William Blake | British writer and artist | Britannica Browse Search Quizzes Games On This Day Login Subscribe  Now Entertainment & Pop Culture Geography & Travel Health & Medicine Lifestyles & Social Issues Literature Philosophy & Religion Politics, Law & Government Science Sports & Recreation Technology Visual Arts World History Quizzes Games Podcasts On This Day Biographies Week In Review Topic Summaries Infographics Demystified Lists #WTFact Companions Image Galleries Spotlight Entertainment & Pop Culture Geography & Travel Health & Medicine Lifestyles & Social Issues Literature Philosophy & Religion Politics, Law & Government Science Sports & Recreation Technology Visual Arts World History Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives. Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions. This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history. #WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find. Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions. William Blake Article Quotes Media Additional Info Article Contents Introduction & Quick Facts Visions of eternity Blake’s religion Education as artist and engraver Career as engraver Marriage to Catherine Boucher Death of Robert Blake Career as an artist Patronage of William Hayley and move to Felpham Charged with sedition Blake’s exhibition (1809–10) Blake as a poet Last years Reputation and influence Home Visual Arts Painting Painters William Blake British writer and artist Print print Print Please select which sections you would like to print: Table Of Contents Cite verified Cite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. 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External Websites The Metropolitan Museum of Art - The Barbizon School: French Painters of Nature Spartacus Educational - Biography of William Blake Poetry Foundation - Biography of William Blake Academy of American Poets - Biography of William Blake British Library - Biography of William Blake Britannica Websites Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. William Blake - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) WRITTEN BY G.E. Bentley Emeritus Professor of English, University of Toronto. Author of Blake Records, The Stranger From Paradise: A Biography of William Blake, and others. See Article History William Blake, (born Nov. 28, 1757, London, Eng.—died Aug. 12, 1827, London), English engraver, artist, poet, and visionary, author of exquisite lyrics in Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794) and profound and difficult “prophecies,” such as Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), The First Book of Urizen (1794), Milton (1804[–?11]), and Jerusalem (1804[–?20]). The dating of Blake’s texts is explained in the Researcher’s Note: Blake publication dates. These works he etched, printed, coloured, stitched, and sold, with the assistance of his devoted wife, Catherine. Among his best known lyrics today are “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” “London,” and the “Jerusalem” lyric from Milton, which has become a kind of second national anthem in Britain. In the early 21st century, Blake was regarded as the earliest and most original of the Romantic poets, but in his lifetime he was generally neglected or (unjustly) dismissed as mad. Top Questions What is William Blake most famous for? William Blake is considered to be one of the greatest visionaries of the early Romantic era. In addition to writing such poems as “The Lamb” and “The Tyger,” Blake was primarily occupied as an engraver and watercolour artist. Today Blake’s poetic genius has largely outstripped his visual artistic renown. What was William Blake’s career like as a visual artist? Although William Blake’s principal occupation was engraver, he transitioned to watercolour illustrations after an ambitious 1794 engraving commission floundered when published three years later. He painted watercolours for his patrons illustrating works by Dante, William Shakespeare, and John Milton, although much of his art focused on biblical subjects. What is William Blake’s poetry about? Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1794) is arguably William Blake’s most well-known poetic composition. The Lamb and the Tyger function as complementary symbols of the protection and corruption of innocence, respectively. Much of Blake’s other poetry concerns his politics, visions, and self-invented mythology. What was William Blake’s reputation during his lifetime? Many of William Blake’s contemporaries either ignored his work or outright ridiculed him. Much of Blake’s art and poetry went unnoticed by the general public. Works shown at his own exhibition (1809–10) received a scathing review from The Examiner that cut deeply, damaging Blake’s career beyond repair. What is William Blake’s legacy? William Blake’s poetry and art moved away from the periphery following Alexander Gilchrist’s publication of a two-part biography and compilation of Blake’s works in 1863, more than three decades after Blake’s death. Thereafter, his