William Blake. Artist, Poet, Visionary Imaginarian
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47451/her2022-02-01Keywords:
William Blake, poetry, painting, printmaking, cultural legacyAbstract
So many times, in humanity’s history, a genius was mistaken for a madman, or, at least, a too eccentric person for the accepted standards of society. Posterity, though, brought the value of a genius to light since usually genii are also visionaries. So was William Blake. Some think of him as a poet; some say he was, in fact, an artist with a hobby for writing, and some understood the power of his creative force in both fields and beyond those. In his “Prefatory Memoir” to an edition of Blake’s poems, W.M. Rosetti (1890, XI) called him “a glorious luminary.” The purpose of the present study is to analyze how his verse interlaces with his fine artworks, as well as ways in which, through his artworks, he related to already existent cultural masterpieces, offering us a new approach to them. The study also aims to follow the light he cast to reach future generations and reveal how he enlightened future creators. His cultural legacy in poetry, music, art, philosophy, and religion is overwhelming, as is his huge personality.
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