William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757, to James, a
hosier, and Catherine Blake. Two of his six siblings died in infancy.
From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions—at four he saw God
“put his head to the window”; around age nine, while walking through the
countryside, he saw a tree filled with angels. Although his parents
tried to discourage him from “lying," they did observe that he was
different from his peers and did not force him to attend conventional
school. He learned to read and write at home. At age ten, Blake
expressed a wish to become a painter, so his parents sent him to drawing
school. Two years later, Blake began writing poetry. When he turned
fourteen, he apprenticed with an engraver because art school proved too
costly. One of Blake’s assignments as apprentice was to sketch the tombs
at Westminster Abbey, exposing him to a variety of Gothic styles from
which he would draw inspiration throughout his career. After his
seven-year term ended, he studied briefly at the Royal Academy.
In
1782, he married an illiterate woman named Catherine Boucher. Blake
taught her to read and to write, and also instructed her in
draftsmanship. Later, she helped him print the illuminated poetry for
which he is remembered today; the couple had no children. In 1784 he set
up a printshop with a friend and former fellow apprentice, James
Parker, but this venture failed after several years. For the remainder
of his life, Blake made a meager living as an engraver and illustrator
for books and magazines. In addition to his wife, Blake also began
training his younger brother Robert in drawing, painting, and engraving.
Robert fell ill during the winter of 1787 and succumbed, probably to
consumption. As Robert died, Blake saw his brother’s spirit rise up
through the ceiling, “clapping its hands for joy.” He believed that
Robert’s spirit continued to visit him and later claimed that in a dream
Robert taught him the printing method that he used in Songs of Innocence and other “illuminated” works.
Blake’s first printed work, Poetical Sketches (1783), is a collection of apprentice verse, mostly imitating classical models. The poems protest against war, tyranny, and King George III’s treatment of the American colonies. He published his most popular collection, Songs of Innocence, in 1789 and followed it, in 1794, with Songs of Experience. Some readers interpret Songs of Innocence in a straightforward fashion, considering it primarily a children’s book, but others have found hints at parody or critique in its seemingly naive and simple lyrics. Both books of Songs were printed in an illustrated format reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. The text and illustrations were printed from copper plates, and each picture was finished by hand in watercolors.
Blake was a nonconformist who associated with some of the leading radical thinkers of his day, such as Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. In defiance of 18th-century neoclassical conventions, he privileged imagination over reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, asserting that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions. He declared in one poem, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” Works such as “The French Revolution” (1791), “America, a Prophecy” (1793), “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” (1793), and “Europe, a Prophecy” (1794) express his opposition to the English monarchy, and to 18th-century political and social tyranny in general. Theological tyranny is the subject of The Book of Urizen (1794). In the prose work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93), he satirized oppressive authority in church and state, as well as the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish philosopher whose ideas once attracted his interest.
In 1800 Blake moved to the seacoast town of Felpham, where he lived and worked until 1803 under the patronage of William Hayley. He taught himself Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Italian, so that he could read classical works in their original language. In Felpham he experienced profound spiritual insights that prepared him for his mature work, the great visionary epics written and etched between about 1804 and 1820. Milton (1804-08), Vala, or The Four Zoas (1797; rewritten after 1800), and Jerusalem (1804-20) have neither traditional plot, characters, rhyme, nor meter. They envision a new and higher kind of innocence, the human spirit triumphant over reason.
Blake believed that his poetry could be read and understood by common people, but he was determined not to sacrifice his vision in order to become popular. In 1808 he exhibited some of his watercolors at the Royal Academy, and in May of 1809 he exhibited his works at his brother James’s house. Some of those who saw the exhibit praised Blake’s artistry, but others thought the paintings “hideous” and more than a few called him insane. Blake’s poetry was not well known by the general public, but he was mentioned in A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland, published in 1816. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had been lent a copy of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, considered Blake a “man of Genius," and Wordsworth made his own copies of several songs. Charles Lamb sent a copy of “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence to James Montgomery for his Chimney-Sweeper’s Friend, and Climbing Boys’ Album (1824), and Robert Southey (who, like Wordsworth, considered Blake insane) attended Blake’s exhibition and included the “Mad Song” from Poetical Sketches in his miscellany, The Doctor (1834-1837).
Blake’s final years, spent in great poverty, were cheered by the admiring friendship of a group of younger artists who called themselves “the Ancients.” In 1818 he met John Linnell, a young artist who helped him financially and also helped to create new interest in his work. It was Linnell who, in 1825, commissioned him to design illustrations for Dante‘s Divine Comedy, the cycle of drawings that Blake worked on until his death in 1827.
