William blake articles

English poet and artist (1757–1827)

For other people named William Blake, see William Blake (disambiguation).

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker.

Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. What he called his "prophetic works" were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".^[2] While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham,^[3] he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God",^[4] or "human existence itself".^[5]

Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he came to be highly regarded by later critics and readers for his expressiveness an