As far as I am aware, the earliest instance of the use of the phrase "apocalyptic humanism" is found in Northrop Frye. On page 188 of his landmark study of William Blake (Fearful Symmetry, 1947), Frye mentions Blake's "apocalyptic humanism" almost in passing. What Frye intends by his use of this phrase is to be discovered by reading this book--all of it. As Frye explains, all attempts to Christianize Blake (in any traditional or orthodox sense of the term) run aground on the rocks of Blake's insistence that the "only God that exists exists in man, and all religion consists in following the right men" (Frye, 217--notice Frye's use of the plural here). And who are the right men? Those who become the "true Jesus" by means of uniting the divine and the human in their own minds and, thereupon, activate their innate poetic genius and acquire vision (Frye, 387). The notion that the Word became Flesh once and for all in Jesus is anathema to Blake. Instead, the Word must become Flesh continually. When this happens, a visionary/utopian/apocalyptic humanism is achieved.
No comments:
Post a Comment