Blake, William

English poet, artist, engraver, and visionary, and one of the most important figures of English Romanticism. His lyrics, often written with a childlike simplicity, as in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), express a unique spiritual vision. In his ‘prophetic books’, including The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), he created a vast personal mythology. He illustrated his own works with hand-coloured engravings.

Blake was born in London and, at the age of 14, was apprenticed to an engraver before entering the Royal Academy in 1778. He then became an independent engraver and in 1782 married Catherine Boucher, who collaborated with him on many of his projects. Songs of Innocence was the first of his own poetic works that he illustrated and engraved, in his highly individual style which is ultimately based on Italian artists Michelangelo and Raphael. The complementary volume, Songs of Experience, which contains the poems ‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright’ and ‘London’, expresses Blake's keen awareness of cruelty and injustice. After 1804 he devoted himself to illustrative work and to large watercolour designs for the biblical Book of Job (1821), John Milton's Paradise Lost (1822), and Dante's Divina commedia (1825). Blake's poem ‘Jerusalem’ (1820) was set to music by Charles Parry.