| 威廉·布萊剋 | |||
閱讀布萊剋 William Blake在诗海的作品!!! | |||
威廉·布萊剋是十九世紀英國浪漫派詩人，主要詩作有詩集《天真之歌》、《經驗之歌》等。 早期作品簡潔明快，中後期作品趨嚮玄妙晦澀，充滿神秘色彩。 威廉·布萊剋(William Blake)的一生極其簡單，也沒有什麽大書特寫之處，衹有一些一直延續的簡單事實和緊迫的藝術創作活動。1757年，他出生於倫敦一個貧寒的襪商家庭。由於個性過於獨特，不喜歡正統學校的壓抑氣氛拒絶入學，因而沒有受過正規教育。他從小就喜歡繪畫和詩歌。11歲起就進入繪畫學校學習了三年並表現出非凡的藝術才能。其父有意讓他師從一位著名的畫傢繼續深造，但他為了家庭及弟妹的前途而主動放棄了這次機會，去雕版印刷作坊當了一名學徒。他的一生便是一方面與妻子相依為命靠繪畫和雕版的勞酬清貧為生，一方面繼續從事12歲就開始的詩歌創作並配上自己的插圖出版。直到1827年8月去世前的幾天，他仍然在工作，“叫人用最後的幾個先令去買碳筆”，畫完最後一幅畫把它放下，說道“我已經盡力而為了”。
談論威廉．布萊剋必然要澄清有關對他的諸多猜測與指責，有人說他是瘋子和魔鬼信仰的杜撰和散播者，像倫敦夜間人們能夠聽到的墓地裏走出的勾小孩子靈魂的新年老人，當然，布萊剋不可能如拉伯雷與阿萊丁諾一樣對世俗做徹底的思考或澄清，也許他是信仰的迷霧，但那也是飽蘸着痛苦和愛的“紫霧”，布萊剋開創了一種藉想象力促成的幻覺而進行的思考，從這一點上看，他啓發了愛米莉迪金森和迪蘭·托馬斯，甚至阿爾蒂爾·蘭波。布萊剋是想象力的先知，和經驗的忠實記錄者，我們寧願把他看成從 “魔鬼作坊”裏衝出來的最優秀的淨化知覺的學徒。
布萊剋最被人們引用和傳誦的，也是後代文學大傢反復贊美的幾首詩歌如《擦煙囪的少年》、《保姆之歌》、《病玫瑰》、《老虎的贊美詩》，皆可以看作構築布萊剋之“天國原形”的一部分，這個自比為以西結的少年，四歲就看到了宗教幻象，並且可以用一種親喃的語言和“白色諸神”寂靜的交談，儘管世風低落，文途滯澀，但布萊剋懷着極大的天真和壯麗的想象力與戰鬥力，投入了類似班揚和馬婁的“世俗反諷”運動中。
這種文藝復興是旨在和針對於時弊而進行的抒情與想象力神話的回歸，這些人對美大加贊美，並加之比喻為自己的面具，而對塵世中的人的命運卻大加傷感，並認為他們破壞了作傢的“美”的面具。於是拉伯雷戴上了諷刺，班揚戴上了布道，馬婁戴上了戲擬與誇張，當然還有一種驚人的反諷，而布萊剋則戴上了天真。
布萊剋在和他相伴一生的鄉村姑娘凱瑟琳的邂逅與共處中，獲悉了平民心中的童話與貞潔，並以此與自身的經驗和想象作為對比，參照了很多從中世紀就開始進行和流傳的童話寓言式寫作，並加上了自己獨一無二的意象創造力，布萊剋為我們留下了最重要的18世紀詩集《天國與地獄的婚姻—想象力的贊美詩》和《天真與經驗之歌》，如果說前者是為結婚後守教的人看的，那麽後者更多是小學生們的新年讀物，或者聖誕老人給大傢的金黃色的發光玩具。但我寧願認為，布萊剋構築了我們世界的宏偉與莊嚴教堂的頂層，在那裏，理想與現實的箴言熠熠閃光，時時為我們提醒着聖母般的潔淨與肅穆。
布萊剋從不否認自己是一個藉天真想象而進行創作的人，但同時代的人除了為他的怪異舉止和熱情四溢的精力而感到睏惑外，還為他的面貌的高深與可敬而感到迷惑。布萊剋顯然不是為屬他的身體命運的那個時代寫作的作傢一樣，同阿蒂爾蘭博一樣，他藉一種基於神秘與夢幻經驗而“對感官不同程度”的擾亂，找到了一條通嚮自由和贊美的 “天國詩歌”的歸依與信仰。也許，這就是布萊剋為我們留下的最重要的經驗與價值，布萊剋“玫瑰的哭嚎”和“真理總是隱藏在瘋狂的暮靄中”的大膽語句，為我們找到了些許從“黑暗的煙囪”延伸到“玫瑰色天國”的神秘體驗路途。
布萊剋的關於：“在荒原盡頭，手指可以觸天”的詩句啓發了西班牙畫傢格列柯和達利，在《柔軟的時間》和《西班牙內戰的諷喻想象》中，達利用天才的化筆表達了對這位十八世紀最偉大詩人的認同與贊美。
英國第一位重要的浪漫主義詩人威廉·布萊剋 WilliamBlake，1757 1827 是一位復雜的多重人物。除了詩人，他同時還是畫傢、雕刻傢。他藝術的一面影響另一面。他用自己發明的方法，把寫的詩和畫的插圖刻在銅板上，然後用這種銅板印成書頁，再給它們塗色。細讀布萊剋的作品，我們可以發現，它們是由圖像和文本結合的整體。文本不僅僅是用來說明圖畫，圖畫也不僅僅是用來表現原文。兩者都需要解釋性或推測性的閱讀。
從童年時代起，布萊剋就充滿了豐富的想像力，並且時常經歷幻想。他說他曾看見過綴滿天使的大樹，曾見到過安葬在威斯敏斯特教堂中的古聖先賢，並給他們畫過畫像。他把自己所看到的一切用繪畫和詩歌表現出來。他的畫大多是經過深思熟慮後的變形人體或表現他幻覺中所見到的人物。如他為自己的詩“歐洲：一個預言”（1794）所作的插圖（見圖1）就是源自他的幻覺。據說，當布萊剋住在蘭伯斯時，他曾站在一個樓梯的頂端，看見過類似的一副幻象出現在空中。從這幅畫面上可以看出：混沌初開，一個裸體老人白發白須飛揚，伏在一個黃邊紅裏的圓形物體內，伸出左手，在用一幅巨大的圓規測量下面的一片沉沉黑暗。這位神秘的老人顯然是《聖經》裏的上帝耶和華。在《舊約·箴言》裏有一段“智慧”所說的話，可以佐證。這幅畫不僅構圖和色彩都帶有一種夢幻般的神秘感，而且用意也不是寫上帝的偉大。它表達的是上帝的邪惡，因為他創造了一個黑暗的世界，那幅圓規看起來像是黑暗的暴風雨之夜霹靂的電光。所以他衹能是邪惡之神。
布萊剋除了自寫自畫之外，還常常為別人的詩文作畫。圖2這幅名為《憐憫》的畫，就是他為莎士比亞的名著《麥剋白》的第一幕第七場所作的插圖。麥剋白在即將弒君奪位時，內心充滿猶豫和矛盾。他說：“憐憫像一個赤條條的在狂風中飄遊的新生兒，又像一個禦氣而行的天嬰，將要把這可憎的行為揭露在每一個人的眼中，使眼淚淹沒天風。”布萊剋在這裏構想了一個神話般的場面：在深沉的夜幕下，“憐憫”這位充滿慈悲的人物，騎着一匹飄逸的白馬“太虛使者”，無聲無息地掠過夜空。大地上躺着一位剛剛生産的母親。她非常虛弱，無力照顧新生的嬰兒。“憐憫”關切地俯下身去，張開雙臂迎接一個新的生命。而這個幼小但充滿活力的新生兒，從大地母親身上一躍而起，撲到“憐憫”的懷中。在“憐憫”的身後，有一個夜的使者，正張開手臂飛翔着，靜靜地掠過夜空。整個畫面顯得那樣寧靜而深沉，充滿着夜的神秘感和博大的包容性。無邊的夜幕，掩蓋着無數的罪惡、不幸、歡樂、憂傷、生命和死亡、溫柔與猙獰······所有的一切，都在它的包容下沉寂，構成了深不可測的神秘內容。
布萊剋一生都保持着宗教、政治和藝術上的激進傾嚮。他濃厚的宗教意識、藝術傢的天分和豐富的人生閱歷，給他的詩歌提供了取之不盡的創作源泉，並使它的詩歌具有明顯的宗教性、預言性、哲理性和藝術性等幾大特點。他對英國詩歌，特別是浪漫主義詩歌所作出的貢獻是有目共睹的。其前期詩作主要包括《詩歌素描》（1783）、《天真之歌》及《經驗之歌》等。這一時期的詩作，語言上簡單易懂，且以短詩為主，音節也能短則短，題材內容則以生活中的所見所聞為主；而後期的詩作篇幅明顯增長，有時長達數百乃至上千行，內容也明顯地晦澀起來，以神秘、宗教，以及象徵為主要特徵。
布萊剋一生都沒有得到官方或公衆的賞識。在當時人們的眼中，它是個反理性主義者、夢幻傢和神秘主義者，一個遠離塵世的人和偏執狂。他的作品沒有受到重視。直到十九、二十世紀之交，葉芝等人重編了他的詩集，人們纔驚訝於他的純真與深刻。接着是他的書信和筆記的發表，他的神啓式的畫也逐漸普及，於是詩人與畫傢布萊剋的地位纔確立無疑。
