William Blake: Sane or Mad?
"[There] is no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in his madness which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott," William Wordsworth said in reference to William Blake. Blake, unlike other writers, was born and lived in moderate ways, with many talents; he lived throughout the romantic period, and wrote many of the greatest and controversial poems of his time including "The Lamb" and "The Tyger." These poems are from two books known as the Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake, as well as a writer was also a very great painter, engraver, and printer. William Blake failed to receive the credit he deserved until long after his death. William Blake was born the second of five children in London on November 28, 1757. Blake was son to James Blake, a hosier, and Catherine Blake. He lived most of his life in poverty. At an early age Blake was an apprentice to James Basire, an engraver, which encouraged Blake to enroll in his only formal schooling at the Royal Academy of Arts for a very short period of time. In 1782 William Blake married Catherine Boucher, a daughter of a market gardener. Catherine was illiterate and she signed the marriage certi
William Blake lived during a time of intense social change. Before this time goods were made by hand, at home, as opposed to the new way of factories where machines could work faster than human hands. Many people that read and saw only Blake's poems and paintings thought Blake to be mad, because they didn't see the work the same as Blake had intended. The Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Expressions were two books with sets of poems that William Blake published. The first generation, which Blake was a part of, looked at Milton and Shakespeare for their inspiration. William Blake had many of his own styles, used through out his writings. " Anderson describes pass over as being when the Israelites spread blood of a lamb on their door posts so the angel of God would "pass over" their homes and not kill their first born sons (622). William Blake's art and motive were to change the way that people "see" and to open up new worlds to them. " Blake describes the joy of these little children that he writes about and how clueless they are of the world around them. The period was split up into two generation of writers, the first including Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. This vision was seen shortly after he received a leashing from his father for telling a lie. Blake was very philosophical and poetic. " If you were to take the quote literally rather than philosophically it would mean nothing, but Blake is meaning for the "He" to be Jesus Christ. After this occurrence Blake collapsed into a sleep for 3 days and 3 nights which led him to believe more firmly in the existence of a spiritual world. " "Dare" emphasizes the courage and divine of the creator.
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Acceptance Essays
