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This article is currently being reviewed to see if it matches the criteria for a Good Article. Comments can be seen here. SilkTork * YES! 23:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Progress seems to have died. I would like to take a crack at fixing up the biography section, expanding, and getting it to FAC in a while if no one minds too much. Ottava Rima ( talk) 00:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not a Blake expert, so this is more of a question about a possible error than positive criticism -- hope this is the correct forum for it.
In the section on Blake's illustrations for The Divine Comedy, the article suddenly discusses the illustration's critical commentary on Milton's poetry. That can't be right, can it?
tbird ( talk) 00:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
"He was born a woman and became a man later in life." Uh, citation? Explanation? I.e., what in the world are you talking about? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.189.206.174 ( talk) 14:09, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
I would disagree with the merger of Continental prophecies into here as the article has sufficient refs and is notable enough (in my opinion) to stay as its own article. Much of William Blakes other work has its own article to begin with [1] hence I would think this would be of an equal level. Anyway another potential merger could be here William Blake's prophetic books if a merger is desired. Kind regards. Calaka ( talk) 13:09, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
If you want something really worth merging, here is a separate proposal: merge Thiriel, Grodna (Blake), Fuzon (Blake), and Utha into Sons of Urizen. Of these, Grodna and Utha are only used once by Blake in The Book of Urizen. These are literally one-line references and there is absolutely nothing that could be done to expand those two articles from their current lengths. Thiriel is only slightly better, as he has one-line references in two of Blake's works. Fuzon is the only one of any note, as he is a main character in The Book of Ahania; although in his role as a fiery rebel against Urizen he is supplanted by Blake with Orc in later books. Litho derm 15:02, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following from the article and bring it here for discussion:
The references in this section are not adequate to justify its existence, and the refs present are incomplete. As it stands, the section makes claims that it does not support. As such, it should stay out until it is properly referenced. --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 01:16, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Because Blake's later poetry contains a private mythology with complex symbolism, his late work is less widely read or anthologized than his earlier more accessible work. The recent Vintage anthology of Blake edited by Patti Smith is heavily focused on the earlier work, as are many critical studies such as William Blake by D. G. Gillham. The earlier work is primarily rebellious in character - protesting against establishment religion. This is especially notable in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in which Satan is virtually the hero rebelling against an imposter authoritarian deity. In the later works such as Milton and Jerusalem, Blake carves a distinctive vision of a humanity redeemed by self-sacrifice and forgivness, while retaining a negative attitude towards the rigid and morbid authoritarianism of traditional religion. Not all readers of Blake agree upon how much continuity exists between Blake's earlier and later works. John Middleton Murry sees a sharp discontinuity. He holds that in his maturity Blake softened much of his earlier views, and that Blake's new emphasis on self-sacrifice is effectively a renunciation of the views of Marriage of Heaven and Hell. However, psychoanalyst June Singer sees Blake's late work as a more developed version of his views which one can find the seeds of in his earlier works, because of the continued focus in all of Blake on humanitarian goals of achieving personal wholeness of body and spirit.[2]
Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) whilst close to Golden Sq is not on or attached to it, so I have removed it from the place of birth address. Peter Ackroyd's biography of Blake discusses the Square as being south of Blake's home, but not part of its address. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coatgal ( talk • contribs) 21:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
I am puzzled as to why this page gets more vandalism then say the pages on the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen. The Wordsworth article gets a lot of vandalism as well. I suppose there is no way of really knowing.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 04:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
How do I add an external link if the article is semiprotected? Gzaldin ( talk) 20:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
