WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)
He was born in London into a humble family
He studied in a drawing school and then he attended the royal academy of art.
He was a painter, a graver and an illuminated.
He became a writer later; he was inspired by his brother and by his wife and also by the Bible
He supported the French revolution; but during the period of terror he became disillusioned; he remains a
rebel because he was against the exploitation of workers and slavery.
He became famous as a writer after his death and so he earned only thanks to his paints.
According to him, the poet was able to go deeply into reality: Blake wanted to warn people of the evils of
the industrial revolution
He criticized society (makes him a pre romantic) and, imagination was very important to him.
HIS MAIN COLLECTIONS:
songs of innocence: it’s about childhood and imagination. Children are pure and innocent. There are white
and bright colours, and everything is not contaminated by society (=virtues), there is a shepherd, he tells the
story and is inspired by a child that is in a cloud playing the flute
•the idea is to celebrate god
•the collection is written before the fall (Adamo and Eva) and before the French revolution.
songs of experience: it’s about adulthood, there is less imagination and less purity, there are more vices,
the colours are red and dark. the storyteller is a bard who questions the different aspects of songs of
innocence. Here the purity of the divine creation is revealed as corrupted by the hypocrisy of the society.
>> his theory is that the two are complementary opposites: they show the two contrary but interdependent
states of the human soul and they both cannot be fully understood if not considered as a whole.
THE LAMB: the rhyme scheme is regular (aa bb cc); there are alliterations and repetitions that create a soft
sound. The setting is in the countryside, so in contact with nature and there are bright and white colours.
The lamb is representation of god: god became a child and the poet has the same imagination of a child.
This imagination is pure and for this reason the poet is linked to the lamb. The questions of the child to the
lamb are about the existence of god and the creation of the world. The child can easily answer them
because of his imagination; therefore a child, rather than an adult, knows the secret of the creation.
THE TYGER: The rhyme scheme is aa bb cc. The setting is in the forest where there are dark and red
colours because of the fire (linked with hell). There are two different types of god: the first created the lamb,
in fact in songs in of innocence God is considered like a good father, and the other created the tiger, in fact
in songs of existence God is seen like a judge.
