William Blake (1) (1757–1827)

William Blake’s remarkably written and illustrated poems have endured the test of time and continue to amaze and delight me, even though I have read them dozens of times over the years.

My favorite poems from the Songs of Innocence are, sadly, about innocence abused. It seems such a contrast to me to read Nurse’s Song, in which the children beg for more time to play and frolic in the open air and the “laughing is heard on the hill”, and the Chimney Sweeper, which opens with the death show more of a mother and selling of a child to work in the soot and suffocation of the chimney sweep. That the sweeper is able to maintain his innocence and trust in the face of such a fate is a remarkable testament to the faith of the yet unspoiled child.

Of course, there are religious implications in each of the poems, which are intended and profound. The symbol of the lamb, as standing for both the children and their saviour, runs through several of the poems, including the most famous, The Lamb, which begins, familiarly, “Little lamb who made thee?”

These poems would be quite impressive had Blake written only of innocence, but he wrote a second set of poems, Songs of Experience, which contrast diametrically with the innocence poems. In fact, many of them bear the same name, as in the poems titled Holy Thursday. The poem from Songs of Innocence portrays the children, lined up in twos, entering the cathedral with angelic faces and voices, close to heaven. It’s counterpart in Songs of Experience speaks of the poverty and hunger suffered by so many children of the time.

Parallels exist between many of the poems, contrasting innocence and experience. As The Lamb is the most famous of the Innocence poems, The Tiger is the most famous of the Experience poems. The poems represent the natural world and God’s creation of both the predator and the prey. Blake’s exploration of the two aspects of God and the complexity of His creation.

Cannot close without including my favorite of all the poems:

A POISON TREE
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunnèd it with smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright,
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,—
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree. show less

This is a beautifully put together book. It is a facsimile edition of William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell from Oxford's Bodleian Library. It has replica marbled cover/endboards, aged-looking endpapers (complete with old bookplate and penciled in call numbers), and the facsimile of Blake's plates (complete with penciled page numbers). It is a work of art. Included alongside the Bodleian's copy of the full text are other colored copies of several important plates, tacked on at the show more end. The book has (a) an introduction of several pages, introducing Blake and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, (b) a transcription of the poem, (c) the facsimile of the Blake original (plus extras), (d) commentary on each plate, (e) a checklist of copies of the work, and (f) a bibliography. The bibliography is long and both the intro and commentary have copious references. The commentary describes the physical attributes of each plate, such as an explanation of drawings, etchings, and writings, and it also provides commentary on the text and its meaning, with particular reference to Blake's life and time.

On the physical nature of this book, it is superb beyond compare. This is how facsimile editions should be constructed and published. (Not just of Blake, but any author).

But, then there is Blake. Blake must always be taken with a grain of salt and in small doses, because, well, Blake is weird. And probably nuts too. And Blake's ideas seem, to me, of just being ornery for orneriness's sake. He hates morality and Christianity and any organized group of people, whether church or state. This is why Blake is so beloved today, as he was the forerunner of all leftist art and agitprop that demeans the powers that be. He's a proto-hippie. Thus such crap like "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" and "The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God" (and un-biblical crap this is) drowns out any witty and philosophical epigrams that Blake might spin (like "One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression").

Three stars for Blake's text. Four stars for Blake's art. Five stars for the critical apparatus. Five stars for the physical object of the book. Four-and-a-half stars overall. show less

Perhaps rightly, this book can be classified among the works that are quoted and referenced more than actually read. Because let's be honest: without a proper preparation this book is a no-go zone. The first time I read it, almost 20 years ago, after just a few pages my head started spinning: what is this actually? What is Blake talking about? And why is this all so strange? I could barely process it. But this time, on the second reading, I was a little better prepared, after reading John show more Higgs William Blake vs the World. Higgs provides not only (biographical) context but also reading keys to understand Blake (and also explain him). And only then do you notice how original and modern this hyper-stubborn person was and is, also in this book. And this not only refers to his attacks against established and less established ways of looking at reality, such as the religion of the churches or that of the esotericists, on the one-sidedness and terror of rationalism, and especially on the dualism that is so ingrained in our culture. No, the merit of Blake doesn’t only lay in the negative, but especially in the very idiosyncratic way of seeing that Blake wants to instill on us: namely through that of the imagination, according to him the source of all reality. It seems as if he anticipated constructivism by almost two centuries, although that is probably too simplistic. Because, let’s be honest, Blake remains very unruly and inimitable at the same time. Even if you read this (relatively short book) two or three times in a row, there still are passages that you just can't fathom. William Blake will continue to challenge us, that's for sure. show less

This early work (1794) by Blake starts off in a dazzling and powerful way. Blake offers a kind of creation story here, in which order is created from chaos. The verses are short, the vocabulary is very visual, which emphasizes the violence of the spectacle. Then the focus shifts to Urizen, the first high priest who stands for ordering reason and rationalism, here and in the rest of Blake's oeuvre. And with Blake this is not a positive force, on the contrary: in the own universe that Urizen show more creates, alienation and enslavement are central , not least through the introduction of (organized) religion. Other mythical figures such as Los and Enitharmon also appear on the scene. The story breaks off suddenly, but Blake would later complete it with The Book of Los and The book of Athania, both in 1795. show less