University of Education Lahore

Department of English

Course Title: English Poetry:18th_19th Century

Programme: M.A English

Course Code: ENGL 3123

Instructor Name: Farkhanda Aziz

William Blake

1. Biography

2. Blake as representative of age

3. Writing style

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Biography

• Born (1757-11-28)28 November 1757

Soho, London, England
• Died 12 August 1827(1827-08-12) (aged 69)
Charing Cross, London, England
• Occupation Poet, painter, printmaker
• Genre Visionary, poetry
• Literary movement Romanticism
• Spouse Catherine Boucher

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William Blake: Biography

• William Blake worked to bring about a change both in the social

order and in the minds of men.

• Earlier his work was largely neglected or dismissed

• Now considered one of the leading lights of English poetry,

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Biography

• Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry

and visual arts of the Romantic Age.

• His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim

him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".

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Biography

• In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100

Greatest Britons.

• While he lived in London his entire life,he produced a diverse and

symbolically rich pieces of poetry, which embraced the imagination as

"the body of God"[ or "human existence itself".

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Biography

• In 1784, he set up a print shop.

• but within a few years the business floundered and for the rest of his
life Blake eked out a living as an engraver and illustrator.

• His wife, Catharine, whom he married in 1782, remained faithful and

diligent. helped him to print the illuminated poetry for which he is
remembered today.

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Biography

• In 1789, he published his Songs of Innocence, the gentlest of his lyrics,

but the collection was followed by Songs of Experience, containing a

profound expression of adult corruption and repression.

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Biography

• His long list of works shows relentless energy and drive.

• As one of the most complex writers known, it is impossible to

summarise his career - he was a combination of extremes.

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Biography

• His vision of civilisation as inevitably chaotic and contradictory mirrors

the political turmoil of his era.

• It is only in retrospect that we can begin to appreciate his work and

unravel its complex and allusive sources

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William Blake

• He was a very mystical man Some believed he was crazy

• Religion had strong influence on Blake

• In terms of his work, Blake’s work is rebellious in character

• This would align Blake to the other Romantic writers as champions of
personal of Freedom

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Notable works

• Songs of Innocence and of Experience,

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,

• The Four Zoas, Jerusalem, Milton,

• "And did those feet in ancient time"

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Romantic Movement

• The Romantic Movement began at the end of 18th century and at the
beginning of 19th century.

• It was a deliberate revolt against the literary principles of the age of

reason. Just as, Dryden and Pope rejected the romantic tradition of
Elizabethans and followed classical and French New- Classical
masters.

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Continue…

• Similarly Wordsworth and his followers rejected the neo-classical

principles in favor of romantic ideals.

• In a sense the 19th century romantic poets were reverting to the

Elizabethan or to the first romantic age in English literature.

• However, 19th century romantic poets are different from the

Elizabethan in their attitude to external nature.

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Continue…

• Wordsworth and his followers in the 19th century appeared with the
freedom of imagination and passionate attitude towards nature.
• In fact, the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and
Coleridge in 1798, officially announces the beginning of Romantic
Movement. Lyrical Ballads: a monumental document of Romantic
Movement.
• The poets who followed Wordsworth's lead in the Romantic
Movement are Coleridge, Shelley, Keats and Byron but each of them
was individual in dealing with their theme and subject.

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Continue…

• Moreover , Wordsworth in the "Preface of the Lyrical Ballads"

explains that
• the principal objects of romantic poetry was to choose incidents
• and situation from common life and
• to relate them in a selection of language really used by man and
• at the same time to throw over them a certain coloring of
imagination.

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Continue…

• Thus, ordinary things would appear extraordinary and unusual.

• It is to be noted that the success of French Revolution, the prolonged

struggle of England and Europe against Napoleon, influenced the new
band of poets and they advocated liberalism and democracy.
• As a result, in the works of the romantic poets, we notice love for
ordinary aspects of life and for humanity in general.

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Romanticism

• The Romantic Movement brought about a change in the taste of

public regarding poets and poetry.

• Romantic poets took poetry to the door step of the common man.
• Romanticism was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual
movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th
century.

