Blake 2

William Blake (1757-1827)
William Blake in a portrait by Thomas Phillips.

• 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.
1. Life
William Blake, Portrait of Newton, 1795
William Blake

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

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1. Life
William Blake
• The most important literary
influence in his life was the
Bible.
• He claimed he had
visions.
• Died in 1827.

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

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• 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.
2. Blake the poet
William Blake

• 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.
3. Blake the artist
Westminster Abbey
William Blake
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• 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
Milton’s Paradise Lost.
3. Blake the artist
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 Dante’s Divine
Comedy.
William Blake
William Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job refer
to a series of 22 engraved prints illustrating the
biblical book of Job (published in 1826).

This work reflects his faith in God.
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. The idea he is
portraying is that man has the power
to create and constrain the universe.
The Ancient of Days
3. Blake the artist
William Blake
William Blake, The Ancient of Days, 1794

The subject is taken from the
Book of Genesis. Adam is
shown growing out of the
earth, a piece of which
Elohim – being the Hebrew
name for God - holds in his
left hand. 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.
The Elohim Creating Adam
3. Blake the artist
William Blake
William Blake, The Elohim Creating Adam 1795 Tate Gallery

3. Blake the artist
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Adam is stretched out in an
agonizing position almost as if he is
crucified with a serpent coiled around
his legs, while Elohim is reaching for
a handful of ‘dust’. This reflects
Blake’s view that the God of the Old
Testament was a false god. He
believed the Fall of Man took place
not in the Garden of Eden, but at the
time of creation shown here, when
man was dragged from the spiritual
realm and made material.
Blake’s style in the two pictures is
allegorical; he mainly employs
curved lines in order to create a
dynamic and active sensation.

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

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• They were published as printed
sheets from engraved plates
containing prose, poetry and
illustrations. The plates were
then coloured by Blake himself.
4. Blake the prophet
William Blake
William Blake,Vision of the Daughters of
Albion, 1793, London, Tate Gallery.

• The book describes the poet’s
visit to Hell, a device adopted by
Blake from Dante’s Inferno and
Milton’s Paradise Lost.
• Unlike that of Milton or Dante,
Blake’s Hell is not as a place of
punishment, but contrasts with
the authoritarian and regulated
Heaven.
5. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793)
William Blake
William Blake, Title page of The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell, 1794.

William Blake
• Blake’s 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

• 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
William Blake, Title page of The Marriage of

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 man’s life.
So he had a vision made up of
complementary opposites.
“Good and evil,
male and female,
reason and
imagination, cruelty
and kindness”
7. Complementary opposites
William Blake

“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”
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.
7. Complementary opposites
William Blake

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

• 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.
8. Blake’s Imagination
William Blake

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.
9. The poet
William Blake
William Blake in a portrait by Thomas Phillips.

• Songs of Innocence is
written in the pastoral mode
with simple imagery. It
deals with childhood as the
symbol of innocence.
10. Songs of Innocence (1789) and
Songs of Experience (1794)
William Blake
Cover engraving from the 1826 edition of
Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

24
William Blake
• Songs of Experience is
more complex and
pessimistic. The poems
pair those of Songs of
Innocence.

25
William Blake
• The world of innocence is
full of joy and happiness,
while the world of
experience is full of
cruelty and injustice.

26
William Blake
• The child becomes the
object of Blake’s poetry
because he is closer than
the adult to the original
state of harmony with
nature. Cover engraving from the 1826 edition of

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 children’s
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  innocence
Father  experience
Christ  higher innocence
11. Blake’s style
William Blake

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.
12. The Chimney Sweeper
William Blake
William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper, in
Songs of Innocence and of Experience,
1794.

Theme  the causes of man’s lack of
freedom.
Key images  “The mind-forg’d 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”.
13. London
William Blake
William Blake, London, in Songs of
Experience, 1794.

Theme  Innocence and the Creation.
Key-images  The Lamb, the child, Christ.
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”.
14. The Lamb
William Blake
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William Blake, The Lamb, in Songs of
Innocence, 1789.

Theme  God’s power in creation.
Key images  The tiger as seen by
Blake’s poetic imagination: “fearful
symmetry”; “burning bright… fire of
thine eyes”.
15. The Tyger
William Blake
William Blake, The Tyger, 1794, London,
British Museum.

15. The Tyger
Devices:
•Repeated (rhetorical) questions.
•Hammering rhythm (like casting a
spell).
•Creator presented as a blacksmith.
Reference to myth  Icarus and
Prometheus.
William Blake
William Blake, The Tyger, 1794, London,
British Museum.

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