William Blake (1757-1827)

William Blake in a portrait by Thomas Phillips.

William Blake

1. Life
Born into a family of humble origin in 1757. Trained as an engraver, he practised this craft until he died. Deeply aware of the great political and social issues of his age.

William Blake, Portrait of Newton, 1795

William Blake

1. Life
A political freethinker, he supported the French Revolution and remained a radical throughout his life. Strong sense of religion.
William Blake, Portrait of Newton, 1795

William Blake

1. Life
The most important literary influence in his life was the Bible. He claimed he had visions. Died in 1827.
William Blake, Portrait of Newton, 1795

William Blake

2. Blake the poet

An individual poet, both in terms of his personal vision and technique. Contemporary of the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.

William Blake

2. Blake the poet

Explored the timeless struggle between the role of law and reason and the powers of love and imagination. Used symbols as part of a deliberate attempt to avoid any kind of realism it is the real world that prevents man from perceiving the greater Reality that lies behind him.
Only Connect ... New Directions 6

Romantic aspects of his poetry:

concept of imagination contemplation of nature interest in the medieval and gothic exaltation of art ( in this he anticipates the aesthetic movement ) art seen as a creative vision freedom: he lived all the contradictions of his time. Like Rousseau he believed that Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains, so he hailed the American and French revolution. He rebelled against any form of oppression: social , political and religious. He attacked the values of the 18th c. in favour of democracy and justice

BLAKES MAJOR WORKS:

Poetical Sketches (1783) Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1789-94) The marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) The Book of Urizen (1794) The Song of Los (1795) The Four Zoas (1795-1804) Milton (1804-08) Jerusalem (1804-20) The French Revolution, a prophecy (1791) America, a Prophecy (1793) Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793) Europe (1794)

Mythological books dealing with the struggle between cold intellect and imagination

:all imbued with a spirit of revolt against authority and tiranny

William Blake

3. Blake the artist

Studied the works of Raphael and Michelangelo from the latter he learnt the technique of representing exaggerated muscular bodies. Studied the monuments in the old churches of London, particularly Westminster Abbey. Later he studied at the Royal Academy of Art.
Westminster Abbey

William Blake

3. Blake the artist

Connected visual arts and writing, creating illuminated printing, a combination of picture and poetic text. He considered the two aspects as a counterpart of each other. Also made many illustrations for other authors works, such as Miltons Paradise Lost.
William Blake, Blossom, 1789

William Blake

3. Blake the artist

Many of his paintings dealt with religious subjects. Also drew illustrations for the Bible and a cycle of drawings inspired by Dantes Divine Comedy.

William Blakes Illustrations of the Book of Job refer to a series of 22 engraved prints illustrating the biblical book of Job (published in 1826).

William Blake

3. Blake the artist

The Ancient of Days
The colours are bright and God is represented in an unusual position. His action of measuring the sky means the act of creation, and the clouds and the rays of light that start from Him are symbols of the Divine act. The light is the symbol of energy and divine power.

William Blake, The Ancient of Days, 1794

William Blake

3. Blake the artist

The Whirlwind of Lovers
The subject is taken from Dantes Commedia: there is pathos and a dramatic representation of the dead souls. The colours are duller and darker than those of the previous picture, and the dynamism of the painting is no longer positive and lively, but pitiful and sad.

William Blake, The Whirlwind of Lovers, 1824-1826

Blakes style in the two pictures is allegorical; he mainly employs curved lines in order to create a dynamic and active sensation.

William Blake

4. Blake the prophet

Blake wrote some prophetic books (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, America and Europe). These books express Blakes own personal Romantic and revolutionary beliefs.
William Blake,Vision of the Daughters of Albion, 1793, London, Tate Gallery.

William Blake

4. Blake the prophet

They were published as printed sheets from engraved plates containing prose, poetry and illustrations. The plates were then coloured by Blake himself.

William Blake,Vision of the Daughters of Albion, 1793, London, Tate Gallery.