In the section on Blake's apprenticeship, there is the comment that "However, Peter Ackroyd's biography notes that Blake was later to add Basire's name to a list of artistic adversaries—and then cross it out" with a footnote pointing to page 43. I've just checked through my copy of Ackroyd and cannot find that remark. In fact, Ackroyd's remarks are quite the opposite: "Basire has also been described as a 'kind master', and the evidence for this must lie in the remarkable fact that for the seven years they were in each other's company there is no record of any serious disagreement between Basire and his passionate, often impetuous, apprentice." (43) It may be that my edition is the first and this was amended in any reprints. However, I still think the tone indicates more potential antagonism between Blake and Basire than existed. The lines from David Erdman's edition of The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake is as follows:
Erdman's note indicates that the name Basire was crossed out after that of Bowyer, and Bentley and other biographers have drawn attention to Blake's frustration at this time: he may, indeed, in the early 1800s have considered Basire partially responsible for his lack of success in that he was taught an old fashioned engraving style, but there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate anything other than respect for Basire during his time as an apprentice. Jasonwhittaker ( talk) 06:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
The section on engraving includes the following comment: "A study in 2005 of Blake's surviving plates showed that he made frequent use of a technique known as "repoussage" which is a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. This discovery puts strain on Blake's own assessment of his abilities as well of those of admirers and may also help to explain why some of Blake's work took so long to complete." The Guardian article from which this is taken somewhat simplifies Mei-Ying Sung's view which is extended in William Blake and the Art of Engraving (Pickering and Chatto: 2009). Her criticism is more specifically about how theories of Blake's working practice for relief etching, as put forward by Robert Essick and Joseph Viscomi in particular. I would suggest that the line "This discovery... long to complete" be changed to "This discovery contradicted some general theories about Blake's engraving techniques based on his relief etching, so that his ideas of the unity of design and execution could only be applied to etching rather than engraving, which was a much more labour-intensive process." Jasonwhittaker ( talk) 07:23, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
All of the following biographies of William Blake describe him as an advocate of free love
William Blake: a study of his life and art work by Irene Langridge (1904)
William Blake: poet and mystic by Pierre Berger, Daniel Henry Conner (1915)
(See chapter on "His System of Morality")
William Blake: a new kind of man by Michael Davis (1977)
Life of William Blake by Thomas Wright (2003)
and especially the controversial
Why Mrs Blake cried: William Blake and the sexual basis of spiritual vision by Marsha Keith Schuchard (2006)
I think the category should stay.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 17:11, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
A few points.
1) Blake is indeed popular with the
New Age movement, but the "free love" movement using that exact phrase only sometimes advocating what today New Agers and others call "polyamory" goes back to the mid-19th century. For example, an early American advocate was
Theodore Tilton (1835-1907). Many advocates of free love did not advocate promiscuity re short-term relationships or multiple partners (although Tilton was extremely promiscuous, sewing his oats in many fields.) The core of the 19th-century "free love" movement (once again that is the precise phrase that was used) was that sexuality should be utterly and wholly unregulated by the state in any form, and that the institution of marriage was a form of servitude or slavery. This of course implied no laws against homosexuality or prostitution, etc. Hopefully, this helps re your request for context. Blake himself hung out for a while with the most radical branch of the Moravian sect, whose ideas at that time certainly fit in with the 19th century "free love" movement, and his poem
Visions of the Daughters of Albion is widely interpreted as fitting the mold of that movement's ideas. If you think calling Blake a "free love" advocate necessarily implies behavior like Tilton or sleeping all over the neighborhood, then I fear you are the one engaging in "new age projection". To be fair, Blake wrote several decades before the phrase "free love" was coined, but the movements he associated with are intellectual ancestors of the "free love" movement. The term "
feminism" was coined in the 1880s, but no one denies that
Mary Wollstonecraft was a "feminist" although the term did not exist in her day.
2) Lots of folks think there is something of what you call "new age projection" in Schuchard's book, but this could hardly be true of books published in 1904 and 1915.
3) Blake's ideas shifted over time and he may not have been a life-long consistent advocate of free love, but he certainly was drawn to the idea during a phase of his life.
4) I did not originally put the article in this category, but immediately decided it was fitting. It might be a good idea if the article itself contained more explicit discussion of Blake's exact views, and what the term meant in
Victorian times.
Yes, I really did complete a Master's Thesis in April 2009 on William Blake and was awarded a Master's Degree in Religion and Ethics from the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA after completing it.