Selected Bibliography
Poetry
All Religions Are One (1788)
America, a Prophecy (1793)
Europe, a Prophecy (1794)
For Children: The Gates of Paradise (1793)
For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise (1820)
Poetical Sketches (1783)
Songs of Experience (1794)
Songs of Innocence (1789)
The Book of Ahania (1795)
The Book of Los (1795)
The First Book of Urizen (1794)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)
The Song of Los (1795)
There Is No Natural Religion (1788)
Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)
In
1782, he married an illiterate woman named Catherine Boucher. Blake
taught her to read and to write, and also instructed her in
draftsmanship. Later, she helped him print the illuminated poetry for
which he is remembered today; the couple had no children. In 1784 he set
up a printshop with a friend and former fellow apprentice, James
Parker, but this venture failed after several years. For the remainder
of his life, Blake made a meager living as an engraver and illustrator
for books and magazines. In addition to his wife, Blake also began
training his younger brother Robert in drawing, painting, and engraving.
Robert fell ill during the winter of 1787 and succumbed, probably to
consumption. As Robert died, Blake saw his brother’s spirit rise up
through the ceiling, “clapping its hands for joy.” He believed that
Robert’s spirit continued to visit him and later claimed that in a dream
Robert taught him the printing method that he used in Songs of Innocence and other “illuminated” works.Blake’s first printed work, Poetical Sketches (1783), is a collection of apprentice verse, mostly imitating classical models. The poems protest against war, tyranny, and King George III’s treatment of the American colonies. He published his most popular collection, Songs of Innocence, in 1789 and followed it, in 1794, with Songs of Experience. Some readers interpret Songs of Innocence in a straightforward fashion, considering it primarily a children’s book, but others have found hints at parody or critique in its seemingly naive and simple lyrics. Both books of Songs were printed in an illustrated format reminiscent of illuminated manuscripts. The text and illustrations were printed from copper plates, and each picture was finished by hand in watercolors.
Blake was a nonconformist who associated with some of the leading radical thinkers of his day, such as Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft. In defiance of 18th-century neoclassical conventions, he privileged imagination over reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, asserting that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions. He declared in one poem, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” Works such as “The French Revolution” (1791), “America, a Prophecy” (1793), “Visions of the Daughters of Albion” (1793), and “Europe, a Prophecy” (1794) express his opposition to the English monarchy, and to 18th-century political and social tyranny in general. Theological tyranny is the subject of The Book of Urizen (1794). In the prose work The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93), he satirized oppressive authority in church and state, as well as the works of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish philosopher whose ideas once attracted his interest.
In 1800 Blake moved to the seacoast town of Felpham, where he lived and worked until 1803 under the patronage of William Hayley. He taught himself Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Italian, so that he could read classical works in their original language. In Felpham he experienced profound spiritual insights that prepared him for his mature work, the great visionary epics written and etched between about 1804 and 1820. Milton (1804-08), Vala, or The Four Zoas (1797; rewritten after 1800), and Jerusalem (1804-20) have neither traditional plot, characters, rhyme, nor meter. They envision a new and higher kind of innocence, the human spirit triumphant over reason.
Blake believed that his poetry could be read and understood by common people, but he was determined not to sacrifice his vision in order to become popular. In 1808 he exhibited some of his watercolors at the Royal Academy, and in May of 1809 he exhibited his works at his brother James’s house. Some of those who saw the exhibit praised Blake’s artistry, but others thought the paintings “hideous” and more than a few called him insane. Blake’s poetry was not well known by the general public, but he was mentioned in A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland, published in 1816. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who had been lent a copy of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, considered Blake a “man of Genius," and Wordsworth made his own copies of several songs. Charles Lamb sent a copy of “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence to James Montgomery for his Chimney-Sweeper’s Friend, and Climbing Boys’ Album (1824), and Robert Southey (who, like Wordsworth, considered Blake insane) attended Blake’s exhibition and included the “Mad Song” from Poetical Sketches in his miscellany, The Doctor (1834-1837).
Blake’s final years, spent in great poverty, were cheered by the admiring friendship of a group of younger artists who called themselves “the Ancients.” In 1818 he met John Linnell, a young artist who helped him financially and also helped to create new interest in his work. It was Linnell who, in 1825, commissioned him to design illustrations for Dante‘s Divine Comedy, the cycle of drawings that Blake worked on until his death in 1827.
