William Blake
(1757–1827)

When William Blake was four years old, he screamed because he saw God at his window. At age eight, while walking in the fields, he saw a tree filled with angels. To outside observers, Blake's "spells" might have seemed a cause for grave concern. In the home of his parents—themselves followers of mystical teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg—the boy's "gift of vision" was something to be revered and nurtured. At least partly as a result of the family's way of life, the century and the world received a painter and a poet whose contributions are as rare as they are brilliant.

Blake was born in London, where his father ran a hosiery shop. He was never sent to school but instead, after expressing a desire to become a painter, was apprenticed to an engraver. Ultimately self-taught, he found his way into art and literature.

Between the ages of 12 and 20, Blake wrote a series of poems, Poetical Sketches, that followed the tradition of England lyric poetry, while bringing a new innocence to his subject matter. When he was 32, he published his Songs of Innocence, which he had composed when he was younger and which explored his favorite subject—the destiny of the human spirit. Instead of printing the collection, he developed a unique process whereby the words and illustrations were etched on metal plates with varnish, then painted in by hand. Because the process was time-consuming, few books could be produced, and so to support himself, Blake hired himself out to other authors as an illustrator and sold what he could of his own works for one pound apiece. He also continued to write and in 1794 brought out a companion to Songs of Innocence titled Songs of Experience.

In Songs of Innocence, Blake had suggested that by recapturing the imagination and wonderment of childhood, we could achieve the goal of self-awareness. The poems thus present views of the world as filtered through the eyes and mind of a child. In Songs of Experience he now insisted that a return to innocence was not, at least by itself, sufficient for us to attain an awareness of our true identity—that we must also recognize and attempt to understand the evils around us. Thus Blake's credo was that there must be a union of opposites, a fusion of innocence and experience.

Unrecognized by his peers and living only slightly above poverty level, Blake spent his 70 years in constant creative activity. Only later, many years after his death, was the system behind his work understood. His poetry operates on two levels, one of them symbolic, the other literal. Both of them address a single purpose—the renewal of the human spirit.

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