See also William Blake and gender By Magnus Ankarsjö 2006
Respectfully reverting--
WickerGuy (
talk)
03:53, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
To put in in very plain and simple terms, the "free love" movement of the 1820s (which coined the term later in 1850) and the "free love" movement of the 1960s are two very very different things. Readers of Wikipedia might confuse the two without further qualification, so the article should include some discussion of Blake's involvement in the former. If you think until this is clarified in the text of the article, the category should be suspended, I could concede to that.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 04:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree with this argument. Certainly Schuchard's book is problematic, and Blake would not have countenanced any coercive group sexual activity. And interpretations of the poem you mention do vary. Perhaps instead a nuanced paragraph should be added to the article.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 17:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The Blake article was recently protected because of excessive vandalism. But you can propose text to be inserted here, and other editors would be glad to put it in the main section. I have just added a section to the main article, which I hope has enough nuance and qualification to satisfy folks. However, the "category" doesn't have to be lifelong advocates, and I think his (admittedly abortive) request for a second wife or mistress does kind of qualify him for the category. The category already includes Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman. However, not reinstating category right now. Quite right, I should wait for consensus-- WickerGuy ( talk) 17:55, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I have very 50/50 feelings about that. On the negative, since the Victorians used that exact phrase "free love" although the word has morphed, I think avoiding it to avoid controversy amounts to a kind of "dumbing down" of Wikipedia, much like the misbegotten switch of the title of the first Harry Potter book from "philosopher's stone" to "sorcerer's stone" for USA publication only (just because a poll showed few American kids knew what it was.) The word "economics" means in England more or less a synthesis of what we call "political science" and "economics" in the USA. A European who says he is an "evangelical Christian" means something different than most Americans. Similarly, with the word "liberal". "Fornication" used to mean relations with a prostitute, but now means relations between any two (both) unmarried people. If the Victorians called their activist movement "free love" we should stick to that with caveats and explanations, but not dumb it down catering to modern ignorance of how the word has morphed over time. However, the advantage of changing the section name is that it allows a broadening of the scope of the discussion. Perhaps the best is to make "free love" a subsection of the other.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 04:43, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Technically, Blake did use the phrase "free love" but not in context with a larger political movement, though the latter may have taken (consciously or unconsciously) the phrase from Blake. I described Blake as a forerunner, but could perhaps add "subsequent" movement. The influence of Blake on Allen Ginsberg goes way way beyond issues of sexuality. Possibly Ginsberg appeals to Blake specifically in the context of issues of sexual ethics, but I just don't know if he does or not. Shall investigate-- WickerGuy ( talk) 14:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it would be more accurate to the change the following sentence: "Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into the marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society,[33]" to "Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into the marriage bed in accordance with his understanding of the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society,[33] A simple search of "concubine" in the works of Swedenborg show him explaining why concubines were "permitted" to the ancient Israelites (and not to modern Christians) and how sex within marriage is the only way to a true spiritual union. At most Swedenborg states that a concubine may be tolerated in the same way divorce is tolerated (and for the same reasons). Stating as fact that Swedenborgians believe concubines should be brought to the marriage bed is at the least controversial and maybe slanderous 67.169.7.177 ( talk) 21:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)Douglas Greg Stinson
Before re-adding the category - achieve consensus, and stop the edit war, a clear secondary source reference would help... Modernist ( talk) 11:54, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
(At last - done enough editing elsewhere to finally allow me access to this page!)
Citations and references are a little bit of a mess on this page and, if others would not object, I propose to start amending them and would also like to make some suggestions - I'm making the proposals before jumping in and then starting a mini riot.
For anyone writing an academic paper or book on Blake, the standard edition (MLA approved) is David Erdman's The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake (revised edition, Dover 1988), which is now supplemented by the Blake Archive. I've been browsing through various articles on Wikipedia and referencing seems to be mixed, so my proposal would be as follows:
Okay, the reason for me not actually doing this just yet is that far more regular contributors by myself may consider it out of odds with how other Wikipedia articles are (not) referenced, but it is the convention in academic publishing. Unless there are major objections, I'll start tomorrow (it may take a bit of time to check up all the references). Jason Whittaker ( talk) 18:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
The beginning of the article states that "Although he only once journeyed farther than a day's walk outside London during his lifetime" but the articles on Felpham and And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time both state he wrote Milton in Sussex. Even if this is the 'once' mentioned in the quote I think it best for it to be cleaned up as it seems to suggest that Blake spent almost his entire life in London and ignores the three years he spent away. 144.173.209.123 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC).
This section is, simply put, terrible. First, the title is a problem since Blake was not a Victorian, having died 10 years before the era began. Second, and more importantly, it is not well referenced, with vague mention of an obscure early 20th century title with no further bibliographic information, and bare urls for websites of unknown veracity, notability, and relevance. The section is also poorly written, and too long, devoting a great deal of space to an idea that is hardly central to contemporary Blake scholarship---Is there a current scholar or biographer that deals with this issue?---Are Berger and Wright taken at all seriously or given any weight in contemporary scholarship on Blake, or are their views now considered passe? These are important questions to consider. As it stands, this is an embarrassment. --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 04:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I think JasonWhittaker did a fine job updating the Cultural Influence section.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 16:35, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
First note. I am not at all the anonymous IP editor who added in Patti Smith (nor the one who initially added the painter Henry Fuseli to the list of influences though this also I restored after another editor zapped in and gave an explanation), but once it was in, it seemed reasonably evident to me it should stay.
Patti Smith has all of the following connections to William Blake of which the 1st listed is by far the most important for WP purposes.
1. An 2007 exhibit at the British library entitled "William Blake: Under the Influence" included manuscripts by authors influenced by Blake including novelists Phillip Pullman, Tracy Chevalier, and artist/singer Patti Smith.
