha W. England compares it to an "afterpiece
", one-act satirical plays which were popular in London at the time. Alicia Ostriker
calls it simply a "burlesque
." Peter Ackroyd refers to it as a "satirical burlesque," and also likens it to an afterpiece. Northrop Frye
, S. Foster Damon
and David V. Erdman all refer to it as simply a "prose satire". Frye elaborates upon this definition, calling it "a satire on cultural dilettantism."
Erdman argues that the piece is a natural progression from Blake's previous work; "out of the sly ironist and angry prophet of Poetical Sketches emerges the self professed Cynic of An Island." Indeed, Erdman argues that Quid is an evolution of the character of 'William his man' from the unfinished play King Edward the Third, often interpreted as being a self-portrait of Blake himself.
Martha W. England also believes it represents part of Blake’s artistic development and is something of a snapshot of his search for an authentic artistic voice; "we can watch a great metrist and a born parodist searching for his tunes, trying out dramatic systems and metrical systems
, none of which were to enslave him. Here he cheerfully takes under his examining eye song and satire, opera
and plague, surgery and pastoral
, Chatterton
and science, enthusiasm and myth, philanthropy and Handelian anthem, the Man in the Street and those children whose nursery is the street - while he is making up his mind what William Blake shall take seriously [...] here, a master ironist flexes his vocal cords with a wide range of tone."
Similarly, Robert N. Essick, Joseph Viscomi and Morris Eaves see it as foreshadowing much of Blake's later work; "An Island in the Moon underscores the importance of the extensive stretches of humour and satire that show up frequently among his other writings. So, although Blake left it orphaned, untitled, and unfinished in a heavily revised manuscript, Island is in some sense a primary literary experiment for him, setting the undertone of much to follow."
An Island has no coherent, overall structure, no plot whatsoever, being instead a broad satire. According to Ackroyd, "it is not a generalised satire on a Swiftian
model; it stays too close to [Blake's] own world for that." As such, it is primarily composed of snatches of trivial conversation and witticisms, interspersed with songs and ballads. In this sense, it is structured similarly to Samuel Foote
's improvised series of dramas Tea at the Haymarket, which lacked a definitive form so as to get around licensing regulations. England believes that Blake was consciously borrowing from Foote's style in composing An Island and as such, it is an "anti-play."
Nick Rawlinson agrees with England's assessment, although he feels that Samuel Foote may have been more of an influence than England allows for. Rawlinson reads the piece as primarily about reading itself, and the social implications of certain types of reading; "inside the apparently random concoction of prose, song and slapstick
[...] lies an extraordinary, almost dazzling examination of the relationship between our habits of reading and the society they produce [...] Blake consistently and consciously foregrounds how our understanding of our society, our voices and even our perceptions are governed by our habits of reading [...] An Island contains a deliberate and careful plan to challenge [social] misreadings by teaching us how to read the world comically. It is nothing less than a degree course in comic Vision." Rawlinson argues that the literary references in the text are structured to mirror a 1707 Cambridge University pamphlet entitled A Method of Instructing Pupils (a guide on how to teach Philosophy). As such Rawlinson feels An Island is best described as "philosoparody."
of Blake's friends and acquaintances, although there is considerable critical disagreement as to who some of the characters represent. Indeed, some scholars question the usefulness of trying to discover who any of them represent. Northrop Frye, for example, argues "the characters are not so much individuals as representatives of the various types of "reasoning" which are satirised." Peter Ackroyd also suggests that understanding who the characters represent is less important than understanding the satire at the heart of the piece. Similarly, Nick Rawlinson argues that trying to attach the characters to specific people "limits the scope of the work to the eighteenth-century equivalent of a scurrilous email [...] it is reasonable to assume that the various characters stand for something more than just amusing personality sketches [...] It may be more helpful to see the characters as a reflection not just of a real person but also of an attitude Blake wishes to question."
Nevertheless, much critical work has been done on endeavouring to unravel which real life person is behind each of the fictional characters.
understood nothing of the Mathematics, and a man must be a fool ifaith not to understand the Mathematics."
Chapter 2d is the shortest chapter in the piece and is only one sentence long. The entire chapter reads: "Tilly Lally the Siptippidist Aradobo, the dean of Morocco, Miss Gittipin & Mrs Nannicantipot, Mrs Sigtagatist Gibble Gabble the wife of Inflammable Gass – & Little Scopprell enter'd the room (If I have not presented you with every character in the piece call me *Arse—)"
Chapter 3d introduces musical interludes, a technique which becomes increasingly important as the piece moves on. "Honour & Genius", sung by Quid, is a parody of a song in the James Harris
pastoral The Spring (1762 - reissued in 1766 as Daphnis and Amaryllis). The satirical vein continues in this chapter during the discussion of "Phebus
", when Obtuse Angle claims "he was the God of Physic
, Painting
, Perspective
, Geometry
, Geography
, Astronomy
, Cookery
, Chymistry
, Conjunctives, Mechanics
, Tactics
, Pathology
, Phraseology
, Theology
, Mythology
, Astrology
, Osteology
, Somatology
, in short every art & science adorn'd him as beads round his neck."
Chapter 4 continues with the satire in the form of a debate between Inflammable Gass and Mrs. Sigtagatist. When Sigtagatist tells Gass that he should always attend church on Sundays, Gass declares, "if I had not a place of profit that forces me to go to church I'd see the parsons all hang'd a parcel of lying." Sigtigatist then proclaims "O, if it were not for churches & chapels I should not have liv'd so long." She then proudly recalls a figure from her youth, Minister Huffcap, who would "kick the bottom of the Pulpit out, with Passion, would tear off the sleeve of his Gown, & set his wig on fire & throw it at the people he'd cry & stamp & kick & sweat and all for the good of their souls."
Chapter 5 looks at the inanity of the society depicted, insofar as an intellectual discussion of the work of Chatterton between Obtuse Angle, Little Scopprell, Aradobo and Tilly Lally descends into farce; "Obtuse Angle said in the first place you thought he was not [a Mathematician] & then afterwards when I said he was not you thought he was not. Why I know that – Oh no sir I thought that he was not, but I ask'd to know whether he was. – How can that be said Obtuse Angle how could you ask & think that he was not – why said he. It came into my head that he was not. – Why then said Obtuse Angle you said that he was. Did I say so Law I did not think I said that – Did not he said Obtuse Angle Yes said Scopprell. But I meant said Aradobo I I I can't think Law Sir I wish you'd tell me, how it is." Northrop Frye refers to this incident as "farcical conversational deadlock."
Chapter 6 continues to intersperse songs amongst the prose. "When old corruption", sung by Quid, is a satire on the medical profession and may have been suggested by The Devil Upon Two Sticks (1768), a three-act comedic satire by Samuel Foote
, which was itself based on the satirical Alain-René Lesage
novel (1707). The Devil Upon Two Sticks had been revived on the London stage in 1784, so it would have been topical at the time of writing. The poem also seems to parody parts of Book II of the John Milton epic
Paradise Lost
(1667), particularly the scenes outlining the genealogy of the sentries of the Gates of Hell, Sin
and Death
. Chapter 6 is also an important chapter for Suction, insofar as it is here he outlines his primary philosophy; "Ah hang your reasoning I hate reasoning I do every thing by my feelings." The satire in this section comes from Sipsop's discussion of the surgery of Jack Tearguts, and how his patients react; "Tho they cry ever so he'll Swear at them & keep them down with his fist & tell them that he'll scrape their bones if they don't lie still & be quiet." The inherent but unacknowledged irony here recalls Sigtagatist's proud recollection of Minister Huffcap in Chapter 4.
