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By John Beer
Protecting Blake's early profession, his significant works (such as Songs of Innocence and of expertise) and his paintings as a visible artist, this new examine is a needs to for all Blake students and lovers. fresh discoveries pertaining to Blake's forebears and their faith make this new learn also well timed.
Read or Download William Blake: A Literary Life (Literary Lives) PDF
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Additional resources for William Blake: A Literary Life (Literary Lives)
Example text
A separate page at the end of An Island shows his character Quid (closely identifiable with himself, surely) setting out a programme for a new kind of art – and incidentally hoping to make his 32 William Blake own fortune in the process: … Illuminating the Manuscript – Ay said she that would be excellent. Then said he I would have all the writing Engraved instead of Printed & at every other leaf a high finishd print all in three Volumes folio, & sell them a hundred pounds a piece. they would Print off two thousand then said she whoever will not have them will be ignorant fools & will not deserve to live Dont you think I have something of the Goats face says he.
Whatever his differences, he would have felt with them that there was indeed an ‘Everlasting Gospel’, available to all. Equally, he was suspicious of any kind of authority basing itself on ‘law’, which made his opposition more wide-ranging, He did not, of course, object on principle to ‘order’, but his instinctive sympathy with rebellious spirits took his feeling for Christianity to an antinomianism well beyond that of most fellow-believers. 16 24 William Blake In any case, this failure to find limits for his antinomianism has been a source of unease to those who have wanted to claim him for a particular cause.
Then every man of every clime, That prays in his distress, Prays to the human form divine Love Mercy Pity Peace. And all must love the human form, In heathen, turk or jew. Where Mercy, Love & Pity dwell There God is dwelling too. These familiar verses were claimed by F. W. 6 As E. P. Thompson subsequently pointed out, however, this was a point with which many Swedenborgians would have been bound to disagree: they would have differed crucially concerning the nature of ‘Divine Humanity’. Blake himself may originally have misunderstood the Swedenborgians’ position, believing that when they used the phrase they meant something corresponding to his own conviction that ‘Thou art a man, God is no more …’.