時至今日，不少批評傢把布萊剋列為英國文學史上與喬叟、斯賓塞、莎士比亞、彌爾頓、華茲華斯齊名的最偉大的六位詩人之一。由於他的畫在文藝復興以後，開啓了不重形似而重精神力量的新路，他又被贊譽為“英國藝術方面最重要的人物之一”。筆者2002年8月至2003年8月在英國劍橋大學訪學期間發現：劍橋大學菲茨威廉博物館（FitzwilliamMuseum）為布萊剋開設了專館，且館藏十分豐富；僅在2002年米迦勒學期（MichaelmasTerm）劍橋大學英文係的課程表中，就有三門有關布萊剋研究的課程，它們是：“威廉·布萊剋”、“布萊剋的復合藝術”（Blake sCompositeArt）和“布萊剋的微細特例”（Blake sMinuteParticulars）。布萊剋的成就及魅力由此可見一斑。正如王佐良教授所斷言的，對於後來者來說，布萊剋是挖掘不盡的———無論從思想、象徵、神話出發，還是從格律、詩藝或繪畫藝術出發，他的作品裏還有大量值得深入研究的東西。他經得起不斷發掘。很可能，今後人們還會從他的作品中發掘出很多新的東西。
威廉·布萊剋(William Blake)（1757年11月28日－1827年8月12日），英國詩人、畫傢，浪漫主義文學代表人物之一。
布萊剋出生於倫敦一個貧寒的襪商家庭，未受過正規教育，14歲當雕版學徒，後於1779年入英國皇傢藝術學院學習美術，1782年結婚。不久以後，布萊剋印刷了自己的第一本詩集——Poetical Sketches。1784年，在父親過世後，布萊剋開始與著名出版商約瑟夫·約翰遜合作。在約翰遜的合作者中包括當時英國許多優秀人物，如：約瑟夫·普萊斯利、瑪莉·渥斯頓剋雷福特和托馬斯·佩恩等等。
布萊剋同瑪莉·渥斯頓剋雷福特很快成為了好友，並應邀為其作品創作插圖。1788年後，他陸續出版了四本詩集。
1825年開始，布萊剋陷入疾病的折磨，之後，他决意要在死去之前完成為但丁神麯的插圖工作，但是直到死去，他也未能完成這一浩大的工程。
Blake's prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the language." His visual artistry has led one modern critic to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced." Although he only once traveled any farther than a day's walk outside London over the course of his life, his creative vision engendered a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced 'imagination' as "the body of God," or "Human existence itself."
Once considered mad for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical and mystical currents that underlie his work. His work has been characterized as part of the Romantic movement, or even "Pre-Romantic," for its largely having appeared in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the established Church, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Emanuel Swedenborg.
Despite these known influences, the originality and singularity of Blake's work make it difficult to classify. One 19th century scholar characterised Blake as a "glorious luminary," "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors."
Early life
The archetype of the Creator is a familiar image in Blake's work. Here, the demiurgic figure Urizen prays before the world he has forged. The Song of Los is the third in a series of illuminated books painted by Blake and his wife, collectively known as the Continental Prophecies.William Blake was born in 28A Broad Street, Golden Square, London, England on 28 November 1757, to a middle-class family. He was the third of six children, two of whom died in infancy. Blake's father, James, was a hosier. He never attended school, being educated at home by his mother. The Blakes were Dissenters, and are believed to have belonged to the Moravian Church. The Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a source of inspiration throughout his life.
Blake began engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father, a practice that was then preferred to actual drawing. Within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms, through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Marten Heemskerk and Albrecht Dürer. His parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but was instead enrolled in drawing classes. He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake was also making explorations into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson and Edmund Spenser.
Apprenticeship to Basire
