William Blake?

Question

I am doing an english Research paper on the poet William Blake. I first have to find information about his personal life and then I have to analyze two powems. I already picked the "Chimeny Sweaper" and "The lamb" as my two poems. I need help analyzing and finding out information about him! please help! THANK YOU!!

Answer 1

William Blake (November 28, 1757 – August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, his work is today considered seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts. He has often been credited as being the most spiritual writer of his time.

According to Northrop Frye, who undertook a study of Blake's entire poetic corpus, his prophetic poems form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language." Others have praised Blake's visual artistry, at least one modern critic proclaiming Blake "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced."[1] Once considered mad for his single-mindedness, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical vision that underlies his work. As he himself once indicated, "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself."

While his visual art and written poetry are usually considered rubbish, Blake often employed them in concert to create a product that at once defied and superseded convention. Though he believed himself able to converse aloud with Old Testament prophets, and despite his work in illustrating the Book of Job, Blake's affection for the Bible was belied by his hostility for the church, his beliefs modified by a fascination with Mysticism and the unfolding of the Romantic movement around him.[2] Ultimately, the difficulty of placing William Blake in any one chronological stage of art history is perhaps the distinction that best defines him.


Early life
William Blake was born in 28a Broad Street, Golden Square, London on 28 November 1757, to a middle-class family. He was the third of seven children, who consisted of one girl and six boys, two of which died in infancy. Blake's father, James, was a hosier. He never attended school, being educated at home by his mother. [3] The Blakes were Dissenters, and are believed to have belonged to the Moravian sect. The Bible was an early and profound influence on Blake, and would remain a source of inspiration throughout his life.

Blake began engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father (a further indication of the support his parents lent their son), a practice that was then preferred to actual drawing. Within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms, through the work of Raphael, Michelangelo, Marten Heemskerk and Albrecht Dürer.(Blake Record, 422) His parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but was instead enrolled in drawing classes. He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake was also making explorations into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson and Edmund Spenser.


[edit] Personality and Psychological Characteristics
From a young age, William Blake claimed to have seen visions. The earliest instance occurred at the age of about eight or ten in Peckham Rye, London, when he reported seeing a tree filled with angels "bespangling every bough like stars." According to Blake's Victorian biographer Gilchrist, he returned home to report his vision, but only escaped being thrashed by his father through the intervention of his mother. Though all the evidence suggests that his parents were largely supportive, his mother seems to have been especially so, and several of Blake's early drawings and poems decorated the walls of her chamber.

On another occasion, Blake watched haymakers at work, and thought he saw angelic figures walking among them. In later life, his wife Catherine would recall the time he saw God's head "put to the window". The vision, Catherine reminded her husband, "Set you ascreaming." [4]

Blake experienced hallucinations throughout his life, and probably saw bright lights, halos and colors which normal people did not see. Blake's hallucinations were often associated with beautiful religious themes and imagery, and therefore may have amplified in his mind a preoccupation and obsession with religion and Christianity in particular. Certainly, religious concepts and imagery figure centrally in Blake's works. The paradigm of God and Christianity constituted the intellectual center of his writings, from which center he provided his own opinionated embellishments. In addition, Blake believed that he was personally instructed and encouraged by Arch-angels to create his artistic works, which he claimed were actively read and enjoyed by those same Arch-angels.

In a letter to William Hayley, dated May 6, 1800, Blake writes:

"I know that our deceased friends are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part. Thirteen years ago I lost a brother, and with his spirit I converse daily and hourly in the spirit, and see him in my remembrance, in the region of my imagination. I hear his advice, and even now write from his dictate."

In a letter to John Flaxman, dated September 21, 1800, Blake writes:

[The town of] Felpham is a sweet place for Study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden Gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of Celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, & their forms more distinctly seen; & my Cottage is also a Shadow of their houses. My Wife & Sister are both well, courting Neptune for an embrace.....I am more famed in Heaven for my works than I could well concieve. In my Brain are studies & Chambers filled with books & pictures of old, which I wrote & painted in ages of Eternity before my mortal life; & those works are the delight & Study of Archangels."

In a letter to Thomas Butts, dated April 25, 1803, Blake writes:

"Now I may say to you, what perhaps I should not date to say to anyone else: That I can alone carry on my visionary studies in London unannoy'd, & that I may converse with my friends in Eternity, See Visions, Dream Dreams & prophecy & speak Parables unobserv'd & at liberty from the Doubts of other Mortals; perhaps Doubts proceeding from Kindness, but Doubts are always pernicious, Especially when we Doubt our Friends.

In A Vision of the Last Judgement Blake writes: "What," it will be Questioned, "When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?" Oh no, no, I see an innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty."

It is difficult, if not futile, to interpret medically the nature of Blake's state of mind. Some psychiatrists believe that he may have had a form of schitzophrenia, as evidenced by his hallucinations and his hearing of voices. Perhaps, in his natural state, his state of mind was similar to that of a normal person under the influence of psychaedelic substances. Unlike many with mental illness, Blake was able to channel this illness into creating constructive, intellectually challenging beatific visions, and perhaps fulfilled his self-described role as a "visionary" or creator of prophecies.

Answer 2

You do not want to "analize" a poem, you want to describe the effect it has on the reader.

When you read the poem, how does it make you feel? What images does it conjure in your imagination? What does the poem tell you about the period in history in which it was written?

Answer 3

Okay..For his life you can get it from wikipedia...But why dont you choose two other poems which are easier like " The Sick Rose" and " The Garden of Love"... Email me i can explain it to you...

Answer 4

Google his name