Chapter 7 sees Suction continue to espouse his philosophical beliefs; "Hang philosophy - I would not give a farthing for it do all by your feelings and never think at all about it." Similarly, Quid voices his own opinion of some of the most respected writers at the time; "I think that Homer is bombast & Shakespeare is too wild & Milton has no feelings they might be easily outdone Chatterton never writ those poems." In relation to this criticism, Damon comments, "he is merely repeating the conventional chatter of the critics, which was the exact opposite of what Blake actually thought."
Chapter 8 contains references to and quotes from many of the works Blake was exposed to and influenced by at a young age. These references include allusions to Saint Jerome
, John Taylor
's Urania, or his Heavenly Muse (1630), Abraham Cowley
's translation of Anacreon
's lyric poem "The Grasshopper" (1656), Henry Wotton
's Reliquae Wottonianae (1685), John Locke
's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690), Joseph Addison
's Cato, a Tragedy
(1712), Edward Young
's Night-Thoughts
(1742) and James Hervey
's Meditations and Contemplations (1746) and Theron and Aspasio (1755). The Jerome reference is found in Steelyard's comment "Says Jerome happiness is not for us poor crawling reptiles of the earth Talk of happiness & happiness its no such thing – every person has a something." The Taylor reference is Steelyard’s poem; "Hear then the pride & knowledge of a Sailor/His sprit sail fore sail main sail & his mizen/A poor frail man god wot I know none frailer/I know no greater sinner than John Taylor". Although Alicia Ostriker feels this is a reference to the preacher John Taylor, David Erdman argues that the lines closely parallel the opening of the poem Urania , and as such, the reference is more likely to the poet than the preacher. The Cowley reference is found in the poem "Phebe drest like beauties Queen", which contains the lines "Happy people who can be/In happiness compard with ye." Erdman believes this to be derived from the lines in Cowley's translation of Anacreon, "Happy Insect! What can be/In Happiness compar'd to thee?" The Wotton reference is found in Steelyard's "My crop of corn is but a field of tares;" John Sampson believes this to be reference to the Chidiock Tichborne
poem "Elegy" (1586), which Blake could have been familiar with from Wotton's Reliquae. Locke is mentioned when Scopprell picks up one of Steelyard's books and reads the cover, "An Easy of Huming Understanding by John Lookye Gent." Addison is referred to indirectly when Steelyard attributes the quote "the wreck of matter & the crush of worlds" to Edward Young, when it is actually from Addison's Cato. Both the reference to Young and Hervey's Meditations are found in the opening sentence of the chapter; "Steelyard the Lawgiver, sitting at his table taking extracts from Herveys Meditations among the tombs & Youngs Night thoughts." The Theron reference is found when Steelyard announces to Obtuse Angle that he is reading the book.
Chapter 9 includes a number of songs that seemingly have no real meaning, but which would rhythmically appeal to infants. For example, "This frog he would a wooing ride/Kitty alone Kitty alone/This frog he would a wooing ride/Kitty alone & I" was a real ditty popular in London at the time. Such songs possibly reflect Blake's childhood. Other songs in this chapter include "Lo the Bat with Leathern wing", which may be a combined parody of a line in Alexander Pope
's An Essay on Man
(1734); "Lo, the poor Indian", and a phrase in William Collins'
"Ode to Evening"; "weak eyed bat/With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing." Satire is found in this chapter in the songs "Hail Matrimony made of Love", which condemns marriage, and may have been inspired by The Wife Hater by John Cleveland
(1669). Satire is also present in "This city & this country", which mocks patriotism, and could be a parody of a patriotic ballad entitled "The Roast Beef of Old England" from Henry Fielding
's play The Grub Street Opera
(1731). This chapter also contains references to Thomas Sutton
, founder of the Charterhouse School
in 1611, the churchman Robert South
and William Sherlock
's A Practical Discourse upon Death (1689).
Chapter 10 concludes with Inflammable Gass accidentally releasing a "Pestilence", which he fears will kill everyone on the Island; "While Tilly Lally & Scopprell were pumping at the air pump Smack went the glass. Hang said Tilly Lally. Inflammable Gass turn'd short round & threw down the table & Glasses & Pictures & broke the bottles of wind, & let out the Pestilence. He saw the Pestilence fly out of the bottle & cried out while he ran out of the room. Go come out come out you are we are putrified, we are corrupted. our lungs are destroy'd with the Flogiston this will spread a plague all thro' the Island he was down stairs the very first on the back of him came all the others in a heap so they need not bidding go." However, no mention is made of the incident in the next chapter; a possible allusion to Blake's distrust of science.
Chapter 11 is seen as the most important chapter by many critics insofar as it contains early versions of "The Little Boy lost", "Holy Thursday
", and "Nurse's Song
", all of which would appear in Songs of Innocence in 1789. This chapter also includes an incomplete description of Blake's method of illuminated printing. The description begins in the middle, with at least one preceding page missing, as Quid explains his method to Mrs. Gittipin; "... them Illuminating the Manuscript-Ay said she that would be excellent. Then said he I would have all the writing Engraved instead of Printed & at every other leaf a high finish'd print all in three Volumes folio, & sell them a hundred pounds a piece. They would Print off two thousand then said she whoever will not have them will be ignorant fools & will not deserve to live." Damon has speculated that Blake may have destroyed the missing page(s) so as to preserve the secret of his method.
as part of a week long Blake conference.
The second adaptation was in 1983, when Blake scholar Joseph Viscomi adapted it into a one-act musical under the title An Island in the Moon: A Satire by William Blake, 1784. The piece was staged in the Goldwin Smith Hall on Cornell University
's Central Campus
as part of the Cornell Blake Symposium, Blake: Ancient and Modern. Viscomi wrote the adaptation himself, which included musical versions of "The Garden of Love
" from Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) and "O why was I born with a different face", a poem from a letter written by Blake to Thomas Butts in 1803. Original music was composed by Margaret LaFrance. Department of Theatre lecturers Evamarii Johnson and Robert Gross directed and produced, respectively. Viscomi consolidated all of the events of the piece into a single night in a tavern (owned by Tilly Lally, who also doubled as the narrator), and reduced the cast from fifteen to fourteen by removing Mrs Nannicantipot. Viscomi also moved the last section to earlier in the play, and thus the play ends with the various songs from Chapter 11 which would appear in Songs of Innocence.
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
by William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, written in late 1784. Containing early versions of three poems later included in Songs of Innocence
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Songs of Innocence and of Experience is an illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of...
(1789) and satirising the "contrived and empty productions of the contemporary culture", An Island demonstrates Blake's increasing dissatisfaction with convention and his developing interest in prophetic modes of expression. Referred to by W.B. Yeats and E.J. Ellis
Edwin Ellis
Edwin John Ellis was a British poet and illustrator, now remembered mostly for the three-volume collection of the works of William Blake he edited with W. B. Yeats....
as "Blake's first true symbolic book," it also includes a partial description of Blake's soon-to-be-realised method of illuminated printing. The piece was unpublished during Blake's lifetime, and survives only in a single manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
copy, residing in the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
, in the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
.