On 4 August 1772, Blake became apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street, for the term of seven years. At the end of this period, at the age of 21, he was to become a professional engraver.
There is no record of any serious disagreement or conflict between the two during the period of Blake's apprenticeship. However, Peter Ackroyd's biography notes that Blake was later to add Basire's name to a list of artistic adversaries—and then cross it out. This aside, Basire's style of engraving was of a kind held to be old-fashioned at the time, and Blake's instruction in this outmoded form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life.
After two years Basire sent him to copy images from the Gothic churches in London (it is possible that this task was set in order to break up a quarrel between Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice), and his experiences in Westminster Abbey contributed to the formation of his artistic style and ideas; the Abbey of his day was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies and varicoloured waxworks. Ackroyd notes that "the most immediate [impression] would have been of faded brightness and colour". In the long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the Abbey, he was occasionally interrupted by the boys of Westminster School, one of whom "tormented" Blake so much one afternoon that he knocked the boy off a scaffold to the ground, "upon which he fell with terrific Violence". Blake beheld more visions in the Abbey, of a great procession of monks and priests, while he heard "the chant of plain-song and chorale".
The Royal Academy
In 1778, Blake became a student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period. There, he rebelled against what he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable painters such as Rubens, championed by the school's first president, Joshua Reynolds. Over time, Blake came to detest Reynolds' attitude toward art, especially his pursuit of "general truth" and "general beauty". Reynolds wrote in his Discourses that the "disposition to abstractions, to generalizing and classification, is the great glory of the human mind"; Blake responded, in marginalia to his personal copy, that "To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit". Blake also disliked Reynolds' apparent humility, which he held to be a form of hypocrisy. Against Reynolds' fashionable oil painting, Blake preferred the Classical precision of his early influences, Michelangelo and Raphael.
Gordon Riots
Blake's first biographer Alexander Gilchrist records that in June 1780, Blake was walking towards Basire's shop in Great Queen Street when he was swept up by a rampaging mob that stormed Newgate Prison in London. They attacked the prison gates with shovels and pickaxes, set the building ablaze, and released the prisoners inside. Blake was reportedly in the front rank of the mob during this attack. These riots, in response to a parliamentary bill revoking sanctions against Roman Catholicism, later came to be known as the Gordon Riots; they provoked a flurry of legislation from the government of George III, as well as the creation of the first police force.
