Your exploration
of the etchings has led you to viewing Blake's images in his major works,
The Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Marriage of Heaven
and Hell. Look at the poems from these works, especially
finding pairs that seem to reflect deliberate parallels, such as "The Lamb"
and "The Tyger," "Holy Thursday" (each work), "TheDivine Image" and
"The Human Abstract,"
and other poems
you can match up.
Songs
of Innocence
Songs
of Experience
from Proverbs
of Hell
Read about Blake's life from the following sources:
Encarta
Encyclopedia:
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 language.
Blake, the son of a hosier, was born November
28, 1757, in London, where he lived most of his life. Largely self-taught,
he was, however, widely read, and 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. He was sent to
drawing school and at the age of 14 was apprenticed to James Basire (1730-1802),
an engraver. After his 7-year term was over, he studied briefly at the
Royal Academy, but he rebelled against the aesthetic doctrines of its president,
Sir Joshua Reynolds. Blake did, however, later establish friendships with
such academicians as John Flaxman and Henry Fuseli, whose work may have
influenced him. In 1784 he set up a printshop; although it failed after
a few years, for the rest of his life Blake eked out a living as an engraver
and illustrator. His wife helped him print the illuminated poetry for which
he is remembered today.
Early Poetry
Blake began writing poetry at the age of 12,
and his first printed work, Poetical Sketches (1783), is a collection of
youthful verse. Blake's most popular poems have always been Songs
of Innocence (1789). These lyrics—fresh, direct observations—are notable
for their eloquence. In 1794, disillusioned with the possibility of human
perfection, Blake issued Songs of Experience, employing the same lyric
style and much of the same subject matter as in Songs of Innocence. Both
series of poems take on deeper resonances when read in conjunction. Innocence
and Experience, "the two contrary states of the human soul," are contrasted
in such companion pieces as "The Lamb" and "The Tyger." Blake's subsequent
poetry develops the implication that true innocence is impossible without
experience, transformed by the creative force of the human imagination.
Blake as Artist
As was to be Blake's custom, he illustrated the
Songs with designs that demand an imaginative reading of the complicated
dialogue between word and picture. His method of illuminated printing is
not completely understood. The most likely explanation is that he wrote
the words and drew the pictures for each poem on a copper plate, using
some liquid impervious to acid, which when applied left text and illustration
in relief. Ink or a color wash was then applied, and the printed picture
was finished by hand in watercolors.
Blake has been called a preromantic because he
rejected neoclassical literary style and modes of thought. His graphic
art too defied 18th-century conventions. Always stressing imagination over
reason, he felt that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations
of nature but from inner visions.
Much of Blake's painting was on religious subjects:
illustrations for the work of John Milton, his favorite poet (although
he rejected Milton's Puritanism), for John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress,
and for the Bible, including 21 illustrations to the Book of Job. Among
his secular illustrations were those for an edition of Thomas Gray's poems
and the 537 watercolors for Edward Young's Night Thoughts—only 43 of which
were published.
The Prophetic Books
In his so-called Prophetic Books, a series of
longer poems written from 1789 on, Blake created a complex personal mythology
and invented his own symbolic characters to reflect his social concerns.
Among the Prophetic Books is a prose work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
(1790-93), which develops Blake's idea that "without Contraries is no progression."
It includes the "Proverbs of Hell," such as "The tygers of wrath are wiser
than the horses of instruction."
In 1800 Blake moved to the seacoast town of Felpham,
where he lived and worked until 1803 under the patronage of William Hayley
(1745-1820). There he experienced profound spiritual insights that prepared
him for his mature work, the great visionary epics .
Blake's final years, spent in great poverty,
were cheered by the admiring friendship of a group of younger artists.
He died in London, August 12, 1827, leaving uncompleted a cycle of drawings
inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy.
Biographic entry: B1291
"Blake, William," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright
(c) 1993 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1993 Funk & Wagnall's
Corporation
The
Blake Webpage:
William
Blake
(b. Nov.
28, 1757, London--d. Aug. 12, 1827, London) was the first of the great
English Romantic poets, as well as a painter, engraver and printer. Largely
self-taught, he began writing poetry when he was twelve and was apprenticed
to a London engraver at the age of fourteen. His poetry and visual art
are inextricably linked. To fully appreciate one you must see it in context
with the other.
Blake is frequently referred to as a mystic, but this is not really accurate. He deliberately wrote in the style of the Hebrew prophets and envisioned his works as expressions of prophecy, following in the footsteps (or, more precisely strapping on the sandals) of Elijah and Milton.
Most of
Blake's paintings (such as "The Ancient of Days", the frontispiece to "Europe:
a Prophecy") are actually prints made from copper plates, which he etched
in a method he claimed was revealed to him in a dream. He and his wife
colored these prints with water colors. Thus each print is itself a unique
work of art.