Background
The overriding theory as to the main impetus behind An Island is that it allegorises Blake's rejection of the bluestockingBluestocking
A bluestocking is an educated, intellectual woman. Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. However it subsequently was applied primarily to intellectual women, and the French equivalent bas bleu had a similar connotation. The term later developed...
society of Harriet Mathew
Harriet Mathew
Harriet Mathew , wife of the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew , was an 18th century London socialite and patron of the arts, who is considered an important early patron of John Flaxman and William Blake....
, who, along with her husband, Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew organised 'poetical evenings' to which came many of Blake's friends (such as John Flaxman
John Flaxman
John Flaxman was an English sculptor and draughtsman.-Early life:He was born in York. His father was also named John, after an ancestor who, according to family tradition, had fought for Parliament at the Battle of Naseby, and afterwards settled as a carrier or farmer in Buckinghamshire...
, Thomas Stothard
Thomas Stothard
Thomas Stothard was an English painter, illustrator and engraver.-Life and work:Stothard was born in London, the son of a well-to-do innkeeper in Long Acre, London. A delicate child, he was sent at the age of five to a relative in Yorkshire, and attended school at Acomb, and afterwards at...
and Joseph Johnson
Joseph Johnson (publisher)
Joseph Johnson was an influential 18th-century London bookseller and publisher. His publications covered a wide variety of genres and a broad spectrum of opinions on important issues...
) and, on at least one occasion, Blake himself. The Mathews had been behind the publication in 1783 of Blake's first collection of poetry, Poetical Sketches
Poetical Sketches
Poetical Sketches is the first collection of poetry and prose by William Blake, written between 1769 and 1777. Forty copies were printed in 1783 with the help of Blake's friends, the artist John Flaxman and the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew, at the request of his wife Harriet Mathew...
, but by 1784, Blake had supposedly grown weary of their company and the social circles in which they moved, and chose to distance himself from them. This theory can be traced back to an 1828 'Biographical Sketch' of Blake by his friend in later life, the painter J.T. Smith, published in the second volume of Smith's biography of Joseph Nollekens
Joseph Nollekens
Joseph Nollekens was a sculptor from London generally considered to be the finest British sculptor of the late 18th century. He was also a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768.-Life:...
, Nollekens and his times. Smith's references to the Mathew family's association with Blake were taken up and elaborated upon by Blake's first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist
Alexander Gilchrist
Alexander Gilchrist was the biographer of William Blake. Gilchrist's biography is still a standard reference work on the poet....
, in his 1863 biography Life of William Blake, Pictor Ignotus.
Life of William Blake
The Life of William Blake, “Pictor Ignotus.” With selections from his poems and other writings is a two volume work on the English painter and poet William Blake, first published in 1863...
, and from that point forth, the prevailing belief as to the primary background of An Island is that it dramatises Blake's disassociation from the social circles in which he found himself.
Critical work in the second half of the twentieth century, however, has often challenged the assumption that An Island originated in Blake's rejection of a specific social circle. Foremost amongst such work is that of David V. Erdman
David V. Erdman
David V. Erdman was an American literary critic, editor, and Professor Emeritus of English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Professor Erdman established his reputation as a William Blake scholar when his Blake: Prophet Against Empire was published in 1954...
, who suggests instead that the main background to the An Island is Blake's belief in his own immanent financial success. In early 1784, Blake opened a print shop at No. 27 Broad Street
Broad Street (ward)
Broad Street is one of the 25 ancient wards in the City of London.In mediaeval times it was divided into ten precincts and contained six churches, of which only two, St Margaret Lothbury and All Hallows-on-the-Wall now survive: St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange was demolished in 1840, St Benet Fink...
with James Parker, alongside whom he had served as an apprentice to the engraver
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
James Basire
James Basire
James Basire , also known as James Basire Sr., was an English engraver. He is the most significant of a family of engravers, and noted for his apprenticing of the young William Blake....
during the 1770s. At the time, engraving was becoming an extremely lucrative trade, accruing both wealth and respectability for many of its practitioners, and Erdman believes that the increasing prosperity for engravers in the early 1780s represents the most important background to An Island, arguing that the confidence which Blake and Parker must have felt informs the content more so than any sense of social rejection; "the kind of envy that breeds satire is that of the artist and artisan who is anticipating the taste of success and is especially perceptive of the element of opportunism." Erdman also sees as important the fact that the character based on Blake, Quid the Cynic, partially outlines a new method of printing, not unlike Blake's own, as yet unrealised, illuminated printing. Quid argues that he will use this new method of printing to outdo the best known and most successful of artists and writers, such as Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
, William Woollett
William Woollett
William Woollett was an English engraver. He was born at Maidstone, of a family which came originally from the Netherlands....
, Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
and William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. Behind this claim, argues Erdman, "lies the vision of a man [...] who begins to see a way to replace the division of labour with the harmony of One Man, to renew and join together the arts of poetry and painting without going outside his own shop and his own head." As such, it is Erdman's contention that the primary background factor for An Island is the sense of anticipation and exuberance on the part of Blake, expectation for his new business venture and excitement regarding his new method of printing; An Island was thus borne from anticipation.
Nevertheless, writing in 2003, Nick Rawlinson, who also disagrees with the 'rejection theory', points out that "the general critical consensus is that the eleven surviving chapters of this unpublished manuscript form little more than Blake's whimsical attempt to satirise his friends, neighbours and fellow attendees of 27 Rathbone Place, the intellectual salon of the Reverend and Mrs AS Mathew; a kind of pleasing cartoon wallpaper on which he couldn't resist scrawling a few grotesque caricatures of his favourite scientific and philosophic bugbears."
Manuscript and date
Due to the nature of the revisions in the only existing manuscript copy of An Island, it is generally agreed amongst scholars that the manuscript is not the original, but was in fact a copy made by Blake. Blake seems to have worked on the eighteen-page MS over eight sittings, as there are eight different types of ink used throughout. The manuscript also contains many handwritten corrections in Blake's handwriting.Also of interest is that on the last page of the MS are found numerous small pencil drawings of horses, lambs, lions and two human profiles. Additionally, the word "Numeration" has been written in the centre of the page, the word "Lamb" in tiny script between the two human profiles (partly obscrued by a large "N"), and two signatures of Blake himself at the top of the page. Also present are various random letters (especially the letter "N") which may be examples of Blake's attempts to master mirror writing
Mirror writing
Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes used as an extremely primitive form of cipher...
, a skill which was necessary for his work as an engraver. However, it is thought that at least some of the sketches and lettering on this page could have been by Blake's brother, Robert; "the awkwardness and redundancy of some of the work, the bare geometry of the head of the large lion in the lower pair of animals in the upper left quadrant of the page, and the heavy overdrawing on some of the other animals are among the features that may possibly reflect Robert's attempts to draw subjects that had been set as exercises for him by older brother William, and, in some instances, corrected by one of them."
Although the MS contains no date, due to certain topical references, An Island is generally believed to have been composed in late 1784. For example, there is a reference to the Great Balloon Ascension of September 15, when England's first airship
Airship
An airship or dirigible is a type of aerostat or "lighter-than-air aircraft" that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust mechanisms...
rose from the Artillery Ground
Artillery Ground
The Artillery Ground in Finsbury is one of London's most centrally located cricket grounds, situated just off the City Road immediately north of the City of London...
in Finsbury
Finsbury
Finsbury is a district of central London, England. It lies immediately north of the City of London and Clerkenwell, west of Shoreditch, and south of Islington and City Road. It is in the south of the London Borough of Islington. The Finsbury Estate is in the western part of the district...