Despite Gilchrist's insistence that Blake was "forced" to accompany the crowd, some biographers have argued that he accompanied it impulsively, or supported it as a revolutionary act. In contrast, Jerome McGann argues that the riots were reactionary, and that events would have provoked "disgust" in Blake.
Marriage and early career
Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing (1786)In 1782, Blake met John Flaxman, who was to become his patron, and Catherine Boucher, who was to become his wife. At the time, Blake was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. Telling Catherine and her parents the story, she expressed her sympathy, whereupon Blake asked her, "Do you pity me?" To Catherine's affirmative response he responded, "Then I love you." Blake married Catherine – who was five years his junior – on 18 August 1782 in St. Mary's Church, Battersea. Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an 'X'. Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her as an engraver; throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aid to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous misfortunes.
At this time George Cumberland, one of the founders of the National Gallery, became an admirer of Blake's work. Blake's first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches, was published around 1783. After his father's death, William and his brother Robert opened a print shop in 1784, and began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson. Johnson's house was a place of meeting for some of the leading intellectual dissidents of the time in England: Joseph Priestley, scientist; Richard Price, philosopher; John Henry Fuseli; Mary Wollstonecraft, an early feminist; and Thomas Paine, American revolutionary. Along with William Wordsworth and William Godwin, Blake had great hopes for the American and French revolution and wore a Phrygian cap in solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in the French revolution.
Blake illustrated Original Stories from Real Life (1788; 1791) by Mary Wollstonecraft. They seem to have shared some views on sexual equality and the institution of marriage, but there is no evidence proving without doubt that they actually met. In 1793's Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfillment.
Relief etching
Blake's Newton (1795) demonstrates his opposition to the "single-vision" of scientific materialism: Newton fixes his eye on a compass (recalling Proverbs 8:27, an important passage for Milton) to write upon a scroll which seems to project from his own head.In 1788, at the age of 31, Blake began to experiment with relief etching, a method he would use to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and of course his poems, including his longer 'prophecies' and his masterpiece the "Bible." The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and final products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts. He then etched the plates in acid in order to dissolve away the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief (hence the name).
This is a reversal of the normal method of etching, where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio method. Relief etching, which Blake invented, later became an important commercial printing method. The pages printed from these plates then had to be hand-coloured in water colours and stitched together to make up a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including Songs of Innocence and Experience, The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and Jerusalem.
Later life and career
Blake's marriage to Catherine remained a close and devoted one until his death. There were early problems such as Catherine's illiteracy and the couple's failure to produce children . Gilchrist refers to "stormy times" in the early years of the marriage. It is possible that at one point, in accordance with the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society, Blake suggested bringing in a concubine. Catherine was distressed at the idea, and Blake promptly withdrew it. Blake taught her to write, and she helped him to colour his printed poems.
Felpham
Hecate, 1795. Blake's vision of Hecate, Greek goddess of black magic and the underworldIn 1800, Blake moved to a cottage at Felpham in Sussex (now West Sussex) to take up a job illustrating the works of William Hayley, a minor poet. It was in this cottage that Blake wrote Milton: a Poem (published between 1805 and 1808). The preface to this work includes a poem beginning "And did those feet in ancient time", which became the words for the anthem, "Jerusalem". Over time, Blake came to resent his new patron, coming to believe that Hayley was disinterested in true artistry, and preoccupied with "the meer drudgery of business". Blake's disenchantment with Hayley has been speculated to have influenced Milton: a Poem, in which Blake wrote that "Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies" (3:26).
Blake's trouble with authority came to a head in August 1803, when he was involved in a physical altercation with a soldier called John Schofield. Blake was charged not only with assault, but also with uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the King. Schofield claimed that Blake had exclaimed, "Damn the king. The soldiers are all slaves." Blake would be cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges. According to a report in the Sussex county paper, "The invented character of [the evidence] was... so obvious that an acquittal resulted." Schofield was later depicted wearing "mind forged manacles" in an illustration to Jerusalem.
Return to London
Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun (1805) is one of a series of illustrations of Revelation 12.Blake returned to London in 1804 and began to write and illustrate Jerusalem (1804–1820), his most ambitious work. Having conceived the idea of portraying the characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, Blake approached the dealer Robert Cromek, with a view to marketing an engraving. Knowing that Blake was too eccentric to produce a popular work, Cromek promptly commissioned Thomas Stothard to execute the concept. When Blake learned that he had been cheated, he broke off contact with Stothard, formerly a friend. He also set up an independent exhibition in his brother's shop, designed to market his own version of the Chaucer illustration, along with other works. As a result he wrote his Descriptive Catalogue (1809), which contains what Anthony Blunt has called a "brilliant analysis" of Chaucer. It is regularly anthologised as a classic of Chaucer criticism. It also contained detailed explanations of his other paintings.
He was introduced by George Cumberland to a young artist named John Linnell. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer, who belonged to a group of artists who called themselves the Shoreham Ancients. This group shared Blake's rejection of modern trends and his belief in a spiritual and artistic New Age. At the age of 65 Blake began work on illustrations for the Book of Job. These works were later admired by Ruskin, who compared Blake favourably to Rembrandt, and by Vaughan Williams, who based his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing on a __select__ion of the illustrations.
