Customer Reviews

Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake

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One disadvantage of browsing online bookstores is that you can't simply skim the cover blurbs; sometimes you just have to settle for the opinions of strangers like me. So it may be helpful to read the quotes on the back cover of my copy of 'Fearful Symmetry.'

"To say it is a magnificent, extraordinary book is to praise it as it should be praised, but in doing so one gives little idea of the huge scope of the book and of its fiery understanding . Several great poets have written of Blake, but this book, I believe, is the first to show the full magnitude of Blake's mind, its vast creative thought." -- Edith Sitwell, 'The Spectator'

"According as we agree or disagree with Mr. Frye's contention we shall decide finally on the supremacy of his book. In following the structure of Blake's total vision and relating it to the thought of his age he has triumphantly carried out a task which, given the giant shape of the material, cannot help being immense. His cadences, by sheer explanatory devotion, approach the sonorities of Blake's own." -- 'Times Literary Supplement'

"Frye conducts his ambitious study with unflagging energy, great enthusiasm, and immense erudition." -- 'Poetry'

"An intelligent and beautifully written critical interpretation of the poetry and symbolic thought of William Blake..." -- 'New Yorker'

My opinion: Northrop Frye's literary criticism manages to shift the ground underfoot in the same rare way Blake's poetry does. Frye was the first to crack Blake's code, remove from him the labels of Mystic and Nutcase, and reveal him as a poet who systematically recreates the world. Frye taught Blake to Jesuits, Communist organizers, deans of women, and angry young poets. He was continually pleased to encounter doctors, housewives, clergymen, teachers, blue-collar workers, and shopkeepers, all with a great and deep appreciation of Blake.

Frye's deep appreciation and admiration for Blake comes through on every page, six times over. I reread this book about every five years, each time coming away seeing the world upside down, inside out, and worth renovating.

I have a much clearer sense of Blake's writings now that I've read this book. I took a long time in finishing it, reading some major poems by W.B. at the same time. This is really an exciting book; it brings to life a whole universe - that lived in the poet's imagination. Blake is alive today (in the spirit of his artistic creations) I am convinced. William Blake had a great gift for describing aspects of real life in a way that was inspired by the Bible, and some other imaginative or visionary artists and poets; he was also highly opinionated. It's impressive how well Frye understood Blake's gift, and his personal life, which also makes a strand of this effort, which is a literary effort in it's own right. Anyone with an interest in Blake ought to read this book. It's a tool that allows one to approach Blake's creations of writing and visual artistry with an active (as well as open) mind.

Blake sets us in the middle of a rich mythological structure. This is the best book for explaining what that structure is and how Blake will come to an element and illuminate sometimes inconsistent characteristics of that element if viewed in a limited selection. And yet when Blake's work is examined as a whole an encompassing structure is revealed where each part has been carefully delineated and accurately described throughout. Since Blake's collected works are rather massive it is very helpful to have an overview of Blake's view of man when examining how any one particular image is dealt with in a poem. Else, one might think that Blake's portrayals are incongruent from poem to poem, while his vision is actually quite cohesive. Frye wrote another excellent essay on Blake, the title has something to do with the Fourfold Key. It shows the structural similarity between Blake, Marx and Freud.

Some time ago I reread Northrop Frye's Fearful Symmetry before having another read through of the poems of William Blake including the longer poems The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Despite my appreciation of Frye's book I was struck by the disconnect between many of Frye's well-expressed and coherent ideas and the poems themselves. I noticed also that Frye barely quoted from any of the poems or analyzed any passage specifically. At that point I started to look around for other texts which offered a different viewpoint from Frye to see if my dissatisfaction was justified or not. The more I read the alternative views the more convinced I became that Frye's account was seriously deficient. I do not think he is entirely wrong or that there is nothing of value in his book. However, I strongly recommend that readers interested in Blake's poetry read alternative views. The ones I have found most useful and interesting include the current book listed here as well as the following: The Four Zoas (Photographic Facsimile (Magno & Erdman), Narrative Unbound (Donald Ault), The Dialectic of Vision (Fred Dortort), Dark Figures in the Desired Country (Gerda Norvig), The Traveler in the Evening (Morton Paley), Rethinking Blake's Textuality (Molly Rothenberg),Blake's Critique of Transcendence (Peter Otto) and some of the articles in Blake's Sublime Allegory (Curran & Wittreich Eds.) I might note that after doing all this reading of the poems and about Blake I am convinced that the unpublished The Four Zoas is the central and most significant poem Blake wrote and that both Milton and Jerusalem suffer in comparison with it. The problem that Blake may have realized with the Four Zoas was that it could never be published in its authentic form due to the graphic (for the time) psychosexual content of the illustrations (the subtitle of the poem is The Torments of Love and Jealousy).

If you give yourself fully to an imaginative reading of this book, and then of Blake's Collected Poems,the doors of your perception will be opened. Not always an easy task, but certainly worth the effort.

Northrop Frye manages to convey in sweeping master strokes the brilliance of William Blakes poetry and unlocks the mysteries of Blakes symbols. More importantly, Frye engages the reader in learning a new way to look at literature in general and open up his eyes to a deeper world.

This punch statement belongs to William Blake .
Enthusiasm , passion and a huge sense of commitment describe the enormous effort behind these admirable lines written by Frye
Every major poet demands from his critic a combination of direction and perspective , of intensive and extensive reading . Cosmology is literary art but there are two kinds : the first designed to understand the world and the other designed to transform it into the human desire .
The part one The argument
1. The case against Locke
2. The rising God
3. Beyond Good and evil
4. A literalist of the imagination
5. The word within the word
Part two The development of the symbolism
6. Tradition and experiment
7. The thief of fire
8. The refiner in fire
9. The nightmare with her ninefold
Part three The final synthesis
10. Comus Agonistes
11. The city of God
12. The burden of the valley of Vision
Fearful symmetry was written during the Second World Two and the principal reason which persuades me to recommend you this wise essay is the fact you can draw a line in the story which starts with Homero , Dante , Michelangelo, Blake and Beethoven and obtain a powerful conclusion about the enormous significance of this admirable thinker.
Beware the fact the unforgettable conductor Wilhelm Fürtwangler whose father was an intimate friend of Hans Schliemann liked to visit Rome and Florence to watch over and over the Michelangelo sculptures and paintings ; this fact allows me to onclude the underground road between the Florentine genius and the Bonn genius .
An indispensable book in your library.