I.

Introduction

Blake, William (1757-1827), English poet, painter, and engraver, who created a unique form of illustrated verse; his poetry, inspired by mystical vision, is among the most original, lyric, and prophetic in the English language. His work in the literary and visual arts marks a rejection of the Age of Enlightenment in favour of the new Romantic movement.

Blake, the son of a hosier, was born on November 28, 1757, in London, where he lived most of his life. Largely self-taught, he was, however, widely read—his poetry shows the influence of the German mystic Jakob Boehme, for example, and of Swedenborgianism (see Swedenborg, Emanuel). As a child, Blake wanted to become a painter, and by the age of 12 he was diligently collecting prints. He was also writing poetry: the lyric “How sweet I roam’d from Field to Field” is thought to have been written before he was 12. Blake was sent to a good drawing school when 10 years old and at the age of 14 was apprenticed to James Basire, an engraver. The young Blake had to draw the monuments in the old churches of London, a task that he thoroughly enjoyed.

After his seven-year term was over, he studied briefly at the newly formed Royal Academy in 1778, but he rebelled against the aesthetic doctrines of its president, Sir Joshua Reynolds, an advocate of Neo-Classicism who took a very academic approach to the study of art. Blake preferred to draw from his imagination. There is a well-known story that, as a child, he returned home from a walk saying he had seen a tree filled with angels, their wings sparkling. This angered his father as a lie, but his mother intervened to save him from a beating. Blake continued to see such “visions” throughout his life. As an adult he was recorded as saying to a friend, “[y]ou can see what I do if you choose. Work up imagination to the state of vision, and the thing is done”. At the Royal Academy, he did, however, establish friendships with such artists as John Flaxman and Henry Fuseli, whose work may have influenced him.

In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher, who proved a devoted wife. In 1784 they set up a print-sellers’ shop with another engraver and Blake’s brother, Robert, who died in 1787. During this period, Flaxman introduced Blake to a wide circle of literary friends and financed the publication of his first volume, Poetical Sketches (1783). At about this time, also, Blake wrote the satirical fragment An Island in the Moon that makes fun of scientific dilettantism, and includes such characters as “Inflammable Gas”, thought to be Joseph Priestley. The print-sellers’ shop failed after three years, and for the rest of his life Blake eked out a living as an engraver and illustrator. His wife helped him to print the illuminated poetry for which he is famous today.