Saturday, August 30, 2014

reprobate 2

'Reprobate' appears 7 times in Milton and once in Jerusalem:
By the time Blake wrote Milton he had a new concept of the 
sorts of people.


1. The Elect are best known and admired class; they more or less run things in the materialistic culture in which Blake (and we) live.  They live in the top rung of society. 

2. 
The redeemed are middle class people who obey the Elect, but with some reservations.

3. The reprobates are thought of as lower class people, very much like Jesus was thought of by the privileged class.



In this post we will attempt to show what Blake meant  by these classes.

The reprobates are thought of as lower class people, very much like Jesus was thought of.



(Following in the train of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell 
From Milton, Plate 13:
The Elect shall meet the Redeem'd. on Albions rocks they shall meetAstonish'd at the Transgressor, in him beholding the Saviour.


O Albion, my brother!
Jerusalem hungers in the desart! affection to her children!
The scorn'd and contemnd youthful girl, where shall she fly?
Sussex shuts up her Villages. Hants, Devon & Wilts
Surrounded with masses of stone in orderd forms, determine then
A form for Vala and a form for Luvah, here on the Thames
Where the Victim nightly howls beneath the Druids knife:
A Form of Vegetation, nail them down on the stems of
Mystery:
O when shall the Saxon return with the English his
redeemed brother!
O when shall the Lamb of God descend among the
Reprobate!

Kinds of Men:

conventional people who lack 'their own system' of values 
and more or less follow the herd of the materialistic majority 
of the population.

Milton Plate 8 Erdman 102:
But Rintrah who is of the reprobate: of those form'd to destruction 
                                                           
Plate 11:
the Class of Satan shall be calld the Elect, &
those
Of Rintrah. the Reprobate, & those of Palamabron the Redeem'd
For he is redeem'd from Satans Law, the wrath falling on Rintrah

the three classes are a general reversal of ordinary ideas.)

He died as a Reprobate. he was Punish'd as a transgressor! 
Glory! Glory! Glory! to the Holy Lamb of God 
I touch the heavens as an instrument to glorify the Lord! 

And the Elect shall say to the Redeemd. We behold it is of Divine Mercy alone! of Free Gift and Election that we live.Our Virtues & Cruel Goodnesses, have deserv'd Eternal Death.


                                                              

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