The Life of William BlakeCourier Dover Publications, 2017 M05 9 - 640 pages One of the greatest Victorian-era biographies, Alexander Gilchrist's The Life of William Blake plays a key role in the history of Blake's work and its influence on other writers and artists. The first standard text on Blake and a cornerstone of the extensive scholarship on his life and work, it not only delivered its subject from unjust obscurity but also dispelled the notion of Blake's insanity and established his genius as a visionary artist and poet. Sensitive, highly readable accounts trace Blake's childhood and years as an engraver's apprentice, his relations with patrons and employers, his trial for treason, and his declining health and untimely death. The author's wide-ranging research includes interviews with many of Blake's surviving friends, whose personal recollections add warmth and immediacy to this portrait. Extensive quotes from the subject's poetry and prose — practically unknown at the time of the original 1863 publication — further enliven the text. In addition to a critical commentary on Blake's boyhood poems, this transformative biography features more than 40 of his illustrations. |
From inside the book
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Page 3
... manner. Both were unnoticed in the crowd, attracting few gazers, fewer admirers. For it needs to be read in Blake, to have familiarized oneself with his unsophisticated, archaic, yet spiritual “manner,”—a style sui generis as no other ...
... manner. Both were unnoticed in the crowd, attracting few gazers, fewer admirers. For it needs to be read in Blake, to have familiarized oneself with his unsophisticated, archaic, yet spiritual “manner,”—a style sui generis as no other ...
Page 13
... manner he was the first to introduce into England. With the view of securing the teaching and example of so skilled ... manners and personal appearance were peculiarly prepossessing, winning the spontaneous confidence of those who knew ...
... manner he was the first to introduce into England. With the view of securing the teaching and example of so skilled ... manners and personal appearance were peculiarly prepossessing, winning the spontaneous confidence of those who knew ...
Page 15
... manner inherited by Basire, in common with Vertue (engraver to the Society of Antiquaries before him), and the rest, from the Vanderguchts, Vanderbanks, and other naturalized Dutchmen and Germans of the bob-wig and clipped-yew era, will ...
... manner inherited by Basire, in common with Vertue (engraver to the Society of Antiquaries before him), and the rest, from the Vanderguchts, Vanderbanks, and other naturalized Dutchmen and Germans of the bob-wig and clipped-yew era, will ...
Page 20
... manner of decisively contrasted light and shade, but simple and monotonous manipulation. It is to a large scale, and gives the head and shoulders merely. Another plate, with a perspective view of the whole monument and a separate one of ...
... manner of decisively contrasted light and shade, but simple and monotonous manipulation. It is to a large scale, and gives the head and shoulders merely. Another plate, with a perspective view of the whole monument and a separate one of ...
Page 27
... manner and something of the spirit of the Historical Plays is caught, far more nearly than by straining Ireland in his forgeries. Fully to appreciate such poetry as the lad Blake composed in the years 1768–77, let us call to mind the ...
... manner and something of the spirit of the Historical Plays is caught, far more nearly than by straining Ireland in his forgeries. Fully to appreciate such poetry as the lad Blake composed in the years 1768–77, let us call to mind the ...
Contents
5 | |
12 | |
24 | |
27 | |
INTRODUCTION TO THE POLITE WoRLD 178284 AET 2527 | 44 |
CHAPTER VII | 52 |
NOTES ON LAVATER 1788 AET 3031 | 62 |
CHAPTER IX | 70 |
A KEEN EMPLOYER 18057 AET 4850 | 219 |
THE DESIGNS To BLAIR 18048 AET 4751 | 238 |
CHAPTER XXV | 255 |
YEARS OF DEEPENING NEGLECT 181017 AET 5360 | 263 |
CHAPTER XXVIII | 270 |
NOTES ON REYNOLDS I | 276 |
CHAPTER XXXI | 294 |
INventions to THE Book of Job | 301 |
BookSELLER JOHNSONs 179192 AET 3435 | 92 |
CHAPTER XIII | 118 |
AT WORK FOR THE PUBLISHERs 179599 AET 3842 | 137 |
PoET HAYLEY AND FELPHAM 18001 AET 4344 | 158 |
AET 6870 3 II | 165 |
TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON 18034 AET 4647 | 192 |
CHAPTER XXI | 205 |
MAD OR NOT MAD 2 | 337 |
CHAPTER XXXVI | 351 |
CHAPTER XXXVIII | 383 |
SUPPLEMENTARY | 388 |
THE COLOUR PRINTS | 404 |
ANNOTATED LIST OF BLAKEs PAINTINGS DRAWINGS | 415 |
INDEX | 527 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam and Eve admiration Albion Allan Cunningham angels appears artist Ballads beauty Butts called Capt character Chaucer Christ clouds colour composition copy cottage Cowper Cromek Dante dark death delight drawing edition engraved eternal executed Exhibition expression eyes favourite Felpham figure finished flames Flaxman fresco frontispiece Fuseli genius grace grand Grave guineas hand Hayley Hayley's head heaven illustrations imagination Indian ink Jerusalem John Varley labour Last Judgment letter light Linnell living London look Milton mind natural never Oothoon original Ozias Humphrey painted painter perhaps picture plates poem poet poetic poetry portrait printed published quarto Reynolds Satan seen serpent sketch Songs of Experience Songs of Innocence soul South Molton spirit Stothard Street style sweet tell Tempera Theotormon things thou thought tion Varley verse vision visionary volume water-colour wife WILLIAM BLAKE writes young