UNIVERSIDADE de SÃO PAULO

FACULDADE de FILOSOFIA, LETRAS e CIÊNCIAS HUMANAS

Movimentos da Poesia

Maria Silvia Betti

Noturno

14.05.12

Roberto Candido Francisco

Wolverine´s Fearful Symmetry

References to William Blake in the Graphic Novel Origin

William Blake (1757-1827), the English poet, painter and printmaker, is an

ubiquitous reference in today’s culture industry and pop culture. Although disregarded

as mad by his eccentricities and idiosyncratic views, the expressive and creative

character of his visual and poetic works, along with their underlying philosophical and

mystical richness, granted him the status of one of the greatest British artists of all time.

Blake is considered a forerunner of the Romantic Age, having earlier works categorized

as Pre-Romantic and later ones as Romantic.

According to Blake biographer Peter Ackroyd, although despised and rejected in

his time, Blake decided “that his was a special vision and that his work was in the

context of eternity”1. Blake’s persona and ideas are still a very present influence to

contemporary artists of varied fields. In literature, his model of illustrated books was

often followed in the early twentieth century and his visual and literary works offered

seminal inspiration for writers such as Aldous Huxley, C. S. Lewis, William Butler

Yeats and are referenced in the writings of Thomas harris, Salman Rushdie and David

Almond, among others. In film, examples of influence and reference are found in

Ridley Scott’s science fiction Blade Runner, in Jim Jarmusch’s western Dead Man, in

the game-based movie Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and in Gus Van Sant’s drama Last

Days. In music, examples are found in the works of: Allen Ginsberg; The Doors;

Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Van Morrison; U2; Bruce Dickinson and Loreena McKennitt,

the Brazilian rock band As Mercenárias2, among many others. In games, references are

found, for instance, in Dante’s Inferno, Grand Theft Auto IV, Fallout 2, Lost Souls and

even in Yu-Gi-Oh! In visual arts, he was influential on Paul Nash, Dora Carrington and

Ronnie Landfield and others.

Another artistic niche in which Blake is highly influential is that of comics and

graphic novels. This influence may be explained by the fact that Comics, like most of

Blake’s works, can be considered an ImageText, a term coined by W.J.T. Mitchell

which "designates the composite, synthetic works (or concepts) that combine image and

1 William Blake, documentary produced by London Weekend Television in association with RM Arts.

Excerpt available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHpJ216I-J4 . 2 Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0Ytk9gl8VA .

text". Mitchell, in his book Blake's Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry,

uses Blake’s works to develop his concept of imagetext and considers their tensions and

flows as starting points to investigate comics, graphic novels and many other kinds of

imagetexts (WHITSON, par 4).

Another reason for this influence, especially regarding the superhero genre

comics, may lie in the correlation between the imagery in the illuminated books and

“the gothic sensibility of contemporary superheroes with their bulging muscles and

gigantic stature” (WHITSON, par 3), as Ackroyd suggests in his biography of Blake.

Ackroyd briefly compares the "topical pamphlets, popular prints and broadside

ballads" of Blake's London with "the modern comics devoted to 'science fantasy'

and genre fiction in general" (180-1). Blake's abstract landscapes and mythic

characters, especially in The Book of Ahania seem to evoke for Ackroyd the

atmosphere of contemporary superhero comic books. He warns us not to take the

comparison too far, since he argues many comics do not have the quality of Blake's

illuminated books. But he sees a definite resemblance emerging from the fact that

both Blake and many comic writers feel a sense of "alienation or exclusion from

the conventional literary establishment" and are frequently "political radicals with

an urban sensibility not untouched by an interest in the occult" (181). (WHITSON,

ref 3)

William Blake’s etched songs and Prophetic Books may be traced as the origins

of the graphic novel genre and of fantasy art. In addition, his relation with comics

extends to his descendant and namesake comic book writer-artist William Blake Everett

(1917-1973), who, under the name Bill Everett, created the anti-hero Namor the Sub-

Mariner and co-created the superhero Daredevil, besides working in several other

publications.