Patti Smith was in there because of her song "My Blakean Year", and is described as "a lifelong Blake devotee". See exhibit page at
http://www.bl.uk/news/2007/pressrelease20070110.html.
See lyrics to "My Blakean Year" at Patti Smith's own website "
http://www.pattismith.net/trampin/myblakeanyear_lyrics.html",. Patti Smith on her website writes "i have worked on this song for awhile. reading a lot of william blake as well as the wonderful blake biography by peter ackroyd. his life was a testament " at
http://www.pattismith.net/trampin/myblakeanyear.html
2. In 2009, Patti Smith performed "Blake in Poetry and Song: An Evening with Patti Smith" at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. http://www.themorgan.org/public/program.asp?id=236 3. In November 2000, she participated in the launching of the William Blake exhibit at London’s Tate Gallery with a performance with Oliver Ray at St. James Cathedral, and also at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with its William Blake program in June 2001 http://www.myspace.com/pattismith
4 She edited an anthology of his poetry (Sorry it's mentioned in Smith article, not in this WP article as my prior edit-explanation erroneously stated.)
5. She has publicly lectured on Blake (actually on Blake and Rimbaud).
6. She has performed along with other pop artists (including Sinnead O'Connor) at a festival devoted to musical tributes to Blake.
http://williamblake.tribe.net/thread/e02eb410-0e52-4383-aef9-84767af06949
--
WickerGuy (
talk)
19:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
The passage just restored by User:RepublicanJacobite didn't even claim Blake was orthodox to begin with. It simply asserted these were his views on orthodoxy, positive or negative.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 16:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
The recently deleted material was in the wrong place regardless of whether or not it had been better referenced!! That section is about Blake's Claims to have seen visions, NOT about his general artistic legacy!! As such, the two paragraphs removed by User:RepublicanJacobite are irrelevant to that section to begin with.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 19:58, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, the first Cousins paragraph does mention the visions briefly near the end, but is still not focused enough on them. The Williams bit is still 100% irrelevant to the section.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 20:00, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
I just came to Wikipedia to try and find out a bit more about Blake's 'Rossetti Manuscript', but didn't find very much. Might also be good to have a mention of the Pickering Manuscript at some point too (I mean apart from when you click 'show' on Literary works). Bibliography perhaps? Is that an appropriate place for these kinds of documents?-- Rsm77 ( talk) 09:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I wonder if this article could use more cited text backup for the list of folks influenced by Blake. Other articles maintain strict standards of article text with citations for any list of influences in the Infobox. I remain puzzled by the presence of Northrup Frye. He wrote a major study of Blake's poetry, but does that make hims someone that Blake influenced??-- WickerGuy ( talk) 23:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
This link: William Blake at Fine Arts Presentations features the artworks and short bio of William Blake. Does the community believe this additional link in the External Links section would enhance this document? The elibrarian ( talk) 18:05, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I have noticed that the article states that W. Blake died on August 12, 1827, however in the info under his pictorial, in the info regarding Spouse(s), it says that he was married with C. Blake between 1782 and 1831, I find this impossible but I didn't want to edit or make any change without posting this here, besides I don't have any reliable info to fix this, I just came to this article and found this. wDc ( talk) 01:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Is there a need for two sections which have the same purpose? The bibliography also starts to seem rather messy and doesn't have the links to the main sections like the Wikipedia citations / references section does.
What is happening here? Crazyskeggy ( talk) 16:41, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I removed a paragraph devoted to the hypothesis that Blake was actually "an Enlightenment thinker". I did not do so because I disagree necessarily, but because it seemed to me, having read and studied Blake for ten years, to be a poorly worded statement of what is essentially a minority opinion among Blake scholars. That said, I do understand that neoclassical thought had an influence upon all of the English Romantics in some form or another-- Coleridge especially,-- and I wouldn't mind seeing a slightly better worded paragraph on Blake's views. In the end of Jerusalem, Newton, Bacon, and Locke, are all swept up by Christ's redemptive power,-- the complexities of Jerusalem, however, make it so that I have a hard time properly including that scene in such a paragraph myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.186.234.95 ( talk) 02:23, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
This should be noted here, since it won't show up on project alerts. There is a discussion at Talk:Songs of Innocence (album) including whether to move the new U2 album over the William Blake Songs of Innocence (1789) redirect to the later Songs of Innocence and Experience combined Blake collection. In ictu oculi ( talk) 01:28, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
This article is currently being reviewed to see if it matches the criteria for a Good Article. Comments can be seen here. SilkTork * YES! 23:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Progress seems to have died. I would like to take a crack at fixing up the biography section, expanding, and getting it to FAC in a while if no one minds too much. Ottava Rima ( talk) 00:38, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not a Blake expert, so this is more of a question about a possible error than positive criticism -- hope this is the correct forum for it.
