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 4
... turn away from all this, as from mere ineffectualness, Art in its second childhood. But see this sitting figure of Job in his Affliction, surrounded by the bowed figures of wife and friend, grand as Michael Angelo, nay, rather as the ...
... turn away from all this, as from mere ineffectualness, Art in its second childhood. But see this sitting figure of Job in his Affliction, surrounded by the bowed figures of wife and friend, grand as Michael Angelo, nay, rather as the ...
Page 6
... the country, a fondness in keeping with the romantic turn. For what written romance can vie with the substantial one of rural sights and sounds to a town-bred boy P Country was not, at that day, beyond reach of a 6 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM ...
... the country, a fondness in keeping with the romantic turn. For what written romance can vie with the substantial one of rural sights and sounds to a town-bred boy P Country was not, at that day, beyond reach of a 6 THE LIFE OF WILLIAM ...
Page 17
... turn of his imagination, and to strengthen his natural affinities for the spiritual in art. It kindled a fervent love of Gothic,+itself an originality then, which lasted his life, and exerted enduring influences on his habits of feeling ...
... turn of his imagination, and to strengthen his natural affinities for the spiritual in art. It kindled a fervent love of Gothic,+itself an originality then, which lasted his life, and exerted enduring influences on his habits of feeling ...
Page 36
... turning their attention to grander schemes of devastation. That evening, the artist happened to be walking in a route chosen by cne of the mobs at large, whose course lay from Justice Hyde's house near Leicester Fields, for the ...
... turning their attention to grander schemes of devastation. That evening, the artist happened to be walking in a route chosen by cne of the mobs at large, whose course lay from Justice Hyde's house near Leicester Fields, for the ...
Page 39
... turn came, as bride, to sign the Parish Register, she, as the same yet mutely testifies, could do no more than most young ladies of her class then, or than the Bourchiers, Stanleys, and magnates of the land four centuries before could ...
... turn came, as bride, to sign the Parish Register, she, as the same yet mutely testifies, could do no more than most young ladies of her class then, or than the Bourchiers, Stanleys, and magnates of the land four centuries before could ...
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