William Blake

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William Blake

• Innocence and Experience

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William Blake(b. Nov. 28, 1757, London--d. Aug.
12, 1827, London)

• The first of the great English Romantic poets, as
  well as a painter and printer, and one of the
  greatest engravers in English history.
• Largely self-taught, he began writing poetry when
  he was twelve and was apprenticed to a London
  engraver at the age of fourteen.
• A rebel all of his life, Blake was arrested in
  Felpham in 1803 on a trumped up charge of
  sedition.

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Revolutionary

• A complete sympathizer with the forces of
  revolution, both in America and France.
• A personal friend of Thomas Paine
• He made the American War of Independence and
  French Revolution parts of his grand mythology in
  his America A Prophecy and Europe A Prophecy.

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Illustrator
Dante and Vergil The Divine Comedy
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Visionary

• Belief in the primacy of imaginative vision
• The true Man is the source, he being Poetic
  Genius
• He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God.
  He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.

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Prophet

• Blake deliberately wrote in the style of the
  Hebrew prophets and apocalyptic writers.
• He envisioned his works as expressions of
  prophecy, following in the footsteps (or, more
  precisely strapping on the sandals) of Elijah and
  Milton.
• He envisioned himself as the living embodiment of
  the spirit of Milton.

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Blake Links

• The William Blake Archive
• The William Blake Page
• William Blake A Helpfile
• The Blake Digital Text Project
• William Blakes Illustrations forThe Book of Job

William Blake, Self Portrait
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Songs of Innocence and Experience

• 1784 An Island in the Moon a burlesque novel
  which contained several of the poems of Songs of
  Innocence
• 1788-89 Invented method of etching text and
  designs on copper plate to print, and then
  watercolor his poems
• 1789 Songs of Innocence initiated his series of
  Illuminated Books incorporating the the
  identification of ideas with symbols which could
  be translated into visual images the word and
  symbol each reinforcing the other.
• 1789-93 The Book of Thel, The Visions of the the
  Daughters of Albion and The Marriage of Heaven
  and Hell
• 1794 The Songs of Innocence and Experience
  public events and private emotions converted
  Innocence into Experience. Blake never published
  Experience without Innocence -- Shewing the two
  Contrary States of the Human Soul.

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The Limitations of InnocenceThe Book of Thel
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Visions of the Daughters of Albion
The Enslavement of Experience
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Now I a fourfold vision see And a fourfold
vision is given to me Tis fourfold in my supreme
delight And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep From
Single vision Newtons sleepLetter to Thomas
Butts, November 22, 1802
The Transcendance of the Imagination
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Fourfold Vision
Eden Transcendent Understanding The Highest Level
of Imagination Universal Man Albion
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Threefold Vision
Beulah Higher Innocence Pastoral Existence
without clash of Contraries The Four Zoas
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Twofold Vision
Generation Realm of common human
experience. Suffering and conflicting
Contraries Male Spectres and Female Emanations
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Single Vision
Ulro Bleak Rationality Tyranny, Static
Negation Isolated Selfhood
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The Good and the Bad Angels