Book description
One of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake (1757-1827) was
an artist, poet, mystic and visionary. His work ranges from the
deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint
Experience - which juxtapose poems such as 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger',
and 'The Blossom' and 'The Sick Rose' - to highly elaborate, apocalyptic
works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Throughout his life
Blake drew on a rich heritage of philosophy, religion and myth, to
create a poetic worlds illuminated by his spiritual and revolutionary
beliefs that have fascinated, intrigued and enchanted readers for
generations.
William Blake (1757 - 1827) was the son of a London hosier. Having
attended Henry Parr's drawing school, he was apprenticed as an
engraver to the Society of Antiquaries in 1772 and later was admitted
to teh Royal Academy. He married in 1782 and published his first work,
Poetical Sketches, in 1783. The first of his 'illuminated books' was
Songs of Innocence in 1789. Blake's work over the next twenty years
chart the refining of his ideas and beliefs, from a recognition of
repression in Songs of Experience to his epic works Milton and
Jerusalem whihc present a renewed vision of reconciliation between humanity.
Alicia Ostriker is Professor of English at Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, USA.
