William Blake was a painter, poet, and print-maker. During his lifetime, he was not recognized much. However, now, he is regarded as an influential figure in the history of visual arts and poetry in the Romantic period. His works were highly prophetic. Northrop Frye, the twentieth-century critic, says that the works of William Blake are least studied in the English language.
The 21st-century artist, Jonathan Jones, comments on his visual arts that his art is remote from whatever Britain has produced so far. Among the 100 Greatest Britons, BBC has placed William Blake on number 38 in 2002.
William Blake lived in London for his entire life; there, he produced versatile and symbolically rich works. His works employed the imagination of the “human existence itself,” and the body of God.”
For his idiosyncratic views, the contemporary writers and poets consider him as mad. However, the later critics regarded him for his creativity and expressiveness, as well as for his mystical and philosophical undercurrents within his works. His poetry and painting are featured as Pre-Romantics and past of the Romantic Movement.
William Blake was a committed Christian, yet aggressive to the Church of England. Even he was against all forms of hostile religions. He was greatly influenced by the American and French Revolution in the 18th century. William Blake also abandoned political beliefs but maintained friendly relations with the political activists Thomas Paine. Thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg also influenced him greatly.
Though Blake had many known influences, the uniqueness and distinguishing quality of his works makes him difficult to categorize. He has been categorized as “glorious luminary” and a man who had not been envisioned by the predecessors and was not ranked with his contemporaries by William Michael, the 19th-century critic.
A Short Biography of William Blake
William Blake was born on 28th November 1757 in London. He attended school for a short period of time and then got further education at home. In the early years, Blake was highly influenced by the Bible. It remained a lifetime source of inspiration and colored his life and works with spirituality.
Blake started experiencing visions at an early age. When Blake was four years old, writes Henry Crabb, he saw the head of God appearing in the window. He also supposedly envisions the prophet Ezekiel standing under the tree and also had seen a tree filled with angels. It was these visions that affect his writing and paintings he produced.
By the age of 10, the artistic abilities of William Blake came to the forefront. He attended Henry Pars’ drawing school. There he learned to sketch the human figure. He also apprenticed with engravers at the age of 14. The master of Blake was an engraver to the London Society of Antiques. He sent Blake to Westminster Abbey to draw the monuments and tombs. In that place, his love for gothic was established.
In 1779, Blake finished his apprenticeship that comprised seven years. He turned into a journeyman copy engraver. He started working on projects for print and book publishers. During that time, he was also preparing himself to make his career as a painter. In the same year, he attended the Royal Academy of Art’s School of Design. In 1780, he started exhibiting his own works in the Academy. In 1783, he published his Poetical Sketches. It was a collection of poems that he wrote over the course of 14 years.
In 1782, William Blake married an illiterate lady Catherine Sophia Boucher. She was taught to read, write, and color. She was a great supporter of her husband until his death.
In 1787, William Blake suffered greatly from the death of his brother Robert. At the instance of his brother’s death, Blake envisions a spirit coming down joylessly through the ceiling. This vision entered into the mind of Blake and greatly inspired his later poetry.
In the following years, Blake started a new method of printing called “illuminating printing.” This painting influenced every aspect of his arts.
An established engraver, William Black, soon started receiving commissions for his watercolors. He painted the scenes from the Bible and works of Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton.
In 1800, William Blake shifted to a seaside Village of Felpham upon the invitation of his friend William Hayley. However, soon the relationship between Blake and Hayley soon turned bitter. Blake ran into different trouble. A soldier, in 1803, illegally occupied the property of Blake, and when Blake asked him to leave, he accused him of sedation and assault.
In 1804, Black was acquitted, and he, along with his wife, shifted back to London. In the same year, Blake started writing and illustrating about Jerusalem. His works on Jerusalem are his most aspiring works to date. He also started showing his works, including the Canterbury Pilgrims by Chaucer and Satan Calling Up His Legions, at the exhibitions. However, his works did not get any appreciation.
Devastated by the negative reviews and no attention for his works, Blake started withdrawing from his attempt of success. From 1809 to 1818, he only sketched a few paintings. He was sinking into paranoia, obscurity, and poverty.
However, in 1819, Blake started sketching “visionary head.” Until 1825, Blake had sketched more than 100 of such visionary heads.
Between 1823 and 1825, Blake remained highly busy with his arts. He engraved almost 21 designs of Book of Job and Dante’s Inferno. By 1825, he also started a series of watercolor illustrations of Dante.
In the last years of his life, William Blake suffered from an undiagnosed disease. He died on 12th August 1827. He left unfinished watercolor illustrations of Pilgrim’s Progress by Bunyan and manuscript of the Book of Genesis of the Bible.
Though he was unappreciated in his life, William Blake turned out to be a great figure in the arts of poetry and paintings.
William Blake’s Writing Style
William Blake as a Romantic Poet
William Blake belongs to the period of Romantic poets. In his works, the features of Romanticism are marked vividly. Like romantics, his poetry is largely based on subjectivity, imagination, expression, freedom of thought, and the idealization of nature.
Though the Romantic Movement officially started in the nineteenth with the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1830, William Blake shows blows of classicism in his poetry at the end of the 17th century. According to William Black, any piece of art is an embodiment of the vision and imagination of the poet.
