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The Neo-Platonic Concept of Time in Blake's Prophetic Books
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
We cannot be sure that Blake knew Thomas Taylor personally, but we can be sure that he knew by reputation the then famous translator. Even a cursory examination, moreover, of the works of the two writers will show that Blake undoubtedly was thoroughly indoctrinated in the dogmas of Taylor's writings. The great difference in symbolism and philosophical content between Blake's early poetry and the Prophetic Books may be attributed in no small degree to Taylor's translations and his interpretations of Neo-Platonic doctrines. One of the most interesting of these to both Blake and Taylor was the concept of time and eternity.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1954
References
1 Many critics have recognized the possibility of Taylor's influence on Blake, though few have tried to trace it in any detail. For affirmative statements see esp. S. Foster Damon, William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols (Boston, 1924); Frederick E. Pierce, “Blake and Thomas Taylor,” PMLA, xliii (Dec. 1928), 1121-41; and Milton O. Percival, William Blake's Circle of Destiny (New York, 1938). A more detailed examination may be found in my unpub. diss. (Univ. of North Carolina, 1951), “William Blake and Thomas Taylor: A Study in the Romantic Revival of Platonism.”
2 Poetry and Prose of William Blake, ed. Geoffrey Keynes, 3rd ed. (New York and London, 1932), p. 510. Hereafter quotations from Blake will be identified by page numbers from this book following the quotations.
3 Andrew Motte, trans. Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and Bis Systems of the World, ed. Florian Cajori (Berkeley, 1934), p. 6.
4 Thomas Taylor, trans. Cratylus, Phaedo, Parmenides, and Timaeus (London, 1793), p. 466.
5 See John F. Callahan, Four Views of Time in Ancient Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1948), pp. 88-148, for a comprehensive study of Plotinus' concept of time.
6 Some excellent commentators and critics consider Plato's conception of time very close to Aristotle's. See esp. A. E. Taylor, A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus (Oxford, 1928), pp. 184-188, 678-691, and Francis Macdonald Cornford, Plato's Cosmology (London, 1937), pp. 97-105. Even Thomas Taylor, who considered Aristotle a kind of minor Platonist, sought, in most confusing terms, to bridge the gap between the two; with both Plato and Aristotle, he wrote, “time is properly the measure of motion according to the flux of being, which is the peculiarity of generation, or becoming to be.” Callahan (n. 5, above) vigorously denies this agreement (see esp. pp. 22-26).
7 Quoted by Taylor, Cratylus, Phaedo, Parmenides, and Timaeus, p. 286.
8 The Metaphysics of Aristotle (London, 1801), pp. 73-74.
9 The Philosophical and Mathematical Commentaries of Proclus on the First Book of Euclid's Elements (London, 1792), ii, 352. First published in 1788, this book (hereafter cited as Commentaries) contains a somewhat extended discussion of Plotinus' concept. Later Taylor published a translation of the entire treatise “On Eternity and Time” in Select Works of Plotinus (London, 1817), now available in a Bohn Library edition.
10 Works of Plato (London, 1804), iii, 125. Compare also Taylor's remark in his introduction to the First Alcibiades: “Hence the perfection of intellect is in eternity, but of the rational soul in time” (i, 12). A footnote of explanation is also of interest: “For, the perceptions of intellect being intuitive, whatever it sees it sees collectively, at once, and without time.” With that Blake certainly agreed.
11 Thomas Taylor, trans. Sallust on the Gods and the World (London, 1793), pp. 64-65.
12 See also Works of Plato, ii, 474, for a very similar note. 13 Commentaries, ii, 353.
14 Thomas Taylor, trans. The Six Books of Proclus … on the Theology of Plato (London, 1816), i, 265.
15 Taylor quotes Virgil, Commentaries, ii, 291.
16 Cratylus, Phaedo, Parmenides, and Timaeus, p. 385.
17 Select Works of Plotinus, p. 133.
18 The number 9 is, of course, symbolically significant: it is the last of the numbers (10 starts the series over again), and it is the sum of 3 times 3. The ennead, Proclus wrote, “gives completion to all the fabrication of generation.” The forests are symbolic of error.
19 Thomas Taylor, trans. The Commentaries of Proclus on the Timaeus of Plato (London, 1820), ii, 419 (1st ed. 1810). See also Commentaries, i, 58 ff. For extended discussions of the symbolic properties of various numbers and geometric figures the whole of Vol. i is important.
20 Cratylus, Phaedo, Parmenides, and Timaeus, p. 466.
21 Works of Plato, i, 12.
22 Ibid., ii, 644. At times, however, Proclus is inclined to place eternity above nous, associating it with the One rather than the Divine Mind. This metaphysical subtlety does not affect my argument.
23 Works of Plato, i, 12.
24 See pp. 340, 467, 615, 617, 635, 678, and 680.
25 Quoted by Taylor, Commentaries, ii, 353.
26 The number 7 has symbolical or mystical significance. In the Commentaries Taylor described 7 as “the ideal and essential number” because it is “composed from the triad and the tetrad” (i, xvii); and Proclus explained metaphysically the 7 bounding numbers which comprehended “the principles of all numbers” (i, 58).
27 Taylor agreed with Blake about the uselessness of the telescope. One of two derogatory comments in the introduction to the Timaeus will illustrate: “The divine nature of the celestial bodies cannot be seen through the telescope, and incorporeals are not to be viewed with a microscopic eye.”
28 This idea that the drop of blood is the “light of Poetry itself” may have come from Taylor. In a note to Proclus' Commentaries (ii, 299), Taylor observes that “human intelligence or prudence consists in blood”; and he finds support in both Porphyry and Empedocles, who wrote that “the blood surrounding the heart is the seat of intelligence in men.”
29 Quoted by Taylor, Works of Plato, ii, 648.
30 “On the Nature of the Universe,” European Mag., ii (1782), 180-182, 262-263, 350-351, 429-430. This article is a condensation of the book.