WB did not go to school - was an apprentice engraver and later a student at the Royal Academy (established King George III in 1768 for the exhibition and encouragement of the arts)

early influence of mysticism - the direct experience of the divine as real and near, blotting out all sense of of time and producing intense joy. The Divine may be conceived as in pantheism, so that the experience is interpreted as a glad union with all nature.

1782 - married- childless but long-lasting

1783 - published first volume of poetry with financial help

1784 - sets up print shop, again with financial backing.

Begins work on several projects which become the early phases of his distinctive mystic vision and the articulation of his his personal mythology.

- his writings have been interpreted to mean Blake's own need to escape from the fetters of 18thC. versification, as well as from the materialist philosophy ( as he conceived it) of the Enlightenment, and a Puritanical or repressive interpretation of Christianity.

Later life - filled with professional disappointments - began to quarrel with close, supportive friends

- poetry is not finding a sympathetic audience - lived late years in relative obscurity. Did not realize the fame or riches he had initially expected, although his skill and power did not diminish.

Posthumous Criticism -

Wordsworth - "gifted, but insane"

Ruskin - "diseased and wild"

Swinburne (1868) , Rossetti (1874), Yeats (1893), Auden (1941) - rediscovery and reinterpretation - increased interest

- a writer of ribald and witty epigrams

- a critic of spirit and originality - an independent thinker who found his own way of resisting the orthodoxies of his age

- prophetic warnings of the dangers of a world perceived as a mechanism, with man as a mere cog in an industrial revolution

- most recently, adopted as a voice of the Beat Generation of mid 20C.

Prose writings - (1790"s) - develops an attitude of revolt against authority

Poetry - long flowing lines and violent energy of the verse combine with phrases of terse and aphoristic clarity and moments of great lyric tenderness.