FEARFUL SYMMETRY

Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye: A study of the poetry of William Blake, looking closely at his philosophical ideas and influences. Blake's conception of the world is one of creators and creations—his ideal human is the true visionary who puts something new into the world. “I must create a system or be enslav'd by another man's; I will not Reason and Compare: my business is to Create.”


Thought is act, [Blake] says. An inactive thinker is a dreamer; an unthinking doer is an animal. No one can begin to think straight unless he has a passionate desire to think and an intense joy in thinking. The sex act without the play of intellect and emotion is mere rutting; and virility is as important to the artist as it is to the father. The more a man puts all he has into everything he does, the more alive he is. It is not only true that “every eye sees differently,” but that “a fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees,” and that “the clearer the organ the more distinct the object.” Hence if existence is in perception the tree is MORE real to the wise man than it is to the fool. Similarly it is more real to the man who throws his entire imagination behind his perception than to the man who cautiously tries to prune away different characteristics from that imagination and isolate one. The more unified the perception, the more real the existence.