In the section on Blake's illustrations for The Divine Comedy, the article suddenly discusses the illustration's critical commentary on Milton's poetry. That can't be right, can it?
tbird ( talk) 00:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
"He was born a woman and became a man later in life." Uh, citation? Explanation? I.e., what in the world are you talking about? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.189.206.174 ( talk) 14:09, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
I would disagree with the merger of Continental prophecies into here as the article has sufficient refs and is notable enough (in my opinion) to stay as its own article. Much of William Blakes other work has its own article to begin with [1] hence I would think this would be of an equal level. Anyway another potential merger could be here William Blake's prophetic books if a merger is desired. Kind regards. Calaka ( talk) 13:09, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
If you want something really worth merging, here is a separate proposal: merge Thiriel, Grodna (Blake), Fuzon (Blake), and Utha into Sons of Urizen. Of these, Grodna and Utha are only used once by Blake in The Book of Urizen. These are literally one-line references and there is absolutely nothing that could be done to expand those two articles from their current lengths. Thiriel is only slightly better, as he has one-line references in two of Blake's works. Fuzon is the only one of any note, as he is a main character in The Book of Ahania; although in his role as a fiery rebel against Urizen he is supplanted by Blake with Orc in later books. Litho derm 15:02, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I removed the following from the article and bring it here for discussion:
The references in this section are not adequate to justify its existence, and the refs present are incomplete. As it stands, the section makes claims that it does not support. As such, it should stay out until it is properly referenced. --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 01:16, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
Because Blake's later poetry contains a private mythology with complex symbolism, his late work is less widely read or anthologized than his earlier more accessible work. The recent Vintage anthology of Blake edited by Patti Smith is heavily focused on the earlier work, as are many critical studies such as William Blake by D. G. Gillham. The earlier work is primarily rebellious in character - protesting against establishment religion. This is especially notable in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in which Satan is virtually the hero rebelling against an imposter authoritarian deity. In the later works such as Milton and Jerusalem, Blake carves a distinctive vision of a humanity redeemed by self-sacrifice and forgivness, while retaining a negative attitude towards the rigid and morbid authoritarianism of traditional religion. Not all readers of Blake agree upon how much continuity exists between Blake's earlier and later works. John Middleton Murry sees a sharp discontinuity. He holds that in his maturity Blake softened much of his earlier views, and that Blake's new emphasis on self-sacrifice is effectively a renunciation of the views of Marriage of Heaven and Hell. However, psychoanalyst June Singer sees Blake's late work as a more developed version of his views which one can find the seeds of in his earlier works, because of the continued focus in all of Blake on humanitarian goals of achieving personal wholeness of body and spirit.[2]
Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) whilst close to Golden Sq is not on or attached to it, so I have removed it from the place of birth address. Peter Ackroyd's biography of Blake discusses the Square as being south of Blake's home, but not part of its address. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coatgal ( talk • contribs) 21:41, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
I am puzzled as to why this page gets more vandalism then say the pages on the Bronte sisters or Jane Austen. The Wordsworth article gets a lot of vandalism as well. I suppose there is no way of really knowing.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 04:09, 25 February 2010 (UTC)
How do I add an external link if the article is semiprotected? Gzaldin ( talk) 20:23, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
In the section on Blake's apprenticeship, there is the comment that "However, Peter Ackroyd's biography notes that Blake was later to add Basire's name to a list of artistic adversaries—and then cross it out" with a footnote pointing to page 43. I've just checked through my copy of Ackroyd and cannot find that remark. In fact, Ackroyd's remarks are quite the opposite: "Basire has also been described as a 'kind master', and the evidence for this must lie in the remarkable fact that for the seven years they were in each other's company there is no record of any serious disagreement between Basire and his passionate, often impetuous, apprentice." (43) It may be that my edition is the first and this was amended in any reprints. However, I still think the tone indicates more potential antagonism between Blake and Basire than existed. The lines from David Erdman's edition of The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake is as follows:
