1757-1827, English poet, artist, engraver, publisher and visionary mystic
He had no formal education to speak of. His father was a hosier. At an early age he became an apprentice to an Engraver. He is regarded now as being one of the earliest and greatest figures of English Romanticism. The first book, Poetical Sketches 1783. Songs of Innocence 1789 and Songs of Experience 1794, containing The Lamb, The Tyger, and London, are written from a child's point of view. In the 'Prophetic Books', including The Book of Thel 1787, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Milton (book) 1804-8, and Jerusalem (book) 1804-20, he created his own mythology. All his works were largely ignored and/or dismissed until years after his death. He was considered to be mad because he was single-minded and unworldly; he lived and died in poverty (not unlike Mozart.)
He wrote:
Related Nodes:
See
William Wordsworth,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Mary Wollstonecraft,
William Godwin
Source:
http://www.english.uga.edu/wblake/home1.html
Welleck, Rene, Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, The, W. W. Norton and Co., N.Y.1985
Last Updated 04.21.04