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Continue…

• Romanticism in English literature began in the 1790s with the

publication of the "Lyrical Ballads" of William Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

• Wordsworth's "Preface" to the second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads

in which he described poetry as –
• "The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, it takes its origin in
emotion recollected in tranquility".
.

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Continues…

• Wordsworth and his English contemporaries such as Coleridge, John

Keats, Percy Shelley and William Blake wrote poetry

• that was meant to boil up from serious, contemplative reflection over

the interaction of humans with their environment.
• Indeed, Coleridge in on poesy or art, sees art as "The mediatress
between and reconciler of nature and man".

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Romanticism…

• The most outstanding theme was respect for nature

• This is not surprise as the Romantic movement was propelled

forward in response to England’s Industrial Revolution

• which not only exploited women and children

• but poisoned the environment with pollution

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Continue…

• It should be remembered that all these features are not found in

every romantic poet.
• Blake’s poetry reflects simplicity of language and desire for a better
society;
• Wordsworth's poetry is known for love of nature and common man;
in Coleridge's poetry supernaturalism is a dominant feature;
• Keats poetry reflects Hellenism;
• in Shelley and Byron revolutionary zeal is remarkable.
Continues…

• High imagination,
• use of simple language and
• sympathy for common people is common in the writing of all these
poets.
 Characteristics of Romantic Writings
• Back From Set Rules /Interest in set rules

• Common life

• Love of liberty and Freedom

• Escape to middle Ages

• Predominance of imaginations and Emotions

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Continue…

• Supernaturalism
• Endless Variety
• Subjectivity
• Lyricism
• Simplicity in style
• Presentation

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Continue…

• High imagination
• Love for nature ,
• Love for beauty,
• Simplicity ,
• Humanism ,
• Sensuousness ,
• Spontaneity ,
• Revolutionary zeal , Use of symbols imageries ,

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Common Themes

• Pantheism ,
• Mysticism ,
• Lyricism ,
• Individualism ,
• Melancholy

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Blake as Representative of his age

• William Blake is the person who creates songs of innocence and songs
of experience from his own theory, memory and experience.

• All of his songs are full of imagination, symbolism and related with
the reality.
• In his songs he has used common language, rustic language and most
of the subject matter of his songs is about rustic people, nature and
creature.

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William Blake as Romantic Poet

• Firstly, his poems are full of imaginations and feelings that send us to
the imaginary world from the real world.
• In Introduction he expresses,
“On a cloud I saw a child
And he laughing said to me
Pipe a song about a Lamb.”
Echoing Green, Nurse’s Songs, The Lamb, The Divine Image etc. are his
common songs that are full of emotion

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Blake as Romantic Poet

• Secondly, his feelings are more spontaneous and powerful. In the

Nurse’s song he has mentioned that-

“When the voices of children are heard on the green

My heart is at rest within my breast

And everything else is still.”

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Blake as Romantic Poet

• Thirdly, most of the words and sentences of his songs are full of rustic

and common languages.

• The main theme and subject matter of his songs are about rustic

people, common people, nature, creature and religious faith.

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Blake as Romantic Poet

• Fourthly, he believes in the creature.

• So, in the songs he asks himself many question about creature and
also replies himself of his questions. In The Lamb, he expresses-
“Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?”
He again mentions-
“Little Lamb God bless thee,
Little Lamb God bless thee.”

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Blake as Romantic Poet

• Fifthly, all of his songs and poems are related with nature. So,

sometimes he has expressed the scenery of nature and the activity of

nature.

• We observe that he has created songs about- Spring, Autumn,

Echoing Green, Sick Rose, Tyger, Sun-flower etc.

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Blake as Romantic Poet

• Sixthly, his songs are full of symbolism. For example;

• in “The Tyger” burning bright is a symbol that symbolizes ‘The Power

of Knowledge’. In the same way,

• “In the forests of the night” is another symbol that symbolizes ‘the
darkness of the ignorance

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Blake Writing Style

• Use of Similes and Metaphors

• Symbolism

• Imaginations and Emotions

• Personification

• Use of free Verse Subjectivity

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Style: Use of Metaphor and Similes

• His most unique feature is probably the amount of metaphors and

personification that he uses.