Erdman's note indicates that the name Basire was crossed out after that of Bowyer, and Bentley and other biographers have drawn attention to Blake's frustration at this time: he may, indeed, in the early 1800s have considered Basire partially responsible for his lack of success in that he was taught an old fashioned engraving style, but there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate anything other than respect for Basire during his time as an apprentice. Jasonwhittaker ( talk) 06:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
The section on engraving includes the following comment: "A study in 2005 of Blake's surviving plates showed that he made frequent use of a technique known as "repoussage" which is a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. This discovery puts strain on Blake's own assessment of his abilities as well of those of admirers and may also help to explain why some of Blake's work took so long to complete." The Guardian article from which this is taken somewhat simplifies Mei-Ying Sung's view which is extended in William Blake and the Art of Engraving (Pickering and Chatto: 2009). Her criticism is more specifically about how theories of Blake's working practice for relief etching, as put forward by Robert Essick and Joseph Viscomi in particular. I would suggest that the line "This discovery... long to complete" be changed to "This discovery contradicted some general theories about Blake's engraving techniques based on his relief etching, so that his ideas of the unity of design and execution could only be applied to etching rather than engraving, which was a much more labour-intensive process." Jasonwhittaker ( talk) 07:23, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
All of the following biographies of William Blake describe him as an advocate of free love
William Blake: a study of his life and art work by Irene Langridge (1904)
William Blake: poet and mystic by Pierre Berger, Daniel Henry Conner (1915)
(See chapter on "His System of Morality")
William Blake: a new kind of man by Michael Davis (1977)
Life of William Blake by Thomas Wright (2003)
and especially the controversial
Why Mrs Blake cried: William Blake and the sexual basis of spiritual vision by Marsha Keith Schuchard (2006)
I think the category should stay.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 17:11, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
A few points.
1) Blake is indeed popular with the
New Age movement, but the "free love" movement using that exact phrase only sometimes advocating what today New Agers and others call "polyamory" goes back to the mid-19th century. For example, an early American advocate was
Theodore Tilton (1835-1907). Many advocates of free love did not advocate promiscuity re short-term relationships or multiple partners (although Tilton was extremely promiscuous, sewing his oats in many fields.) The core of the 19th-century "free love" movement (once again that is the precise phrase that was used) was that sexuality should be utterly and wholly unregulated by the state in any form, and that the institution of marriage was a form of servitude or slavery. This of course implied no laws against homosexuality or prostitution, etc. Hopefully, this helps re your request for context. Blake himself hung out for a while with the most radical branch of the Moravian sect, whose ideas at that time certainly fit in with the 19th century "free love" movement, and his poem
Visions of the Daughters of Albion is widely interpreted as fitting the mold of that movement's ideas. If you think calling Blake a "free love" advocate necessarily implies behavior like Tilton or sleeping all over the neighborhood, then I fear you are the one engaging in "new age projection". To be fair, Blake wrote several decades before the phrase "free love" was coined, but the movements he associated with are intellectual ancestors of the "free love" movement. The term "
feminism" was coined in the 1880s, but no one denies that
Mary Wollstonecraft was a "feminist" although the term did not exist in her day.
2) Lots of folks think there is something of what you call "new age projection" in Schuchard's book, but this could hardly be true of books published in 1904 and 1915.
3) Blake's ideas shifted over time and he may not have been a life-long consistent advocate of free love, but he certainly was drawn to the idea during a phase of his life.
4) I did not originally put the article in this category, but immediately decided it was fitting. It might be a good idea if the article itself contained more explicit discussion of Blake's exact views, and what the term meant in
Victorian times.
Yes, I really did complete a Master's Thesis in April 2009 on William Blake and was awarded a Master's Degree in Religion and Ethics from the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA after completing it.
