William Blake British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books. Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. He joined for a time the Swedenborgian Church of the New Jerusalem in London and considered Newtonian science to be superstitious nonsense. Mocking criticism and misunderstanding shadowed Blake's career as a writer and artist and it was left to later generations to recognize his importance. To see a world in a grain of sand And heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour. William Blake was born in Soho, London, where he spent most of his life. From his early years, Blake had experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks, he saw and conversed with the angel Gabriel, the Virgin Mary, and various historical figures. In 1767 Blake was sent to Henry Pars' drawing school, at No. 101 the Strand. His early poems Blake wrote at the age of 12.
The William Blake Page William Blake (b. Nov. 28, 1757, London--d. Aug. 12, 1827, London) was 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. His poetry and visual art are inextricably linked. A rebel all of his life, Blake was once arrested on a trumped up charge of sedition. Blake is frequently referred to as a mystic, but this is not really accurate. Most of Blake's paintings (such as "The Ancient of Days" above, the frontispiece to Europe: a Prophecy) are actually prints made from copper plates, which he etched in a method he claimed was revealed to him in a dream. As an artist Blake broke the ground that would later be cultivated by the Pre-Raphaelites.
Blake's Context Overview Love Essay
An online library of the visionary British poet's illuminated
publications. by nda_librarian Apr 30