Selected Bibliography
Poetry
All Religions Are One (1788)
America, a Prophecy (1793)
Europe, a Prophecy (1794)
For Children: The Gates of Paradise (1793)
For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise (1820)
Poetical Sketches (1783)
Songs of Experience (1794)
Songs of Innocence (1789)
The Book of Ahania (1795)
The Book of Los (1795)
The First Book of Urizen (1794)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)
The Song of Los (1795)
There Is No Natural Religion (1788)
Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793)
Autumn
They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia, Opulent, flaunting. Round gold Flung out of a pale green stalk. Round, ripe gold Of maturity, Meticulously frilled and flaming, A fire-ball of proclamation: Fecundity decked in staring yellow For all the world to see. They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia, To me who am barren Shall I send it to you, You who have taken with you All I once possessed?
On
February 9, 1874, Amy Lowell was born at Sevenels, a ten-acre family
estate in Brookline, Massachusetts. Her family was Episcopalian, of old
New England stock, and at the top of Boston society. Lowell was the
youngest of five children. Her elder brother Abbott Lawrence, a freshman
at Harvard at the time of her birth, went on to become president of
Harvard College. As a young girl she was first tutored at home, then
attended private schools in Boston, during which time she made several
trips to Europe with her family. At seventeen she secluded herself in
the 7,000-book library at Sevenels to study literature. Lowell was
encouraged to write from an early age.
In 1887 she, with her mother and sister, wrote Dream Drops or Stories From Fairy Land by a Dreamer, printed privately by the Boston firm Cupples and Hurd. Her poem “Fixed Idea” was published in 1910 by the Atlantic Monthly, after which Lowell published individual poems in various journals. In October of 1912 Houghton Mifflin published her first collection, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.
Lowell, a vivacious and outspoken businesswoman, tended to excite controversy. She was deeply interested in and influenced by the Imagist movement, led by Ezra Pound. The primary Imagists were Pound, Ford Madox Ford, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), and Richard Aldington. This Anglo-American movement believed, in Lowell’s words, that “concentration is of the very essence of poetry” and strove to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.” Lowell campaigned for the success of Imagist poetry in America and embraced its principles in her own work. She acted as a publicity agent for the movement, editing and contributing to an anthology of Imagist poets in 1915.
Her enthusiastic involvement and influence contributed to Pound’s separation from the movement. As Lowell continued to explore the Imagist style she pioneered the use of “polyphonic prose” in English, mixing formal verse and free forms. Later she was drawn to and influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry. This interest led her to collaborate with translator Florence Ayscough on Fir-Flower Tablets in 1921. Lowell had a lifelong love for the poet Keats, whose letters she collected and influences can be seen in her poems. She believed him to be the forbearer of Imagism. Her biography of Keats was published in 1925, the same year she won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection What’s O’Clock (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925).
A dedicated poet, publicity agent, collector, critic, and lecturer, Lowell died on May 12, 1925, at Sevenels.
Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Selected Poems of Amy Lowell (Rutgers University Press, 2002)
What’s O’Clock (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925)
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (The Macmillan Company, 1914)
A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912)
In 1887 she, with her mother and sister, wrote Dream Drops or Stories From Fairy Land by a Dreamer, printed privately by the Boston firm Cupples and Hurd. Her poem “Fixed Idea” was published in 1910 by the Atlantic Monthly, after which Lowell published individual poems in various journals. In October of 1912 Houghton Mifflin published her first collection, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass.
Lowell, a vivacious and outspoken businesswoman, tended to excite controversy. She was deeply interested in and influenced by the Imagist movement, led by Ezra Pound. The primary Imagists were Pound, Ford Madox Ford, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle), and Richard Aldington. This Anglo-American movement believed, in Lowell’s words, that “concentration is of the very essence of poetry” and strove to “produce poetry that is hard and clear, never blurred nor indefinite.” Lowell campaigned for the success of Imagist poetry in America and embraced its principles in her own work. She acted as a publicity agent for the movement, editing and contributing to an anthology of Imagist poets in 1915.
Her enthusiastic involvement and influence contributed to Pound’s separation from the movement. As Lowell continued to explore the Imagist style she pioneered the use of “polyphonic prose” in English, mixing formal verse and free forms. Later she was drawn to and influenced by Chinese and Japanese poetry. This interest led her to collaborate with translator Florence Ayscough on Fir-Flower Tablets in 1921. Lowell had a lifelong love for the poet Keats, whose letters she collected and influences can be seen in her poems. She believed him to be the forbearer of Imagism. Her biography of Keats was published in 1925, the same year she won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection What’s O’Clock (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925).
A dedicated poet, publicity agent, collector, critic, and lecturer, Lowell died on May 12, 1925, at Sevenels.
Selected Bibliography
Poetry
Selected Poems of Amy Lowell (Rutgers University Press, 2002)
What’s O’Clock (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925)
Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (The Macmillan Company, 1914)
A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912)
