William Blake - Quick facts

 

 

 

He was an English poet, painter, and printmaker.

Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

Blake is loved at least in part for the poem that became the hymn 'Jerusalem' during World War I. At the time of its conception, however, he was also awaiting trial for supposedly making insulting remarks about the king and praising Napoleon to a soldier.

William Blake is a known pantheist. As you know, a Pantheist is person who holds to the metaphysical argument that God is everything around us, and not a separate entity for which we need to build a specific path to encounter.

As a little boy, William Blake was inspired by angels and the imagination as he would walk through the streets of the city and proclaimed to see angels and to have discussions with spirits!

At four years old, William Blake swears that God looked through the window at him causing him to scream at the marvel that he saw! 

Because of these encounters, the image of the angel would be a constant symbol in William Blake's life.

William Blake revealed that he had powers of prophecy. When an engraver was introduced to him by his father, William saw a vision of the man being hanged as he did not like his face. Later on, it was proved that the engraver was indeed false as he was sent to the gallows for excessive debt and forgery.

William Blake - Poems and Artwork

Cradle Song

Hear the Voice

Jerusalem

The Little Black Boy

Love's Secret

Mad Song

Night

A Poison Tree

The Sick Rose

Songs of Innocence

The Tiger

To Spring

To the Evening Star

To the Muses