query [“Menny wouver”]
begin page 58 | ↑ back to topIn the final version of Blake’s Notebook poem “English Encouragement of Art,” occurs the curious line “Menny wouver both Bunglishness & skill”[e] (E 501). Erdman suggests that “Menny wouver” is “Cromekian for maneuver” (p. 787). Perhaps; but it occurs to me this may also be a pun on “Meynheer Wouverman,”[e] referring to the Dutch painter Philips Wouverman.