William Blake's Jerusalem : The Emanation Of The Great Albion

Theological tyranny is the subject of The Book of Urizen (1794). In the prose work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93), he satirized oppressive authority in church and state, as well as the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish philosopher whose ideas once attracted his interest. Blake’s main concept was imagination and many people questioned if he was brilliant or just completely insane. William Blake was influenced by many great thinkers of his day, and was well aware of the conflicts that were arising between science and the arts in his era. In his work, he makes sure to define reason and explain how it differs from passions. He even assigned personalities to represent the conflicts and characteristics of these definitions in his poetry and art. There have been many men who loved to speculate the future. William Blake was one of these men, and if he spoke incoherently and obscurely, it was because what he spoke had never been discovered before. He announced the religion of art, which no man had ever done before him, and he understood it better than anyone else.

“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

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.

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.

Blake wanted people to read this poem and understand his concept of questioning God, for how could God make something so innocent and pure as the Lamb and then in turn make something so evil? The situation is very similar to the

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.

Children are always portrayed in books as angelic beings that are as close to perfect as they come. Many would suggest that this is not true, that children can be just as manipulative and conniving 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 com into play until the 17th 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 life, and their

Romanticism is described as the period across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, following The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, that enlightened artists and philosophers developed and expressed revolutionary responses to injustices at the time. On such revolutionary was poet artist William Blake. Blake lived and wrote in England at a time when the Christian Church and Industrialisation held utmost power over people. The philosophic writer saw such values and attitudes as crimes against nature and human nature and sought to protest. William Blake, in his protesting works like Garden of Love and A Little Boy Lost, through the use of irony, sarcasm, aesthetic and metaphor, expresses concerns of corrupted 18th and 19th century Britons.

Some believe him to have been mad for his strange, idiosyncratic perspective of the world, others have considered him one of the greatest artists from Britain for it. Today, William Blake is one of the most well known British artist. Critics have held him in high reverence for his creativity and eloquence,and for the mystical and abstract aura found in his art work. But during his time, Blake had little recognition. Even so, throughout his life, Blake thought his work to be of national importance and understood by a majority of men.

Being one of the most influential poets during the Romantic Period, the religious status of Blake has long been as controversial as his own literary works. Nonetheless, the fact that he is indeed a Christian is doubtless - such can be easily illustrated from many fragments of his works such as ‘I a child, and thou a lamb, We are called by His name. Little Lamb, God Bless thee! Little Lamb, God Bless thee!’ from his poem The Lamb. This singsongy excerpt from the Song of Innocence not only appears to readers as Blake’s direct praises of God but also an evident reference to ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’(Eg. Psalm 23) from the Holy Bible. However, it can also be easily argued that Blake is not an ordinary, churchgoing Christian. A great portion

Born in 1757, poet William Blake grew up through the height of the Enlightenment period, where individuals begin to focus on themselves and discover their emotions, instead of living to achieve approval from a greater God. It is evident in Blake’s poems The Poison Tree and The Garden of Love that he is greatly influenced by these revolutionary ideas that are being discovered throughout his early life. Blake seems to have significantly removed himself from the Church and their teachings, due to the recent revelations of the importance of focusing on humans and their emotions. These ideals coincide with the movement during the eighteenth century where people began to realize that there is no sin in indulging in personal pleasure, regardless of what the Christian church has preached for hundreds of years. In The Garden of Love and The Poison Tree it is evident that William Blake is influenced by the Enlightenment ideals of individualism; therefore, he grapples

The Corruption of England According to William Blake’s “London” England is corrupt; William Blake’s “London” stresses the seriousness of its condition. The citizens are poor and miserable, and the people have no help from the government or Church. William Blake demonstrates the corruption of London with the use of imagery.

William Blake lived during a time of intense social change; the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. These massive changes in society provided Blake with one of the most dramatic outlooks in the transformation of the Western world, the change from a feudal and agricultural society to one in which philosophers and political thinkers, such as Locke, championed the rights of individuals. In accordance with political changes, there were religious changes as well. Religion was another aspect of society that Blake opposed because of its organized practice. The practices of organized religion conflicted with Blake's view and adherence. Organized religion and the shadows it casts upon the natural world

A nineteenth century emphasis on the fleeting and the ephemeral makes a strong presence in the poem. Wordsworth places emphasis on the “now” in the verse “this City now…” referring to the early morning hours alone. The poet takes pleasure in watching London during sunrise; however, this does not imply that he will feel the same way at a different hour-during “midnight”, for example, which is the time of day that Blake describes in “London”. Just as a fancy garment is worn to be later removed, so is the city’s serene beauty at dawn only transient. Blake appears to be objective in his depictions of the city whereas Wordsworth’s perceptions are more personal as he takes on the role of a tourist. He does not acknowledge the city streets or its locals but rather focuses on observing its architecture at a specific time of day. The poet writes with exaggerated sentiments and his piece maintains a romantic quality to it; at times it almost seems as if he is describing a paradise instead of a bustling metropolis. In the opening lines of the poem he exuberantly exclaims, “Earth has not anything to show more fair”. He calls out with religious ardor, “Dear God!” as he stands in complete awe before the capital, the “mighty heart” of the world. In addition, Wordsworth declares that “Dull would he be of soul who could pass by/ A sight so touching in its majesty” in view of the breathtaking city. However, Blake’s Londoners do not seem to share the same enthusiasm of their city and appear

Knowledge was cherished by Blake. He argued that through knowledge one can truly understand Christ, and when this understanding is reached one can then begin to become Christ. Christ was the pinnacle of what a human should strive to be. God and Christ were placed on the same level, and God was not a "clockmaker" or some supreme being placed outside of human capacity; rather, Blake argued that God is something that resides in all of humanity. Blake coined this "Divine Humanity", the potential for all humanity to come full circle and be humanly divine; this is possible because God and Jesus are both living inside of us from