In Conversation with Gillian Xu – Recording

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And hi everyone, I'm Gillian and I'm happy to be here to speak about Blake. So this talk was developed from research that I presented last year at NASSR/BARS 

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and the current version is drawn from my incomplete thesis on blood imagery, which includes Blake, but also the Shelleys and Keats. 

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So my argument is that in romantic literature, blood goes beyond the individual the body's biology, racial and cultural groups, royal lineage and biblical symbols because it is often also used to describe red phenomena in nature, which I found very interesting, 

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And I believe that this intimate metaphor connects us with non human entities. 

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"So folding 6000 years into the flood of a pulse," Blake writes, "for in this period the poets work is done, and all the great events of time start forth and are conceived in such a period within a moment of pulsation of the artery." 

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With the alliterative notes of period pulsation and poets, Blake illuminates the fact that the poets' work and the events of the world are registered in the musical movements of an organism's body, thereby emphasising the interconnectedness of body, art and nature. His speaker shifts to another shape. 

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"For every space larger than a red globule of man's blood is visionary and is created by the hammer of Los and every space smaller than a globule of man's blood opens into eternity, of which this vegetable earth is but a shadow." 

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The body and world are joined together, and the globule of blood becomes a point of reference for the reader, and it situates them and guides them in their comprehension of spaces 

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both vast and minuscule. the parallelism of every space loops back to blood as essential parts of experiencing spiritual states, and is brought forward by art specifically, of course, and brought by the hammer of Los. 

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Blake illustrates the flexibility of blood as a substance that is not simply located in the body, or even limited to the field of natural philosophy. Constantly evolving, Blake's imagery of blood takes on multiple shapes, such as arteries, globules, globes, and strings, internally in the body and externally on the landscape. 

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Blake illustrates that it is possible to reconceptualize blood ties as an interconnective and ecological construct, 

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And by aligning the lines of artists with the lines of blood on the body, Blake foregrounds, the creative function of blood that transcends a single individual family or even a species. And this actually echoes, I believe, William Harvey, because he believed in the 17th century that circulation of the body's fluids renewed the circulation 

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outside and that blood circulation was actually a process of regeneration, similar to the heating and cooling stages found in chemistry. And indeed Blake's forms of blood are constantly shaping new relationships. 

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So despite being a mechanist, Herman Boerhaave, a 17th century Dutch chemist, supported ideas about chemistry and blood that resonate with Blake's work 

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and in Elements of chemistry, which is from the early 17th century, sorry, the early 18th century. He revealed that fire did not simply separate compounds 

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into their original elements. Instead, chemistry had the power to change and create and affect the materials at hand. 

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He asserted that, quote: "It is evident that the simplicity of the actions of the chemical art is no hindrance to their providing and producing an infinite number of different effects." Chemical experiments could lead to quote "surprising varieties", and he reiterated that quote: "We must not pretend to affirm that those very parts into which the body may have been separated...

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Did really exists in the body in the same manner as they appear to us after their separation." These chemical surprises are arguably similar to our experience of reading Blake's poetry, which is often unpredictable, and are central, I believe, to the ways in which blood is a marker of metamorphosis in his work. 

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Boerhaave even suggested that blood, which looks connected and homogeneous, is in reality heterogeneous. Since the particles move in different ways and at different speeds. 

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With these connections between Blake and Boerhaave in mind, I believe that Blake draws together ideas from several natural philosophers, Boerhaave included, but also all Albrecht von Heller, John Hunter, and Erasmus Darwin. In order to formulate the flexible concept of blood and blood lines that extend beyond the individual, so I have excerpts from the Four Zoos, Jerusalem, Milton and also some other poems. 

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Beyond that, I suggest that the formation of these new bloodlines unfolds within the curious instrument of the furnace, which was used by both artisans and scientists, according to Morris, Hendriksen and Barwell. Blood becomes a substance that is created through collaboration between different disciplines, and this makes sense because 

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according to John Golinski, 18th century chemistry involved other sciences such as heat, pneumatics and electricity - it was definitely not isolated, and it was also open to the public as well. So ultimately this form of blood embodies and interdisciplinary and ecological drive. 

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So many scholars have already explored Blake's connection to science. Denise Gigante focuses on life and epigenesis, and she contends that Blake does not focus on Harvey's pulsating blood concept or even von Haller's preformed heart concept, since she believes these are more fixed and instead 

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Blake turns to Wolf's concept of spinal growth, which is more flexible. 

