William Blake 1757 - 1827

William Blake 1757 - 1827

William Blake was born in London in a lower class family and later he became an engraver, which became his main activity. In his mind writing and the visual arts was closely associated and this idea can be confirmed by his first collection of poetry, Songs of Innocence, in 1789, which was engraved and illustrated by himself.

He accepted poverty and obscurity rather than be a conventional artist and he reacted against all traditional forms. Politically, French and American Revolution attracted him and in London he met political radicals as William Godwin.

Many of his poems are a criticism of the suffering of the poor and oppressed. He attacked institutions as the Anglican Church or the Monarchy.

For Blake, the truth was difficult to understand and to express. So, Blake refused to make concessions to public taste: he rebelled against an aristocratic concept of art, but his individualism and his refusal of traditions, make his poems difficult to read.

Blake elaborated a view of the world in a complex mythology, fully expressed in his 'Prophetic Books': The French Revolution, America, Milton, Jerusalem, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Blake also used alchemical, mystical, occult and oriental symbology.

Blake didn't believe in rationality and he revalued faith and intuition and denied the truth of sensorial experience.

In his ideals, contrasts gain a central importance: the possibility of progress is located in the tension between contraries as we can see in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience and in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Texts:

●The Lamb (from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience)

● The Chimney Sweeper (1 & 2) (from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience)

● The Tyger (from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience)

● London (from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience)