Talk:William Blake/Archive 1

Blake's brother
There seems to be dispute as to whether Blake's brother who died in infancy was older or younger than Blake. In my reading Iv'e und references to both, even that Blake was the youngest of 3 sons, so which is it? Was Blake's brother older or younger?But then again...I also read he was a woman!!


 * Hm, interesting. Stanley Kunitz, states in "Essential Blake" that Blake's brother Robert was his younger brother. I would call that a very reliable source. What kind of contraticting sources you've found? --Thomas 09:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

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26/10/06

Robert was definitely Blake's younger brother, the one who he and C. ran the printing shop with for short time.. The older was James who took over their father's hozier's shop.

Steve Barfield

Popular culture references
The guy is pretty popular. Someone should add some references to him from television and movies. I know there is a Whilhelm Scream song titled William Blake Overdrive.

A Norwegian band called Ulver recorded a whole album called Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell containing the entire text of Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Ulver was initially a metal band and later progressed into all possible genres, but many fans remained faithful to them throughout this time and now the knowledge about William Blake among the metal folk is the direct result of Ulver's music. I think that information should definitely be incorporated in the article (or at least Ulver's album's existence should be noted, as it is a whole 1.3 hour long artistic creation dedicated to Blake's creations and philosophy (and an extroardinary piece of music by the way)).

The movie Dead Man should definietly be included, it features many references to his poems, and the main plot point is a man who believes that William Blake's spirit has come back. BlessCernunnos

Henry Basire?
I noticed that it says Blake became apprentice to Henry Basire. Should this not be 'James Basire'?

Out of interest I did a google search, reversing the name orders. Here is the result:

"Basire Henry" = 0 pages found. "Basire James" = about 157 pages found.

''(response by LC) Yes, James Basire is correct. There are many innacuracies on the page.''

Correction
I suppose I should mention I corrected a mistake in 'Works' which can be very easily verified: "There is No Natural Religion" was erroneously named "Ther is No Religion".

''(response by LC) I'm not sure which title you believe to be the correct one. The title given by Blake, however, reads "THERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGION"''

For proof, one can consult Google, although all Blake bibliographies I've seen (Web-based or not) mention the name I provided.

quick check: http://www.american-buddha.com/blake.bib.htm

Wintceas Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first police force was created by Henry Fielding and his brother in 1750, the Bow Street Runners.

Disappointing entry.
I began editing the William Blake entry, only to find that there are too many errors for me to fix in one sitting so late at night. The entry should really be taken down until a proper one can be written, one that's based on reality rather than...I don't know, guesswork? Half the information in the article is incorrect. Boo. -- User:216.188.230.79 09:19, 19 October 2005
 * What you say is probably true, but I doubt that half the information here is incorrect. In any case, the way Wikipedia works is not to hide information that may be wrong, but just allow anyone, such as yourself, to correct it over time. It doesn't have to be entirely correct today, tomorrow or even next week, what matters is how the article reads in a year's time. If any passages appear to be deliberately misleading, one option is to move that paragraph from the main article to a section on this talk page, so that it can be fixed up before putting it back. But if the problems are with say dates and titles of paintings, it would be best to fix them in place as and when you get the chance.
 * To be honest, in general Wikipedia's articles on arts and artists tend to be fairly weak and this one is considerably better than the average. The situation is improving; in recent months I've noticed a lot more informed edits taking place on arts subjects. However, if you look around you could probably find many more articles that need help. -- Solipsist 09:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Half is hyperbole and I think you know that.

Blake's influence
I'd be keen to see mention of his influence on the wider society beyond the arts. For example, on the practical romantic heroes of the time, such as Nelson; or the more rationalist philosophers such as Bentham.

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26/10/06

There is little evidence that Blake had much influence during his lifetime, which is not to say he was ignored, but that he didn't become very popular or even well known beyond a small circle (the artsitic group known as 'the ancients' were his main supporters while he still lived), until after the Romantic period (after 1832 roughly). This is not say he was ignored there are records of him being invited to salon parties by well known figures such as Lady Caroline Lamb ( though Blake didn't make a successful impression) and his poems were read in manuscript by the Romantic poets. Though he was mostly known as an artist and illustrator. That he was part of a radical loose 'network' in the 1790s is still debated, after all in certain ways Blake was very religious, while other radicals were not. He is of course an anti-rationalist and anti-materialist in a very complex way - and Bentham would hardly have had much in common with him.

Steve Barfield

15/12/06 I think it is unfair to say that "Blake's affection for the Bible was belied by his hostility for the church, his beliefs modified by a fascination with Mysticism and the unfolding of the Romantic movement around him" - It would be very single minded to say that Blake could not love the Bible and have hostility toward the church. The Bible is the bible and the church is made of mortal men. I would add that only those who have not fully experienced religion would believe that one can seperate any religion from Mysticism - No one would repuduiate that Martin Buber was both a student of Judaism and Mysticism. I can understand that this may be a matter of opinion - but I think that to grant that the church and the Bible are one and the same is a great fallacy. Martin Luther certainly believed that they were not one and the same.

Jay C. Baker

Gordon Riots?
Hey, I don't really know much about Blake or the riots, but I just noticed a discrepancy between their respective pages. Speaking of Blake's role in the riots, this article says the riots were in solidarity with the insurrection in the American colonies. The Gordon Riots page, however, says these were protestant riots demanding that some anti-Catholic legislation in Britain be repealed... Anyone know what the fuss really was about?
 * There was a parliamentary Bill put forward to relieve the Catholics of certain disabilities and penalties (so it was pro-Catholic legislation, I think). Lord George Gordon and his Prostestant Association incited the riots by way of response.  I haven't been able to find anything about blue ribbons, though.

Wouldn't it be out of character for Blake to join such a riot? My understanding was that Blake was tremendously pro-Catholic. I recall a quote by Thomas Merton, whose Masters thesis was on Blake, in his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain, (paraphrasing here): "Catholicism is the only religion which truly teaches God's love". I'm not an expert of Blake, by any means, but he was a major influence on Merton's development as a Catholic mystic. Cravenmonket 21:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

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26/10/2006

The Gordon riots were anti-Catholic riots, but as is the case with most riots, they would have attracted very diverse groups of people. Go to an anti-globalisation demo today - plus ca change .... I think the article is not suggesting Blake was anti-Catholic individuals ( though he was most certainly anti-clerical and would have been against the Catholic church like most of the French revolutionaries were), but is correctly stating Ackroyd's theory that Blake was swept up in a crowd, but then, when the crowd decided to start attacking a symbol of the state (a prison) he happily took part in that. Blake did not approve of any organised institutional religion though... even the most obscure forms like Swedenborgians ( hence the break). Roman Catholicism was the least liked of all organized religions at the time, as Catholic Priests were the common enemy of most radicals in the 1790s and after. Why ? Because the Church was seen as anti-human, anti-the working class, anti-women, pro-slavery, anti-freedom and a reactionary tool of the rich.The French revolution was in large part an attack on the Catholic church in France by radicals who happened to be born Catholics. The chance of Blake thinking "Catholicism is the only religion which truly teaches God's love', without being deeply ironic in his intention, are rather like reading 'The Chimney Sweeper' from Songs of Innocence as being pro-child labour. It isn't. Instead it is quite savage irony directed at the Church of England and the state for their acceptance of the  ruthless and vicious exploitation of children. Blake may have believd he saw God and the archangel Gabriel, but he wouldn't have believed the Catholic Church or the Church of England were capable of spiritual redemption, I'm afraid, until the entire edifices were smashed beyond repair. He wasn't always ironic though, he could be very direct -  'London' is a vitriolic attack on child prostitution ( 'the youthful harlot's curse') and corporate capitalism as literally stealing the city from the people who built it and worked there ( 'I wander through each chartered street,/ Near where the chartered Thames does flow,/ A mark in every face I meet,/ Marks of weakness, marks of woe' ). Possibly the best pavement thumping, let's overthrow the state, revolutionary poem alongside Shelley's 'England in 1819' in the English language.

Steve Barfield

Additions and Divisions
I've made some additions to the page, and sub-divided the early life section - overall, I think this is one of the better Wikipedia art entries, but its a long way from complete. I concentrated on embellishing what was there, rather than adding new stuff, but with any luck people will approve of these edits.

I think a great deal more may be said about B's family, especially his relationship with his parents. I recall that his siblings reportedly saw visions too, Robert especially; Blake wasn't unique in his visions, but was unique in maintaining this ability through to adulthood. Also, the themes of oppresive fatherhood or weak and faithless motherhood in Blake's later work should be mentioned, if only to contrast this with the support granted to William by both his parents. That is, why should Blake concentrate on these themes considering his supportive family past?

A couple of points: I'll do something similar with the rest of the article, when I have time and if people approve of what's been done so far. Second, the caption to the illustration showing the Song of Los - Urizen wasn't Blake's 'almighty creator', but was indicative of an overly rational (broadly speaking, Lockean) frame of mind that tended to create generalized abstrations from sensory data. Thus, I think the picture caption is a misleading oversimplification. I wouldn't mind normally, but it's a widely-held (mis)perception that Blake was simply a Bible illustrator, whereas his art and poetry served in part as a reinterpretation of the Biblical myth, rather than a simple allegorical retelling of it. So often with Blake, the aim is not in supplying information, but in banishing disinformation. Visual Error 16:06, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I noticed that the article states Blake's birth into a "middle-class family". I alsways beleived that Blake was born into a working-class family, hence his dislike of authority, and his questioning of society in his "songs of innocence and of experience". Could anyone confirm this or correct me if i am wrong?

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26/10/06

Blake's family background is not lower middle class. This would have meant something quite different at the time. They were artisans, that is to say the skilled urban working class as opposed to either peasants in the countryside or town labourers or servants. His father had a shop which passed on his death to the eldest brother James, but the 'shop' was more like a workplace than what we think of as a modern shop with several employees. Hence Blake was apprenticed, which is what one would expect with such a background, though to an important engraver, but he wouldn't been able to afford to send him to traditional art school ( when Blake went to the new Royal Academy he worked to pay for his own lessons). Engarving was a commercial job at teh time, rather than seen as a particularly artitic one. It is too simple to see B's dislike of the establishment lying in his origins though, it is part of his informed political opinions as mcuh as anything else.

We don't really know enough about Blake's family life to make for a clear picture as regards his relationship to his parents. The biography is unreliable necessarily, because it was written when there were no recollections of the early Blake ( written in the 1860s, but Blake had died in 1827). Blake lived a long time for this period and by the time there was real interest in him most of the sources about his youth were very long dead. Samuel Palmer and others told Gilchrist and his wife about the old Blake they knew, but they knew perhaps little about Blake as a youth - they et him in his 50s. Hence the dangers in psychoanalysing the poetry too much. Two interpretations of the theses mentioned: 'so, the themes of oppresive fatherhood or weak and faithless motherhood in Blake's later work should be mentioned, if only to contrast this with the support granted to William by both his parents.' 1. These are symbolic representations of what Blake saw as the struggles of gender at the time ( especially the patriarchal rule over oppressed women) and also what he believed were contrary ways of thinking about humanity through gender. 2. Jungian readings of Blake consider this as part of a devloping relationship between animus and anima. The best recent biography - though perhaps, not as readable as Ackroyd is G. E. Bentley. Stranger from Paradise: a Biography of William Blake Yale University Press, 2001. Both are worth reading.

There is also an entry for subscribers, by Prof. David Punter on Blake at the Literary Encyclopedia web site. Punter is a noted scholar of Blake. Steve Barfield

a radical religious sect called "Dissenters"??!!
I'm sorry to be blunt, but this line reveals that the original author has a great deal of studying to do before he/she is qualified to write an article on Blake. Dissenter, of course, is a term of very wide meaning, referring to those who dissented from the Anglican Church. What the author is likely trying, and failing, to refer to is Blake's circumstantial but very suggestive links with the Muggletonians (see E. P. Thompson's Witness Against the Beast and other scholarship), a radical Dissenting sect with its roots in the 17th c. Or the author is gesturing at the New Jerusalem Church of Emmanuel Swedenborg, of which Blake was briefly a member; his disillusionment with Swedenborgianism is woven into The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I wish I had time to actually fix this in text. I hope someone else will do so.

Steve Newman, Ph.D.


 * I do think the best thing to do would be fix it in the article - forgive me, but the time spent noting it on the discussion page could have been spent updating the text. You seem to be well-informed on the matter, and you have references to hand, so I think it would only be an improvement.  The intention here as throughout Wikipedia is to work towards a well-informed, corroborated article, not lament the fact that we don't have one now. Visual Error 01:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

A fair criticism/request; I'm busy prepping for seminars I'm teaching tomorrow; but I'll get to it as soon as I can. SN

Blake's wife Catherine helped him write?!?
Do we really want to say in the first two sentences that Blake wrote his poetry in collaboration with his wife Catherine? The fact that Catherine was actually illiterate seems to require some qualification to this point. Blake never seems to have had much expectation that anyone would understand what he was on about, least of all his wife ... what is the evidence for this?

He taught her to read and write. By all accounts, she was an invaluable aide to him.

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26/10/06

It is very doubtful there was much in the way of collaboration in a meaningful, or traditional artistic sense of the works themselves- what we are talking about is production of the prints themselves from the engravings. To understad this remember Blake's work are primarily prints that he then hand coloured, he engraved the engravings and wrote the poems, she helped to print them, bind the books etc. Henec the confusion in the article - easily done.

So it needs to be spelt out this was primarily an emotional and creative partnership that Blake found important to the production of his artistic work, and included very considerable help with the mechanics/ fabrication of production otherwise it is potentially very misleading. I think it is good to mention Catherine as being important to Blake, but a student who writes in an essay that Blake and Catherine produced Blakes's work together without significant caveat will get a very big red line in the margin!

While Blake and Catherine enjoyed a wonderfully happy life together by all accounts, we shouldn't turn it into a Hollywood byopic, tempting as it might be.:-)

Steve Barfield

Imagination
Heron- Nice revision. I like your version much better. Anyone want to add anything to this?KristoferM 04:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Questionable Line
I have a problem with this line in the intro: "Viewing Blake's accomplishments in either poetry or in the visual arts separately is to do him a disservice"

This seems to be a pure matter of opinion and un-encyclopedic. I have long been an avid reader of Blake's poetry with only a passing knowledge of his illustrations- I doubt I have done William Blake any disservice.


 * Just because you've been a reader of his poetry w/out studying his visual arts doesn't mean that it's the right way to do things. That's like a fat man justifying the consumption of Crisco because he's consumed some himself. :) DRJ 16:47, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the comment is correct; the claim in the article is PoV; whether it's true or not isn't the point. Mind you, much of the article is couched in similarly PoV terms (including most of the rest of the second paragraph of the summary). --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 10:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

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26/10/06

'Disservice' is probably an overstatement, as it could suggest he wasn't equally celebrated as poet and artist. This is therfore a little odd as a statement - though Blake is never easy to sum up, it must be said. In addition ( as the article states) that some of Blake's finest works were illustrations of other's texts and not his own poetry. Others were just watercolours ( mostly at the Tate). Blake has generally been held to succeed as a poet well enough ( one of the greatest of all), without the fact that his poems are intended to be bound with the pictures, at least since his rediscovery during the Victorian period. Most judge him a very great poet, one of the greatest within the English language. However, it is quite true to say that the poetry is very often integrally bound up with his illustrations and certainly it is generally accepted that this was part of his original purpose. This is also well known as we have had the illustrated books available in publisher's facsimile since early in the century and now on the web (e.g. The University of Virginia Archive of his illuminated works) and they are dazzling and fascinating precisely because of the way the different extant examples vary. Look at the Tyger as an example. Academics have written fascinating books about the relationship between poetry and visual images in Blake's work. As an illustrator of others words and an artist he is also a figure whose work is tremendously important in the history of art when rediscovered by the pre-Raphaelites and of course, he influenced the British mystical tradition: from Palmer to Spencer and beyond. He was originally seen as primarily an artist both by the ;ancients' his supporters in old his old age in the 1800s and Gilchrist's biography of the 1860s is subtitled 'painter'.

It might be better to say that: 'Blake was extremely accomplished and influential as both a poet and a visual artist; his work in either medium would have earned him an integral, albeit highly individual role, in the history of literature and art. However, the poems are in general found within his painstaking and highly imaginative illustrations, which oftens add unexpected and unusual levels of meaning to the poems embedded within. While the poems can be read without the illuminated pages they often belong to, to read them in their visual context adds a different, powerful experience'

Steve Barfield

Camille Paglia
In her book Sexual Personae : Art & Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia devotes chapter 10 to William Blake. I think this is worth a reference in the See Also section of the article tab. Can anybody add it ? Or explain how I can do it myself. Thanks and regards, wout.perquin@skynet.be


 * "See also" directs the reader to related articles in Wikipedia. There isn't really any grounds for adding a reference to this book, I'm afraid (we don't supply complete bibliographies of secondary literature). --Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 20:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I understand that "See Also", is not the proper place to make the reference. But I do not agree with you that "There isn't really any grounds for adding a reference to this book". My idea of Wikipedia is of a network of information. It has entry points (the article), and from there it points/guides you to any related material. In my view her chapter 10 is worth being mentioned somewhere in the article. Maybe in a newly created "Secondary literature" section or anywhere else it might fit properly. But I do not see any valid reason not to refer from this article to the book. Your above argument doesnt convince me, sounds to me some kind of censorship, and in my view is not compatible with the spirit of Wikipedia. Regards, wout.perquin@skynet.be - 10:34, June 1, 2006 (CET)


 * Gosh, you reached "censorship" more quickly than usual. Whatever the relevant equivalent of Godwin's Law is, it probably needs up-dating.
 * If we were going to supply a "Secondary literature" section, I doubt that this book would be very high on the list of works to be added. There's a huge number of books and articles specifically on Blake; why should a book that contains one chapter on him take precedence? I realise that you like the book, but that's not really adequate grounds for adding it. --Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 10:49, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, you have a feel for not understanding the point, and reading what has never been asked for. I asked for a "Secondary literature section" that could capture Paglia's book, not for her book to be the first or only reference in that section. To close this discussion let me summarize our views :
 * Yours : "In the Wikipedia article for William Blake there is no place for a reference to the chapter of Paglia's book."
 * Mine : "As a Single Point of Information it would be worthwhile that the Wikipedia article for William Blake [c]ould have a reference to the book of Paglia"

Regards, wout.perquin@skynet.be - 10:12, June 18, 2006 (CET)

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26/10/06

I very much doubt that Paglia would wish to be the only academic mentioned when the Blake bibliography is so very long and accomplished. Though i'm sure she will appreciate the sentiment. It is a small chapter in a popular book, after all. Worth getting round to when you've read 50 or so, but only then. There is just too much good stuff written on Blake for anyone but a specialist to read all of it and I'm not. Though on early Blake the last thing that was a must read in critical circles when I used to teach Balke was, John Mee. Dangerous Enthusiasm: William Blake and the Culture of Radicalism in the 1790s (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.) this updates Erdman and Thompson, though perhaps in the end Blake as a thoroughgoing radical is too easy a proposition.

Steve Barfield

Quote
His life is, perhaps, summed up by his statement that "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself"; though this alone may not do justice to his thought.

Ok, so why bother with the quote in the first place? Why not substitute something that actually does justice, or just leave the thing out? Or, if the quote nevertheless does justice, leave out the disclaimer? 194.157.147.34 00:54, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree, this quote seems like an attempt to write a more traditional pov biography, not a npov encyclopaedic one (it does also seem a little collage essay in tone). I vote to remove it totally. - Solar 10:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

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26/10/2006

However, the imagination is a crucial concept to understanding Blake's work and significantly links him to more 'mainstream' ( and later) Romanticism. Hence his aphorism deliverately over-endows imagination as more than just something human beins can do, a Lockean 18th Century associationist notion, into something that defines human beings status in the world. Hard to Believ Coleridge never read it when he later stated the Imagination was so central! ... One might perhaps say, that: 'The sublime power of the human imagination was of crucial and defining importance to Blake: 'The imagination is etc. '

Steve Barfield

Apprenticeship Confusion
"Basire seems to have been a kind master to Blake: there is no record of any serious disagreement between the two during the period of Blake's apprenticeship. However, Ackroyd's biography notes that Blake was later to add Basire's name to a list of artistic adversaries—and then cross it out (43, Blake, Peter Ackroyd, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995). This aside, Basire's style of engraving copy images from the Gothic churches in London (it is possible that this task was set in order to break up a quarrel between Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice). "

Does anyone know what the bolded sentence is trying to say? I'm confused.

Jedidiah 18:07, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Rediscovery of Blake's Grave
26/10/2006

Accepted wisdom was that Blake was buried with C in an umarked pauper's grave and that the existing gravestone ( which doesn't in fact mark anything) in Bunhill fields, was long accepted to be the best memorial we would ever have under the circumstances. A slightly sad spectacle albeit enlivened by the little jam jar of flowers from well-wishers.

In 2005, however, much to everyone's surprise and after a huge amount of archival work Luis and Carol Garrido state they have recently re-discovered the exact location of the graves of William Blake and his wife Catherine Sophia Blake. They are now campaigning in conjunction with the Blake Society for the erection of a monument to mark the exact site of Blake’s grave by the 2007 anniversary of Blake's birth ( 250 years) The article has been published and there is general scholarly acceptance of the validity of the research.

'The Precise Location of William Blake's Grave Has Been Pin-Pointed Again after Forty-Five Years', Magazine, History Today, Vol. 55, June 2005

The Blake Society can be found at http://www.blakesociety.org.uk/

Steve Barfield

Frye's comments - what about Songs of Innocence and Experience
26/10/06

It is OK to mention Frye's comments, if slightly odd. Blake's Prophetic poems are unusually difficult and I fail to see why Frye was surprised.

But surely much more to the point is that Songs of Innocence and Experience have been amongst the most popular and well loved poems in the English language for well over a hundred years now. Tyger has been memorized by heart by generations of school children.

Let's give credit first of all where it is due. On the strength of I and E alone, Blake can claim to be one of the greatest poets of the language, if he'd never written the longer poems!

Steve Barfield

Keynote First Pargraphs- Questions/ Suggestions
26/10/06

'While his visual art and written poetry are often considered separately, Blake perceived these two disciplines to be companions in a unified spiritual endeavour.'

It is much more complex that a question of spirituality alone: or at least Blake's notion of spirituality is much more complex than that term usually allows even within Manichean readings of the term. Blake ensured through the 'infernal printing' of his illuminated books that each work was individual and therefore totally unique. This was part of a desire for authentic, artistic ownership of the work against the growth of the mass market and commodification of 18th C printing. A two fingers up to the 18th C book trade, if you will. Blake was an artist who wnated to control his works and how they were received in order to radicalise his readers. The illuminated books also allow a dazzling dialogue between text and image in a way that pertains to Blake's radical aesthetic-political project in a way that was far ahead of its time.

'Though he believed himself able to converse aloud with Old Testament prophets, and despite his work in illustrating the Book of Job, Blake's traditional Christian beliefs were modified by a fascination with Mysticism and what is often considered to be his anticipation of the Romanticism unfolding around him. [2] Nonetheless, the difficulty of placing William Blake in any one chronological stage of art history is perhaps the distinction that best defines him.'

Blake was hardly ever a traditional Christian, ( whatever that might mean exactly ? ) anymore than most other mystics or even Gnostics. He was profoundly hostile to organised religion which he believed had systematised and distorted Christ's message. He was born a dissenter - that is to say a Protestant who did not accept the Church of England as the estbalished Church - but was also part of a long visionary and prophetic tradition - allying this to a profound desire to reinterpret man's relationship to God ( he was genrally speaking against the God of the old testament) and to remake Christinaity as revolutionary discourse. He was also fond of the devil who he believed had been misrepresented by Chrstianity and admired him because he had been the nagel who had rebelled against God. Of Paradise Lost : ' Milton was of the Devil's party but he did not know it'.

'Once considered "mad" for his "single-mindedness" (he lived and died in poverty), Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity in both fields, and the underlying philosophical vision that unifies the intent of all his work. As he himself once indicated, "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself."

He was thought mad, by some, mostly because he claimed to see visions and rejected the conventions of his day. Is there anything as straightforward as an underlying philosophical vision in Blake? If so, it wasn't just imagination by any means. I doubt this univocality - - not for nothing did he claim ' without contraries is no progression'. Blake is above all a poet of negotaited dualities and not of unified vision. He is basically highly regarded because a) he wrote some of the greatest and most popular poems in English b) he was a truly visonary artist who felt he had something to tell the world and would change art to do so c) he became very influential after his death and continues to be so today d) he is a model of the radical, free thinking artist who combined aesthetic innovation with a socialist-anarchist agenda. Loved by serious artists from Jim Morrison to Patti Smith to  Ginsberg to Huxley and we could go on all year in fact. Philip Pullman is president of the Blake society. etc.

Steve Barfield It is so unbelievably difficult to write encyclopedically about William Blake. I keep trying to rework the opening, and I keep slipping into observation. The work and themes are too colorful to render as data.DBaba 04:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Essay link
 The link above to "an essay on Auguries of Innocence" doesn't seem particularly relevant to the article, nor is it exactly an essay. Here's an extract:

"...he was absolutely nuts! As well as a great poet. Yet, even he wrote some shit. But it’s not the shit I’m going after this time- that would be too easy. I’m going after a pretty good poem that could be a bit better with just a little nipping & tucking..."

If anyone objects to me removing the link please say so. raptor 04:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * well sussed - take it away raptor. Julia Rossi 05:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

page abuse
Someone was causing problems with the page... --Jasonnolan 17:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

More Page Abuse? - for some reason I can still see page abuse in Safari but not in Firefox... whats the procedure for sorting this sort of thing (this is my first time!) Here is the offending bit -

second paragraph of Personality and psychological characteristics

"On another occasion,William Blake had a fat dick..like my DICK. Blake watched haymakers at work, and thought he saw angelic figures walking among them." Cosrjc 19:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorted by editing (in Safari) and pasting in a "clean" paragraph from Firefox Cosrjc 19:46, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Mental?
Is it worth overhauling the Personality and psychological characteristics section? As it stands, it's pretty well one-sided pov to me and needs citation. From a medical/scientific point of view, anyone with Blake's abilities to see visions, channel and prophesy would be classified as nuts. This is usually caseworthy if the person acts on voices etc to the point where they are not functioning well and have other supporting symptoms. Blake is esteemed in other circles, being regarded as mystical, psychic and visionary. On its own, this section pathologises Blake's legitimate abilities sometimes described as 'gifted'.Julia Rossi 05:45, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorted by editing (in Safari) and pasting in a "clean" paragraph from Firefox Cosrjc 19:44, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

'Artistic Mindset'
Whoever wrote this section has clearly only taken Blake's work at face value.

force his audiences into either accepting or rejecting his viewpoints, with little room for ambiguity in interpretation This is completely wrong. Blake's work is some of the most mystical, varied and challenging in the English language. Part of its genius derives from the fact that it challenges conventional thinking, and the conclusions/prejudices that the reader brings. The only thing it 'forces' us to do is re-think our own moral values. If it were not so widely intepreted, it would not still be so controversial a subject of debate today.

intellectual values of great thinkers that Blake admired, such as Isaac Newton Wrong again. As the caption to Blake's "Newton" already says, Blake opposed the "single-vision" of scientific materialism. Blake was not a rationalist thinker, as your descriptions of him promoting rational intellectual ideas and objective intellectual inquiry suggest - he frequently stressed the dangers of cold reason and the enlightenment movement (hence criticising Newton), which rejected and thus restrained essential aspects of human nature. If it is possible to impose a category on Blake, then Romantic suits him much better. quote from the Proverbs of Hell: 'Exuberance is Beauty', whereas 'He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.'

attempted to explore these basic horrors of life on earth in his writings Again, why so shallow an interpretation of his works? His aim was not to enumerate the failures of man. He uses them as a mirror, holding them up to the leader so that we may recognise our failures individually and as a whole, then (most importantly) DO something about them. His work is not typified by self-defeating pessimism, but most often by passionate appeals to throw off our 'mind-forg'd manacles' and live and love as God intended us to. His is the voice of the prophetic 'Bard', who calls the 'lapsèd soul' away from its mental 'prison', to 'break this heavy chain'. (Songs of Experience - Introduction and Earth's Answer) Again, in Proverbs, he demonstrates this aspiration/hope 'What is now proved was once only imagin'd'.

humans are not intrinsically moral in their behavior There seems to be a huge misconception over the nature of Blake's radical and (still) progressive theological beliefs, which are definitely not given enough thought on this page. Blake repeatedly asserts that man is inherently DIVINE. He avidly rejected the Christian notion of original sin, that all men were inately sinful. Instead he argued that a man who acts as an individual, on instinct un-corrupted by the status quo, achieves almost a divinity, as Jesus (the 'greatest man') demonstrated: 'Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules'. However, we have been taught by religion and state to repress our desires, distorting and perverting our intrinsic goodness and diverging from the divine path. quote from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Thus men forgot that All Deities reside in the Human breast

in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he says that the thinker Swedenbourg did not utter a word of truth, while in his other writings he promoted Swedenbourg. Once more, a serious misunderstanding. Blake never rejects Swedenborg's theories; he simply criticises them for not taking those theories to what he believes to be their necessary conclusion. He 'conversed with Angels, who are all religious, and not with Devils who all hate religion' - that is, Swedenborg only ever examined one side of the argument. But Blake argued that these contraries are necessary to human existence: one should not give primacy to one and reject or repress the other. Hence Blake's use of the title 'The *Marriage* of Heaven and Hell' as implicit criticism of Swedenborg's work, 'Heaven and Hell'.

''To some,[attribution needed] such vacillation may suggest a mind continually refining itself, ultimately reaching a definitive, influential world-view. To others,[attribution needed] it may suggest that Blake struggled all his life to become a mature thinker and artist, and may never have reached these goals.'' I agree - attribution *is* needed. Blake had an intense, lucid perception of reality and the order of things, which he developed and adhered to his whole life. A 'mature thinker' is an understatement. His 'goals' were already achieved; its simply the readers who have to catch up.

Though I did not want to outright replace the section, as (due to the controversial nature of Blake's works) I may not be adhering to the majority view, if others agree with this interpretation I will be happy to re-write the section to the best of my ability. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.0.62.123 (talk) 21:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC).

I agree with your comments. However, on the point about Newton, I think that rationalism possibly did play a part in Blake’s thinking somewhere. Blake did not criticise anyone he didn’t admire (excepting monarchs, nobles etc), figures such as Newton (along with Milton, Voltaire, Swedenborg etc etc), who on the surface it seems Blake is (or is in part) in philosophical opposition to, gain symbolic meaning within his work. I don’t believe it is possible to sum up his view on such figures in sweeping statements. I guess that I am still agreeing with you really, I may just be ranting but that was my thought.


 * Ah I dropped a couple of paragraphs before seeing this conversation. I hope my changes are OK?  I killed two paragraphs that seemed particularly wild, for precisely the reasons named above, eg, Blake's Newton, on the very same page, seems to make a mockery of the analysis.  Needs more work for sure.DBaba 04:56, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Druidism
William Blake is listed as a druid in the categories section. Would someone please substantiate it? I will remove it otherwise. Pahoran513 02:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Artistic mindset and Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Why is the discussion of two of the apohrisms contained in Marriage of H and H included in a section titled 'Artistic mindset'? It doesn't seem that the information contained in these paragraphs has any bearing on Blake's artistic beliefs at all - I'll move this content to the page on the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, unless anyone can justify it's inclusion here... Visual Error 22:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The whole paragraph on "Artistic Mindset" is useless and misleading, I'm afraid. Not even the quote (on Swedenborg) is correct (correct: "Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods. And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are all religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate rleigion, for he ws incapable thro' his conceited notions." Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 22.). Doesn't anybody want to do something about this?

Catherine Blake as Concubine
'At one point, in accordance with the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society, Blake suggested bringing in a concubine and perhaps making Catherine a prostitute to see which one was infertile' Having done some research, this seems like pure conjecture. Neither Gilchrist, Ackroyd or Bentley (perhaps his three most referenced biographers) have given any support to this, and no material suggesting these events appears in the primary material that constitutes Bentley's Blake Records. Unless this is referenced to a reputable source or biography i suggest that it should be deleted. 86.129.219.86 08:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of the claim that he suggested "making her a prostitute", but the argument about the concubuine is nothing new. It's the centrepiece of Schuchard's book Why Mrs Blake Cried, published last year, which goes into detail about Swedenborg's belief that concubines were acceptable in certain circumstances.  Now I don't personally trust Schuchard, who can manipulate sources in most outrageous ways, and often asserts opinons about what Catherine thought and what Blake did on the basis of no evidence whatever. However the claim about the concubine is well-known, mentioned by Swinburne in 1868. I don't have Ackroyd's book here, but I have heard him discussing it as a fact. Paul B 10:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Blake and religion
I feel this could be explored in more depth on this page, as should his prophetic books. I offer the text below as a starting point:

