Essay about William Blake’s Poetry - 1541 Words

William Blake’s Poetry William Blake was one of those 19th century figures who could have and should have been beatniks, along with Rimbaud, Verlaine, Manet, Cezanne and Whitman. He began his career as an engraver and artist, and was an apprentice to the highly original Romantic painter Henry Fuseli. In his own time he was valued as an artist, and created a set of watercolor illustrations for the Book of Job that were so wildly but subtly colored they would have looked perfectly at home in next months issue of Wired. He lived in a filthy London studio where he succumbed to constant visions of angels and prophets who instructed him in his work. He once painted while recieving a vision of Voltaire, and when asked later whether†¦show more content†¦His philosophy of Christianity was considered blasphemous, but he was never charged with such a crime. However, he did express his critical opinions of the Church in both essay and poetic form. To understand what is being said in such poems as THE GARDEN OF LOVE and The Little Vagabond one must consider the poets religious, or shall I say spiritual, position. William Blake considered himself to be a monistic Gnostic. That is, he believed what saved a persons soul was not faith but knowledge. Faith, he felt, was a term that was abused by those who thought spending every Sunday in a church would grant them eternal salvation regardless of what actions they exhibited outside the walls of the church. Church ceremonies were also dry, emotionless and meaningless, according to Blake. Church was evil, as Blake would have put it. Knowledge was cherished by Blake. He argued that through knowledge one can truly understand Christ, and when this understanding is reached one can then begin to become Christ. Christ was the pinnacle of what a human should strive to be. God and Christ were placed on the same level, and God was not a clockmaker or some supreme being placed outside of human capacity; rather, Blake argued that God is something that resides in all of humanity. Blake coined this Divine Humanity, the potential for all humanity to come full circle and be humanly divine; this is possible because God and Jesus are both living inside of us fromShow MoreRelatedWilliam Blakes Poetry1285 Words   |  6 PagesWilliam Blake was a powerful poet in the Romantic era. During this era, there was a cultural shift that caused many changes such as natural word influences, breakaway from rules, individualism, and social changes. These changes caused people to break away from traditional norms and focus on imagination and c ulture change. Poets during this era were the center of the movement. They concentrated their work on Imagination to create new ideas, emotions of the individual, and the influence of nature (â€Å"William†)Read More The Complexity of William Blakes Poetry Essay1049 Words   |  5 PagesThe Complexity of William Blakes Poetry Northrop Frye, in his critical essay, Poetry and Design, states; In a world as specialized as ours, concentration on one gift and a rigorous subordination of all others is practically a moral principle (Frye 137). William Blakes refusal to follow this moral principle by putting his poetry before his art, or vice versa, makes his work extraordinary as well as complex and ambiguous. Although critics attempt to juggle Blakes equally impressive talentsRead MoreSociological Criticism of William Blake’s Poetry Essay1506 Words   |  7 Pagesinequality. William Blake, a Romantic poet, frequently wrote on the topic of class oppression and his opposition to the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. Blake’s ideology and preference towards an equalitarian society quite closely mirror the theories of Karl Marx. Analyzing Blake’s poetry from a Marxist perspective paints a clearer picture of the motives behind Blake’s anger towards social inequality. Poe ms such as â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper† and â€Å"London† from his poetry collectionsRead MoreOrganized Religion Versus Sprituality in William Blakes Poetry990 Words   |  4 PagesWilliam Blake was a poet and artist who was born in London, England in 1757. He lived 69 years, and although his work went largely unnoticed during his lifetime, he is now considered a prominent English Romantic poet. Blake’s religious views, and his philosophy that â€Å"man is god†, ran against the religious thoughts at the time, and some might equate Blake’s views to those of the hippie movement of the 20th century. In â€Å"The Garden of Love†, the conflict between organized religion and individual thoughtRead MoreEssay about William Blake ´s Pity based on Shakespeare ´s Macbeth816 Words   |  4 Pages William Blakes colour print painting filled with watercolors and ink is known as Pity, it is one of a large group of paintings known as Large Colour Prints. In Pity, a woman lying on the ground appears to be deceased, while two figures riding horses fly above her with a young baby in hand. This painting was completed in 1795, but the painting relates more to the characteristics of renaissance style drawing. Sense the woman figure lying down does not appear in Macbeth’s simile on Pity, the womanRead MoreIndustrialized Society in Romantic Poetry: William Blakes The Chimney Sweeper1253 Words   |  6 Pagessimultaneously. This movement as defined by one of its creators William Wordsworth was, in the preface of their collaborated work Lyrical Ballads with Samuel Coleridge, â€Å"the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.(Wordsworth 1) Although the definition matched with the psychological and literary situation of the era, a couple romantic authors existed outside of the definition. William Blake was different and defined as pre-romantic author byRead MoreThe Innocence of Lamb in Songs of Innocence by William Blake615 Words   |  3 PagesSongs of Innocence by William Blake collocates the naà ¯ve lives of children and loss of innocence of adults, with moral Christian values and how religion has the capacity to promote cruelty and prejudice. Blake was born in 1757, up to and after the French Revolution he wrote many works criticizing enlightened rationalism and instead focused on intellectual ideas that avoided institutionalization and propelled ethical and moral order. Blake’s collection of poem exposes and explores the values and limitationsRead MoreWilliam Blake s Songs Of Innocence And Experience1268 Words   |  6 PagesWilliam Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, printed in 1794, â€Å"represents the world as it is envisioned by what he calls ‘two contrary states of the human soul’† (Greenblatt, 1452). This collection of poetry is accompanied by pictures, which create a mutually reliant relationship that allows for complete understanding of Blake’s works. â€Å"To read a Blake poem without the pictures is to miss something important: that relationship is an aspect of the poem’s argument† (1452). Overall, Blake’s worksRead More Children in Blake’s Poetry Essay1167 Words   |  5 PagesChildren in Blake’s Poetry The use of children is a prominent theme in a number of William Blake’s poems. It is apparent in reading such poems as, â€Å"The Lamb,† â€Å"The Little Black Boy,† and â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper,† that Blake sees the world through the eyes of a child and embraces the innocence of the young. Blake’s poem â€Å"The Lamb,† from Songs of Innocence really illustrates the innocence and purity of a young child. The persona in the poem is of a young child. The child questionsRead More Coexistence of Contrary States in Blake’s The Tyger Essay1883 Words   |  8 PagesCoexistence of Contrary States in Blake’s The Tyger Since the two hundred years that William Blake has composed his seminal poem The Tyger, critics and readers alike have attempted to interpret its burning question - Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Perhaps best embodying the spirit of Blake’s Songs of Experience, the tiger is the poetic counterpart to the Lamb of Innocence from Blake’s previous work, Songs of Innocence. Manifest in The Tyger is the key to understanding its identity