Essay on William Blake

Before watching your presentation, I only knew the basics regarding William Blake. There are various interesting things that you mentioned that I did not know about. For example, you mentioned how he was more commonly known for his art rather than his poems. His art as a whole is really interesting. You mentioned how he took his encounters with the people around him, his brother’s death, and visions and reflected them into his work. One thing from that list that stood out to me the most were his visions. He was able to take his visions and portray them in his paintings even when many people found it difficult to understand the meanings behind it.

William Blake’s illuminated manuscripts were published in multiple editions; all of the editions were etched differently than its predecessor. In these illustrations, one finds meaning and value; an inextricable link between these artistic expressions and the text that Blake wrote exists. These works should not be viewed separately, but rather viewed together, as one single entity. While the text, at times, proves itself to be unstable and potentially confusing for readers, the etchings serve as a way to view the intention of Blake’s words, as well as expressing the underlying feeling attached to the text in a visual way. Understanding both pieces of art is crucial to the apprehension of the implied meaning of the works. Without having to read the words, the viewer already grasps the tone and perhaps even the content or context of the piece. The etchings force reader interaction with the poems, relying on the non-passivity of the audience. Blake intended for the illustrations and the texts to be viewed in correlation with one another, as it allows for a deeper understanding of the intended meaning.

William Blake’s poem “London” takes a complex look at life in London, England during the late seventeen hundreds into the early eighteen hundreds as he lived and experienced it. Blake’s use of ambiguous and double meaning words makes this poem both complex and interesting. Through the following explication I will unravel these complexities to show how this is an interesting poem.

William Blake focused on biblical images in the majority of his poetry and prose. Much of his well-known work comes from the two compilations Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poems in these compilations reflect Blake's metamorphosis in thought as he grew from innocent to experienced. An example of this metamorphosis is the two poems The Divine Image and A Divine Image. The former preceded the latter by one year.

William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are collections of poems that utilize the imagery, instruction, and lives of children to make a larger social commentary. The use of child-centered themes in the two books allowed Blake to make a crucial commentary on his political and moral surroundings with deceptively simplistic and readable poetry. Utilizing these themes Blake criticized the church, attacking the hypocritical clergy and pointing out the ironies and cruelties found within the doctrines of organized religion. He wrote about the horrific working conditions of children as a means to magnify the inequality between the poor working class and

The Songs of Innocence poems first appeared in Blake’s 1784 novel, An Island in the Moon. In 1788, Blake began to compile in earnest, the collection of Songs of Innocence. And by 1789, this original volume of plates was complete. These poems are the products of the human mind in a state of innocence, imagination, and joy; natural euphoric feelings uninhibited or tainted by the outside world. Following the completion of the Songs of Innocence plates, Blake wrote The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and it is through this dilemma of good and evil and the suffering that he witnesses on the streets of London, that he begins composing Songs of Experience. This second volume serves as a response to Songs of

William Blake was a renowned poet whose works continue to be recognized long after his death. Blake was more than a poet he was also a painter and printmaker. Often his engraving art would act as the accompanying image to his poetry. Throughout his lifetime the British poet wrote several poems. The vast majority of Blake’s work was centered on strong religious themes or human existence itself. However in the works Sick Rose and London neither of these common themes is present. Though the two poems are different in content they both share an

London by William Blake is a poem characterised by its dark and overbearing tone. It is a glimpse at a period of England's history (particularly London) during war and poverty, experienced by the narrator as he walks through the streets. Using personification it draws a great human aspect to its representation of thoughts and beliefs of the narrator.

William Blake was one of those 19th century figures who could have and should have been beatniks, along with Rimbaud, Verlaine, Manet, Cezanne and Whitman. He began his career as an engraver and artist, and was an apprentice to the highly original Romantic painter Henry Fuseli. In his own time he was valued as an artist, and created a set of watercolor illustrations for the Book of Job that were so wildly but subtly colored they would have looked perfectly at home in next month's issue of Wired.

“The Chimney Sweeper” (128): This version of the Chimney Sweeper is very upfront and saddening. The version that is presented in the songs of innocence is much more of a calm town and is not as straightforward, while this version is very short and to the point. In this version its very deep as the narrator basically just calls out the parents/church for doing these horrible things to the children. I really love all three stanzas of this poem because they all have a really deep meaning and Blake transitions through them very well. Reading this poem over and over I don’t know what to make of it other than it is an absolute horrible situation. I think it can be tied in to

William Blake was a writer and a painter in the late 1700s and early 1800s whose imagination was untamed and incomprehensible to most ordinary people of his time. Blake was different from most writers of his who were trying to be famous and get people?s attention. Everything Blake did was for himself and he was not willing to change for money or popularity. William Blake is often considered to be insanely genius because of his transition to a new literary era, known as Romanticism, and for his depictions of life from the viewpoints of a child and an adult.

The first stanzas of both poems establish that the children have been forsaken by their parents and were left in the role of a chimney sweeper. The Innocence poem’s rhyme scheme consists of two couplets per quatrain. The couplets create a sound similar to nursery rhymes (which often mask dark events, like the Black plague). The Experience poem begins with rhyming couplets in a quatrain, but switches to ABAB rhymes in the second stanza. Some of the end rhymes are just barely off, which causes a slight feeling of uneasiness.

was born on the 28th of November 1757, and then died on the 12th of

William Blake was born on November 28th, 1757, in London England. Blake had begun writing at a very young age, and at the age of nine, claimed to have seen a vision. His vision portrayed a tree full of angels (biography). Blake's parents had noticed he was quite different from others around his age, so the did not force him to attend conventional school. Instead, Blake learned to read and write at home. At the age of ten, he expressed wishes to be a painter, so his parents sent his to drawing school. Two years later, Blake had begun writing. When he was fourteen, he apprenticed with an engraver, because art school was proved too expensive. In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher, who was illiterate. He then taught her how to read and write

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. He was not recognized during his lifetime and now is considered as a seminal figure and criticised over the twentieth and even this century. Blake’s strong philosophical and religious beliefs in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. Although he was from London he spent his entire life in Felpham.