Namor the Sub-Mariner Daredevil the Man Without Fear

The key fact that makes Blake’s art and mythology so appealing to comic writers

is its deeply archetypal character, which is partaken by the comic genre, particularly by

the superhero type.

His transgressive and transformational yet archetypal art and mythology have

inspired a myriad of superhero comics’ writers. The legendary Allan Moore

impregnates his works with references to Blake, as in V for Vendetta, Watchmen and

From Hell, and is considered himself a kind of modern Blake due to his idiosyncrasies

and extravaganzas, a kind of rebel, prophet, religious and occultist sage, in ideas and

appearance3. Other author that cite Blake or are influence by him: Grant Morrison in

Invisibles; J. M. DeMatteis in Shadowmoon and in a Spider-Man graphic novel called

Kraven’s Last Hunt; Robert Crumb; Garth Ennis in a Punisher one-shot called The

Tyger; Todd McFarlane in Spawn and the poem The Tyger is even cited in a Calvin and

Hobbes strip.

A very particular case of inspiration and citation related to Blake is found in the

graphic novel in six chapters Origin, which tells the origins of the Marvel Comics anti-

hero Wolverine, member of the X-Men.

Wolverine’s first appearance in 1974 Hugh Jackman as Wolverine

Created in 1974, the character became one of the most popular of the world, in the

ranks of Superman, Batman and Spider-man. He had his past, even his real name,

shrouded in mystery until 2001, when Origin was published. Its writer, Paul Jenkins,

adopted an unexpected approach to tell this long-awaited tale of a mainstream popular

character, opting on focusing on the subjectivity in the construction of characters and

plot, as he explains:

My sensibilities seem to lay, I think, in characterization much more than events.

And I think in the case of Wolverine, that's the way to re-examine that character

right now if you want to make him back into the character he was and sort of has

the potential to be. I think I have to examine his character and not just make it a

3 Whitson, Roger. "Panelling Parallax: The Fearful Symmetry of Alan Moore and William Blake." .

ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies. 3.2 (2007). Dept of English, University of Florida. 14 May 2012. <http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v3_2/whitson/>.

series of important events. Because they become meaningless if there's not actually

people that you care about taking part in those events.4

This focus on emotions and feelings, along with Wolverine’s notorious

characteristics of being solitary and in connection with nature in a very peculiar way

through his wild personality, would already have given Origin traits of the Romantic

Age. Furthermore, it takes place in the late 19th

century and Jenkins cites Blake’s poem

The Tyger. Besides that, other Romantic Blakean elements recur in the graphic novel.

On the cover of the very first chapter, comes the name of the first chapter The

Hill, in which the three protagonist children meet and play on a hill and in a river.

The children lay down to rest on the hill, apparently surveyed by figures that

resemble God or Urizen and the devil or the red dragon.

The chapter makes allusions to two Blake’s poems called Nurse’s song5. The

poems were published in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience and relate to each

4 PAUL JENKINS TALKS ORIGIN. Interview with Paul Jenkins available at:

http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0105/24/index.htm .

5 Allen Ginsberg sings William Blake's "The Nurse's Song" (from Songs of Innocence), available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BImgrnzIfnM .

other, as in most poems in both books, by reflection, symmetry and difference, recurrent

motifs throughout these works, as well as the defense of infancy and childhood.

Nurse’s Song (Songs of Innocence)

When the voices of children are heard on the

green,

And laughing is heard on the hill,

My heart is at rest within my breast,

And everything else is still.

‘Then come home, my children, the sun is gone

down,

And the dews of night arise;

Come, come leave off play, and let us away

Till the morning appears in the skies.’

‘No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,

And we cannot go to sleep;

Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,

And the hills are all cover'd with sheep.’

‘Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,

And then go home to bed.’

The little ones leapèd, and shoutèd, and laugh'd

And all the hills echoèd.

Nurse’s Song (Songs of Experience)

When the voices of children are heard on the

green,

And whisperings are in the dale,

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

Then come home, my children, the sun is gone

down,

And the dews of night arise;

Your spring and your day are wasted in play,

And your winter and night in disguise.