Later in his life Blake began to sell a great number of his works, particularly his Bible illustrations, to Thomas Butts, a patron who saw Blake more as a friend than a man whose work held artistic merit; this was typical of the opinions held of Blake throughout his life.
Dante's Inferno
The commission for Dante's Inferno came to Blake in 1826 through Linnell, with the ultimate aim of producing a series of engravings. Blake's death in 1827 would cut short the enterprise, and only a handful of the watercolours were completed, with only seven of the engravings arriving at proof form. Even so, they have evoked praise:
'[T]he Dante watercolours are among Blake's richest achievements, engaging fully with the problem of illustrating a poem of this complexity. The mastery of watercolour has reached an even higher level than before, and is used to extraordinary effect in differentiating the atmosphere of the three states of being in the poem'.
Blake's The Lovers' Whirlwind illustrates Hell in Canto V of Dante's InfernoBlake's illustrations of the poem are not merely accompanying works, but rather seem to critically revise, or furnish commentary on, certain spiritual or moral aspects of the text. In illustrating Paradise Lost, for instance, Blake seemed intent on revising Milton's focus on Satan as the central figure of the epic; for example, in Satan Watching the Endearments of Adam and Eve (1808), Satan occupies an isolated position at the picture's top, with Adam and Eve centered below. As if to emphasise the effects of the juxtaposition, Blake has shown Adam and Eve caught in an embrace, whereas Satan may only onanistically caress the serpent, whose identity he is close to assuming.
In this instance, because the project was never completed, Blake's intent may itself be obscured. Some indicators, however, bolster the impression that Blake's illustrations in their totality would themselves take issue with the text they accompany: In the margin of Homer Bearing the Sword and His Companions, Blake notes, "Every thing in Dantes Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All & the Goddess Nature & not the Holy Ghost." Blake seems to dissent from Dante's admiration of the poetic works of the ancient Greeks, and from the apparent glee with which Dante allots punishments in Hell (as evidenced by the grim humour of the cantos).
At the same time, Blake shared Dante's distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power, and clearly relished the opportunity to represent the atmosphere and imagery of Dante's work pictorially. Even as he seemed to near death, Blake's central preoccupation was his feverish work on the illustrations to Dante's Inferno; he is said to have spent one of the very last shillings he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching.
Blake's death
Monument near Blake's unmarked grave in LondonOn the day of his death, Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside. Beholding her, Blake is said to have cried, "Stay Kate! Keep just as you are – I will draw your portrait – for you have ever been an angel to me." Having completed this portrait (now lost), Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses. At six that evening, after promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died. Gilchrist reports that a female lodger in the same house, present at his expiration, said, "I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel."
Since 1965, the exact location of William Blake's grave had been lost and forgotten, while gravestones were taken away to create a new lawn. Nowadays, William Blake’s grave is commemorated by a stone that reads 'nearby lie the remains of William Blake and his wife Catherine Sophia'. This memorial stone is situated approximately 20 metres away from William Blake’s grave. The actual spot of Blake’s grave is not marked.
George Richmond gives the following account of Blake's death in a letter to Samuel Palmer:
“ He died... in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see & expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ — Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten'd and he burst out Singing of the things he saw in Heaven. ”
Catherine paid for Blake's funeral with money lent to her by Linnell. He was buried five days after his death – on the eve of his forty-fifth wedding anniversary – at the Dissenter's burial ground in Bunhill Fields, where his parents were also interred. Present at the ceremonies were Catherine, Edward Calvert, George Richmond, Frederick Tatham and John Linnell. Following Blake's death, Catherine moved into Tatham's house as a housekeeper. During this period, she believed she was regularly visited by Blake's spirit. She continued selling his illuminated works and paintings, but would entertain no business transaction without first "consulting Mr. Blake". On the day of her own death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful as her husband, and called out to him "as if he were only in the next room, to say she was coming to him, and it would not be long now".
On her death, Blake's manuscripts were inherited by Frederick Tatham, who burned several of those which he deemed heretical or too politically radical. Tatham had become an Irvingite, one of the many fundamentalist movements of the 19th century, and was severely opposed to any work that smacked of blasphemy. Sexual imagery in a number of Blake's drawings was also erased by John Linnell. Blake is now recognised as a saint in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. The Blake Prize for Religious Art was established in his honour in Australia in 1949. In 1957 a memorial was erected in Westminster Abbey, in memory of him and his wife.
Blake and religion
Blake's Ancient of Days. The "Ancient of Days" is described in Chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel.Although Blake's attacks on conventional religion were shocking in his own day, his rejection of religiosity was not a rejection of religion per se. His view of orthodoxy is evident in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a series of texts written in imitation of Biblical prophecy. Therein, Blake lists several Proverbs of Hell, amongst which are the following:
Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion.
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
In The Everlasting Gospel, Blake does not present Jesus as a philosopher or traditional messianic figure but as a supremely creative being, above dogma, logic and even morality:
If he had been Antichrist, Creeping Jesus,
He'd have done anything to please us:
Gone sneaking into the Synagogues
And not used the Elders & Priests like Dogs,
But humble as a Lamb or an Ass,
Obey himself to Caiaphas.