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He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio sees himself only. *

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William Blake

5. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793)

The book describes the poets visit to Hell, a device adopted by Blake from Dantes Inferno and Miltons Paradise Lost. Unlike that of Milton or Dante, Blakes Hell is not as a place of punishment, but contrasts with the authoritarian and regulated Heaven.
William Blake, Title page of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1794.

William Blake

5. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793)

Blakes purpose was to reveal to his readers the repressive nature of conventional morality and institutional religion. In the most famous part of the book, the Proverbs of Hell, wisdom is conveyed through provocative and paradoxical proverbs. Their purpose is to energise thought.

William Blake, Title page of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1794.

William Blake

5. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793)

The book ends with a series of revolutionary prophecies and exhortations urging the different peoples of the world to rebel against religious and political oppression.

William Blake, Title page of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1794.

William Blake

6. Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)

The central narrative is focused on the female character Oothoon, and on her sexual experience. In this work Blake might have been influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792.
William Blake, Title page of Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 1793.

William Blake

6. Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)

Oothoon is torn between two men Theotormon, who represents the chaste man, and Bromion, who represents the passionate man, filled with lust. He suddenly rapes Oothoon.
William Blake, Title page of Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 1793.

William Blake

6. Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)

The three characters are all imprisoned by the expectations of society. If Theotormon had realized that sex is not illicit, he may have had a happy relationship with Oothoon. Bromion is enslaved by his violent act.
William Blake, Title page of Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 1793.

William Blake

6. Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)

Blake has the Daughters of Albion look to the west, to America, because he believed that there was a promise in America that would one day end all forms of discrimination. It was to be in America, that races would live in harmony, and women would be able to claim their own sexuality.
William Blake, Title page of Visions of the Daughters of Albion, 1793.

William Blake

7. Complementary opposites
Blake believed in the reality of a spiritual world but he thought that Christianity was responsible for the fragmentation of consciousness and the dualism characterising mans life. So he had a vision made up of complementary opposites.

Good and evil, male and female, reason and imagination, cruelty and kindness

William Blake

7. Complementary opposites
He stated: without Contraries there is no Progression. The possibility of progress is situated in the tension between contraries. The two states coexist in the human being and in the Creator.
Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human Existence The Creator can be at the same time the God of love and innocence and the God of energy and violence

William Blake

8. Blakes Imagination
Blake considered imagination as the means through which Man can know the world. He did not believe in mans rationality. For him the representatives of a rationalistic and materialistic philosophy were great heretics, since they denied the value of faith and intuition.

William Blake

8. Blakes Imagination
For him, faith and intuition were the only source of true knowledge and he denied the truth of sensory experience. The internal mind really builds the external world that man sees.

William Blake

9. The poet
The poet becomes a sort of prophet * who can see more deeply into reality and who also tries to warn man against the evils of society.
William Blake in a portrait by Thomas Phillips.

William Blake

10. Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794)

Songs of Innocence is written in the pastoral mode with simple imagery. It deals with childhood as the symbol of innocence.
Cover engraving from the 1826 edition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

William Blake

10. Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794)

Songs of Experience is more complex and pessimistic. The poems pair those of Songs of Innocence.
Cover engraving from the 1826 edition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

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William Blake

10. Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794)

The world of innocence is full of joy and happiness, while the world of experience is full of cruelty and injustice.
Cover engraving from the 1826 edition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

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William Blake

10. Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794)

The child becomes the object of Blakes poetry because he is closer than the adult to the original state of harmony with nature.

Cover engraving from the 1826 edition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

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William Blake

14. The Lamb

Theme Innocence and the Creation. The Lamb, the child, Christ.

Key-images Devices:

Repeated questions, directed to the Lamb. Answers given in the second stanza. Idyllic setting of stream and mead. Image of God like both the Good shepherd and The Lamb of God.
William Blake, The Lamb, in Songs of Innocence, 1789.