These motifs are also spread in Origin,

both in the plot and the art. The first

part of this first chapter’s plot relates to

the lighter, innocently joyous poem on

Songs of Innocence, while the second

part, to the somber and bitter one of

Songs of Experience. This change of

tone is marked by a panel which tells

about the difference between the lives

of the children and shows a contrast of

light and dark (similar to the cover)

and a reflection to signify this

difference: the characters that represent

light and innocence are silhouetted

against the sun, on the left as if left

behind in the story; while the one that

has a dark soul and represents the dark

side of life, in the right as if signaling

the shifting to the darker side of the

story, is on the lighter side of the panel,

looking at his reflection on the water.

After this panel, in the next page, an accident in

which the boy James Howlett falls into the river

and is saved from drowning by “Dog” Logan

takes place, triggering the initial crisis which

will lead to all the plot’s complications.

This first chapter ends in a cold snowy night, in

opposition to the sunny hot beginning, another

Romantic device to reflect the inner state of the

self, one’s emotions and feelings – in the case,

Dog Logan’s sadness after being beaten by his

abusive father.

Another example of reflection and

symmetry is found in chapter 4 Heaven and

Hell6, in which a situation of the first chapter is

mirrored, showing that, although in a different

environment, there is another character to fit the

archetypal role of the antagonist and that James’ condition of easy innocent prey is

maintained.

Chapter 1 Chapter 4

6 A clear reference to Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

However, the most notorious reference to Blake is made

in Chapter 5 Revelation7, which repeats in its cover the

motif of reflection, symmetry and difference (right).

James, also called Wolverine, is shown hunting with a

pack of wolves after yielding to his wild side (down)

The hunt is accompanied by

the poem The Tyger, which,

the reader knows later on, is

being read by Rose, James’

romantic interest.

The poem The Tyger,

from Songs of Experience, is

the evil sister to the poem

The Lamb, from Songs of

Innocence, and is used in the

graphic novel to express

Wolverine’s change into a

predator. The poem also

exempts the character from

being considered evil,

showing this transformation

as a natural process, in

accordance with the

Romantic concept of rejection of a scientific rationalization of nature since “Romantics

were distrustful of the world of men, and tended to believe that a close connection with

nature was mentally and morally healthy”8 – though, in Wolverine’s case, this

connection seems like ‘overkill’.

7 A reference to the Bible book to which Blake was commissioned to create paintings to serve as

illustrations, the most famous being The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun. 8 Romanticism at Wikipedia, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism .

References:

WHITSON, Roger. "Introduction to 'William Blake and Visual Culture,' a special issue of Imagetext." .

ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies. 3.2 (2007). Dept of English, University of Florida. 14 May

2012. <http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v3_2/introduction.shtml>.

WHITSON, Roger. "Panelling Parallax: The Fearful Symmetry of Alan Moore and William Blake." .

ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies. 3.2 (2007). Dept of English, University of Florida. 14 May

2012. <http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v3_2/whitson/>.

William BLAKE. (2012, May 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:10, May 14, 2012,

from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Blake&oldid=492424412

William BLAKE in popular culture. (2012, January 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved

07:14, May 14, 2012, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Blake_in_popular_culture&oldid=473100852

000: WHENCE CAME THE WOLVERINE from http://www.wolverinefiles.com/wolverine-true-origin/ , accesse in May 14, 2012.

ORIGIN (comics). (2011, April 26). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:21, May 15,

2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Origin_(comics)&oldid=425942418

ROMANTICISM. (2012, May 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:23, May 15, 2012,

from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Romanticism&oldid=492462034

BILL EVERETT. (2012, May 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:24, May 15, 2012,

from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bill_Everett&oldid=492301071

PAUL JENKINS TALKS ORIGIN from http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0105/24/index.htm.

Accessed in May 14, 2012.

WILLIAM BLAKE DOCUMENTARY EXCERPT ½ from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHpJ216I-J4 .

Accessed in May 14, 2012.

Anexo 1

Versões em português de The Tyger da edição brasileira de Origin da editora Panini.

Augusto de Campos

José Paulo Paes