Blake's Life: The Life And Life Of William Blake

1576 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Comparing and contrasting poems from william blake and william wordsworth

William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757 to James and Catherine Blake. His father, James was a hosier (seller of legwear) in London. Blake had four brothers, James, John, Richard and Robert; and a sister named Catherine (Harris 5). Blake got along best with his younger brother, Robert as they shared an interest in art (Clarke 1). As a young boy, Blake claimed to have had visions of God, spirits, prophets and angels. When he was four he is claimed to have seen God’s head in his window. In his most famous vision, he saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree and a tree of angels when he was nine (“Early Years”). Though his parents believed he was lying, they took into consideration that their son was “different” and did not believe he would succeed in a traditional school setting (“Poets”). So Blake was home schooled by his mother until he was ten years old. Blake was constantly by himself as a boy “…to seek a world of the imagination without fear of recrimination by others” (Harris 21). As a child, Blake spent his time engraving drawings of the Greek antiquities his father bought for him “(Early Years”). James and Catherine supported and encouraged Blake’s artistic ability and enrolled him in Henry Par’s drawing school in the Strand when Blake was 10 years old, there he first started writing poetry (Harris 5). He enjoyed the works of Shakespeare, Jonson and Spenser and ancient ballads as opposed to current literature at the time (“The Young Artist”). Some of Blake’s favorite artists ranged from Raphael, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Albrecht Dürer, and Maerten Heemskerck. (Merriman 2)
In 1772, Blake was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire the engraver to the London Society of antiquities, due to the high cost of dra...

... middle of paper ...

...nius during the French Revolution, aware of impending economic change and sick to the bone of ruling hypocrisy …” (Hagstrum 97-98).

Implications
Charles Swinburne, Percy Shelly, T.S Elliot and James Joyce all drew their influence from Blake (Profumo 1). William Butler Yeats especially was inspired by his philosophical and poetic ideas and even edited an edition of Blake’s collected works (“Blake and Shelley”). Bob Dylan Alasdair Gray, Jim Morrison, and Allen Ginsberg also have hints of Blake’s poetry (“William Blake in Doors”). More recently his poems have modified by U2, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Bruce Dickinson, M. Ward and Ulver (Maher 4) . His poems have been inspiration for characters of a number of writers of the twentieth century. Blake has been the muse for comic book writers Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, R. Crumb, and J. M. DeMatteis (Whitson 1).

Show More
Related

  • The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

    2332 Words  | 5 Pages

    Although many of the Romantic poets displayed a high degree of anxiety concerning the way in which their works were produced and transmitted to an audience, few, if any, fretted quite as much as William Blake did. Being also a highly accomplished engraver and printer, he was certainly the only one of the Romantics to be able to completely move beyond mere fretting. Others may have used their status or wealth to exert their influence upon the production process, but ultimately, they were at the mercy of editors, publishers, and printers and relied on others to turn their visions into published works. Blake, on the other hand, was his own editor, engraver, printer, and publisher. He was able to control to the minutest detail every single aspect of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell from conception all the way to the selling of the finished volume. Short of being his own purchaser, Blake achieved the highest possible degree of control over the work’s transmission, and considering that there are only nine known complete copies of the work (twelve total including variants and uncolored prints), even the audience itself was almost handpicked (Ackroyd, 265).

    Read More

  • Anaysis of William Blake's The Lamb, The Tyger, and Proverbs of Hell

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Blake, born in 1757 and died in 1827, created the poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell. Blake grew up in a poor environment. He studied to become an engraver and a professional artist. His engraving took part in the Romanticism era. Romanticism is a movement that developed during the 18th and early 19th century as a reaction against the Restoration and Enlightenment periods focusing on logic and reason.

    Read More

  • The Mental Traveller by William Blake

    1708 Words  | 4 Pages

    William Blake is a literature genius. Most of his work speaks volume to the readers. Blake’s poem “The Mental Traveller” features a conflict between a male and female that all readers can relate to because of the lessons learned as you read. The poet William Blake isn’t just known for just writing. He was also a well-known painter and a printmaker. Blake is considered a seminal figure in the history of poetry. His poems are from the Romantic age (The end of the 18th Century). He was born in Soho, London, Great Britain. He was the third of seven children. Even though Blake was such an inspiration as a writer he only went to school just enough to read and write. According to Bloom’s critical views on William Blake; one of Blake’s inspirations was the Bible because he believed and belonged to the Moravian Church.

    Read More

  • Edna St. Vincent Millay's 'Conscientious Objector'

    557 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Blake was born in 1757, in London England. He was the second of seven children. He grew up in a comfortable lifestyle with loving parents. Blake was home schooled for reading and writing and attended art school as a young boy because he was artistic. As a young boy, he claimed to see visions. “He told his parents about these visions and they encouraged him to keep it to himself. His parents claimed that they were childish fantasies. Eventually the visions are the base for his creative writing. When he was 25 he married Catherine Boucher.” (The Fly 6) Boucher was initially illiterate. Her husband taught her how to read and write she then because his assistant.

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting the Poetry of Lord Byron and William Blake

    1029 Words  | 3 Pages

    William Blake’s works’ were simpler than Lord Byron’s. Blake took a softer approach as he expressed his ideas without saying too much. His works included phrases that had more meaning to its simple message. He took what he had learned in the world and added it into his poetry. He was able to capture all sides of life whether it dealt with a child or the unknown presence of an object. He was bale to take the little and turn it into something big that would be remembered for a long time.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Songs Of Innocence By William Blake

    1025 Words  | 3 Pages

    Why did William Blake decide to illustrate his own poems? In 1789, he published Songs of Innocence, and in 1794, he published its partner Songs of Experience. While it is not unusual for authors to publish their poems, Blake’s sets are different because he not only wrote the poems but illustrated and printed them himself. Blake could have done this because he could. He had experience and skills as a printer, but because he created the illustrations himself, it is possible to use them to find a deeper meaning for each poem (Lynch). This could have possibly been his intention. Using this, one can find more meanings for his pieces even when the illustrations do not necessarily compare with their poem.