See also William Blake and gender By Magnus Ankarsjö 2006
Respectfully reverting--
WickerGuy (
talk)
03:53, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
To put in in very plain and simple terms, the "free love" movement of the 1820s (which coined the term later in 1850) and the "free love" movement of the 1960s are two very very different things. Readers of Wikipedia might confuse the two without further qualification, so the article should include some discussion of Blake's involvement in the former. If you think until this is clarified in the text of the article, the category should be suspended, I could concede to that.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 04:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree with this argument. Certainly Schuchard's book is problematic, and Blake would not have countenanced any coercive group sexual activity. And interpretations of the poem you mention do vary. Perhaps instead a nuanced paragraph should be added to the article.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 17:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
The Blake article was recently protected because of excessive vandalism. But you can propose text to be inserted here, and other editors would be glad to put it in the main section. I have just added a section to the main article, which I hope has enough nuance and qualification to satisfy folks. However, the "category" doesn't have to be lifelong advocates, and I think his (admittedly abortive) request for a second wife or mistress does kind of qualify him for the category. The category already includes Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman. However, not reinstating category right now. Quite right, I should wait for consensus-- WickerGuy ( talk) 17:55, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I have very 50/50 feelings about that. On the negative, since the Victorians used that exact phrase "free love" although the word has morphed, I think avoiding it to avoid controversy amounts to a kind of "dumbing down" of Wikipedia, much like the misbegotten switch of the title of the first Harry Potter book from "philosopher's stone" to "sorcerer's stone" for USA publication only (just because a poll showed few American kids knew what it was.) The word "economics" means in England more or less a synthesis of what we call "political science" and "economics" in the USA. A European who says he is an "evangelical Christian" means something different than most Americans. Similarly, with the word "liberal". "Fornication" used to mean relations with a prostitute, but now means relations between any two (both) unmarried people. If the Victorians called their activist movement "free love" we should stick to that with caveats and explanations, but not dumb it down catering to modern ignorance of how the word has morphed over time. However, the advantage of changing the section name is that it allows a broadening of the scope of the discussion. Perhaps the best is to make "free love" a subsection of the other.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 04:43, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Technically, Blake did use the phrase "free love" but not in context with a larger political movement, though the latter may have taken (consciously or unconsciously) the phrase from Blake. I described Blake as a forerunner, but could perhaps add "subsequent" movement. The influence of Blake on Allen Ginsberg goes way way beyond issues of sexuality. Possibly Ginsberg appeals to Blake specifically in the context of issues of sexual ethics, but I just don't know if he does or not. Shall investigate-- WickerGuy ( talk) 14:39, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it would be more accurate to the change the following sentence: "Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into the marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society,[33]" to "Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into the marriage bed in accordance with his understanding of the beliefs of the Swedenborgian Society,[33] A simple search of "concubine" in the works of Swedenborg show him explaining why concubines were "permitted" to the ancient Israelites (and not to modern Christians) and how sex within marriage is the only way to a true spiritual union. At most Swedenborg states that a concubine may be tolerated in the same way divorce is tolerated (and for the same reasons). Stating as fact that Swedenborgians believe concubines should be brought to the marriage bed is at the least controversial and maybe slanderous 67.169.7.177 ( talk) 21:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)Douglas Greg Stinson
Before re-adding the category - achieve consensus, and stop the edit war, a clear secondary source reference would help... Modernist ( talk) 11:54, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
(At last - done enough editing elsewhere to finally allow me access to this page!)
Citations and references are a little bit of a mess on this page and, if others would not object, I propose to start amending them and would also like to make some suggestions - I'm making the proposals before jumping in and then starting a mini riot.
For anyone writing an academic paper or book on Blake, the standard edition (MLA approved) is David Erdman's The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake (revised edition, Dover 1988), which is now supplemented by the Blake Archive. I've been browsing through various articles on Wikipedia and referencing seems to be mixed, so my proposal would be as follows:
Okay, the reason for me not actually doing this just yet is that far more regular contributors by myself may consider it out of odds with how other Wikipedia articles are (not) referenced, but it is the convention in academic publishing. Unless there are major objections, I'll start tomorrow (it may take a bit of time to check up all the references). Jason Whittaker ( talk) 18:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
The beginning of the article states that "Although he only once journeyed farther than a day's walk outside London during his lifetime" but the articles on Felpham and And_did_those_feet_in_ancient_time both state he wrote Milton in Sussex. Even if this is the 'once' mentioned in the quote I think it best for it to be cleaned up as it seems to suggest that Blake spent almost his entire life in London and ignores the three years he spent away. 144.173.209.123 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:19, 30 March 2010 (UTC).
This section is, simply put, terrible. First, the title is a problem since Blake was not a Victorian, having died 10 years before the era began. Second, and more importantly, it is not well referenced, with vague mention of an obscure early 20th century title with no further bibliographic information, and bare urls for websites of unknown veracity, notability, and relevance. The section is also poorly written, and too long, devoting a great deal of space to an idea that is hardly central to contemporary Blake scholarship---Is there a current scholar or biographer that deals with this issue?---Are Berger and Wright taken at all seriously or given any weight in contemporary scholarship on Blake, or are their views now considered passe? These are important questions to consider. As it stands, this is an embarrassment. --- RepublicanJacobite The'FortyFive' 04:37, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I think JasonWhittaker did a fine job updating the Cultural Influence section.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 16:35, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
First note. I am not at all the anonymous IP editor who added in Patti Smith (nor the one who initially added the painter Henry Fuseli to the list of influences though this also I restored after another editor zapped in and gave an explanation), but once it was in, it seemed reasonably evident to me it should stay.
Patti Smith has all of the following connections to William Blake of which the 1st listed is by far the most important for WP purposes.
1. An 2007 exhibit at the British library entitled "William Blake: Under the Influence" included manuscripts by authors influenced by Blake including novelists Phillip Pullman, Tracy Chevalier, and artist/singer Patti Smith.