, watched by 220,000 Londoners. Other topical allusions include references to a performing monkey called Mr. Jacko, who appeared at Astley's Amphitheatre
Astley's Amphitheatre
Philip Astley opened Astley's Amphitheatre in London in 1773. * The structure was burned in 1794, then rebuilt. With increasing prosperity and rebuilding after successive fires, it grew to become Astley's Royal Amphitheatre and this was the home of the circus...
in Lambeth
Lambeth
Lambeth is a district of south London, England, and part of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated southeast of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
in July, a performing pig called Toby the Learned Pig
Learned pig
The learned pig was a pig taught to respond to commands in such a way that it appeared to be able to answer questions by picking up cards in its mouth. By choosing cards it answered arithmetical problems and spelled out words. The "learned pig" caused a sensation in London during the 1780s...
, a Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
festival in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
in August, lectures on phlogiston
Phlogiston theory
The phlogiston theory , first stated in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher, is an obsolete scientific theory that postulated the existence of a fire-like element called "phlogiston", which was contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion...
, exhibitions of the microscope
Microscope
A microscope is an instrument used to see objects that are too small for the naked eye. The science of investigating small objects using such an instrument is called microscopy...
, and the Golden Square
Golden Square
Golden Square, Soho, London in the City of Westminster is one of the historic squares of Central London. The square is just east of Regent Street and north of Piccadilly Circus....
parties of Chevalier d'Eon
Chevalier d'Eon
Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont , usually known as the Chevalier d'Éon, was a French diplomat, spy, soldier and Freemason whose first 49 years were spent as a man, and whose last 33 years were spent as a woman...
.
Especially important in dating the text is Miss Gittipin's reference to Miss Filligree; "theres Miss Filligree work she goes out in her coaches & her footman & her maids & Stormonts & Balloon hats & a pair of Gloves every day & the sorrows of Werter & Robinsons & the Queen of Frances Puss colour." Stormonts were a type of hat popular in the early 1780s but falling out of fashion by 1784. Balloon bonnets (linen cases stuffed with hair) had become extremely popular by late 1784, as had Robinson hats and gowns (named after the poet and actress Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson (poet)
Mary Robinson was an English poet and novelist. During her lifetime she is known as 'the English Sappho'...
). The mention of Werter is also a reference to a hat, not the 1774 novel
The Sorrows of Young Werther
The Sorrows of Young Werther is an epistolary and loosely autobiographical novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, first published in 1774; a revised edition of the novel was published in 1787...
. The balloon bonnet and the Robinson hat were in vogue from late 1783 to late 1784, when they overlapped slightly with the increasing popularity of the Werter. By mid 1785, however, all three had fallen out of fashion. This serves to situate An Island in late 1783-late 1784, and taken in tandem with the topical references, seems to confirm a date of the latter half of 1784.
An Island was unpublished during Blake's lifetime, and there is no evidence that it ever got beyond the MS stage. Extracts were first published in The Light Blue, Volume II (1867), a literary magazine published by Cambridge University, however, it has been suggested that perhaps Blake never intended for An Island to be published at all. Speaking of the sketches and poetry in Blake's Notebook, John Sampson
John Sampson (linguist)
John Sampson was an Irish linguist. As a scholar he is best known for The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales , an authoritative grammar of the Welsh-Romany language. It was written with the collaboration of Edward Wood, who died in 1902...
writes they "are in the nature of rough jottings, sometimes mere doggerel set down from whim or to relieve a mood, and never probably [...] intended to see the light in cold print. Such without doubt is the fragment known as An Island in the Moon." Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd CBE is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot and Sir Thomas More he won the Somerset Maugham Award...
agrees with this suggestion, strongly believing that Blake never intended the piece to be read by the public.
The provenance of the MS is unknown prior to 1893, when it was acquired by Charles Fairfax Murray, who gifted it to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1905. At some stage prior to that time, at least one page was removed or lost, as page seventeen does not follow directly from page sixteen. A diagonal pencil inscription at the bottom of page seventeen, not in Blake's hand, reads, "a leaf is evidently missing before this one".
Form
The actual form of An Island in the Moon is difficult to pin down. Geoffrey KeynesGeoffrey Keynes
Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes was an English biographer, surgeon, physician, scholar and bibliophile...
classifies it as "an incomplete burlesque novel". Martha W. England compares it to an "afterpiece
Afterpiece
An afterpiece is a short, usually humorous one-act playlet or musical work following the main attraction, the full-length play, and concluding the theatrical evening. This short comedy, farce, opera or pantomime was a popular theatrical form in the 18th and 19th centuries...
", one-act satirical plays which were popular in London at the time. Alicia Ostriker
Alicia Ostriker
Alicia Suskin Ostriker is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry.Alicia is married to the noted astronomer Jeremiah Ostriker who taught at Princeton University...
calls it simply a "burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
." Peter Ackroyd refers to it as a "satirical burlesque," and also likens it to an afterpiece. Northrop Frye
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye, was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century....
, S. Foster Damon
S. Foster Damon
S Foster Damon was an American academic, a specialist in William Blake, a critic and a poet. He was born in Newton, Massachusetts. He was one of the Harvard Aesthetes, and married Louise Wheelwright, sister of John Wheelwright who was another poet identified with that grouping...
and David V. Erdman all refer to it as simply a "prose satire". Frye elaborates upon this definition, calling it "a satire on cultural dilettantism."
Erdman argues that the piece is a natural progression from Blake's previous work; "out of the sly ironist and angry prophet of Poetical Sketches emerges the self professed Cynic of An Island." Indeed, Erdman argues that Quid is an evolution of the character of 'William his man' from the unfinished play King Edward the Third, often interpreted as being a self-portrait of Blake himself.
Martha W. England also believes it represents part of Blake’s artistic development and is something of a snapshot of his search for an authentic artistic voice; "we can watch a great metrist and a born parodist searching for his tunes, trying out dramatic systems and metrical systems
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
, none of which were to enslave him. Here he cheerfully takes under his examining eye song and satire, opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and plague, surgery and pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
, Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton was an English poet and forger of pseudo-medieval poetry. He died of arsenic poisoning, either from a suicide attempt or self-medication for a venereal disease.-Childhood:...
and science, enthusiasm and myth, philanthropy and Handelian anthem, the Man in the Street and those children whose nursery is the street - while he is making up his mind what William Blake shall take seriously [...] here, a master ironist flexes his vocal cords with a wide range of tone."
Similarly, Robert N. Essick, Joseph Viscomi and Morris Eaves see it as foreshadowing much of Blake's later work; "An Island in the Moon underscores the importance of the extensive stretches of humour and satire that show up frequently among his other writings. So, although Blake left it orphaned, untitled, and unfinished in a heavily revised manuscript, Island is in some sense a primary literary experiment for him, setting the undertone of much to follow."