work received positive critical attention, particularly in the first half of the 20th century and continuing to the present day. Blake was born over his father’s modest hosiery shop at 28 Broad Street, Golden Square, London. His parents were James Blake (1722–84) and Catherine Wright Armitage Blake (1722–92). His father came from an obscure family in Rotherhithe, across the River Thames from London, and his mother was from equally obscure yeoman stock in the straggling little village of Walkeringham in Nottinghamshire. His mother had first married (1746) a haberdasher named Thomas Armitage, and in 1748 they moved to 28 Broad Street. In 1750 the couple joined the newly established Moravian church in Fetter Lane, London. The Moravian religious movement, recently imported from Germany, had had a strong attraction to the powerful emotions associated with nascent Methodism (see Moravian church). Catherine Armitage bore a son named Thomas, who died as a baby in 1751, and a few months later Thomas Armitage himself died. Catherine left the Moravians, who insisted on marriages within the faith, and in 1752 married James Blake in the Church of England chapel of St. George in Hanover Square. James moved in with her at 28 Broad Street. They had six children: James (1753–1827), who took over the family haberdashery business on his father’s death in 1784; John (born 1755, died in childhood); William, the poet and artist; another John Blake (born 1760, died by 1800), whom Blake referred to in a letter of 1802 as “my Brother John the evil one” and who became an unsuccessful gingerbread baker, enlisted as a soldier, and died; Richard (1762–87), called Robert, a promising artist and the poet’s favourite, at times his alter ego; and Catherine Elizabeth (1764–1841), the baby of the family, who never married and who died in extreme indigence long after the deaths of all her brothers. William Blake grew up in modest circumstances. What teaching he received as a child was at his mother’s knee, as most children did. This he saw as a positive matter, later writing, “Thank God I never was sent to school/ To be Flogd into following the Style of a Fool[.]” Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now Visions of eternity Visions were commonplaces to Blake, and his life and works were intensely spiritual. His friend the journalist Henry Crabb Robinson wrote that when Blake was four years old he saw God’s head appear in a window. While still a child he also saw the Prophet Ezekiel under a tree in the fields and had a vision, according to his first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist (1828–61), of “a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars.” Robinson reported in his diary that Blake spoke of visions “in the ordinary unemphatic tone in which we speak of trivial matters.…Of the faculty of Vision he spoke as One he had had from early infancy—He thinks all men partake of it—but it is lost by not being cultiv[ate]d.” In his essay “A Vision of the Last Judgment,” Blake wrote: I assert for My Self that I do not behold the outward Creation… ‘What’ it will be Questiond ‘When the Sun rises, do you not See a round Disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea?’ O no no I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying ‘Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty!’ Blake wrote to his patron William Hayley in 1802, “I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven Daily & Nightly.” These visions were the source of many of his poems and drawings. As he wrote in his “Auguries of Innocence,” his purpose was To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. He was, he wrote in 1804, “really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver into my hand.” Blake’s wife once said to his young friend Seymour Kirkup, “I have very little of Mr. Blake’s company; he is always in Paradise.” Some of this stress on visions may have been fostered by his mother, who, with her first husband, had become a Moravian when the group was in its most intensely emotional and visionary phase. In her letter of 1750 applying to join the Moravians, she wrote that “last Friday at the love feast Our Savour [sic] was pleased to make me Suck his wounds.” William Blake Quick Facts View Media Page born November 28, 1757 London, England died August 12, 1827 (aged 69) London, England notable works “Songs of Innocence” “The Tyger” “Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion” “A Vision of the Last Judgment” “Songs of Experience” “Milton” “London” “Vala or The Four Zoas” “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” “The First Book of Urizen” movement / style Romanticism English school Load Next Page Inspire your inbox – Sign up for daily fun facts about this day in history, updates, and special offers. Enter your email Subscribe By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Click here to view our Privacy Notice. Easy unsubscribe links are provided in every email. Thank you for subscribing! 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