Spectre (Blake)

For other uses, seeSpectre.

Los's Spectre torments him at his smithy in Blake's poemJerusalem.This image comes from Copy E. of the work, printed in 1821 and in the collection of theYale Center for British Art

TheSpectreis one aspect of the fourfold nature of the human psyche along withHumanity,EmanationandShadowthatWilliam Blakeused to explore hisspiritual mythologythroughout his poetry and art. As one of Blake's elements of the psyche, Spectre takes on symbolic meaning when referred to throughout his poems. According to professor Joseph Hogan, "Spectre functions to define individuals from others [...] When it is separated [from Emanation], it is reason, trying to define everything in terms of unchanging essences."Thus, according to Samuel Foster Damon, Spectre epitomizes "Reason separated from humanity" and "Self-centered selfhood"or, as Alexander S. Gourlay puts it, Spectre is "characterized by self-defensive rationalization".

Spectre appears in several of Blake's works, includingJerusalem,Milton: a poemandThe Four Zoas.Because of its widespread presence in Blake's more mythological works, scholars have reflected on Spectre through multiple critical approaches includingJungian archetypal analysis,as a means of mapping Blake's mythology within intellectual history and within his own biographical experience.

In Blake's works

The mythological character of Spectre is first introduced in Blake'sprophetic bookJerusalem:

I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep

And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.

Elsewhere inJerusalem,Blake defines it this way: "The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man, and when separated from Imagination and closing itself as in steel in a Ratio of Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws and Moralities [...]."The Spectre also appears in his published worksMiltonandThe Four Zoas.

In his unpublished hand written workbook, known as theRossetti Manuscript,he also drafted a poem that began "My Spectre around me night and day / Like a wild beast guards my way."

Scholarly approach

Historicistcritics sometime look for direct inspirations for Blake's mythological ideas, such as Spectre, in his life experiences. In his 1966 article titled "Cowper as Blake's Spectre", Morton Paley argues that William Blake was thinking of the poetWilliam Cowper,his philosophy and madness when creating the character of Spectre. In his argument, he discusses Blake's admiration and connections to Cowper both intellectually and socially as helping Blake create the archetype which became Spectre within the larger Blake mythology.

Some critics have used Blake's mythology to help map elements of his mythology within a largerintellectual history.For example, in his bookBlake, Kierkegaard, and the Spectre of Dialectic,Lorraine Clark argues that Spectre and its relationship to Los signals a change in Blake's approach to history and philosophy. He says that Blake in his focus on "the Los and Spectre inThe Four Zoas,MiltonandJerusalem,Blake turns from aHegelian"both-and" dialectic of Orc and Urizen in his earlier works to something veryKierkegaardian"either/or".

In general, Blake's mythology lends itself to psychoanalytic criticism, because of its clear archetypes. According to scholar Mark Ryan, the acclaimed literary criticNorthrop Fryeoften aligned Spectre with persona inJung's archetypes.On the other hand, Ryan says that many other critiques using archetypal approaches "tend to automatically relate the" Shadow "and the" Spectre, "as pertaining to the concept of the dark side of the psyche, without considering the possibility that each character's shadow is, by implication, open to different modes of interpretation."

Further reading

• Rose, Edward J. (June 1977)."Blake and the Double: The Spectre as Doppelganger".Colby Quarterly.13(2).