    Read More

  • William Butler Yeats and William Blake

    2712 Words  | 6 Pages

    A study of William Butler Yeats is not complete without a study of William Blake, just as a study of Blake is greatly aided by a study of Yeats. The two poets are inexorably tied together. Yeats, aided by his study of Blake, was able to find a clearer poetic voice. Yeats had a respect for and an understanding of Blake's work that was in Yeats' time without parallel. Yeats first read Blake at the age of 15 or 16 when his father gave him Blake to read. Yeats writes in his essay "William Blake and the Imagination" that "...when one reads Blake, it is as though the spray of an inexhaustible fountain of beauty was blown into our faces (Yeats, Essays xxx)." Yeats believed Blake to be a genius and he never wavered in his opinion. It is his respect for Blake that caused him to study and emulate Blake. He tried to tie Blake closer to himself by stressing Blake's rumored Irish ancestry. He strove to understand Blake more clearly than anyone had before him, and he succeeded. As with other pursuits Yeats held nothing back. He immersed himself fully in Blake's writings. As with many of his mental pursuits he deepened his understanding of the subject by writing about it.

    Read More

  • Rebellion As Art By William Blake

    2117 Words  | 5 Pages

    Blake had an uncanny ability to use his work to illustrate the unpleasant and often painful realities around him. His poetry consistently embodies an attitude of revolt against the abuse of class and power that appears guided by a unique brand of spirituality. His spiritual beliefs reached outside the boundaries of religious elites loyal to the monarchy. “He was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War “(E. P. Thompson). Concern with war and the blighting effects of the industrial revolution were displayed in much of his work.

    Read More

  • The Influence of the Bible on William Blake

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the British Romantic period, some writers used material from the Bible or imitated the Bible in style of writing or content. William Blake, a Romantic writer, engraver, and painter, believed that “the Bible was the greatest work of poetry ever written” (Barker 2004). The Bible influenced him throughout this life, specifically influencing both his writing and his art. There are many references to Biblical themes within his writing, and there are also many references to specific passages of Scripture (Barker 2004).

    Read More

  • The Theme of Authority in William Blake's Poetry

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme of authority is possibly the most important theme and the most popular theme concerning William Blake’s poetry. Blake explores authority in a variety of different ways particularly through religion, education and God. Blake was profoundly concerned with the concept of social justice. He was also profoundly a religious man. His dissenting background led him to view the power structures and legalism that surrounded religious establishments with distrust. He saw these as unwarranted controls over the freedom of the individual and contrary to the nature of a God of liberty. Figures such as the school master in the ‘schoolboy’, the parents in the ‘chimney sweeper’ poems, the guardians of the poor in the ‘Holy Thursday’, Ona’s father in ‘A Little girl lost’ and the priestly representatives of organised religion in many of the poems, are for Blake the embodiment of evil restriction.

    Read More

  • Blake And William Wordsworth Analysis

    1990 Words  | 4 Pages

    Children are always portrayed in books as angelic beings that are the closest to being perfect since they are innocent and pure. Many would suggest that this is not true, that children can be just as finable as adults. They cry when they do not get their way and throw tantrums that are quite obscene. However, the idea of this angelic child did not come into play until the 18th century. The poets William Blake and William Wordsworth are the two poets that coined this idea of the child. In the poems of these two authors, children are portrayed as innocent and pure beings and are closer to God than adults. Although these two poets have very different views of what children are like such as their interactions with adults, their perspective on

    Read More

  • Literature and the Industrial Revolution

    349 Words  | 1 Pages

    He led strong beliefs that were occasionally mentioned in his work. One was that everyone is equal and is mentioned in 'All Religions Are One': "As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various)" He based most of his works in the style of Romanticism - Blake wrote from the heart, he let his thoughts and beliefs take over. Some of Blake?s poems include ?

    Read More

  • London: A Comparison Of William Blake's London

    1301 Words  | 3 Pages

    London is a poem about the misery and despair in eighteenth century England. The speaker is a young man who is walking the streets late at night watching the darkness wrap itself around the people. The speaker is trying to explain and show to the reader that there is more going, than what one sees on the surface. As the reader gets further into the poem one can feel the misery surrounding the citizens of the city and envision their defeat. The speaker is pulling aside the veil to share the truths of the pain and suffering the young and the old are experiencing. As the poem continues it becomes clear that the lines one reads are an allusion to what is hidden between the lines. Initially the work can be read as one poem but when the reader goes back they can see that in a sense it is in fact two poems. In William Blake’s London, he uses irony, an oppressive tone, and imagery in order to depict a dark and anguished city.

    Read More

  • Analysis of "A Poison Tree"

    1373 Words  | 3 Pages

    Johnson, Mary Lynn and John E. Grant, eds. Blake's Poetry and Designs. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1979.

    Read More

  • Sociological Criticism on William Blake’s Poetry

    1509 Words  | 4 Pages

    "William Blake - Biography and Works. Search Texts, Read Online. Discuss." The Literature Network: Online Classic Literature, Poems, and Quotes. Essays & Summaries. Web. 07 July 2011. .

    Read More

More about Blake's Life: The Life And Life Of William Blake

Open Document