William Blake
William Blake (1757-1827)
Selected Poems
British
Romanticism
“To see a world in a grain of sand” opens Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence.” More than any other Romantic poet, Blake’s poems demand the use of the imagination and the willing suspension of disbelief (see Coleridge). For William Blake, from a young age, saw the world differently than his fellow human beings. The young poet, engraver, and painter saw the divine in various forms, such as in visions of angels and departed souls; he enjoyed a genius that many thought bordered on madness. Undaunted by public opinion, Blake espoused his prophetic visions of God, of Heaven and Hell, and of the human being’s place in the realms of mysticism and God’s place in the human mind. In his epic poem Jerusalem, Blake writes,
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination.
Audiences are probably more familiar with his early Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Set up as a set of binaries, in these complementary poems Blake describes visions and events, first from the eyes of an innocent, and then through the adult voice that resonates of resistance to tyranny and cruelty. For all of Blake’s works make some kind of political or social statement, sometimes subtle, but always present.
Blake made a living through his imaginative illustrations and paintings, which may be found today in some of the most prestigious museums in the world.
Consider while reading:
- Discuss the “mind-forged manacles” in Blake’s “London.”
- How does Blake convict organized religion in his “Holy Thursday” poems?
- Discuss the distinct speaker voices in the two “Chimney Sweeper” poems.
- Compare the representation of a divine creator in “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.”
Written by Karen Dodson