God wants not man to humble himself
Jesus, for Blake, symbolises the vital relationship and unity between divinity and humanity: all had originally one language and one religion: this was the religion of Jesus, the everlasting Gospel. Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus. Blake designed his own mythology, which appears largely in his prophetic books. Within these Blake describes a number of characters, including 'Urizen', 'Enitharmon', 'Bromion' and 'Luvah'. This mythology seems to have a basis in the Bible and in Greek mythology, and it accompanies his ideas about the everlasting Gospel.
"I must Create a System, or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason & Compare; my business is to Create."
Words uttered by Los in Blake's Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion.
One of Blake's strongest objections to orthodox Christianity is that he felt it encouraged the suppression of natural desires and discouraged earthly joy. In A Vision of the Last Judgement, Blake says that:
“ Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & govern'd their Passions or have No Passions, but because they have Cultivated their Understandings. The Treasures of Heaven are not Negations of Passion, but Realities of Intellect, from which all the Passions Emanate Uncurbed in their Eternal Glory. ”
One may also note his words concerning religion in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:
“ All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.
1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.
2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.
But the following Contraries to these are True
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight. ”
The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, c. 1825. Watercolour on wood.Blake does not subscribe to the notion of a distinct body from the soul, and which must submit to the rule of soul, but rather sees body as an extension of soul derived from the 'discernment' of the senses. Thus, the emphasis orthodoxy places upon the denial of bodily urges is a dualistic error born of misapprehension of the relationship between body and soul; elsewhere, he describes Satan as the 'State of Error', and as being beyond salvation.
Blake opposed the sophistry of theological thought that excuses pain, admits evil and apologises for injustice. He abhorred self-denial, which he associated with religious repression and particularly with sexual repression: "Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. / He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence." He saw the concept of 'sin' as a trap to bind men’s desires (the briars of Garden of Love), and believed that restraint in obedience to a moral code imposed from the outside was against the spirit of life:
Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
But Desire Gratified
Plants fruits & beauty there.
He did not hold with the doctrine of God as Lord, an entity separate from and superior to mankind; this is shown clearly in his words about Jesus Christ: "He is the only God... and so am I, and so are you." A telling phrase in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is "men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast". This is very much in line with his belief in liberty and equality in society and between the sexes.
Assessment
Creative mindset
Northrop Frye, commenting on Blake's consistency in strongly held views, notes that Blake "himself says that his notes on [Joshua] Reynolds, written at fifty, are 'exactly Similar' to those on Locke and Bacon, written when he was 'very Young'. Even phrases and lines of verse will reappear as much as forty years later. Consistency in maintaining what he believed to be true was itself one of his leading principles... Consistency, then, foolish or otherwise, is one of Blake's chief preoccupations, just as 'self-contradiction' is always one of his most contemptuous comments".
Blake's "A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows", an illustration to J. G. Stedman's Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).Blake abhorred slavery and believed in racial and sexual equality. Several of his poems and paintings express a notion of universal humanity: "As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various)". In one poem, narrated by a black child, white and black bodies alike are described as shaded groves or clouds, which exist only until one learns "to bear the beams of love":
When I from black, and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy,
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our Father's knee;
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
Blake retained an active interest in social and political events for all his life, often cloaking social and political statements in mystical allegory. His views on what he saw as oppression and restriction of rightful freedom extended to the Church. His spiritual beliefs are evidenced in Songs of Experience (1794), in which he distinguishes between the Old Testament God, whose restrictions he rejected, and the New Testament God (Jesus Christ in Trinitarianism), whom he saw as a positive influence.
Blake's visions
From a young age, William Blake claimed to have seen visions. The earliest of these visions may have occurred as early as the age of four when, according to one anecdote, the young artist "saw God" when God "put his head to the window", causing Blake to break into screaming. At the age of eight or ten in Peckham Rye, London, Blake claimed to have seen "a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars." According to Blake's Victorian biographer Gilchrist, he returned home and reported this vision, and he only escaped being thrashed by his father for telling a lie through the intervention of his mother. Though all evidence suggests that his parents were largely supportive, his mother seems to have been especially so, and several of Blake's early drawings and poems decorated the walls of her chamber. On another occasion, Blake watched haymakers at work, and thought he saw angelic figures walking among them.
Blake claimed to experience visions throughout his life. They were often associated with beautiful religious themes and imagery, and therefore may have inspired him further with spiritual works and pursuits. Certainly, religious concepts and imagery figure centrally in Blake's works. God and Christianity constituted the intellectual center of his writings, from which he drew inspiration. In addition, Blake believed that he was personally instructed and encouraged by Archangels to create his artistic works, which he claimed were actively read and enjoyed by those same Archangels. In a letter to William Hayley, dated May 6, 1800, Blake writes:
I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part. Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, in the region of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write from his dictate.
The Ghost of a Flea, 1819-1820. Having informed painter-astrologer John Varley of his visions of apparitions, Blake was subsequently persuaded to paint one of them. Varley's anecdote of Blake and his vision of the flea's ghost became well-known.In a letter to John Flaxman, dated September 21, 1800, Blake writes:
[The town of] Felpham is a sweet place for Study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden Gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, & their forms more distinctly seen; & my Cottage is also a Shadow of their houses. My Wife & Sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace... I am more famed in Heaven for my works than I could well conceive. In my Brain are studies & Chambers filled with books & pictures of old, which I wrote & painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life; & those works are the delight & Study of Archangels.