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Amanda Jo Goldstein positions Darwin and Lamarck in relation to Blake to suggest that his forms of life diverge from the Organicist ideal as creatures collaborate within discursive epistemic and historical contexts. Stephanie Ingleston considers Embryology by comparing scenes in the First Book of Urizen to images in obstetrical 

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Analysis and William Hunter's research, and Richard Shaw claims that Blake's poetics parallel to the discoveries of William Cruickshank, who asserted that nerve regeneration starts from blood, and it involves the conversion of blood into nerves. 

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I instead focus on the moments of communication involving blood in Blake's works in order to analyse its role in the environment, both social and natural. Apart from the cardiological figures that appear when characters interact, Blake's concept of blood mirrors other forms of circulation, such as that of water or of sap 

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in order to emphasise the overlap between body and world. 

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So blood was central to the imaginations of many experimenters in the long 18th century. 

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Early on, Harvey declared that the various parts of the body are nourished by the warmer, more perfect vaporous spirituous and element of blood, so that blood is almost a kind of treasury of life. His paratactic stream of adjectives come together to cast blood as a substance that changes and heals the individual in a multifaceted way. 

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Boerhaave also believed that the movement of the cardiovascular system was essential to life and quote, "so long as the heart continues its motion, so long does life for me."

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Boerhaave's student von Haller claimed that the heart possesses a specific motion that persists even when the body is no longer functioning or alive, which is very interesting, and in Hunter's treatise, he proposed that quote "blood is not only alive itself, but also supports life in every part of the body and it always must have motion to sustain that." 

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So despite the ways in which Blake diverged from mechanical accounts of the body, such as Boerhaave's central belief or metaphor of the heart as a machine that supports the hydraulic system that is the body, I believe that Blake shared with many of these thinkers the idea that blood is multifaceted and it represents change, creativity, and life. So in the experimental space of his art

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Blake tested out the possibilities of this vital fluid, and his work fits into what Robert Mitchell deems the importance of generating new questions through experimentation

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and as an active substance, we know that blood is Enitharmon. It is found in the bloody clothes, the rivers in his landscape. It is sometimes aligned with the divine vision or more spiritual parts of his work. And of course it's aligned also with the bosoms of delight. 

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So as once connected, yet heterogeneous blood represents Blake's vision of shared consciousness without forsaking, of course, the quote, "minute particulars", everyone in their own identity. 

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So I suggest that Blake incorporates aspects of Hunters research into Jerusalem. Carmen S. Carter has already argued that Blake's use of the word conglobing and others revealed that he was aware of Hunter's surgical practises involving the heart. Yet another point is also important. Hunter proposed that quote. "We can hardly procure blood in the same state 

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Twice from even one person," so even in a single individual's body

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blood always indexes the larger situation and condition that this organism is experiencing, such is true for Enitharmon who often interacts with Los, but each sequence is different in its invocation of blood. In the beginning of Jerusalem, Enitharmon quote "divided away in gnawing pain from Los's bosom in the deadly night; First as the Red globe of blood trembling beneath his bosom." 

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Before this quote, "Trembling Globe shot forth, Self living and Los howled over it, feeding it with his groans and tears day and night without seizing." 

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This gruesome scene bursts with visceral imagery, such as the gnawing pain, the continuous trembling, the house groans and tears. 

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And although the division is addressed in the first line, the reader follows a bloody interaction between the two at each moment, and she transforms into a detached globe of blood that still nonetheless affects Los in the end, and this kind of echo of trembling also shows that blood continues to move between the characters and the scene. 

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But Enitharmon's second departure from Los is arguably a bit more hopeful as she quote "like a faint rainbow waved before him" before turning quote "into a globe of blood beneath his bosom, trembling in the darkness. And Los fed it with tears and bitter groans, hiding his spectre and indivisibility from the timorous shade till it became a separate cloud of beauty, grace and love. 

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Blake's speaker, employs, of course, similes and metaphors to link, Enitharmon here with global blood to atmospheric phenomena like a rainbow or a cloud as the minute depths of the body intertwine with the air, and in those things blood goes beyond a single system and reflects Hunter's assertions that blood incorporates foreign materials from outside the body 

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into its flow and fabric. In both Enitharmon is metaphoric as a globe of blood and this particle is situated between the globule and the world at one's self and other, and brings the individual's blood closer to the environment of which it is always a part. 

