Essay --

William Blake was born in London on November 28, 1757 to James and Catherine Blake. His father, James was a hosier (seller of legwear) in London. Blake had four brothers, James, John, Richard and Robert and a babe named Catherine (Harris 5). Blake got along best with his younger brother, Robert as they shared an interest in art (Clarke 1). As a young boy, Blake claimed to have had visions of God, spirits, prophets and angels. When he was four he is claimed to have seen Gods head in his window. In his most famous vision, he saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree and a tree of angels when he was nine (Early historic period). Though his parents believed he was lying, they took into consideration that their son was different and did not believe he would succeed in a traditional school setting (Poets). So Blake was home schooled by his mother until he was ten years old. Blake was constantly by himself as a boy to seek a world of the imagination without fear of recrimination by others (Har ris 21). As a child, Blake spent his clock engraving drawings of the Greek antiquities his father bought for him (Early Years). James and Catherine supported and encouraged Blakes artistic ability and enrolled him in Henry Pars drawing school in the Strand when Blake was 10 years old, there he first started writing poetry (Harris 5). He enjoyed the works of Shakespeare, Jonson and Spenser and ancient ballads as opposed to current literature at the time (The Young Artist). Some of Blakes favorite artists ranged from Raphael, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Albrecht Drer, and Maerten Heemskerck. (Merriman 2) In 1772, Blake was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire the engraver to the London Society of antiquities, due to the high cost of dra... ...nius during the cut Revolution, aware of impending economic change and sick to the bone of ruling hypocrisy (Hagstrum 97-98).Implications Charles Swinburne, Percy Shelly, T.S Elliot and James Joyce all drew their influence from Blake (Pr ofumo 1). William Butler Yeats especially was animate by his philosophical and poetic ideas and even edited an edition of Blakes collected works (Blake and Shelley). Bob Dylan Alasdair Gray, Jim Morrison, and Allen Ginsberg also have hints of Blakes poetry (William Blake in Doors). More recently his poems have modified by U2, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Bruce Dickinson, M. Ward and Ulver (Maher 4) . His poems have been inspiration for characters of a number of writers of the twentieth century. Blake has been the muse for comic take writers Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, R. Crumb, and J. M. DeMatteis (Whitson 1).