ANNOTATIONS TO BIBLIOGRAPHY
Much of the criticism dealing with "To Tirzah" is concerned with elucidating either the
literary origin of Blake's "Tirzah" or interpreting her role in the other (often longer) works
(e.g. "The Mental Traveller," Milton, A Poem, and The Four Zoas).
Indeed, Mona Wilson has stated that "To Tirzah" is "...the only Song of Experience which is
really obscure" and whose "symbolism cannot be understood without reference to Blake's later books" (36).
In response to the wide-ranging implications of the "Tirzah" figure, the following summaries will
be arranged under the following headings: (1) Literary Origins of "Tirzah," (2) Interpretations of "To Tirzah,"
and (3) "Tirzah" in other contexts.
Literary Origins of "Tirzah"
By far the most influential interpretation of "Tirzah's" origins belongs to Northrop Frye. In Fearful Symmetry, Frye
identifies "Tirzah" as one of the five daughters of Zelopehad "who wander in and out of the Hexateuch
looking for a separate female inheritance" (127). These daughters can be found in Numbers 27:1-f., 36:10-f., and Joshua 17:3-f.
Frye also links "Tirzah" with the Israelite city named Tirzah, the capital of the "Ten Tribes." As such, the city symbolizes opposition to
Jerusalem, "the City of God" (127). "Tirzah" is also said to be associated with the woman in Song of Solomon and with the senses (the five daughters of
Zelopehad analogous to the five senses). In a note, Frye also suggests that the five Valkyries in Gray's "The Fatal Sisters" also underlie the five daughters.
E.D. Hirsch, jr., in Innocence and Experience, focuses mainly on the connection between "Tirzah" and the capital
city. He argues that because Jerusalem, in Blake's later works, is a woman and a "spiritual city," "her counterpart ought to be a woman and a city" (282).
Since Tirzah opposed the Judaic kings and was the capital of Israel (whose kings "did evil in the sight of the Lord" [I Kings 15:34]), Hirsch argues that Tirzah
is the logical opposition to Jerusalem and its godly kings (I Kings 15.11).
Thomas A. Reisner argues that, while these interpretations are valid and appropriate, another layer figures
in the formation of "Tirzah." Reisner contends that "Tirzah" alludes to the "transliterated, romanized version of the Mosaic commandment prohibiting
murder"-'Thou shallt not kill.' (3). Reisner supports his claim by suggesting that Blake knew enough Hebrew to translate the phrase. Reisner cites
reports from G.E. Bentley, Jr., a contemporary of the poet who wrote of Blake's beginning Hebraic studies, and Blake Studies which recounts Blake's tutelage
under William Haley (526, n.3).
Interpretations of "To Tirzah"
Following from his explication of the sources of "Tirzah," Frye suggests that the meaning of "To Tirzah" lies in the human dependence on the five senses. Frye argues that this dependence is
symbolized by the "Mother" figure. Since all are born of a mortal mother, all are "passively dependent" on the "sense experience" of embodiment. The lamentation of the speaker implicitly
represents a revolt against this sensual constraint.
Hazard Adams reiterates this interpretation of constraining embodiment. Adams also argues that the speaker is a visionary, who "rejects the earth mother...with 'what have I to do with thee?'" (145).
Adams goes on to state that this rejection is a move away from "innocence" toward the life of the imagination: " (The) speaker is presumably someone who is passing from the innocent state of maternal protection through
experience in the imaginative direction" (273). The earth mother is identified as "a jailer" of sorts and connotes Nature or natural forces. Adams sees the poem as a condensed version of the myth of the Fall and the corresponding
"creation of matter, which for Blake are identical" (274). Adams argues that the Mother figure, by protecting the child from experience, gives rise to a false dualism of body and soul that must be transcended. The only recourse
for the child in this scenario is to escape the smothering presence through the force of the imagination, the "great image" of that power being "Jesus, who put Satan behind him, rejected the earth mother, and in his own descent and death
changed descent into sleep and death into resurrection" (274). Adams argues that the question ending each stanza is answered by the previous lines and is "self-evident" (275).
In his William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols, S. Foster Damon suggests that Blake's later works identify "Tirzah" as the "chaste woman" who traps Man. Damon's "Tirzah" is hypocritical and selfish. Because of these
qualities, the erroneous belief in the existence of "mortal" bodies (as half a dualism) is perpetuated.
Edwin J. Ellis and William Butler Yeats also espouse this interpretation. The Mother, representing "experience and sense," is the feminine part of the mind. This feminine part has constrained "true intellect," causing the belief
in a body distinct from the mind. This dualism is, again, overcome by the use of the Imagination, which Ellis and Yeats label 'the Death of Jesus' (17).
Robert Gleckner, in The Piper and the Bard, argues that "Tirzah" represents one part of a four-part authority structure: ecclesiastical authority, monarchical authority (represented by Har and Tiriel), patriarchal domestic authority, and "Tirzah" as "natural-or
even cosmic-authority" (72). Gleckner argues that only the denial of this authority can enable the transcendence of the soul. Gleckner goes on to suggest that Blake attacks the desire for "physical immortality" and the "selfish pride of earthly beauty and estate" through
the words of the speaker, who is the "imagination" (270). Once the speaker attains an "experienced" state, he must deny the self and therefore "the mother of self" (270). Through this denial, Gleckner argues, the speaker may attain a higher existence because of "The Death of Jesus."