An Island has no coherent, overall structure, no plot whatsoever, being instead a broad satire. According to Ackroyd, "it is not a generalised satire on a Swiftian
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
model; it stays too close to [Blake's] own world for that." As such, it is primarily composed of snatches of trivial conversation and witticisms, interspersed with songs and ballads. In this sense, it is structured similarly to Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...
's improvised series of dramas Tea at the Haymarket, which lacked a definitive form so as to get around licensing regulations. England believes that Blake was consciously borrowing from Foote's style in composing An Island and as such, it is an "anti-play."
Nick Rawlinson agrees with England's assessment, although he feels that Samuel Foote may have been more of an influence than England allows for. Rawlinson reads the piece as primarily about reading itself, and the social implications of certain types of reading; "inside the apparently random concoction of prose, song and slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
[...] lies an extraordinary, almost dazzling examination of the relationship between our habits of reading and the society they produce [...] Blake consistently and consciously foregrounds how our understanding of our society, our voices and even our perceptions are governed by our habits of reading [...] An Island contains a deliberate and careful plan to challenge [social] misreadings by teaching us how to read the world comically. It is nothing less than a degree course in comic Vision." Rawlinson argues that the literary references in the text are structured to mirror a 1707 Cambridge University pamphlet entitled A Method of Instructing Pupils (a guide on how to teach Philosophy). As such Rawlinson feels An Island is best described as "philosoparody."
Characters
Many of the characters in An Island are parodiesParody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of Blake's friends and acquaintances, although there is considerable critical disagreement as to who some of the characters represent. Indeed, some scholars question the usefulness of trying to discover who any of them represent. Northrop Frye, for example, argues "the characters are not so much individuals as representatives of the various types of "reasoning" which are satirised." Peter Ackroyd also suggests that understanding who the characters represent is less important than understanding the satire at the heart of the piece. Similarly, Nick Rawlinson argues that trying to attach the characters to specific people "limits the scope of the work to the eighteenth-century equivalent of a scurrilous email [...] it is reasonable to assume that the various characters stand for something more than just amusing personality sketches [...] It may be more helpful to see the characters as a reflection not just of a real person but also of an attitude Blake wishes to question."
Nevertheless, much critical work has been done on endeavouring to unravel which real life person is behind each of the fictional characters.
- Quid the Cynic – based on Blake; represents cynicism and doubt; S. Foster Damon calls him "a lusty caricature of Blake himself [...] a poet who characteristically runs down those he admires most." Rawlinson suggests his name may be derived from the word 'Quidnunc'; a popular term in the eighteenth century for a busybody and know-it-all.
- Suction the Epicurean – based on Blake's brother, Robert; hates mathematics and science, and lives instead by his feelings. Damon believes he represents "the philosophy of the senses" and is "an all-absorbing atheistAtheismAtheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
." Rawlinson suggests he may be a composite of Robert Blake and the print seller Jemmy Whittle. Suction is an EpicureanEpicureanismEpicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
, a philosophical school despised by Blake, because of its rejection of the importance of the spirit, and reliance on materialismMaterialismIn philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, which he associated with Francis BaconFrancis BaconFrancis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
. Circa 1808, Blake would write, "Bacon is only Epicurus over again." - Sipsop the Pythagorean – Geoffrey Keynes suggests that Sipsop is based on the neoplatonistNeoplatonismNeoplatonism , is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists, with its earliest contributor believed to be Plotinus, and his teacher Ammonius Saccas...
Thomas Taylor with whose work Blake was familiar. Keynes is supported in this by Alicia Ostriker. However, David V. Erdman, disputes this theory and instead suggests that Sipsop is based on William Henry Mathew, eldest son of Anthony Stephen Mathew. Erdman bases this argument on the fact that William Henry was apprenticed to the surgeon John HunterJohn Hunter (surgeon)John Hunter FRS was a Scottish surgeon regarded as one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his day. He was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific method in medicine. The Hunterian Society of London was named in his honour...
, who is represented in An Island by Jack Tearguts, to whom Sipsop is apprenticed. On the other hand, Nancy Bogen believes that Sipsop is based on John AbernethyJohn Abernethy (surgeon)John Abernethy FRS was an English surgeon, grandson of the Reverend John Abernethy.He was born in Coleman Street in the City of London, where his father was a merchant. Educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, he was apprenticed in 1779 to Sir Charles Blicke , a surgeon at St Bartholomew's...
. Sipsop is often posited as representing the science rejected by Suction, but Damon argues this cannot be so, as such science is represented by Inflammable Gass. To Damon's mind, this leaves Sipsop with something of an undefined role. As a PythagoreanPythagoreanismPythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...
, Sipsop is ideologically the opposite of Suction the Epicurean; Pythagoreanism embraces the mysticism that Epicureanism explicitly rejects. - Steelyard the Lawgiver – based on Blake's close friend and fellow artist John Flaxman.
- Inflammable Gass – Damon suggests he may be based on the scientist and philosopher Joseph PriestleyJoseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
, as Gass' reference to "flogiston" recalls Priestley's experiments with phlogiston, which were quite well known at the time. G.E. Bentley reaches a similar conclusion, citing a demonstration given at the Free Masons TavernFreemasonryFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
on Great Queen StreetGreat Queen StreetGreat Queen Street is a street in central London, England in the West End. It is a continuation of Long Acre from Drury Lane to Kingsway. It runs from 1 to 44 along the north side, east to west, and 45 to about 80 along the south side, west to east...
during which some phosphorusPhosphorusPhosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidized state, as inorganic phosphate rocks...
ignited and destroyed the lamp containing it. Bentley believes that this incident may have formed the basis for the broken glass during an experiment in chapter 10. Erdman however, rejects this identification, arguing that there is no evidence Blake was familiar with either the demonstrations or the writings of Priestley. Instead, Erdman suggests that Gass may simply be a characteristic type representing all science in general. In 1951, Palmer Brown suggested that Gass may be based on the conjurer Gustavus KatterfeltoGustavus KatterfeltoGustavus Katterfelto was a Prussian conjurer, scientific lecturer, and quack.Christian William Anthony Katterfelto arrived at Hull in September 1776 and traveled around Britain until his death in 1799. He performed in London from 1780-84...
, who was equally as famous as Priestley in London, and who carried out public experiments in PiccadillyPiccadillyPiccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...
. Although Erdman initially rejected Brown's theory, he changed his mind shortly before writing Blake: Prophet Against EmpireBlake: Prophet Against EmpireBlake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of the History of His Own Times is a 1954 biographical book by David V. Erdman whose subject is the life and work of English poet and painter William Blake...
, and ultimately came to support it. Another possibility, suggested by W.H. Stevenson, is William NicholsonWilliam Nicholson (chemist)William Nicholson was a renowned English chemist and writer on "natural philosophy" and chemistry, as well as a translator, journalist, publisher, scientist, and inventor.-Early life:...
, author of An Introduction to Natural Philosophy, for which Blake engraved the title page vignette in 1781. Other possibilities, suggested by Stanley Gardner, are the physician George FordyceGeorge FordyceGeorge Fordyce was a distinguished Scottish physician, lecturer on medicine, and chemist, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.-Early life:...
and the scientist Henry CavendishHenry CavendishHenry Cavendish FRS was a British scientist noted for his discovery of hydrogen or what he called "inflammable air". He described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper "On Factitious Airs". Antoine Lavoisier later reproduced Cavendish's experiment and...
