William Blake (1757-1827)

In here I want to talk about an English poet, to be more specific, he is a romantic poet,
who lived in the 17th centaury. William Blake was a great English Romantic poet, as well
as a painter and printer and one of the greatest engravers in English history. He was one
of Britain's most enigmatic and mystical poets, Often misunderstood during his life. He is
now widely regarded as one of the greatest English language poets. He was 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.

We will discuss in detail about William Blake and his works, and also about his
contribution to the language.

William Blake was born in 1757 in, Soho, London, where he spent most of his life. He
lived with his parents, and their house was erected upon an old burial ground. His father,
James Blake, was a successful London hosier. Blake was first educated at home, chiefly
by his mother, Catherine Wright Armitage. James Blake is her second husband. Her first
husband, was also a hosier, and he died in 1751. When she married James in 1752, she
was thirty. Frederick Tatham, wrote Blake's first biography, that Blake "depised
restraints & rules, so much that his Father dare not send him to School."

From his early years, Blake had experienced visions of angels and ghostly monks. He
saw and conversed with the Angel Gabriel, and the Virgin Mary, and various historical
figures. He sometimes would claim that he had regular conversations with his deceased
brother Robert.

It was soon apparent that Blake’s internal world of imagination would be a prime
motivator throughout his life. Noting something special in their son; the Blakes were
highly supportive of and encouraged his artistic creativity and thus began his education
and development as an artist.

William Blake had early shown an interest and aptitude for drawing, so at the age of 10
Blake entered Henry Pars’ drawing school. Then, at the age of 14 Blake started a seven
year apprenticeship with engraver James Basire, who was the official engraver to the
Society of Antiquaries. From his bustling shop on Queen Street, Blake learned all the
tools of the trade that would become his main source of income. He was often sent out
on assignments to create sketches and drawings of statues, paintings, and monuments
including those found in churches like Westminster Abbey. The intense study of Gothic
art and architecture appealed to Blake’s aesthetic sensibility and brought out his penchant
for the medieval. He also met numerous figures from London’s intellectual circle during
this period. After attending the Royal Academy under Sir Joshua Reynolds for a time.
While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his own
materials throughout the six-year period. Blake left because he found the intellectual
atmosphere there too restrictive to his artistic side. In 1780 he obtained employment as
an engraver with publisher Joseph Johnson.
In 1782 he married Catherine Sophia Boucher, the daughter of a market gardener.
Although they had no children it was mostly a happy marriage and Blake taught
Catharine to read and write. They were a devoted couple and worked together on many of
Blake’s publications. Throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aid to him,
helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous
misfortunes.

After his father's death, In 1784 he set up a print shop with a friend and former fellow
apprentice, James Parker, but this venture failed after several years. For the remainder of
his life, Blake made a meager living as an engraver and illustrator for books and
magazines. In addition to his wife, Blake also began training his younger brother Robert
in drawing, painting, and engraving. Robert fell ill during the winter of 1787 and
succumbed, probably to consumption. As Robert died, Blake saw his brother's spirit rise
up through the ceiling, "clapping its hands for joy." He believed that Robert's spirit
continued to visit him and later claimed that in a dream Robert taught him the printing
method that he used in Songs of Innocence and other illuminated works.

In 1788, at the age of 31, Blake began to experiment with relief etching, which was a
method that he used to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and poems. The
process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and final products as illuminated books
or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates
with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear
alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the
plates in acid to dissolve the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief and
hence the name, relief itching. This is a reversal of the normal method of etching, where
the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio
method . Relief etching, which Blake also referred to as "stereotype" in The Ghost of
Abel was intended as a means for producing his illuminated books more quickly than via
intaglio. Stereotype, a process invented in 1725, consisted of making a metal cast from a
wood engraving, but Blake’s innovation was, as described above, very different. The
pages printed from these plates then had to be hand-colored in water colors and stitched
together to make up a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for most of his well-
known works, including Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Book of Thel, The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Jerusalem.