Blake's rejection of 'religiosity' was emphatically not a rejection of religion, though his attacks on conventional religion were particularly shocking in his own day. These are particularly evident in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, where he wrote in Proverbs of Hell:

Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion and As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

Blake's personal religion was what he termed the ‘everlasting Gospel’, the original, pre-Jesus revelation that he believed Jesus preached. In The Everlasting Gospel, Blake presents Jesus not just as a philosopher but also as a supremely creative being, above dogma, logic and even morality:


 * If he had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
 * He'd have done anything to please us:
 * Gone sneaking into the Synagogues
 * And not used the Elders & Priests like Dogs,
 * But humble as a Lamb or an Ass,
 * Obey himself to Caiaphas.
 * God wants not man to humble himself

Jesus becomes a symbol of the vital relationship and unity between divinity and humanity.

As Blake said: ''all had originally one language and one religion: this was the religion of Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus.''

He designed his own mythology (based primarily upon the Bible and Greek mythology) to accompany this. This mythology appears largely in the prophetic books. Blake commented that he had to create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's.

One of Blake's strongest objections to orthodox Christianity is that he felt it encouraged the suppression of natural desires and discouraged earthly joy. In A Vision of the Last Judgement, Blake says that ''Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & govern'd their Passions or have No Passions, but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negations of Passion, but Realities of Intellect, from which all the Passions Emanate Uncurbed in their Eternal Glory.''

Blake believed that the joy of man glorified God and that the religion of this world is actually the worship of Satan. He thought of Satan as Error and the 'State of Death’. Blake believes that orthodox Christians, partly because of their denial of earthly joy, are actually worshipping Satan.

Blake is against all sophisticated theological thinking that excuses pain, admits evil and apologises for injustice. He abhors the attempt to buy bliss in another world with self-deprivation in this one.

The whole concept of sin was foreign to him. He saw it as a trap to bind men’s desires (the briars of Garden of Love). He believed that restraint in obedience to a moral code imposed from the outside was against the spirit of life, writing:
 * Abstinence sows sand all over
 * The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
 * But Desire Gratified
 * Plants fruits & beauty there.

He could not agree with any doctrine of God as a Lord, as an entity separate from and superior to mankind. This is very much in line with his belief in liberty and equality in society and between the sexes.--Guinevere50 00:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Religious denominatiions
The introduction is meant to summarise the whole article. But the sentence in the lede "Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to almost all forms of organised religion), Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions.[9] " does not seem to be supported by the text of the article. It was also been suggested in a recent edit summary that: "Blake was hostile to the concept of organized religion as it existed, but attended a Swedenborgian church at one point and even defended Methodism and Enthusiasm. He almost certainly held sympathies with various denoms." Can this claim be supported/ developed in the article? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:01, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

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Arrangement of sections
I suppose I explained myself well enough. Could you respond to that so we could get this through quick :)RotarenegEmem (talk) 13:32, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

William Blake's gravestone
It was mentioned on the news on August 10 2018 that a headstone for Blake would go over the place where he was buried. This could go in the article. Vorbee (talk) 17:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This has now been added with an image and with a sourced explanation in the image caption? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:36, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Paragraph needs to be restructured
The paragraph that begins "In 1784, after his father's death, Blake and former fellow apprentice James Parker opened a print shop" ends with a reference to another event of 1784: "That same year, Blake composed his unfinished manuscript An Island in the Moon (1784).[citation needed]" But, in between, the paragraph explores Blake's political activism in the period following his starting the print shop, first noting his sympathy with the French Revolution (in 1789) then going on to note his disgust with the rise of Robespierre and the Terror (1794, I think).

I'd ask that someone who knows more about Blake and this period of history fit the paragraph.

Henebry (talk) 17:09, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Blake's view on sexual equality
I have added a "citation needed" on the claim that Blake "believed in racial and sexual equality". According to the interpretations of Northrop Frye and S. Foster Damon, Blake absolutely did NOT believe in sexual equality. Rather, according to Frye and Damon, Blake believed that while Man is divine, Woman is not a full-fledged human being but a mere "emanation" of Man. She is "born for the sport and amusement of Man" (_The Four Zoas_, Night IX) and ought to be subservient to him; any independent Female Will is an evil and destructive thing. SpectrumDT (talk) 15:10, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Additional sources

 * This entire journal issue is all about William Blake (8 articles plus 3 book reviews): Visual Culture in Britain, vol. 19, no. 3 (2018) (URL access: subscription, to get more than abstracts).

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:09, 22 July 2023 (UTC)