. Rawlinson suggests Gass could, at least in part, be based on the botanist Joseph BanksJoseph BanksSir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...
. - Obtuse Angle – generally agreed to be based on James Parker, Blake’s fellow apprentice during his time with Basire. George Mills Harper, however, believes that Angle is instead based on Thomas Taylor (Harper agrees with Erdman that Sipsop is not based on Taylor but on William Henry Mathew). Harper argues that Angle seems to be an educator, and his relationship with many of the other characters is that of a teacher and student. This is significant because there is evidence that Blake took lessons in EuclidEuclidEuclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...
under Taylor, hence Angle's apparent role as teacher. Erdman supports this theory. Rawlinson suggests that Angle may be partially based on Blake's friend George CumberlandGeorge CumberlandGeorge Cumberland was an English art collector, writer and poet. He was a lifelong friend and supporter of William Blake, and like him was an experimental printmaker. He was also an amateur watercolourist, and one of the earliest members of the Bristol School of artists...
, as well as the antiquarian Francis DouceFrancis DouceFrancis Douce was an English antiquary.-Biography:Douce was born in London. His father was a clerk in Chancery. After completing his education he entered his father's office, but soon quit it to devote himself to the study of antiquities...
. - Aradobo – based on either Joseph Johnson, the first publisher to employ Blake as a copy-engraver, or one of the book seller Edward brothers (James, John and Richard). In 1784, James and John had opened a book shop in Pall MallPall Mall, LondonPall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a section of the...
, with Richard as their apprentice, and Blake would certainly have been familiar with the shop. - Etruscan Column – Harper believes that Column is based on the antiquarian John BrandJohn BrandJohn Brand was an English antiquarian.Born in Washington, County Durham, he was educated at the Royal Grammar School and Lincoln College, Oxford. He wrote Observations on the popular antiquities of Great Britain: Including the Whole of Mr. Bourne's Antiquitates Vulgares , generally referred to as...
. - Little Scopprell – Erdman suggests he may represent J.T. Smith, but he acknowledges that this is based on guesswork only.
- Tilly Lally – no known basis for this character, although he is often posited as representing elegance.
- Mrs. Nannicantipot – based on the poet and children's author Anna Laetitia BarbauldAnna Laetitia BarbauldAnna Laetitia Barbauld was a prominent English poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, and children's author.A "woman of letters" who published in multiple genres, Barbauld had a successful writing career at a time when female professional writers were rare...
. - Gibble Gabble – because she is married to Gass, she is usually seen as representing Joseph Priestley's real wife, Mary Priestley. However, there is some disagreement about whether or not Gass actually represents Priestley, and if not, then presumably, Gibble Gabble could no longer be posited as representing Mary.
- Mrs Gimblet – possibly based on Harriet Mathew. Rawlinson suggests she could be based on Charlotte LennoxCharlotte LennoxCharlotte Lennox was an English author and poet. She is most famous now as the author of The Female Quixote and for her association with Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, and Samuel Richardson, but she had a long career and wrote poetry, prose, and drama.-Life:Charlotte Lennox was born in Gibraltar...
. - Mrs Gittipin - possibly based on Nancy Flaxman, John Flaxman's wife.
- Ms. Sigtagatist – Nancy Bogen suggests she is based on Harriet Mathew, but Erdman believes this is doubtful. The name "Sigtagatist" was first written "Sistagatist" in most places, but changed. Twice during the piece, she is sarcastically referred to as Mrs Sinagain; once by Tily Lally in Chapter 3d ("Ill tell you what Mrs Sinagain I dont think theres any harm in it"), and once by the narrator in Chapter 4 ("Ah," said Mrs Sinagain. "I'm sure you ought to hold your tongue, for you never say any thing about the scriptures, & you hinder your husband from going to church").
- Jack Tearguts – mentioned only; based on the surgeon and lecturer John Hunter, whose name Blake wrote in the manuscript before replacing it with Jack Tearguts.
- Mr. Jacko – mentioned only; possibly based on portrait painter Richard CoswayRichard CoswayRichard Cosway was a leading English portrait painter—more accurately a miniaturist—of the Regency era. He was a contemporary of John Smart, George Engleheart, William Wood, and Richard Crosse...
; probably named after a famous performing monkey well known in London at the time. - Mrs. Nann – mentioned only; Nancy Bogen believes she is based on Blake's wife, CatherineCatherine BlakeCatherine Blake was the wife of the poet, painter and engraver William Blake , and a vital presence and assistant throughout his life as an artist.-Life:...
, but Erdman believes this is guesswork.
Overview
Chapter 1 begins with a promise by the narrator to engage the reader with an analysis of contemporary thought, "but the grand scheme degenerates immediately into nonsensical and ignorant chatter." A major theme in this chapter is that no one listens to anyone else; "Etruscan Column & Inflammable Gass fix'd their eyes on each other, their tongue went in question & answer, but their thoughts were otherwise employed." According to Erdman, "the contrast between appearance and reality in the realm of communication lies at the centre of Blake's satiric method." This chapter also introduces Blake's satiric treatment of the sciences and mathematics; according to Obtuse Angle, "VoltaireVoltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
understood nothing of the Mathematics, and a man must be a fool ifaith not to understand the Mathematics."
Chapter 2d is the shortest chapter in the piece and is only one sentence long. The entire chapter reads: "Tilly Lally the Siptippidist Aradobo, the dean of Morocco, Miss Gittipin & Mrs Nannicantipot, Mrs Sigtagatist Gibble Gabble the wife of Inflammable Gass – & Little Scopprell enter'd the room (If I have not presented you with every character in the piece call me *Arse—)"
Chapter 3d introduces musical interludes, a technique which becomes increasingly important as the piece moves on. "Honour & Genius", sung by Quid, is a parody of a song in the James Harris
James Harris (grammarian)
James Harris, FRS was an English politician and grammarian.-Life and works:He was born at Salisbury and educated at the grammar school in the Close at Salisbury, and at Wadham College, Oxford. On leaving the university he was entered at Lincoln's Inn as a student of law, though not intended for...
pastoral The Spring (1762 - reissued in 1766 as Daphnis and Amaryllis). The satirical vein continues in this chapter during the discussion of "Phebus
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
", when Obtuse Angle claims "he was the God of Physic
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, Painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, Perspective
Perspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
, Geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
, Geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, Astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
, Cookery
Cooking
Cooking is the process of preparing food by use of heat. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely across the world, reflecting unique environmental, economic, and cultural traditions. Cooks themselves also vary widely in skill and training...
, Chymistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, Conjunctives, Mechanics
Mechanics
Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....
, Tactics
Military tactics
Military tactics, the science and art of organizing an army or an air force, are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In...
, Pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
, Phraseology
Phraseology
In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units , in which the component parts of the expression take on a meaning more specific than or otherwise not predictable from the sum of their meanings when...
, Theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, Mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, Astrology
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
, Osteology
Osteology
Osteology is the scientific study of bones. A subdiscipline of anatomy, anthropology, and archeology, osteology is a detailed study of the structure of bones, skeletal elements, teeth, morphology, function, disease, pathology, the process of ossification , the resistance and hardness of bones , etc...
, Somatology
Somatology
Somatology is defined as the study or science of the human body as a branch of anthropology. This also includes the study of material substances, as in physics, chemistry, biology, botany which are under the general heading of physicalism....
