Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) Europe_a_Prophecy,_copy_D,_object_1_(Bentley_1,…
WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) 
LIFE
- worked as an engraver all his life.
- visions = works inspired by ‘spirits’
- born in London into a modest family --> poor NO formal education
-
Drawing, engraving and poetry
- 1788 developed an original engraving technique = ‘illuminated printing’ used to engrave all his poems
1789 Songs of Innocence = collection of poems focusing on childhood and innocence.
- Childhood = state of the soul connected with happiness and freedom
-
1790 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell =
- Opposites point of view on the same theme
innocence and experience-->“complementary opposites”
- the two states coexist also in God the Creator.
-
-
Prophetic books = the struggle of the soul.
- Create his own mythology to describe his visions
- Reason is the enemy = INSTITUTIONS Government and Church
- The conditions of the workers are the result of the control of reason over people
STYLE, PATTERN AND LITERARY INFLUENCES:
- The Bible, Milton --- total vision of the world and its history.
- Style = simple and direct, simple vocabulary, everyday language, repetitions. Regular stress
- pattern and rhyme scheme, musical rhythm; familiar metres of ballads and nursery rhymes. But often the
- use of symbolism and abstract concepts= ideas and arguments are very complex
-