Books by William Blake
“This book was published in two movements by Blake. First, the Songs of Innocence, which included poems like ‘The Lamb,’ which have a certain innocence. But even in that first collection, that charm is never quite so neat and tidy. There is a world of carefree, playful safety, but also, say in ‘Infant joy,’ an edge that makes you think about the fullness of what it is to care for a baby. So when he subsequently published the Songs of Experience, the coupling of many of the poems, the resonances set up with that first volume, completely made sense. It’s not a jarring shift, as if Blake suddenly grew up and realised that life wasn’t so good. It feels more like the completion of the earlier project. Blake says they describe ‘The Two Contrary States of the Human Soul,’ and lead to a sense of a wider horizon, that we human beings are somehow connected to as well.” Read more...
The best books on William Blake
Mark Vernon, Biographer
“Even the radical young artist-types in London thought he was barking mad. He certainly took the Romantic poet turn inward to extremes, creating a quasi-Biblical inner landscape of the mind through his art and poems.” Read more...
Gillen D'Arcy Wood, Literary Scholar
Interviews where books by William Blake were recommended
-
1
William Wordsworth: The Major Works
by Stephen Gill (editor) -
2
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: The Major Works
by H. J. Jackson (Editor) -
3
Willam Blake: Selected Poetry
by William Blake -
4
Percy Bysshe Shelley: The Major Works
by Michael O'Neill (Editor) & Zachary Leader (Editor) -
5
John Keats: The Major Works
by Elizabeth Cook (Editor)
The Greatest Romantic Poems, recommended by Gillen D'Arcy Wood
The Greatest Romantic Poems, recommended by Gillen D'Arcy Wood
Freud said he owed them everything and even people who have never read a poem in their lives speak their language today. Gillen D’Arcy Wood, Professor of Environmental Humanities and English at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, explains who the Romantic poets were and recommends five of the greatest Romantic poems.
The best books on William Blake, recommended by Mark Vernon
Visionary, mystic, poet, etcher: the English artist William Blake (1757-1827) developed his own, highly distinct, style—but he was also in conversation with the artistic currents of his day, explains Mark Vernon, the author of a new philosophical exploration of Blake’s work. Here he highlights five books that will help you gain an understanding of William Blake’s life, work, and spiritual life.