, in short every art & science adorn'd him as beads round his neck."
Chapter 4 continues with the satire in the form of a debate between Inflammable Gass and Mrs. Sigtagatist. When Sigtagatist tells Gass that he should always attend church on Sundays, Gass declares, "if I had not a place of profit that forces me to go to church I'd see the parsons all hang'd a parcel of lying." Sigtigatist then proclaims "O, if it were not for churches & chapels I should not have liv'd so long." She then proudly recalls a figure from her youth, Minister Huffcap, who would "kick the bottom of the Pulpit out, with Passion, would tear off the sleeve of his Gown, & set his wig on fire & throw it at the people he'd cry & stamp & kick & sweat and all for the good of their souls."
Chapter 5 looks at the inanity of the society depicted, insofar as an intellectual discussion of the work of Chatterton between Obtuse Angle, Little Scopprell, Aradobo and Tilly Lally descends into farce; "Obtuse Angle said in the first place you thought he was not [a Mathematician] & then afterwards when I said he was not you thought he was not. Why I know that – Oh no sir I thought that he was not, but I ask'd to know whether he was. – How can that be said Obtuse Angle how could you ask & think that he was not – why said he. It came into my head that he was not. – Why then said Obtuse Angle you said that he was. Did I say so Law I did not think I said that – Did not he said Obtuse Angle Yes said Scopprell. But I meant said Aradobo I I I can't think Law Sir I wish you'd tell me, how it is." Northrop Frye refers to this incident as "farcical conversational deadlock."
Chapter 6 continues to intersperse songs amongst the prose. "When old corruption", sung by Quid, is a satire on the medical profession and may have been suggested by The Devil Upon Two Sticks (1768), a three-act comedic satire by Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote
Samuel Foote was a British dramatist, actor and theatre manager from Cornwall.-Early life:Born into a well-to-do family, Foote was baptized in Truro, Cornwall on 27 January 1720. His father, John Foote, held several public positions, including mayor of Truro, Member of Parliament representing...
, which was itself based on the satirical Alain-René Lesage
Alain-René Lesage
Alain-René Lesage was a French novelist and playwright. Lesage is best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks , his comedy Turcaret , and his picaresque novel Gil Blas .-Youth and education:Claude Lesage, the father of the novelist, held the united...
novel (1707). The Devil Upon Two Sticks had been revived on the London stage in 1784, so it would have been topical at the time of writing. The poem also seems to parody parts of Book II of the John Milton epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
(1667), particularly the scenes outlining the genealogy of the sentries of the Gates of Hell, Sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
and Death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
. Chapter 6 is also an important chapter for Suction, insofar as it is here he outlines his primary philosophy; "Ah hang your reasoning I hate reasoning I do every thing by my feelings." The satire in this section comes from Sipsop's discussion of the surgery of Jack Tearguts, and how his patients react; "Tho they cry ever so he'll Swear at them & keep them down with his fist & tell them that he'll scrape their bones if they don't lie still & be quiet." The inherent but unacknowledged irony here recalls Sigtagatist's proud recollection of Minister Huffcap in Chapter 4.
Chapter 7 sees Suction continue to espouse his philosophical beliefs; "Hang philosophy - I would not give a farthing for it do all by your feelings and never think at all about it." Similarly, Quid voices his own opinion of some of the most respected writers at the time; "I think that Homer is bombast & Shakespeare is too wild & Milton has no feelings they might be easily outdone Chatterton never writ those poems." In relation to this criticism, Damon comments, "he is merely repeating the conventional chatter of the critics, which was the exact opposite of what Blake actually thought."
Chapter 8 contains references to and quotes from many of the works Blake was exposed to and influenced by at a young age. These references include allusions to Saint Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
, John Taylor
John Taylor (poet)
John Taylor was an English poet who dubbed himself "The Water Poet".-Biography:He was born in Gloucester, 24 August 1578....
's Urania, or his Heavenly Muse (1630), Abraham Cowley
Abraham Cowley
Abraham Cowley was an English poet born in the City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his Works published between 1668 and 1721.-Early life and career:...
's translation of Anacreon
Anacreon
Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets.- Life :...
's lyric poem "The Grasshopper" (1656), Henry Wotton
Henry Wotton
Sir Henry Wotton was an English author and diplomat. He is often quoted as saying, "An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." -Life:The son of Thomas Wotton , brother of Edward Wotton, 1st Baron Wotton, and grandnephew of the diplomat...
's Reliquae Wottonianae (1685), John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
First appearing in 1690 with the printed title An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke concerns the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate filled later through experience...
(1690), Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was a man of letters, eldest son of Lancelot Addison...
's Cato, a Tragedy
Cato, a Tragedy
Cato, a Tragedy is a play written by Joseph Addison in 1712, and first performed on 14 April 1713. Based on the events of the last days of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , a Stoic whose deeds, rhetoric and resistance to the tyranny of Julius Caesar made him an icon of republicanism, virtue,and...
(1712), Edward Young
Edward Young
Edward Young was an English poet, best remembered for Night Thoughts.-Early life:He was the son of Edward Young, later Dean of Salisbury, and was born at his father's rectory at Upham, near Winchester, where he was baptized on 3 July 1683. He was educated at Winchester College, and matriculated...
's Night-Thoughts
Night-Thoughts
Night-Thoughts is a piece for piano solo written by Aaron Copland in 1972 for the fourth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.The piece is subtitled "Homage to Ives". It is about eight minutes long....
(1742) and James Hervey
James Hervey
James Hervey was an English clergyman and writer.-Life:He was born at Hardingstone, near Northampton, and was educated at the grammar school of Northampton, and at Lincoln College, Oxford. Here he came under the influence of John Wesley and the Oxford Methodists, especially since he was a member...
's Meditations and Contemplations (1746) and Theron and Aspasio (1755). The Jerome reference is found in Steelyard's comment "Says Jerome happiness is not for us poor crawling reptiles of the earth Talk of happiness & happiness its no such thing – every person has a something." The Taylor reference is Steelyard’s poem; "Hear then the pride & knowledge of a Sailor/His sprit sail fore sail main sail & his mizen/A poor frail man god wot I know none frailer/I know no greater sinner than John Taylor". Although Alicia Ostriker feels this is a reference to the preacher John Taylor, David Erdman argues that the lines closely parallel the opening of the poem Urania , and as such, the reference is more likely to the poet than the preacher. The Cowley reference is found in the poem "Phebe drest like beauties Queen", which contains the lines "Happy people who can be/In happiness compard with ye." Erdman believes this to be derived from the lines in Cowley's translation of Anacreon, "Happy Insect! What can be/In Happiness compar'd to thee?" The Wotton reference is found in Steelyard's "My crop of corn is but a field of tares;" John Sampson believes this to be reference to the Chidiock Tichborne
Chidiock Tichborne
Chidiock Tichborne is remembered as an English conspirator and poet.-Biography:He was born in Southampton sometime after 24 August 1562 to Roman Catholic parents, Peter Tichborne and his wife Elizabeth . His birth date has been given as circa 1558 in many sources, though unverified, and thus...
poem "Elegy" (1586), which Blake could have been familiar with from Wotton's Reliquae. Locke is mentioned when Scopprell picks up one of Steelyard's books and reads the cover, "An Easy of Huming Understanding by John Lookye Gent." Addison is referred to indirectly when Steelyard attributes the quote "the wreck of matter & the crush of worlds" to Edward Young, when it is actually from Addison's Cato. Both the reference to Young and Hervey's Meditations are found in the opening sentence of the chapter; "Steelyard the Lawgiver, sitting at his table taking extracts from Herveys Meditations among the tombs & Youngs Night thoughts." The Theron reference is found when Steelyard announces to Obtuse Angle that he is reading the book.
