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Where to start reading poetry (again)

Tyger, Tyger

'How can the bird that is born for joy / Sit in a cage and sing?' 
 
A selection of Blake's most haunting verse, including 'The Songs of Innocence and Experience'. 
 
One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

William Blake was born in Soho in 1757 and lived in London all of his life, with the exception of three years spent in Bognor Regis. In 1772 Blake became an apprentice engraver and went on to study at the Royal Academy, where he exhibited in 1780. Blake married Catherine Boucher in 1782 and the following year his first 'illuminated book' Poetical Sketches was printed. Blake's talents in both the visual arts and literature have made him a seminal figure of the Romantic period and he is regarded as one of Britain's greatest poets. He died in 1827.

Introduction by Patti Smith

Poems

'Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled' William Blake

A visionary genius... There are passages of brilliance everywhere... The wonder of Blake is that he had an imagination that brought together words and images

There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron

The movement of his [Blake's] early verse are like the gambollings of some very powerful animal, still in its fluffy-footed and tottering babyhood

[Blake] always insists on the importance of the pure, clean line that evokes and creates the figure on the background of the uncreated void

Blake is a great liberating imaginative force

The poems of a man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them

William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 in London. Instead of being sent to school he was given drawing classes from a young age.When he was fourteen he was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire and he later went on to work as an engraver, illustrator, printer and drawing teacher. In 1779 he became a student at the Royal Academy. In 1782 he married Catherine Boucher who was to become a great support to him throughout his life.His first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches was published in 1793. In 1789 he published Songs of Innocence which was followed by Songs of Experience in 1793. In the early 1800s he wrote his epic prophetic poems Milton and Jerusalem. He developed his own practice of illustrating his poetical works with his own etchings, producing beautifully illuminated editions. Blake's political beliefs were controversial for the times; he supported the French Revolution, condemned slavery and the subjugation of women. His religious beliefs were also idiosyncratic and he reported seeing visions of angels at various points in his life. Blake died, poor and in obscurity on 12 August 1827.

'Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled' William Blake 
 
 Patti Smith introduces her favourite selection of Blake's poems, including the complete poems from Songs of Innocence and of Experience. 
 
William Blake is one of Britain's most fascinating writers, who, as well as being a groundbreaking poet, is also well known as a painter, engraver, radical and mystic. Although Blake was dismissed as an eccentric by his contemporaries, his powerful and richly symbolic poetry has been a fertile source of inspiration to the many writers and artists who have followed in his footsteps.

Selected Poems: Blake

With an introduction that discusses Blake's life and career, his reputation and the major themes of his work, and explores the relationship between the poetry and the illustrations.

British poet, painter, visionary mystic, and engraver, who illustrated and printed his own books, Blake proclaimed the supremacy of the imagination over the rationalism and materialism of the 18th-century. Misunderstanding shadowed his career as a writer and artist and it was left to later generations to recognize his importance. 
 
 
G. E. Bentley, Jr. has taught at the universities of Chicago and Toronto and is an authority on William Blake and his circle of friends. His most recent books include a 2-volume edition of Blake's Writings, The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake (2001), and Blake Records (2004).

Writer and religious rebel, William Blake ((1757-1827) sowed the seeds for Romanticism in his innovative poems concerning faith and the visions that inspired him throughout his life. Whether describing his own spirituality, the innocence of youth or the corruption caused by mankind, his writings depict a world in which spirits dominate and the mind is the gateway to Heaven. This collection of his greatest works spans his entire poetic life from the early, exquisite lyrics of Poetic Sketches to his Songs of Innocence and Experience - a compelling exploration of good and evil. Together, they illuminate a self-made realm that has fascinated artists and poets as diverse as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Yeats and Ginsberg.

The Complete Poems

The complete collection of Blake's symbolic and revolutionary poems, from the deceptive simplicity of Songs of Innocence, to the grandeur of Jerusalem

William Blake (1757 - 1827) was the son of a London hosier. Having attended Henry Parr's drawing school, he was apprenticed as an engraver to the Society of Antiquaries in 1772 and later was admitted to teh Royal Academy. He married in 1782 and published his first work, Poetical Sketches, in 1783. The first of his 'illuminated books' was Songs of Innocence in 1789. Blake's work over the next twenty years chart the refining of his ideas and beliefs, from a recognition of repression in Songs of Experience to his epic works Milton and Jerusalem whihc present a renewed vision of reconciliation between humanity. 
 
 
Alicia Ostriker is Professor of English at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA.

One of the great English Romantic poets, William Blake (1757-1827) was an artist, poet, mystic and visionary. His work ranges from the deceptively simple and lyrical Songs of Innocence and their counterpoint Experience - which juxtapose poems such as 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger', and 'The Blossom' and 'The Sick Rose' - to highly elaborate, apocalyptic works, such as The Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Throughout his life Blake drew on a rich heritage of philosophy, religion and myth, to create a poetic worlds illuminated by his spiritual and revolutionary beliefs that have fascinated, intrigued and enchanted readers for generations.

Blake Poems

Pocket clothbound volumes from the world's greatest poets, and with a stunning range of anthologies. Each volume has an elegant jacket, full cloth sewn binding, silk ribbon marker and headbands, with gold stamping on front and spine and decorative endpapers. In size, price and presentation they make ideal gifts and are a joy to read and collect. More than eighty titles in print.

An exciting addition to Everyman's Library: a new series of small, handsome hardcover volumes devoted to the world's classic poets. Our books have twice as many pages as Bloomsbury Classics' 128pp and cost 7. 99 against Bloomsbury's 9. 99. The binding, paper and production is visibly superior in every way to that of Bloomsbury.

Blake's explosive lyrical genius is here represented by the full text of 'Songs of Innocence' and 'Songs of Experience', plus a wide range of marvellous short poems unpublished in his lifetime. In addition there is a selection from the Prophetic Books in which the poet develops his own story of creation - alternately crazy and magnificent and from his dramatic and didactic poems and prose writings which reveal Blake as a major poet of the Romantic movement.

Poems And Prophecies

The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.

William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 in London. Instead of being sent to school he was given drawing classes from a young age.When he was fourteen he was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire and he later went on to work as an engraver, illustrator, printer and drawing teacher. In 1779 he became a student at the Royal Academy. In 1782 he married Catherine Boucher who was to become a great support to him throughout his life.His first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches was published in 1793. In 1789 he published Songs of Innocence which was followed by Songs of Experience in 1793. In the early 1800s he wrote his epic prophetic poems Milton and Jerusalem. He developed his own practice of illustrating his poetical works with his own etchings, producing beautifully illuminated editions. Blake's political beliefs were controversial for the times; he supported the French Revolution, condemned slavery and the subjugation of women. His religious beliefs were also idiosyncratic and he reported seeing visions of angels at various points in his life. Blake died, poor and in obscurity on 12 August 1827.

This is a selection of the poet's work, including all the great lyrics and the more important prophetic books. In her introduction the poet and critic expounds Blake's esoteric theory and shows how it helped to create a poetry which is unlike any other.

William Blake

Books by William Blake

Articles featuring William Blake

Where to start reading poetry (again)

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