William Blake

William Blake (1757—1827), was abrilliant yet unconventional English poet, engraver, and painter. His symbolic pictures and vi­sionary poems are not always easy to understand because Blake developed an elaborate personal mythology that underlies virtually all the symbolism and ideas in his works. Blake's writings and pic­tures reveal how a powerful artistic imagination can mold the world in its own image.

Blake thought that we have war, injustice, and unhappiness be­cause our way of life is founded on mistaken beliefs. We cannot truly know reality through our five senses, yet we concern ourselves al­most entirely with scientific truth and materialistic values gained through those very senses. We cannot understand the vast reality be­yond the material and achieve full control of ourselves until we learn to trust our instincts, energies, and imaginations. For Blake, this be­lief was the basis for all personal social, and religious truth.

Blake was bom in London and lived most of his life there. He was a book illustrator and engraver by profession. He claimed to have seen visions, beginning in his childhood and he called many of his poems either visions or prophecies.

Blake has received much praise for such pictures as his illustra­tions for the «Book of Job», but he was most interested in his «illu-

minated printing». This was a process of engraving poems and re­lated pictures on metal plates and then hand-coloring the prints made from them. Except for «Poetical Sketches» (1783), most of Blake's published poetry appeared in this unique form.

Blake is best known for «Songs of Innocence» (1789) and «Songs of Experience» (1794). In these works, he shows, in such contrasting poems as «The Lamb» and «The Tiger», symbols of what he calls «the two contrary states of the human soul». His «pro­phetic» works include «The French Revolution» (1791), «The Marriage of Heaven and Hell» (about 1793), «America» (1793), «Milton» (about 1810), and «Jerusalem» (about 1820).