Chapter 9 includes a number of songs that seemingly have no real meaning, but which would rhythmically appeal to infants. For example, "This frog he would a wooing ride/Kitty alone Kitty alone/This frog he would a wooing ride/Kitty alone & I" was a real ditty popular in London at the time. Such songs possibly reflect Blake's childhood. Other songs in this chapter include "Lo the Bat with Leathern wing", which may be a combined parody of a line in Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
's An Essay on Man
An Essay on Man
An Essay on Man is a poem published by Alexander Pope in 1734. It is a rationalistic effort to use philosophy in order to "vindicate the ways of God to man" , a variation of John Milton's claim in the opening lines of Paradise Lost, that he will "justify the ways of God to man" . It is concerned...
(1734); "Lo, the poor Indian", and a phrase in William Collins'
William Collins (poet)
William Collins was an English poet. Second in influence only to Thomas Gray, he was an important poet of the middle decades of the 18th century...
"Ode to Evening"; "weak eyed bat/With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing." Satire is found in this chapter in the songs "Hail Matrimony made of Love", which condemns marriage, and may have been inspired by The Wife Hater by John Cleveland
John Cleveland
John Cleveland was an English poet.The son of an usher in a charity school, Cleveland was born in Loughborough, and educated at Hinckley Grammar School. Admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge, he graduated BA in 1632 and became a fellow of St John's College in 1634...
(1669). Satire is also present in "This city & this country", which mocks patriotism, and could be a parody of a patriotic ballad entitled "The Roast Beef of Old England" from Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
's play The Grub Street Opera
The Grub Street Opera
The Grub-Street Opera is a play by Henry Fielding that originated as an expanded version of his play, The Welsh Opera. It was never put on for an audience and is Fielding's single print-only play. As in The Welsh Opera, the author of the play is identified as Scriblerus Secundus. Secundus also...
(1731). This chapter also contains references to Thomas Sutton
Thomas Sutton
Thomas Sutton was an English civil servant and businessman as well as being the founder of Charterhouse School. He was the son of an official of the city of Lincoln, and was educated at Eton College and probably at Cambridge...
, founder of the Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School
Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...
in 1611, the churchman Robert South
Robert South
Robert South was an English churchman, known for his combative preaching.-Early life:He was the son of Robert South, a London merchant, and Elizabeth Berry...
and William Sherlock
William Sherlock
Not to be confused with William Sherlock William Sherlock was an English church leader.-Life:He was born at Southwark, and was educated at St. Saviour's School and Eton, and then at Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1669 he became rector of St George's, Botolph Lane, London, and in 1681 he was appointed a...
's A Practical Discourse upon Death (1689).
Chapter 10 concludes with Inflammable Gass accidentally releasing a "Pestilence", which he fears will kill everyone on the Island; "While Tilly Lally & Scopprell were pumping at the air pump Smack went the glass. Hang said Tilly Lally. Inflammable Gass turn'd short round & threw down the table & Glasses & Pictures & broke the bottles of wind, & let out the Pestilence. He saw the Pestilence fly out of the bottle & cried out while he ran out of the room. Go come out come out you are we are putrified, we are corrupted. our lungs are destroy'd with the Flogiston this will spread a plague all thro' the Island he was down stairs the very first on the back of him came all the others in a heap so they need not bidding go." However, no mention is made of the incident in the next chapter; a possible allusion to Blake's distrust of science.
Chapter 11 is seen as the most important chapter by many critics insofar as it contains early versions of "The Little Boy lost", "Holy Thursday
Holy Thursday (Songs of Innocence)
Holy Thursday is a poem by William Blake, from his 1789 book of poems Songs of Innocence....
", and "Nurse's Song
Nurse's Song
Nurse's Song is the name of two related poems by William Blake, published in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794....
", all of which would appear in Songs of Innocence in 1789. This chapter also includes an incomplete description of Blake's method of illuminated printing. The description begins in the middle, with at least one preceding page missing, as Quid explains his method to Mrs. Gittipin; "... them Illuminating the Manuscript-Ay said she that would be excellent. Then said he I would have all the writing Engraved instead of Printed & at every other leaf a high finish'd print all in three Volumes folio, & sell them a hundred pounds a piece. They would Print off two thousand then said she whoever will not have them will be ignorant fools & will not deserve to live." Damon has speculated that Blake may have destroyed the missing page(s) so as to preserve the secret of his method.
Adaptations
An Island in the Moon has been adapted for the stage twice. In 1971, Roger Savage adapted it into a two act play entitled Conversations with Mr. Quid, which was staged at the University of EdinburghUniversity of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
as part of a week long Blake conference.
The second adaptation was in 1983, when Blake scholar Joseph Viscomi adapted it into a one-act musical under the title An Island in the Moon: A Satire by William Blake, 1784. The piece was staged in the Goldwin Smith Hall on Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
's Central Campus
Cornell Central Campus
Central Campus is the primary academic and administrative section of Cornell University's Ithaca, New York campus. It is bounded by Libe Slope on the west, Fall Creek on the north, and Cascadilla Creek on the South.-History:...
as part of the Cornell Blake Symposium, Blake: Ancient and Modern. Viscomi wrote the adaptation himself, which included musical versions of "The Garden of Love
The Garden of Love
"The Garden of Love" is a poem by romantic poet William Blake. It was published as part of his collection, Songs of Experience."The Garden of Love" is written to express Blake's beliefs on the naturalness of sexuality and how organised religion, particularly the orthodox Christian church of Blake's...
" from Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) and "O why was I born with a different face", a poem from a letter written by Blake to Thomas Butts in 1803. Original music was composed by Margaret LaFrance. Department of Theatre lecturers Evamarii Johnson and Robert Gross directed and produced, respectively. Viscomi consolidated all of the events of the piece into a single night in a tavern (owned by Tilly Lally, who also doubled as the narrator), and reduced the cast from fifteen to fourteen by removing Mrs Nannicantipot. Viscomi also moved the last section to earlier in the play, and thus the play ends with the various songs from Chapter 11 which would appear in Songs of Innocence.
External links
- An Island in the Moon at The William Blake Archive
- Bartleby.com article
- Joseph Viscomi's An Island in the Moon: A Satire by William Blake, 1784
- 'A Note on William Blake and John Hunter' by Jane M. Oppenheimer, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied SciencesJournal of the History of Medicine and Allied SciencesThe Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences is a quarterly academic journal, originally published by the Yale University Department of the History of Medicine and now continued by Oxford University Press. It covers research on early medicine....
, 1:1 (Spring 1946), 41-45 (subscription needed) - 'William Blake and the Lunar Society' by William S. Doxey, Notes and QueriesNotes and QueriesNotes and Queries is a long-running quarterly scholarly journal that publishes short articles related to "English language and literature, lexicography, history, and scholarly antiquarianism". Its emphasis is on "the factual rather than the speculative"...
, 18:3 (Autumn, 1971), 343 (subscription needed)