Patti Smith was in there because of her song "My Blakean Year", and is described as "a lifelong Blake devotee". See exhibit page at
http://www.bl.uk/news/2007/pressrelease20070110.html.
See lyrics to "My Blakean Year" at Patti Smith's own website "
http://www.pattismith.net/trampin/myblakeanyear_lyrics.html",. Patti Smith on her website writes "i have worked on this song for awhile. reading a lot of william blake as well as the wonderful blake biography by peter ackroyd. his life was a testament " at
http://www.pattismith.net/trampin/myblakeanyear.html
2. In 2009, Patti Smith performed "Blake in Poetry and Song: An Evening with Patti Smith" at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. http://www.themorgan.org/public/program.asp?id=236 3. In November 2000, she participated in the launching of the William Blake exhibit at London’s Tate Gallery with a performance with Oliver Ray at St. James Cathedral, and also at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art in conjunction with its William Blake program in June 2001 http://www.myspace.com/pattismith
4 She edited an anthology of his poetry (Sorry it's mentioned in Smith article, not in this WP article as my prior edit-explanation erroneously stated.)
5. She has publicly lectured on Blake (actually on Blake and Rimbaud).
6. She has performed along with other pop artists (including Sinnead O'Connor) at a festival devoted to musical tributes to Blake.
http://williamblake.tribe.net/thread/e02eb410-0e52-4383-aef9-84767af06949
--
WickerGuy (
talk)
19:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
The passage just restored by User:RepublicanJacobite didn't even claim Blake was orthodox to begin with. It simply asserted these were his views on orthodoxy, positive or negative.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 16:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
The recently deleted material was in the wrong place regardless of whether or not it had been better referenced!! That section is about Blake's Claims to have seen visions, NOT about his general artistic legacy!! As such, the two paragraphs removed by User:RepublicanJacobite are irrelevant to that section to begin with.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 19:58, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, the first Cousins paragraph does mention the visions briefly near the end, but is still not focused enough on them. The Williams bit is still 100% irrelevant to the section.-- WickerGuy ( talk) 20:00, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
I just came to Wikipedia to try and find out a bit more about Blake's 'Rossetti Manuscript', but didn't find very much. Might also be good to have a mention of the Pickering Manuscript at some point too (I mean apart from when you click 'show' on Literary works). Bibliography perhaps? Is that an appropriate place for these kinds of documents?-- Rsm77 ( talk) 09:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
I wonder if this article could use more cited text backup for the list of folks influenced by Blake. Other articles maintain strict standards of article text with citations for any list of influences in the Infobox. I remain puzzled by the presence of Northrup Frye. He wrote a major study of Blake's poetry, but does that make hims someone that Blake influenced??-- WickerGuy ( talk) 23:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
This link: William Blake at Fine Arts Presentations features the artworks and short bio of William Blake. Does the community believe this additional link in the External Links section would enhance this document? The elibrarian ( talk) 18:05, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I have noticed that the article states that W. Blake died on August 12, 1827, however in the info under his pictorial, in the info regarding Spouse(s), it says that he was married with C. Blake between 1782 and 1831, I find this impossible but I didn't want to edit or make any change without posting this here, besides I don't have any reliable info to fix this, I just came to this article and found this. wDc ( talk) 01:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Is there a need for two sections which have the same purpose? The bibliography also starts to seem rather messy and doesn't have the links to the main sections like the Wikipedia citations / references section does.
What is happening here? Crazyskeggy ( talk) 16:41, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
I removed a paragraph devoted to the hypothesis that Blake was actually "an Enlightenment thinker". I did not do so because I disagree necessarily, but because it seemed to me, having read and studied Blake for ten years, to be a poorly worded statement of what is essentially a minority opinion among Blake scholars. That said, I do understand that neoclassical thought had an influence upon all of the English Romantics in some form or another-- Coleridge especially,-- and I wouldn't mind seeing a slightly better worded paragraph on Blake's views. In the end of Jerusalem, Newton, Bacon, and Locke, are all swept up by Christ's redemptive power,-- the complexities of Jerusalem, however, make it so that I have a hard time properly including that scene in such a paragraph myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.186.234.95 ( talk) 02:23, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
This should be noted here, since it won't show up on project alerts. There is a discussion at Talk:Songs of Innocence (album) including whether to move the new U2 album over the William Blake Songs of Innocence (1789) redirect to the later Songs of Innocence and Experience combined Blake collection. In ictu oculi ( talk) 01:28, 1 November 2014 (UTC)