At last, a figure that is not being crushed by his/her environment, representing the liberating energies of the so-called natural world. He also represents the liberating political energies of the French Revolution, which, at the time of this engraving (1793; before the Reign of Terror), Blake was still inclined to support.
Here we see Orc, Blake's hero of revolutionary fury, in all his glory. He is almost always associated with flames, often with scales, to show that he is a demon. He bursts onto the scene, armed with the just might needed to overthrow tyranny. Interestingly, he is depicted with two mounds on his head, as if to show the beginning of horns, which we would associate with Orc, and other characters associated with him--Lucifer, Satan, the Spectre.
This is Orc as Blake knew him when Blake considered himself a member of "the Devil's party," that is, someone who supported revolution and the subversion of social institutions such as church and state. Later, after Blake became disillusioned with the French Revolution (because, in its violence, it became as tyrannical as the regime it replaced), Orc was chained up and not heard from, and his associates, such as Satan, lost their patina of Miltonic heroism and became the traditional figures of unmitigated evil.
Then there's the proverb inscription, which says "Fire: that end in endless Strife." This, it seems to me, could mean two opposite things: endless strife, or the miraculous end of endless strife. In 1793, Blake would not have shied away from the idea of endless strife, in terms of endless vigilance towards tyranny. But for him the proper realm for strife was in the mind, in the imagination: this was his idea of "mental fight." His disillusionment with the Revolution came when the fight spilled over into the realm of history, and innocents began dying. At that point he became sickened with endless strife in the Europe of his day.
Blake must have felt the mordant irony in 1820, when he converted For Children: The Gates of Paradise into For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise. Here was Orc again, unchained, after being hidden away since the 1790s. But he would not remain unchained for long: the 1820 Blake would quickly lock him up in his box again. The moment of Orc had long since passed for Blake. It belonged in the previous century.
Posted by jeb at December 21, 2004 12:04 AM | TrackBackBought G.E. Bentley's biography of Blake (The Stranger From Paradise) today. He prints this plate in the text and mentions that in the second version (my version), Blake (in the 1820 "adult" version) added the scales to Orc's loins and blinded him, whiting out his eyes.
He also says the figure is Satan, not Orc. I think that is debatable, especially since Blake usually distinguished Satan with bat wings, and there are no wings here. But it is also true that Blake also liked to depict Satan in later works with sword and shield, as he does here.
If it is Satan, it is exceedingly strange that Blake would have a depiction of Satan in an emblem book for children. But then we know Blake could be exceedingly strange.
Bently says the scales (and lack of genitals) show that Satan is hermaphroditic. Again, debatable, since in the earlier version the figure has no genitals either (after all, it was for children!). But it fits with Blake's pejorative comments in Jerusalem that contrast the hermaphrodite from the person unified with spectre and emanation.
Bently quotes from plates 19 and 20 a line that reflects this image: "Blind in Fire with Shield and Spear / Two Horn'd Reasoning Cloven Fiction." I think the variants on this plate (from 1793 and 1820) are quite significant--the powerful Orc figure changed to the blinded, scaly Satan--and show how Blake changed in those 27 years. From an apologist to revolutionary violence to its denigrator.
Posted by: jeb at December 21, 2004 10:59 PM