Questions

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek & he is mild; He became a little child. I a child & thou a lamb. We are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Rhyming couplets

Answer

T27.mp3

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek & he is mild; He became a little child. I a child & thou a lamb. We are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!

The Rhythm is slow and meditative

Refrain

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o'erimage They convey an the mead; Gave thee clothingpurity of tenderness, of delight, Softest clothing, wooly, bright; and peace Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?
Long vowels

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life & bid thee feed, By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, wooly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee: He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek & he is mild; He became a little child. I a child & thou a lamb. We are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Identification of the poet tell thee: child Little Lamb, I'll with the He state of by soul Childhood a is called the thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. Poet = a prophet He is meek & he is mild; He became a little child. I a child & thou a lamb. We are called by his name. Little Lamb, God bless thee! Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Francesco De Gregori - L'Agnello Di Dio

William Blake

11. Blakes style

Blake uses complex symbolism However, his language and syntax are simple. He often adopts an apparently naive style, using a plain, Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, as well as repetitions, refrains and regular stress patterns which are typical of ballads and childrens songs and hymns.
To him a lamb or a tiger, a chimney sweeper or a London street were symbols of a supra-natural reality; they were never to be taken at their face value. Child Father Christ innocence experience higher innocence

William Blake

15. The Tyger

Theme Gods power in creation.

Key images The tiger as seen by Blakes poetic imagination: fearful symmetry; burning bright fire of thine eyes.

William Blake, The Tyger, 1794, London, British Museum.

William Blake

15. The Tyger

Devices:
Repeated (rhetorical) questions. Hammering rhythm (like casting a spell). Creator presented as a blacksmith.

Reference to myth Prometheus.

Icarus and

William Blake, The Tyger, 1794, London, British Museum.

The Tyger
Tyger ! Tyger! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? And what dread feet? What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors grasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And waterd heaven with their tears Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Tangerine Dream : Tyger Jah Wobble :The inspiration of Blake Tyger.

How does the poet address the tyger ?

Tyger ! Tyger ! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? And what dread feet?

How is the tyger like?

violence

Tyger ! Tyger ! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry ?

shining

Symbol of experience, suffering and violence

How is the tyger like?

Tyger ! Tyger ! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry ?

The light of genius overcoming ignorance

What about the setting?

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
The poet emphasizes the distance between man and God

A link with the first stanza A metaphor of strenght

In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?
Metaphor of the Creators / artists capacity to rise above the material world The myth of Icarus

We should be terrified by the tyger and by God, but at the same time we feel admiration for their strenght
And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? And what dread feet? What the hammer? What the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors grasp?

Here there is a clear reference to the biblical fall of the angels when they revolted against God. Reason revolted against Imagination
When the stars threw down their spears, And waterd heaven with their tears Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

They fought against God They surrended afraid of the power and punishment of God

What s the final answer?

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Impossible to understand through reason

William Blake

12. The Chimney Sweeper

Theme The exploitation of children. Key images The cry weep, darkness, the Angel.

Devices

Symbols of innocence (lamb, happy, dance, sing). Contrast (black/white). Irony to criticize the institution.
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper, in Songs of Innocence and of Experience, 1794.

THE CHIMNEY SWEEPER

A little black thing among the snow: Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe! Where are thy father & mother! say! They are both gone up to the church to pray. Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil'd among the winters snow: They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe. And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury: And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King Who make up a heaven of our misery.

William Blake

13. London
Theme the causes of mans lack of freedom. Key images The mind-forgd manacles; three victims: the chimney-sweeper, the soldier and the prostitute. Devices:
Repetitions: (in) every and mark(s); Metaphors: blackening contrasts with appals (makes pale); Hyperbole: runs down in palace walls.
William Blake, London, in Songs of Experience, 1794.

London by William Blake

I wander through each charterd street, Near where the charterd Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every Man, In every Infants cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forgd manacles I hear. How the Chimney-sweepers cry Every black'ning Church appalls; And the hapless Soldiers sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls. But most thro midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlots curse Blasts the new-born Infants tear And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.