Essay William Blake: Visionary Artist and Poet

On January 1st, 2017, a gang held an alleyway waiting for people to come through so they and take their money. The alley was very dark. People came through the alley at nights and trashed the alley, cracking windows, leaving cigarettes on the dirty spray-painted ground littered with sharp shards of glass from a broken window. Their leader, Kole Blazer, was there in the rooftops, waiting for someone to come through, when he saw someone betray his gang: Mike Blazer, his brother. Kole was taller than him by only a few inches. He had brown hair, freckles, blue eyes, more muscular than his brother who was always the weaker one, but they were twins and he wanted to keep a secret. His brother betrayed them and now it’s time for payback.

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.

Throughout Blake's life, the Bible played a crucial part in his poetic genius and is the spark that started his love for painting Gothic paintings. He obtained most of his education through readings of the Bible, either using it as object of criticism or as an inspiration for his life's work. According to Blake, all religions were products of the Imagination or Poetic Genius and therefore contain the same essential truths.Though Blake is known to be a self-taught poet, his work hasn't yet stopped inspiring people.

Simple, limited, and unadventurous all describe William Blake’s life (Greenblatt, Abrams, Lynch, Stillinger). Blake was born November 28, 1757 in London, England and his artistic ability became evident in his early years. Blake had a very simple upbringing and had little education. His formal education was in art and at the age of fourteen he entered an apprenticeship with a well-known engraver who taught Blake his skills in engraving. In Blake’s free time, he began reading writing poetry.

William Blake was more than just a poet. He was an artist, a politician and a theologian. Blake was born in 1757 and died in 1827, He was known for his artistic talent and political involvement. Born in to a middle class family in London, Blake was one of 7 children born to his family, but only 5 of them survived past infancy. Blake did not receive any formal schooling and mostly spent his days wandering the streets of London (Poetry Fdn.). When he was ten he was enrolled in art school for multiple years and when he was 14 he became an apprentice engraver to James Basire (Poetry Fdn.). His work as an engraver allowed him to make money and continue to hone his artistic ability. Blakes artistry is clearly seen in most of his poems, whether its his early political works such as “America” or his classic lyric poems like “The Tyger”. (Poetry Fdn.). In “The Tyger” William Blake unconventionally questions the creation of the world through rhyme scheme, deep imagery, and conflicting ideas.

Blake uses traditional symbols of angels and devils, animal imagery, and especially images of fire and flame to: 1) set up a dual world, a confrontation of opposites or "contraries" which illustrate how the rules of Reason and Religion repress and pervert the basic creative energy of humanity, 2) argues for apocalyptic transformation of the self "through the radical regeneration of each person's own power to imagine" (Johnson/Grant, xxiv), and 3) reconstructs Man in a new image, a fully realized Man who is both rational and imaginative, partaking of his divinity through creativity. The form of the poem consists of "The Argument," expositions on his concepts of the "contraries" and of "expanded perception" which are both interspersed with "Memorable Fancies" that explicate and enlarge on his expositions, and concludes with "A Song of Liberty," a prophecy of a future heaven on earth.

For example, in “Infant Joy,” Blake demonstrates the child’s eye and sense of wonder that we find in the incorruptibility of infants. Blake presents a truly pure creature in the first stanza:

William Blake was deeply aware of the great political and social issues during his time focusing his writing on the injustices going on in the world around him. He juxtaposed the state of human existence through his works Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), showing differentiating sides of humanity. The contrast between 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

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.

William Blake is one of England’s most famous literary figures. He is remembered and admired for his skill as a painter, engraver, and poet. He was born on Nov. 28, 1757 to a poor Hosier’s family living in or around London. Being of a poor family, Blake received little in the way of comfort or education while growing up. Amazingly, he did not attend school for very long and dropped out shortly after learning to read and write so that he could work in his father’s shop. The life of a hosier however was not the right path for Blake as he exhibited early on a skill for reading and drawing. Blake’s skill for reading can be seen in his understanding for and use of works such as the Bible and Greek classic literature.

Some of William Blake’s poetry is categorized into collections called Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Blake explores almost opposite opinions about creation in his poems “The Lamb” and “The Tiger.” While the overarching concept is the same in both, he uses different subjects to portray different sides of creation; however, in the Innocence and Experience versions of “The Chimney Sweeper,” Blake uses some of the same words, rhyme schemes, and characters to talk about a single subject in opposite tones.

These objections may have carried their weight, but Blake is a romantic in his own capacity within his own parameters of the concepts of imagination, sublime, beauty, and nature. He has the capacity of appreciating the simple things of and from nature. In ‘A Cradle Song’, Blake captures the pleasure of a mother who takes joy in watching her baby’s innocent gestures and movements. What can be simpler, truer, purer, and more natural, than an expression of care and love of a mother for a baby? Blake’s description, in this simple four stanza poem, touches on the reader’s heart and fills it with tender and soft feelings, which are innate to human beings, and Blake as a poet has a quality to transfer them into words. Children are the greatest gift of nature and Blake is truly romantic in his depiction of this entity. Through the repeated word ‘sweet’, Blake shows the overwhelming passion and devotion of a mother to her child. Within the same parameters, a poem ‘Infant Joy’, depicts a new born boy who is asked by his mother that what name he wants and the baby happily chooses his name, Joy, as this is all he knows. As a baby, he knows no worries, no troubles, and no miseries. This simple poem celebrates mother’s happiness as she blesses her baby with her pray for his upcoming life of joy and happiness. The poem’s simplicity and charm go parallel with each other as we know that nothing could be more pure and charming than a child. To give a choice to a child to choose his name implies Blake’s wish for all human beings to have freedom of thought and

The works of William Blake cannot be entirely discussed, so my project particularly focuses on 'Songs of Innocence and Experience'.