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Bosom, a term that is anatomically in tune with blood, also appears often. Bosom connotes a way of connecting with other bodies and apart from suggesting the chest or womb area of the body, it conveys the surface that brings to mind the act of embracing and is often used to describe humans, non humans and general environmental figures. This iteration of bosom resonates with Merleau 

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Ponty's flesh or quotes "this energy that exists among different organisms" and Blake's bosom becomes a rather private space of communication that may either divide individuals or catalyse the formation of deep relationships. 

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A moment in The Four Zoos is helpful for contextualization. Quote Urthona "drops his hammer, dividing from his aching bosom, fled a portion of his life shrieking upon the wind." Enitharmon fled and "Tharmas took her in, pitying. Then Enron in jealous fear murdered her and hid her in her bosom, embalming her for fear." 

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In these lines, the reader grasps the circulation of characters and emotions that runs through several bodies, as Enitharmon flees from Urthona's bosom. He feels the ache, similar to the pain of Los. Of course, the two characters are connected, and the similar trochaic rhythm of aching and creaking intertwines his pain with her, 

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both of which are connected to his bosom. Much like a sanctuary, Tharmas offers Enitharmon his bosom before anyone appears. 

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The alliterative repetition of flood and fury brings forward the feeling of the heartbeat that quickens in response to these alternately kind and horrific interactions, similar to Enitharmon's departure from Los in Jerusalem, here there is an oscillation between fear and hope. 

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However, regeneration also depends on the bosom and on blood. When Los offers to share his fibres with Enitharmon in Jerusalem, he states that quote "when in eternity man converses with man, they enter into each other's bosom, which are universes of delight and mutual interchange" reveals that interactions change the body and creates certain ties between individuals 

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beyond the limits of biological inheritance. With the alliteration of man and mutual, there's a sense that people are flowing toward each other, much like shared pulses and certain connections branch out to include both humans and non human others. 

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To return to Boerhaave, he stated that quote "the particles of blood are continually attracting each other, which is an affection not common to all fluids 

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but only peculiar to blood, and also of some just a few others." 

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Although Boerhaave likely used the term affection and attraction to designate the more physical forces in blood, the secondary connotation of fondness and connection shines through, and through the regenerative cycles, these particles of blood ensure greater harm between different individuals. 

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Blake, similar to Darwin, believed that the body is connected to larger circulatory systems, In The Economy of Vegetation, Darwin compares blood circulation to the water cycle as quote "from the heart to the Sanguine stream Distils, and sends to - sends the blood to all parts of the body"

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before quote "the vagrant globules swim from each fair feature and proportion limb joined in one trunk with deeper times return." 

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Vibrant globules swimming freely through engagement reunite with the seashore that joins them together into one trunk, which in turn exudes a deep colour due to the combination and concentration of particles. For Blake, this orderliness transforms into the erratic intermingling of blood with larger systems in the Book of Urizen, where "vast clouds of blood rolled around the dim rocks of Urizen before the roaring fires ran over the heavens.

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And whirlwinds and cataracts of blood and thousands of rivers and veins of blood poured down the mountains." The imagery of blood moving about spins with frenzy. Diction such as rolled round whirlwinds and poo. Lost is the predictable hydraulic system that sends blood from the heart to the veins and back again. 

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Blake emphasises that in his world and in art in general, this form of the circulation is multidirectional. 

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And to continue with this topic of flexibility, Blake's Polypus represents the connection between blood and plant fluids. Ingleston posits that the polypus gestures towards Trembley's research on the hydra, which is this hybrid creature with an immense reproductive power that typified a creative force. On the other hand, Duvanti interprets this figure as an index of hope, for revolutionary change through its connection to Orc. 

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A third way of considering this creature is to turn to Boerhaave's warning that if blood vessels became stiff, a polypus would grow and harden until it interrupts the circulation. The OED confirms this older definition. Similarly, Blake's creature constricts the system, and the bosom transforms into a locus of islands. 

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And furthermore, the polypus is metaphoric as a tree quote, "becoming a mighty polypus named Albions tree, They tie the veins and nerves into two knots and the seed into a double knot." The flow of blood is interrupted with the repeated action of Albion's daughters tying knots.

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As a result, the sun, the heavens and trees tremble, and because this creature blocks the cardiovascular system, this in turn inhibits environmental growth. Yet Blake's alignment between body and plant can also be generative. In fact, 

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Darwin emphasised the movement of blood through plants. Quote " in the right veins the silvery sap ascends and refluent red blood in Milky eddies blends". Just as veins are often visible along the body,

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Darwin vividly describes these lines with his colourful diction, and beyond that he claimed that plants have quote arterial systems to convey the fluids to the various glands of the vegetable, and furthermore, when he was describing certain plants that he used for experiments such as fig leaves. He explained that quote "their blood is white."

