Here’s one I wrote earlier

REMEMBRANCE

You were the angel coming

                                                          Vision seer in a bright tree.

                                                          Yours was the eye of poetry

                                                          The voice that led to depths

                                                          Unheralded. Did you shake

                                                          The cage’s bars in vain?

                                                          The tiger’s roar was your unswerving life.

                                                          The arrows pierced the sun and bled men’s

                                                          Engines upon the ground. Against the

                                                          Castle of machines, you laid siege.

                                                          Yet the factory world heeds you not?

                                                          Fire kindled in a free man’s heart

                                                          Friend of prophecy everywhere-

                                                          Simple and wise, the court’s fool

                                                         Whose stiletto words lifted my eyes.

                                                         See those angels dancing in the trees.

Today marks the 250^th anniversary of the birth of William Blake, poet and printmaker. I regard him as one of the finest writers/artists ever because of the purity of his vision. Reading his biography, I discover that he chose to pursue his art without compromise. He did not write poetry that would sell. Most of his life, he lived in poverty rather than do work that did not fit his worldview. He never tailored his art to gain readers or to make money.

Many people want to view Blake as a precursor to the sixties, a hippy before his time. The Doors famously took their name from Blake’s verse – “when the doors of perception are cleansed, everything will appear as it is, infinite”. Yet someone more unlike the Lizard King is hard to imagine. Blake was faithful to his wife, Catherine. They had a  long and mostly happy marriage, and she supported her husband throughout. There’s no evidence, either, that Blake used mind-altering substances – he was no pale romantic like Keats or Coleridge.

Blake is revered as a political radical. There is no doubt that he was among those of his time who ardently approved of the American and French revolutions, how they took power from an aristocracy and gave it to the ordinary people. Yet, he cannot easily be claimed as a precursor by the leftwing movements of the 19^th and 20^th centuries – for one great reason – which is that God and religion  and especially the Bible forms the backdrop against which Blake wrote.

Here is the disconnect between Blake and the radicals of our own day. Most of them have swallowed whole the line peddled by Karl Marx – “religion is the opium of the people.” In this, they have been greatly helped by the propensity of many Christians to see their religion as justifying a wealthy and comfortable lifestyle because of their hard work. So faith is regarded with suspicion.

In William Blake’s case, though, the revolutionary times through which he lived reflect not only time but eternity. Liberation to Blake is not merely about achieving political freedom but is bound up with spiritual self-realisation. To him, the spiritual and political are one, and the Bible becomes a tool for liberating the mind from “the mind-forg’d manacles”. So political and religious freedom are intertwined. This surely is at the heart of his famous preface from “Milton”.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.  

Indeed, that says it all.

In 1933, the Oxford Union caused an international sensation when it passed the motion “This House will under no circumstances fight for King and Country. Travelling in Germany in early 1934, Patrick Leigh Fermor wrote “The stir it made in England was nothing.. to the sensation it made in Germany…There was a sorrowing note in all this.” (“A Time of Gifts” London: Penguin, 1977 p. 128). If the Germans took this as a serious reflection of the British mood, then perhaps the motion did embolden Hitler to tear up the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty.

Compare and contrast this to tonight’s Oxford Union debate, which featured notorious defenders of “fascism”, Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, and ‘revisionist’ historian and Holocaust denier, David Irving. The BBC reports that the planned debate had to be moved into two separate rooms after thirty protestors occupied the debating chamber. Frankly, the protestors were wasting their time. Britain is not heading towards a fascist future. In the 2005 general election, the BNP won 0.7% of the vote, and has no seats in Parliament, so I don’t imagine any jackboots will march down Whitehall in the near future. Ron Paul has far more likelihood of being elected US president.  As for David Irving, no other reputable historian has backed up his claims that the Holocaust didn’t happen, so he is a footnote to the history of the Second World War.

 Nothing that this notorious duo says will change anything that happens in the UK. So who cares about the Oxford Union, anyway?

“BEOWULF” 

When I went to see Beowulf I scanned the audience to see if there would be anyone who looked suspiciously like a lecturer in Anglo-Saxon or ancient history. In fact most of the audience were students who were probably heading from the cinema to “Beowulf” the video-game. I am sure that most of the audience didn’t realize that “Beowulf” is the first extant poem in a language that mostly resembles English. The unnamed Angles or Jutes who created the story didn’t know what they were beginning.

The film was entertaining. The director clearly had done his research – and what with having Grendel express himself in (what I assume) was Anglo-Saxon-wanted to clarify that he was treating his sources with some respect. Yet the tale had a twist too-the liaison with Grendel’s mother was not from the textbook, but in the context of a masculine warrior society (a sixth century rugby team perhaps) it worked very well.

My only quibble was why the movie had to dwell on the comparison between the Norse pantheon and Christianity. Several times, the theme was touched the Christian faith would supplant their gods, and weaken the moral fibre of the people. The historical problem that poses is that the opening of the movie boldly announces “Denmark AD 507”.

Now in the actual AD 507 over much of northern Europe, Christianity had almost been forgotten. It survived, of course, in the remnant of the Roman empire ruled from Constantinople, but that empire had been supplanted in the west by Lombards and Ostrogoths who had only recently been Christianized. Augustine of Canterbury had barely begun his mission to Kent, and in only in the Celtic lands (Ireland and Wales) did Christianity have a presence.

 So why even bring this unknown religion into the picture?