William Blake
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William Blake: Man of Vision and Expression
William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 in Golden Square, London. His father, James, earned a living as a hosier, and religiously, the Blakes were Nonconformists. Four children survived in the Blake family: three sons, named James, William, and John (as well as a younger brother Robert who died at age 19), and one daughter, Catherine. William began seeing visions of religious figures as a young child, and these would continue to occur and to influence his worldview and future compositions. The child’s propensity for art induced his parents to send him to a Mr. Pars’s drawing school when he was ten years old. Eventually, after apprenticing an engraver, William made his way to Westminster Abbey. There, he studied, drew, and was influenced by the Gothic tradition and its accompanying Christian themes. Blake also read widely in literature and gained skill as a poet. In 1782, he married Catherine Boucher, but they had no children.
Blake’s early work included Poetical Sketches, which he began at the age of fourteen, and an illustration of Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain while at Westminster. He proceeded to write the poems The Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem, all of which were based on Blake’s religious beliefs. He dabbled in satire with An Island in the Moon; engraved some original work, including illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy; and published a book of poetry called Songs of Innocence, followed five years later by Songs of Experience. The rest of Blake’s plentiful writing included political commentaries on the era’s revolutions, gender roles and romantic ideals (Visions of the Daughters of Albion), and conceptions of morality. Because of this extensive writing and visual art, Blake became well known and abundantly assessed. In comparison with other Romantic thinkers, Blake stood out as one who was very religious, who produced work in many genres, and who was rather strange, mystical, and even mad. He called for a sort of moral revolution for his era, since he believed imperialism was an atrocity and that with monarchical power come corruption, abuse, and other evils. Art and reciprocal forgiveness, Blake maintained, would be ideal means for reform in their society. He and his wife Catherine carried out this belief by working for London’s poor. Blake held the unorthodox belief that God the Father was brutal and cruel, while Jesus Christ was forgiving and worthy of worship. His strong and unique religious views are ubiquitously woven into his writing, and they come forth notably in Blake’s political writing and thought. Blake was tried in 1804 for high treason after soldiers accused him of badmouthing the king, his subjects, and the country in general. After a somewhat sensational trial, in which Blake spoke passionately and several friends witnessed to his virtue, he was found innocent and let free. This incident shows Blake’s radical political nature as well as his adversaries’ distrust of him. Blake was a proponent of revolution, including those in America and France. Instead of being oppressed by government and aristocrats, Blake argued, the people should be allowed to reason for themselves, especially on religion and history. He often wrote in an apocalyptic style, thus incorporating a religious dimension to his prophetic claim that England’s practices would inevitably result in societal and individual decay. Blake also debated on education, gender roles, and love, as was relatively common among Romantic thinkers. Consistent with his belief that all people deserve equal consideration, Blake believed that the only proper way for marriage to exist was for mutual love to be present within the couple. He shared many of Mary Wollstonecraft’s views on women’s rights. Nothing false should cause a marriage, according to Blake, and along similar lines, children ought to be allowed their natural youthful independence. To make a child study like an adult was, to Blake, to deprive that child of his or her creativity. Thus, education should be guided by the child’s interests and should focus on kindling the child’s imagination. Blake also had an interesting relationship with William Wordsworth, who wrote profusely on nature’s magnificence. Though Joseph Johnson also published Wordsworth’s writing, the link between the men was much less personal than Blake’s relationship with Wollstonecraft; in fact, the two may have never met in person. Wordsworth seems to have been intrigued by his colleague’s imaginative writing. Even before Blake was published, Wordsworth used four of Blake’s poems in his Commonplace Book. Blake returned this artistic admiration many times over. Blake later annotated some of Wordsworth’s poems, but one of the most prominent features of Blake’s response to Wordsworth is his spiritual condemnation of Wordsworth’s near veneration of nature. Without worship of God, Blake would argue, nature is meaningless and incomplete. Wordsworth appeared godless to Blake, but the issue was rather private since Blake nonetheless considered his colleague an exceptional thinker and artist.
- by Kristi Haas
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