Gleckner contends that this interpretation is suggested by the miracles performed by Jesus in the biblical verses containing the question "What have I to do with thee": eg. turning water into wine and casting out devils.
Alicia Ostriker's Vision and Verse in William Blake deals mainly with Blake's use of meter and rhyme. Ostriker situates "To Tirzah" among the iambic lyrics, which are thought to be the "soberer" pieces in Songs of Innocence and Experience: "The Little
Black Boy," "The Divine Image," "Holy Thursday," "London," "The Clod and the Pebble," "A Little Boy Lost" and "To Tirzah" (61). Ostriker argues that "To Tirzah" (along with the "Intro." and "Earth's Answer") constitutes a decided move by Blake toward the prophetic style. She adds that "To Tirzah"
relies on a symbolism that "strikes discord instead of harmonies with traditional understanding" (93). Ostriker also suggests that "Tirzah" is Blake's first persona which is "overtly" symbolic (93).
Ostriker's "Desire Gratified and Ungratified: William Blake and Sexuality" claims that "To Tirzah" represents a "furious repudiation" of female sexuality (101). This sexuality is represented by the Mother and is a maternal aspect that bounds Man and separates him from "Eternity" (101).
In her "The Presence of Cupid and Psyche," Irene Chayes claims that the "Mother" of "To Tirzah" is a Psyche figure, who is represented by Blake as "mother and maidenly winged figure" (233). The speaker represents a break away from the Cupid figure (who is in love with a mortal and therefore time and mortality).
The Mother, though, attempts to hold on to the rebellious speaker, leading him "to death" (234). Chayes also comments on the design of "To Tirzah," suggesting that the woman, who has placed her right hand on the right side of the prostrate man's chest, is the reverse of Christ's gesture in a detail Blake created for Young's Night Thoughts.
"Tirzah" in other contexts
Northrop Frye suggests that "the nameless shadowy female" that speaks the "Preludium" to Europe is practically indistinguishable from "Tirzah." This figure reappears in the "Preludium" to America and foresees a "painful process of achieving partial form" (228). Frye also argues that the twelve daughter's of Albion in The Four Zoas constitute
the "fivefold Tirzah," who represents the lapsed, degraded senses.
Hazard Adams sees "Tirzah" in the "woman old" of the "The Mental Traveller." This woman suggests Abraham, who "binds the victim" and "wields the sacrificial knife" (84). Adams argues that this imagery connotes the creation of death (implicitly through "Mortal birth"), rather than the "eternal life" that the
speaker of "To Tirzah" and the "victim" of "The Mental Traveller" might desire. She "encloses" rather than liberates (84). Adams, along with Frye, also considers the daughter's of Albion to be "a delusion that a world of nature and multiplicity, or Tirzah-Rahab, actually exists" (103).
Robert Gleckner suggests that "Tirzah" as the Mother figure might be analogous to the paternal restrictions in "A Little Girl Lost." Gleckner goes on to claim that "Oothoon," of Visions of the Daughters of Albion reappears as a sensual agent, "improvement of sensual enjoyment," throughout Blake's Work and in "To Tirzah" (216). This Oothoon figure
represents unbridled sensuality without the aid of wisdom, and ultimately "degenerates into the clandestine love, which is lust" (216). Gleckner also contends that the fate of the speaker of "To Tirzah" is the same as Ona's in "A Little Girl Lost": both are victims of "spiritual" rape (261). "Tirzah" is also seen as binding force in The Four Zoas (270).
As a Psyche figure, "Tirzah" is seen by Irene Chayes in a variety of works. Three notable instances are in the design of Jerusalem's plate 25 (in which one female figure appears to be from the "To Tirzah's" design), the design of "The Argument" page of Visions (in which a kneeling female receives the kiss of a small male figure), and "Infant Joy" (in which the line "Joy is my name" suggests
Milton's Comus: Psyche gives birth to twins of which one is named Joy) (240, 234, 231).
Susan Fox points to the presence of "Tirzah" in Milton. A "Tirzah"/Rahab combination has been emanated from Milton. Fox writes that, subsequently, "Rahab and Tirzah, in league with Urizen and the Shadowy Female, send out their children to lure Milton to ruin" (148).
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Hazard. William Blake: A Reading of the Shorter Poems. Seattle: U of Washington P, 1963.
Chayes, Irene. "The Presence of Cupid and Psyche". Blake's Visionary Forms Dramatic. ed. David Erdman and John E. Grant. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1970.
Damon, S. Foster. William Blake: His Philosophy and Symbols. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924.
Ellis, Edwin J. and Yeats, William Butler The Works of William Blake: Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical. London: Quaritch, 1893.
Fox, Susan. "Act [From Poetic Form in Blake's "Milton"]". Critical Essays on William Blake. ed. Hazard Adams. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1991.
Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1969.
Gleckner, Robert F.. The Piper and the Bard: A Study of William Blake. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1959.
Hirsch Jr, E.D. Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to
Blake. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1964.
Ostriker, Alicia. Vision and Verse in William Blake. Madison and Milwaukee: Wisconsin UP, 1965.
---. "Desire Gratified and Ungratified: William Blake and Sexuality". Critical Essays on William Blake. ed. Hazard Adams. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1991.
Reisner, Thomas A. "Blake's To Tirzah". **** Dr. H. I don't have this info at the moment, but I'll have it in soon. -David
Wilson, Mona. The Life of William Blake. London: Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd., 1948.