• An example of this is one of his most famous literary works, a poison

tree is a great example of what he uses in most of his poems. the
poem is about his hate for an enemy.

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Style

• He talks about how he let the burning rage within him grow,
comparing the growth of the hatred to a tree, a tree that he was
"watering" with his tears and "sunning" it with smiles.

• This is basically made into a metaphor, comparing the growth of a

tree to his hatred.

• This is one of Blake's most commonly used writing styles.

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Symbolism

• Most people even have trouble understanding the meaning of the

poem itself due to the heavy amount of symbolism that he includes in
his poems.

• This is what made his writing style unique and difficult to understand
and this is why his work is invaluable in literature and are excellent
examples of pure literature and the like

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Complex Symbolism

• Blake uses complex symbolism

• However, his language and syntax are simple.
• He often adopts an apparently naive style, using a plain, Anglo-Saxon
vocabulary, as well as repetitions, refrains and regular stress patterns
which are typical of ballads and children’s songs and hymns.
• To him a lamb or a tiger, a chimney sweeper or a London street were
symbols of a supra-natural reality;
• they were never to be taken at their face value.

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Symbolism in Everyday Life

• Symbolism is found in colors

• Black represents death /evil
• White stands for life & purity
• Red symbolizes blood ,passion ,danger
• Yellow stands for violence /decay
• Blue represents calm & peacefulness
• Purple is a royal color

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Flowers as symbols

• Rose stand for romance

• Violet represent shyness

• Cosmos represent peace

• Lilies stand for beauty Lotus represent purity

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Symbolic objects

• A chain symbolize coming together of two things

• A ladder represent the relationship between heaven & earth

• A mirror can denote the sun but when it is broken,

• it represent an unhappy union / separation

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Imagination and Emotions

• Blake’s poetry has tendency to rely on his imagination and great many
references from supernaturals. For Example: in his poem The Tiger,
• Imagination in form of personifying tiger, the reference to nature an
supernatural in Blake’s allusion to God
• Tiger tiger Burning Bright
• In the forest of night
• What immortal hand or eye
• Ould frame thyfearful symmetry?

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Personification

• He speaks to tiger and asks it question throughout the

poem(personification)

• Nature and imagination can be seen in the “forests of night witch’

bring to the mind mysteries of the woods over under a lake of
darkness.
• The “mortal hand or eye” refers to God

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Style: Use of Free Verse

• William Blake was one of the first major English poets who wrote free
verse.
• Even in his more traditional poems, Blake’s verse was “looser” in
meter than the more tightly wound poems of the Victorians who
succeeded him.
• Blake was a rather obvious influence on Walt Whitman, the father of
modern free verse, since Whitman modeled his crypt after Blake’s
engraving “Death’s Door.”

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Style

• In addition to being a major poet, Blake was also a painter and

engraver of note.

• Blake was ahead of his time in many ways. He was the first major
artist to graphically depict the cruelties of slavery.

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Style

• He wrote one of the first poems about racial tolerance, “The Little
Black Boy.”

• He wrote poignant poems about the plight of children who did

hazardous duty as chimney sweeps.

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Style

• The point of view for the written works is predominantly third person.

The majority of the poetry is written from the synthetic objective

perspective.

• This includes all of the Songs of Innocence and those of Experience.

.
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Style

• There are writings within the Complete Poetry and Prose of William
Blake that do not have this perspective.

• All of the author's Memorable Fancies, for example, are written from
the first person point of view.

• Here, readers can presume that the author is writing as himself.

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References

• https://williamblakeaics2.weebly.com/writing-style.html
• https://www.quora.com/What-is-William-Blake-s-writing-style
• http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-the-complete-poetry-and-
prose-of-william-blake/style.html#gsc.tab=0
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
• https://www.google.com/search?q=harateristis+of+romanti+age&oq
=harateristis+of+romanti+age&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.6422j0j9&sour
ceid=chrome &ie=UTF-8

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References

• https://www.slideshare.net/giorgia23771/blake-2
• https://www.quora.com/What-is-William-Blake-s-writing-style

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