Many writers of the 17th century, including William Blake, were greatly influenced by the French Revolution and war between France and England. William Black was against the ancient ideals that were practiced in his time. He composed his poem “There is no Natural Religion” and “All Religions are One” in hopes to bring change to the spiritual life of the public. Unlike most people, Blake had a feeling that his spiritual life is dramatic, free, and not consistent,
The poetry and writing style of William Blake resembles the spirit of Romanticism. Imagination, mysticism, idealization of childhood, humanitarian sympathies, love of liberty, and symbolism are the major features of his poetry. He attributes great importance to these features in his poetry. His poetry is set in the pastoral setting and has lyrical qualities. For example,
“Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!”(Jerusalem, lines 9 to 12)
Distinguishing Feature of Blake’s Poetry
The above lines from the poem show the lyrical qualities of Blake’s poetry. Blake does not employ the traditional verse form of poetry in his poems. He scorned the poetry and criticism that is based on classicism. He asserts that if we are truly in our imagination, we do not want Roman or Greek models for criticism. He disgusted the whole diction employed by the neoclassical poets. He could not tolerate it. His poetry contains simple diction and words used by ordinary people.
Blake as a Visionary Poet
Blake’s poetry and paintings are both controlled by his visions, and his visions are solely based on his own imagination. In his many poems, he claimed that these visions were dictated to him by spirits. He says that a poet writes poetry with the help of inspiration, and in this state of inspiration, the poet uses his imagination.
He also claims that the imagination of humans is the divine vision and realization. Moreover, the expression of divine vision is accompanied by energy and delight. The intense romantic nature of Blake made him have such views of the poetry. Imagination is the key element in the poetry of Blake. For example, in the poem “Tyger,” Blake creates the image of falling spares of stars and watering of heavens with the tears of stars. Moreover, he asks that does God smiles when he see his creation and also inquires that the one who made lamb also made you (tiger)
The poem symbolically represents the impassioned defense of imagination and energy. These things occupy a great place in the thinking of Blake. In the poem, the tiger symbolizes the “abundant life” and regeneration. The terrifying though splendid qualities of the tiger are effectively conveyed in the poem.
The poetry of William Blake is not only filled with the Revolutionary spirit. In his poetry, he also deals with the subject of the child with intense seriousness. For example, in his poem, “Holy Thursday I,” he writes:
“O what a multitude they seemd these flowers of London town
Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own
The hum of multitudes was there but multitudes of lambs
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands”
The child in this poem symbolizes the courageous yet delicate instinct in the human mind. Whatever the child observed is filled with beauty and mystery. The words are simple and possible as it suits the thoughts of the child.
Romantic Elements in Blake’s Poetry
In the writing style of William Blake, romantic elements are present in abundance. Some of these elements are present to a high degree. For example, in his poems, there is a sense of wonder, an intimate sympathy with the diversity of existence, and observation of nature. Whereas, other elements are present to a lesser degree. For example, nostalgia and escapism.
The early style of William Blake was the immature form of Romanticism. His poem “The Songs of Innocence” is adapted with the definition of Romanticism that “it is the renaissance of wonder.” In the poem “Tyger,” the splendid qualities of the tiger creates a sense of amazement and wonder. He writes about the physical feature of the tiger that the tiger is so strong that the shoulder or art can twist the strength of its heart. He also asks what makes his heart beat, whose dread hands and dread feets are making the strongest creature dradfull.
Humanitarian Approach of Blake
William Blake had strong sympathies with humanity and supported liberty. He was a great admirer of the French Revolution and the American Revolution. For example, the humanitarian sympathies of Blake have seen the poems such as The Chimney Sweeper, London, and Holy Thursday. He writes that he wonders about each poor creature on the street near the river Thames. In every face he meets, there are marks of woe and weakness. Moreover, he writes that in the cry of every man, in the fearful cry of infants, in the voice voice these poor creatures utter, he hears the mind-forged manacle.
The poetry of William Blake also deals with rapid industrialization and its effects on human life. It deals with how human lives and child labor are exploited at the hands of industrialization. For example, in the poem “The Chimney Sweeper,” William Blake talks about the poor child and the labor he is put into and speaks in the voice of a child that he was very young when his mother died and his father sold him even though he could only cry. So he was put in the job of cleaning a chimney and he would sleep in soot. Moreover, when another poor baby cried because his head was shaved, he calmed him down by saying that while sleeping in the soot, his hair won’t get dirty because his head is shaved.
Blake also criticizes the various forms of social injustices taking place in London. He shows these injustices in the form of Chimney Sweeper, the youthful Harlot’s curse, and the sign of a helpless soldier. He asserts that though people are not chained with chains, they are made slaves mentally. He seems to be the enemy of the artificial handcuffs that are created by the mind.
Anti-Clerical Views of Blake
Moreover, Blake also does not show mercy to the Church. In his poetry, the Church is an inhospitable place; whereas the ale-house is friendly and warm. The Church imposes religious restrictions. Blake is against all organized institutions of religion.
Pastoralism in Blake’s Poetry
Another striking feature is the writing style of Blake is Pastoralism. His poem “The Shepard” is a simple poem that celebrates the happiness of truth and responsibility in a rural atmosphere. Similarly, his poem “The Echoing Green” also deals with the delightful domesticity and warmer hue with expressive melody.
Conclusion
William Blake is one of the major poets of the 18th century whose poetry and artwork became a part of the movement of Romanticism. His writing is a combination of a variety of styles. He is a lyric poet, a mystic, a visionary, and an artist. His works both in poetry and arts fascinate charms and sometimes puzzle the readers. Blake intensely used metaphors, images, symbols, and revolutionary spirit in his poetry. These things combine with a spontaneous expression of emotions and thoughts, and simple diction makes his poetry pleasing and charming.