Thread by @AlisonBlunt

1) Gratitude to William Blake on the anniversary of his birth 🪐
Pertinent quote from Part 1/3 davidcayley.com/podcasts/categ…
David Cayley, 'What did he see in the revolutions in America and France?'
Northrop Frye, 'He saw two things in the revolutionary activities of his time....'

2) 'One is the sudden awakening to the fact that man has been playing a damn silly game over the centuries and that he doesn't have to go on playing it. He can kick over the table and spread the pieces on the floor and go on with something else. One the other hand, he also saw..'

3) ..'cyclical movement, where a revolution consolidates power by going back to what it was in the first place, and that was what he saw in France when it went from the destroying of the Bastille to Napoleon and what he saw in the United States when it kept on owning slaves...'

4) ..'and keeping on with an oligarchic economy.'

"The hand of vengeance found the bed
To which the purple tyrant fled
The iron hand crushed the tyrant's head
And became a tyrant in his stead."
William Blake

Audio davidcayley.com/podcasts/categ… Transcripts davidcayley.com/transcripts