Blake's first printed work, Poetical Sketches (1783), is a collection of apprentice verse,
mostly imitating classical models. The poems protest against war, tyranny, and King
George III's treatment of the American colonies. He published his most popular
collection, Songs of Innocence, in 1789 and followed it, in 1794, with Songs of
Experience. Some readers of both these books interpret Songs of Innocence in a
straightforward fashion, considering it primarily a children's book, but others have found
hints at parody or critique in its seemingly naive and simple lyrics. Blake was a
nonconformist who associated with some of the leading radical thinkers of his day. In
defiance of the 18th-century neoclassical conventions, he privileged imagination over
reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, asserting that ideal forms should be
constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions.
Through his poems, he expressed his opposition to the English monarchy, and to 18th-
century political and social tyranny in general. Blake was among the literati of London’s
intellectual circle though he was often labeled an eccentric or worse, insane or demented.
His works did not gain much acclaim or commercial success until long after his death.
Although he had several patrons over the course of his life and produced voluminous
works, he often lived in abject poverty. Though it is hard to classify Blake’s body of
work in one genre, he heavily influenced the Romantic poets with recurring themes of
good and evil, heaven and hell, knowledge and innocence, and external reality versus
inner. Going against common conventions of the time, Blake believed in sexual and
racial equality and justice for all, rejected the Old Testament’s teachings in favor of the
New, and abhorred oppression in all its forms. He focused his creative efforts beyond the
five senses. He developed mythic creatures inspired by Greek and Roman mythology
including Los, who represents the poetic imagination; Albion, who represents England;
and Orc, who embodies youthful rebelliousness. His illustrations for the Bible’s “Book
of Revelations” include ‘The Great Red Dragon’ (Satan) made famous most recently in
Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon (1981). While Blake lived the majority of his life in
London, he exerted a profound impact on future poets, artists, writers, and musicians the
world over.

In 1800, the Blakes moved to Felpham in Sussex where William was commissioned to
illustrate works by his then patron, poet William Hayley. He taught himself Greek, Latin,
Hebrew, and Italian, so that he could read classical works in their original language. In
Felpham he experienced profound spiritual insights that prepared him for his mature
work, the great visionary epics written and etched between about 1804 and 1820.

Blake believed that his poetry could be read and understood by common people, but he
was determined not to sacrifice his vision in order to become popular. In 1808 he
exhibited some of his watercolors at the Royal Academy, and in May of 1809 he
exhibited his works at his brother James's house. Some of those who saw the exhibit
praised Blake's artistry, but others thought the paintings "hideous" and more than a few
called him insane. Blake's poetry was not well known by the general public, but he was
mentioned in A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and
Ireland, published in 1816. Later in his life Blake began to sell a great number of his
works, particularly his Bible illustrations, to Thomas Butts, a patron who saw Blake more
as a friend than a man whose work held artistic merit; this was typical of the opinions
held of Blake throughout his life.

Blake's later poetry contains a private mythology with complex symbolism, his late work
has been less published than his earlier more accessible work.

In 1803 Blake was charged with sedition after a violent confrontation with soldier John
Scolfield in which Blake uttered treasonable remarks against the King. He was later
acquitted. In 1805 he started his series of illustrations for the Book of Revelations and
various other publications. Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (1820) is
Blake’s longest illuminated work.
In his old age, Blake enjoyed the admiration of a group of young artist, known as 'The
Ancients'. One of them called him "divine Blake", who "had seen God, sir, and had talked
with angels". Moreover, he was many times helped by John Linnell, an younger artist.
Blake's last years were passed in obscurity, quarreling even with some of the circle of
friends who supported him. Among Blake's later works are drawings and engravings for
Dante's Divine Comedy and the 21 illustrations to the book of Job, which was completed
when he was almost 70 years old. Blake never managed to get out of poverty, in large
part due to his inability to compete with fast engravers and his expensive invention that
enabled him to design illustrations and print words at the same time.

On the day of his death, Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is
reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside.
Beholding her, Blake is said to have cried, "Stay Kate! Keep just as you are, I will draw
your portrait for you have ever been an angel to me." Having completed this portrait,
Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses. At six that evening, after
promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died.

Catherine paid for Blake's funeral with money lent to her by Linnell. He was buried five
days after his death on the eve of his forty-fifth wedding anniversary at the Dissenter's
burial ground in Bunhill Fields, where his parents were also interred. Following Blake's
death, Catherine moved into Tatham's house as a housekeeper. During this period, she
believed she was regularly visited by Blake's spirit. She continued selling his illuminated
works and paintings, but would entertain no business transaction without first "consulting
Mr. Blake". On the day of her own death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful
as her husband, and called out to him "as if he were only in the next room, to say she was
coming to him, and it would not be long now".

On her death, Blake's manuscripts were inherited by Frederick Tatham, who burned
several he deemed heretical or politically radical. Tatham was an Irvingite, one of the
many fundamentalist movements of the 19th century, and was severely opposed to any
work that smacked of blasphemy. Also, John Linnell erased sexual imagery from a
number of Blake's drawings.

Since 1965, the exact location of William Blake's grave had been lost and forgotten,
while gravestones were taken away to create a new lawn. Nowadays, Blake’s grave is
commemorated by a stone that reads "Near by lie the remains of the poet-painter
William Blake 1757-1827 and his wife Catherine Sophia 1762-1831". This memorial
stone is situated approximately 20 meters away from the actual spot of Blake’s grave,
which is not marked. However, members of the group Friends of William Blake have
rediscovered the location of Blake's grave and intend to place a permanent memorial at
the site.

Blake is now recognized as a saint in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. The Blake Prize
for Religious Art was established in his honor in Australia in 1949. In 1957 a memorial
was erected in Westminster Abbey, in memory of him and his wife.