William Blake Sane Or Mad Essay Research

William Blake: Sane Or Mad. Essay, Research Paper

William Blake: Sane or Mad.

“[There] is no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in his madness which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott,” William Wordsworth said in reference to William Blake. Blake, unlike other writers, was born and lived in moderate ways, with many talents; he lived throughout the romantic period, and wrote many of the greatest and controversial poems of his time including “The Lamb” and “The Tyger.” These poems are from two books known as the Songs of Innocence and Experience. Blake, as well as a writer was also a very great painter, engraver, and printer. William Blake failed to receive the credit he deserved until long after his death.

William Blake was born the second of five children in London on November 28, 1757. Blake was son to James Blake, a hosier, and Catherine Blake. He lived most of his life in poverty. At an early age Blake was an apprentice to James Basire, an engraver, which encouraged Blake to enroll in his only formal schooling at the Royal Academy of Arts for a very short period of time. In 1782 William Blake married Catherine Boucher, a daughter of a market gardener. Catherine was illiterate and she signed the marriage certificate with an “X”. Blake taught Catherine to read, write and help him with his engraving and printing work once he opened a print shop in 1784. Unfortunately, the shop failed a year later. William Blake took upon many works as an engraver, poet, and illustrator, along with his dedicated wife, to make a small living.

William Blake was often noted as mad, insane, and abnormal. His state of mind was much different from others of his time. At a very early age Blake saw many different visions, including one that editor Beer described, “as a child he once saw a tree full of angels, spangling every bough” (90). This vision was seen shortly after he received a leashing from his father for telling a lie. These visions continued throughout his life, including another vision after his favorite brother passed away, “appearing to him in a dream [...] passing through the ceiling of his bedroom, clapping his hands for joy” (92). After this occurrence Blake collapsed into a sleep for 3 days and 3 nights which led him to believe more firmly in the existence of a spiritual world. Blake was moved by the discovery that his own psyche was not a simple entity, but changed according to his physical state (92). A power such as this is occasionally found in young children and is seldom seen beyond the age of twelve, but in Blake it lasted his whole life.

Many of William Blake’s paintings and writings are very abstract and with out the use of imagination, they are not very impressive. Anderson notes that in a letter written by Blake that he suggests “As a man is so he sees [ ] to me this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination” (618). William Blake’s art and motive were to change the way that people “see” and to open up new worlds to them. Blake also said, “I see everything I paint in this world, but everybody doesn’t see alike. Many people that read and saw only Blake’s poems and paintings thought Blake to be mad, because they didn’t see the work the same as Blake had intended. Yet the people who had the opportunity of knowing Blake denied such an implication to be true (617).

William Blake lived during a time of intense social change. Editor Mack described that the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution all happened during his lifetime. These changes gave Blake a chance to see one of the most dramatic stages in the transformation of the Western world from a feudal, agricultural society to an industrial society where philosophers and political thinkers campaigned the rights of the individual (785). Blake lived through the American Revolution, which involved the loss of the thirteen England colonies in North America that were theirs. This was a loss of economic proportions, but it was also a loss of confidence and prestige that England had at the time (785). Anderson describes the French Revolution as coming to represent the England ruling class’s worst fears by having an overthrow of an anointed king by a democratic “ramble” (600). From another point of view, the English conservatives saw the revolution as the triumph of radical principles. The final Revolution Blake lived through was the Industrial Revolution. This revolution was a shift in manufacturing the production of the goods. Before this time goods were made by hand, at home, as opposed to the new way of factories where machines could work faster than human hands.

William Blake lived throughout a period of time called the Romantic period. He was partially responsible for bringing about the Romantic Movement in poetry. The Romantic Period is the shortest period of English literary history starting in 1798 and ending in 1832. The period was split up into two generation of writers, the first including Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. The second generation consisted of Shelley, Keats, and Byron. The first generation, which Blake was a part of, looked at Milton and Shakespeare for their inspiration. Although Blake was considered a Romantic, Anderson tells that his life was not as “romantic” or “poetic” as Coleridge, Shelley, or Keats (617). He seems less “poetic” and “romantic” because