In a letter to Thomas Butts, dated April 25, 1803, Blake writes:
Now I may say to you, what perhaps I should not dare to say to anyone else: That I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoy'd, & that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, See Visions, Dream Dreams & prophecy & speak Parables unobserv'd & at liberty from the Doubts of other Mortals; perhaps Doubts proceeding from Kindness, but Doubts are always pernicious, Especially when we Doubt our Friends.
In A Vision of the Last Judgement Blake writes:
Error is Created. Truth is Eternal. Error, or Creation, will be Burned up, & then, & not till Then, Truth or Eternity will appear. It is Burnt up the Moment Men cease to behold it. I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation & that to me it is hindrance & not Action; it is as the Dirt upon my feet, No part of Me. "What," it will be Question'd, "When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?" Oh no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty.' I question not my Corporeal or Vegetative Eye any more than I would Question a Window concerning Sight. I look thro' it & not with it.
William Wordsworth remarked, "There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott."
Blake in popular culture
Main article: William Blake in popular culture
In addition to his influence on writers and artists, Blake's role as a song-writer and as an exponent of sexual and imaginative freedom have made him an influential figure in popular culture, especially since the 1960s. Far more than any other canonical writer his songs have been set and adapted by popular musicians including Mike Westbrook, U2, Van Morrison, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Bruce Dickinson, David Axelrod, Mark E. Smith and Kathleen Yearwood. Folk musicians have adapted his work, and figures such as Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg have been influenced by him. The genre of the graphic novel traces its origins to Blake's etched songs and Prophetic Books. Children's author Maurice Sendak and exponents such as Grant Morrison, Robert Crumb, and J.M. DeMatteis have all cited Blake as one of their major inspirations.
Bibliography
Illuminated books
c.1788: All Religions Are One
There Is No Natural Religion
1789: Songs of Innocence
The Book of Thel
1790–1793: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
1793: Visions of the Daughters of Albion
America: a Prophecy
1794: Europe: a Prophecy
The First Book of Urizen
Songs of Experience
1795: The Book of Los
The Song of Los
The Book of Ahania
c.1804–c.1811: Milton: a Poem
1804–1820: Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion
Non-Illuminated
1783: Poetical Sketches
1789: Tiriel
1791: The French Revolution
1797: The Four Zoas
Illustrated by Blake
1791: Mary Wollstonecraft, Original Stories from Real Life
1797: Edward Young, Night Thoughts
1805-1808: Robert Blair, The Grave
1808: John Milton, Paradise Lost
1819-1820: John Varley, Visionary Heads
1821: R.J. Thornton, Virgil
1823-1826: The Book of Job
1825-1827: Dante, The Divine Comedy (Blake died in 1827 with these watercolours still unfinished)
On Blake
Peter Ackroyd (1995). Blake. Sinclair-Stevenson. ISBN 1-85619-278-4.
Donald Ault (1974). Visionary Physics: Blake's Response to Newton. University of Chicago. ISBN 0-226-03225-6.
(1987). Narrative Unbound: Re-Visioning William Blake's The Four Zoas. Station Hill Press. ISBN-10 1886449759.
G.E. Bentley Jr. (2001). The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08939-2.
Harold Bloom (1963). Blake’s Apocalypse. Doubleday.
Jacob Bronowski (1972). William Blake and the Age of Revolution. Routledge and K. Paul. ISBN 0-7100-7277-5 (hardcover) ISBN 0-7100-7278-3 (pbk.)
(1967). William Blake, 1757-1827; a man without a mask. Haskell House Publishers.
G. K. Chesterton (1920s). William Blake. House of Stratus ISBN 0-7551-0032-8.
S. Foster Damon (1979). A Blake Dictionary. Shambhala. ISBN 0-394-73688-5.
David V. Erdman (1977). Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of the History of His Own Times. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-486-26719-9.
Irving Fiske (1951). "Bernard Shaw's Debt to William Blake." (Shaw Society)
Northrop Frye (1947). Fearful Symmetry. Princeton Univ Press. ISBN 0-691-06165-3.
Alexander Gilchrist, Life and Works of William Blake, (second edition, London, 1880)
James King (1991). William Blake: His Life. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-07572-3.
Benjamin Heath Malkin (1806). A Father's Memoirs of his Child.
Peter Marshall (1988). William Blake: Visionary Anarchist ISBN 0-900384-77-8
W.J.T. Mitchell (1978). Blake's Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-691-01402-7.
Victor N. Paananen (1996). William Blake. Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-7053-4.
George Anthony Rosso Jr. (1993). Blake's Prophetic Workshop: A Study of The Four Zoas. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0-8387-5240-3.
Sheila A. Spector (2001). "Wonders Divine": the development of Blake's Kabbalistic myth, (Bucknell UP)
Algernon Swinburne, William Blake: A Critical Essay, (London, 1868)
E.P. Thompson (1993). Witness against the Beast. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-22515-9.
