William Blake 1757-1827

In writing about William Blake, I must first say how cool it is that he inspired Jim Morrison to name his band The Doors! Blake was a writer and an artist during his lifetime and was a complete original in his style. Unfortunately Blake did not gain widespread notoriety until after his death. William came from a lower middle class family and his lifestyle was dictated as so. He received a typical education for someone of his class. I think this tended to make me like Blake even more because I get the sense that he is a “self-made” man, that is he has created his own poetic genius that is free from outside influences. William Blake is often considered one of the first writers of Romanticism. William Blake did not just simply write poetry but often times created art to go with his writings. “Rebellious, unconventional, fiercely idealistic, Blake became a celebrity in modern counterculture” (74).

I must admit that I had a hard time trying to understand much of the meaning in Blake’s work. I feel like his poetry is multi-layered, and that each layer presents some deep and profound meaning. The problem for me was uncovering those layers. It almost seems like you can split his two collections of work up into two nice pieces of early and later work, with Songs of Innocence being early and Songs of Experience being later; however, I realize that it isn’t that simple and to make it so would be to do Blake a great injustice. He is very complex in his writings and his use of symbolism.

The first poem of Blake’s that I want to touch on is The Echoing Green. This is one of the few poems that I have read that actually took me to a visual place in my mind, where I saw what the author was saying. I don’t know if I saw what he wanted me to see, but while reading this poem I went back my childhood and pictured playing in the first season game of the spring soccer season or in the first big tournament of the spring. It reminded me of how simple life was for a seven year old boy than. I had no worries, no stress, no nothing to bring me down. All I cared about was getting out there on that green field and having fun. I am only 22 now, but oh how I wish I could go back and be seven again. I wish I could go back to that green and be careless once more. Oh how I miss that echoing green.

I guess that was my favorite because it was simple enough for me to understand and it reminded me of a time that I longed for. William Blake’s other works are much more complex. I think it is very interesting how he uses The Lamb to portray god in a favorable light and than uses The Tyger to question whether the same god who created the lamb could have created the tyger. My favorite aspect of this was how Blake did not answer the question and left it open for the reader to decide. Another interesting way in which Blake challenges the reader to think is in his two versions of The Chimney Sweeper in the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience. In the first, the little boy is comforted by his dream, in which an angel tells him if he is a good boy and works hard than God will watch after him. I think that Blake wants the reader here to feel uneasy about this since the little boy is being exposed to such harsh conditions on a daily basis. In the second version, Blake depicts the little boy as being far less happy with his difficult life. He blames his parents who sold him and don’t even realize that they have done him harm. He singles out God and his Priest and King. He claims they make up a heaven of our misery. I think that one of the general goals of William Blake lies just beneath the surface here. I think that Blake wants us to take a critical eye and question authority, all authority because he believes that authoritative figures are responsible for the abuse of the weak. This is a characteristic of all Romantics. I think that it is evident that Blake wants his readers to challenge authority and question where it is that it gets it authoritative nature.