Ignorance is Bliss.

Ignorance = Lack of knowledge

Bliss = a perfect joy or happiness

Follow Your Bliss

Follow = to pursue in an effort to overtake

"Ignorance is Bliss" I have heard this statement my entire life from one end of the U.S. to the other. The direction of this statement always being the same – tending to be derogatory in nature for an act of an error. Sometimes used in jest other times as a dagger of retaliation.

Throughout my own short-lived life (so far) I too have used this statement to varying degrees. As I learned well from my many mentors, both used in jest and dagger. Experience from life and situations always create an introspective of my past actions. How am I being treated – How do I treat others – type of thought.

When I first heard the Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell my head swooned and I groaned. When he (Campbell) uttered the phrase "Follow your Bliss" did my head pound. Hearing all of my life that "Ignorance is Bliss". I had to think what in the world was Campbell speaking about?

Talk about Ignorance! Now come on!

So for the next five years I created a contemplation of thought for myself. Allowing these two paradoxical statements to coexist in my mind. This actually gave way to a direction of overcoming my own ignorance in more than just a metaphysical endeavor.

Leading to an exercise of One question answered Ten more in its place to ask.

Then after reading a post in the Joseph Campbell Mythology Group (JCMG) on Yahoo someone else had posted the same question I did 15 years ago. WOW! I thought. I have an answer. Maybe I can offer a slight insight to this paradox.

I wanted to give this a little thought so I could explain myself clearly. I began as always with the current version of the Oxford dictionary finding the root of which was the quandary. After some research the following metaphor occurred.

If lack of knowledge is happiness

And we are to

Pursue in an effort to overtake our happiness

Should we not

Pursue in an effort to overtake our lack knowledge to find our happiness.

If Ignorance is Bliss

And we are to

Follow our Bliss

Should we not

Follow our Ignorance to find our Bliss.

Completing this phrase I then showed it to Kat and as always with a deep questioning voice. She asked, "I wonder where the phrase "Ignorance is Bliss" originates from?

The gauntlet flayed, the challenge submitted.

Little did I know that the search would result in an extraordinary simple answer.

Pursuing the reference section of our library I found the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Reflexing to the index I found the phrase I was in question of. A short portion of a poem by Thomas Gray held the answer – or so I thought.

Thomas gray was the fifth child of twelve and the only survivor born to a Milliner mother and an abusive father in 1716. In 1725 his maternal uncle swept him to Eton College. Gray did not graduate from the school in regular time. Although he studied hard he did not care much for mathematics and philosophy. His forte was in language, history and the biological sciences. Being reclusive and always introspective Thomas Gray did make three close friends at Eton. They called themselves the "Quadruple alliance" Horace Walpole, Richard West and Thomas Ashton rounded out the foursome.

In 1738 Walpole and Gray headed to Europe for a Grand Tour. They toured and studied together until April of 1741 when they had a violent quarrel. They parted and Gray made his way back to London. There he renewed his friendship with Richard West. The spring and summer of 1742 were Grays’ most prolific for poetry.

During this time Richard West died at the age of 25. Gray and West had drawn closer since Walpole’s fight in Reggio. Grays’ sorrow and loneliness found expression in the poem "Ode to a distant prospect of Eton College" over the lost of his only intimate friend. With this small synopsis of his biography in your mind please feel the "Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College".

à

THOMAS GRAY (1716-1771)

ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE

1     Ye distant spires, ye antique tow’rs,
2         That crown the wat’ry glade,
3     Where grateful Science still adores
4         Her Henry’s holy Shade;
5     And ye, that from the stately brow
6     Of Windsor’s heights th’ expanse below
7         Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
8     Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowr’s among
9     Wanders the hoary Thames along
10       His silver-winding way.

11   Ah, happy hills, ah, pleasing shade,
12       Ah, fields belov’d in vain,
13   Where once my careless childhood stray’d,
14       A stranger yet to pain!
15   I feel the gales, that from ye blow,
16   A momentary bliss bestow,
17       As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
18   My weary soul they seem to soothe,
19   And, redolent of joy and youth,
20       To breathe a second spring.

21   Say, Father Thames, for thou hast seen
22       Full many a sprightly race
23   Disporting on thy margent green
24       The paths of pleasure trace,
25   Who foremost now delight to cleave
26   With pliant arm thy glassy wave?
27       The captive linnet which enthrall?
28   What idle progeny succeed
29   To chase the rolling circle’s speed,
30       Or urge the flying ball?

