William Blake Poet

One of William Blake great poems, The Tyger” is well known as one or perhaps

William Blake was a poet and artist who was born in London, England in 1757. He lived 69 years, and although his work went largely unnoticed during his lifetime, he is now considered a prominent English Romantic poet. Blake’s religious views, and his philosophy that “man is god”, ran against the religious thoughts at the time, and some might equate Blake’s views to those of the hippie movement of the 20th century.

“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 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

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 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

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’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.

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.

From a young age, Blake spoke of seeing apparitions. On one of his many trips to the countryside, Blake started to ramble about seeing " a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars." After hearing him babbling about his visions of mystical and heavenly creatures, Blake’s parents tried to discourage him from his ‘lying.’ But Blake continued his ‘stories,’ none of which amused his parent. In the end, he was saved from some beatings though his mother’s pleadings, who saw and understood that he was different from his peers. All of Blake’s apparitions would have a profound, lasting effect on his work, from rich imagery to prophetic

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.

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.

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.

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

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.