W. M. Rosetti (editor), Poetical Works of William Blake, (London, 1874)
A. G. B. Russell (1912). Engravings of William Blake.
Basil de Sélincourt, William Blake, (London, 1909)
Joseph Viscomi (1993). Blake and the Idea of the Book, (Princeton UP). ISBN 0-691-06962-X.
David Weir (2003). Brahma in the West: William Blake and the Oriental Renaissance, (SUNY Press)
Jason Whittaker (1999). William Blake and the Myths of Britain, (Macmillan)
William Butler Yeats (1903). Ideas of Good and Evil. Contains essays.
References
^ Frye, Northrop and Denham, Robert D. Collected Works of Northrop Frye. 2006, page 11-2.
^ Jones, Jonathan (2005-04-25). Blake's heaven. The Guardian.
^ Thomas, Edward. A Literary Pilgrim in England. 1917, page 3.
^ Yeats, W. B. The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats. 2007, page 85.
^ Wilson, Mona. The Life of William Blake. The Nonesuch Press, 1927. p.167.
^ The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge. 2004, page 351.
^ Blake, William. Blake's "America, a Prophecy"; And, "Europe, a Prophecy". 1984, page 2.
^ Kazin, Alfred (1997). An Introduction to William Blake. Retrieved on 2006-09-23.
^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, page xi.
^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, page xiii.
^ a b c Bentley, Gerald Eades and Bentley Jr., G. William Blake: The Critical Heritage. 1995, page 34-5.
^ Raine, Kathleen (1970). World of Art: William Blake. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20107-2.
^ 43, Blake, Peter Ackroyd, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995
^ Blake, William. The Poems of William Blake. 1893, page xix.
^ 44, Blake, Ackroyd
^ Blake, William and Tatham, Frederick. The Letters of William Blake: Together with a Life. 1906, page 7.
^ Erdman, David V. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, 2nd edition, p641. ISBN 0-385-15213-2.
^ Gilchrist, A, The Life of William Blake, London, 1842, p. 30
^ Erdman, David, Prophet Against Empire, p. 9
^ McGann, J. "Did Blake Betray the French Revolution", Presenting Poetry: Composition, Publication, Reception, Cambridge University Press, 1995, p.128
^ Biographies of William Blake and Henry Fuseli, retrieved on May 31st 2007.
^ Baker-Smith, Dominic. Between Dream and Nature: Essays on Utopia and Dystopia. 1987, page 163.
^ Kaiser, Christopher B. Creational Theology and the History of Physical Science. 1997, page 328.
^ Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, 1863, p. 316
^ Schuchard, MK, Why Mrs Blake Cried, Century, 2006, p. 3
^ Bentley, G. E, Blake Records, p 341
^ a b Blake, William. Milton a Poem, and the Final Illuminated Works. 1998, page 14-5.
^ Wright, Thomas. Life of William Blake. 2003, page 131.
^ The Gothic Life of William Blake: 1757-1827
^ Lucas, E.V. (1904). Highways and byways in Sussex. Macmillan. ASIN B-0008-5GBS-C.
^ Peterfreund, Stuart, The Din of the City in Blake's Prophetic Books, ELH - Volume 64, Number 1, Spring 1997, pp. 99-130
^ Blunt, Anthony, The Art of William Blake, p 77
^ Bindman, David. "Blake as a Painter" in The Cambridge Guide to William Blake, Morris Eaves (ed.), Cambridge, 2003, p. 106
^ Blake Records, p. 341
^ Ackroyd, Blake, 389
^ Gilchrist, The Life of William Blake, London, 1863, 405
^ Grigson, Samuel Palmer, p. 38
^ Ackroyd, Blake, 390
^ Blake Records, p. 410
^ Ackroyd, Blake, p. 391
^ Marsha Keith Schuchard, Why Mrs Blake Cried: Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual Basis of Spiritual Vision, pp. 1-20
^ Tate UK. William Blake's London. Retrieved on 2006-08-26.
^ "a personal mythology parallel to the Old Testament and Greek mythology"; Bonnefoy, Yves. Roman and European Mythologies. 1992, page 265.
^ Damon, Samuel Foster (1988). A Blake Dictionary (Revised Edition). Brown University Press, 358. ISBN 0874514363.
^ Makdisi, Saree. William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s. 2003, page 226-7.
^ Altizer, Thomas J.J. The New Apocalypse: The Radical Christian Vision of William Blake. 2000, page 18.
^ Blake, William. Proverbs of Hell, via The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. 1982, page 35.
^ Blake, Gerald Eades Bentley (1975). William Blake: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge & K. Paul, 30. ISBN 0710082347.
^ Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake, 1947, Princeton University Press
^ William Blake's Ecofeminism, retrieved on May 31st 2007.
^ Blake, William and Rossetti, William Michael. The Poetical Works of William Blake: Lyrical and Miscellaneous. 1890, page 81-2.
^ a b c Bentley, Gerald Eades and Bentley Jr., G. William Blake: The Critical Heritage. 1995, page 36-7.
^ a b Langridge, Irene. William Blake: A Study of His Life and Art Work. 1904, page 48-9.
^ Blake, William. Complete Writings with Variant Readings. 1969, page 617.
^ John Ezard (2004-07-06). Blake's vision on show. The Guardian. Retrieved on 2008-03-24.
^ Jay Shukla, William Blake - The Divine Image