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In Urizen, Enitharmon's birth is a scene where the boundary between plants and animals and even humans is slightly blurred. 

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Quotes "the globe of life blood trembled, branching out into roots, fibroids, writhing upon the winds, fibres of blood, milk and tears."

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Blood blends together animal and plant physiology as it grows fruits, fibres, blood, milk and tears. Milk may not only refer to the nutritive fluid produced by animals to nurse their young, but also the quote "Milky juice", which is a phrase that Darwin often uses to describe sap's circulation. So for both Blake and Darwin, blood us now solely reside within the walls of the human or even the animal. 

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Blood ties are ultimately reshaped in the interdisciplinary furnaces. Hendriksen and Beryl, who actually recreated a small version of Boerhaave's furnace from the 18th century, started a discussion on furnaces in the early modern period, 

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and they claimed that furnaces could be a part of artisanal workshops and also alchemical laboratories. 

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So these research- researchers asserted that chemical instruments were often made from reusable materials and often also temporary. So Boerhaave also taught students how to create their own furnace; through many of his texts he included a guide for building furnaces. Furnaces in Blake's world, of course, involve the work of characters as they attempt 

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to redeem the world using art. Although these furnaces are often ground spaces break like Boerhaave depicts the furnace as a site of collaboration, which emphasises the creative potential of all bodies involved. Los quote "walks from furnace to furnace directing the labour 

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while singing a song for Jerusalem" and the sounds of Labour are combined into one atmosphere, Los then begins to work. He sees quote, "he seizes his hammer every hour. Flames surround him as he beats". The fire envelopes him and he becomes absorbed in the work of forging new bodies and bloodlines. Northrop Frye neatly summarises these endeavours. 

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Quote "The hammer is the heartbeat, the bellows, the lungs, and the furnace is the metabolism of the warm blooded animal." 

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So as the body becomes aligned with the furnace, Blake shows us that existing relationships breakdown and new ones form. He reveals that the body is built and rebuilt at each moment, and this is where Blake and Boerhaave diverge significantly; while Boerhaave sees the body as a machine consisting of different parts, both solid and fluid, they transforms the body into an architectural space into Golgonooza, the city of art; this city epitomises a collaborative effort that stems from an unpredictable system. 

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Blake draws on Boerhaave's concept of a mechanical body with his quote "pillars, props, cross beams, fences, coverings, bellows and pipes", and he reshapes these parts by emphasising the quote "Labour of merciful hands, the beams and the rafters are forgiveness. The mortar and cement of the work are tears of honesty." Each part is imbued with the feelings 

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of the workers themselves, rather than just being mechanical parts that are functioning in a machine. So to position the city within the body, Blake writes that quote "Los builded Golgonooza outside the gates of the 

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Human heart, which is just that, this is a city without clear boundaries, it folds inward and outward to vent a larger system. Los and Enitharmon also interact in the furnaces, quote "my fibres shoot in veins of love through all my nervous limbs, soon overgrown in roots, I shall be closed from thy 

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sight. Seize therefore, in thy hand the small fibres as they shoot 

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round me draw out in pity and let them run on the winds of thy bosom. I will fix them with pulsations."

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The erratic movement of blood through the blood lines culminates in Los's offer. He extends his lines to her hand, the organ that can register these pulsations of another person. In turn, their bosoms would reunite, as these circulation of blood crosses between their bodies, and when she rejects his words, Los sighs quotes "like the bellows of his furnaces". He gestures to his hammer 

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and explains to Enitharmon that in eternity man will converse together in mutual interchange. 

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Los refers to the bellows and the hammer, tools which work together with the furnace in order to reassure the audience that there will be more understanding between bodies and eternity. He knows that the furnace coupled with art will ultimately help them forge new blood ties, and in the end quote "Albion spoke and threw himself into the furnaces of affliction" before the fires 

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burst and all the figures rise in quote "Albion's bosom". 

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In his chemical and artistic experiment, Blake illustrates that blood circulation changes the dynamic between different bodies, sharing echoes with chemical ideas from the long 18th century, Blake's concept of blood shrines with creativity and multiplicity as the fluid flows through bodies and landscapes in various shapes and in the ecological way. And that concludes my talk. 

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Thank you so much for listening.