31   While some on earnest business bent
32       Their murm’ring labours ply
33   ‘Gainst graver hours, that bring constraint
34       To sweeten liberty:
35   Some bold adventurers disdain
36   The limits of their little reign,
37       And unknown regions dare descry:
38   Still as they run they look behind,
39   They hear a voice in ev’ry wind,
40       And snatch a fearful joy.

41   Gay hope is theirs by fancy fed,
42       Less pleasing when possest;
43   The tear forgot as soon as shed,
44       The sunshine of the breast:
45   Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
46   Wild wit, invention ever-new,
47       And lively cheer of vigour born;
48   The thoughtless day, the easy night,
49   The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
50       That fly th’ approach of morn.

51   Alas, regardless of their doom,
52       The little victims play!
53   No sense have they of ills to come,
54       Nor care beyond to-day:
55   Yet see how all around ‘em wait
56   The ministers of human fate,
57       And black Misfortune’s baleful train!
58   Ah, show them where in ambush stand
59   To seize their prey the murth’rous band!
60         Ah, tell them they are men!

61   These shall the fury Passions tear,
62       The vultures of the mind
63   Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear,
64       And Shame that skulks behind;
65   Or pining Love shall waste their youth,
66   Or Jealousy with rankling tooth,
67       That inly gnaws the secret heart,
68   And Envy wan, and faded Care,
69   Grim-visag’d comfortless Despair,
70       And Sorrow’s piercing dart.

71   Ambition this shall tempt to rise,
72       Then whirl the wretch from high,
73   To bitter Scorn a sacrifice,
74       And grinning Infamy.
75   The stings of Falsehood those shall try,
76   And hard Unkindness’ alter’d eye,
77       That mocks the tear if forc’d to flow;
78   And keen Remorse with blood defil’d,
79   And moody Madness laughing wild
80       Amid severest woe.

81   Lo, in the vale of years beneath
82       A griesly troop are seen,
83   The painful family of Death,
84       More hideous than their Queen:
85   This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
86   That ev’ry labouring sinew strains,
87       Those in the deeper vitals rage:
88   Lo, Poverty, to fill the band,
89   That numbs the soul with icy hand,
90       And slow-consuming Age.

91   To each his suff’rings: all are men,
92       Condemn’d alike to groan,
93   The tender for another’s pain;
94       Th’ unfeeling for his own.
95   Yet ah! Why should they know their fate?
96   Since sorrow never comes too late,
97       And happiness too swiftly flies.
98   Thought would destroy their paradise.
99   No more; where ignorance is bliss,
100     ‘Tis folly to be wise.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Screen Design (Electronic Edition):

Sian Meikle (University of Toronto Library)

Scanning:

Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities)

NOTES

1.

Written in August 1742, and first published, anonymously, in 1747, this was the first of Gray’s English poems to appear in print. To the edition of 1768 Gray prefixed a motto from Menander of which the literal translation is, "I am a man—a sufficient excuse for being miserable." Gray was a pupil at Eton, the most famous of the great English schools, from 1725 to 1734. Among his closest associates there was Horace Walpole, youngest son of England’s prime minister.

3.

Science: in the eighteenth century, used of knowledge in general, and not in the restricted sense which it has since acquired.

4.

Henry: Henry VI, founder of Eton College; he had a reputation for sanctity.

6.

Windsor: on the opposite side of the Thames from Eton.

9.

the hoary Thames. Ancient art represented river-gods in the form of aged men.

61.

fury Passions: cf. Pope, Essay on Man, III, 167: "The Fury-passions from that blood began."

 

79.

In his note on this line Gray quotes Dryden’s Fable of Palamon and Arcite, derived from Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale (II, 582): "Madness laughing in his ireful mood."

84.

Queen: The reference is to Death, although Death is usually personified as masculine.

A New Metaphor

By Kevin Yares

Ah the explosive dynamics of the English language.

"Ignorance is Bliss" a term originally used for the final act of a Lost of Innocence.

Construed into a derogatory inflammation.

Time for a New Metaphor.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If lack of knowledge is happiness

And we are to

Pursue in an effort to overtake our happiness

Should we not

Pursue in an effort to overtake our lack knowledge to find our happiness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If Ignorance is Bliss

And we are to

Follow our Bliss

Should we not

Follow our Ignorance to find our Bliss.

The Thomas Gray Archive: http://www.thomasgray.org/materials/bio.shtml

Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College: http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/gray2.html