William Blake. Osbert Burdett
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into images, every event was changed into a drama, and as we listen to his words or meditate upon the anecdotes of which he was the hero, we seem to be studying the working of the human imagination itself. It is this that makes critical commentary seem irrelevant, for vividness of impression is the quality for which he was unique. To measure his experiences by the force with which they were conveyed is to mistake the quality of his genius.
William Blake, Illustration from America, a Prophecy, plate 3, 1793.
Relief etching, with some wash, 25.2 × 16.5 cm.
The British Museum, London.
The Lyrical Poems
The death of Robert was followed by a disagreement with Parker, and when the partnership was dissolved Blake gave up the house and business in Broad Street and moved to 28 Poland Street, where he remained for five years. It was from here, two years after the death of his brother, that in 1789 Blake issued the Songs of Innocence, his first example of illuminated printing. Like all of Blake’s books except the earlier Poetical Sketches, this work can best be appreciated in all its beauty when read in the original form in which it came from his own hand and press. Since this is not possible except for those who visit museum libraries, the method must be faithfully described. In the words of Mr. John Sampson:
The text and the surrounding design were written in reverse [a painfully laborious method], in a medium impervious to acid upon small copper plates about 5” by 3” which were then etched in a bath of aqua-fortis until the work stood in relief as in a stereotype. From these plates, which to economise copper were, in many cases, engraved upon both sides, impressions were printed in the ordinary manner, in tints made to harmonise with the colour scheme afterwards applied by the artist.
The text and the illustration are thus interwoven into a harmonious whole, and the colour can be varied so that no two copies are exactly alike. Little but the use of a press distinguishes the books made from illuminated manuscripts; the etching in reverse, together with the press, makes the new method even more laborious than the old. The consequence has been that Blake has had no successors in this art form which he invented, nor can his originals be copied without great difficulty and expense. Only those who have compared his originals with the printed pages in which his poems are ordinarily read are fully aware of the loss now suffered by his writings, which require to be read as much by the eye as by the mind on pages suffused with life and colour. Blake evidently adopted the method by preference and artistic choice, and because his hand could not write so much as a word without the impulse to trace designs upon the paper. He wished to indulge both his gifts at the same time. The printed sheets of the Poetical Sketches no doubt seemed the death of form to him, and though he would use texts and phrases to decorate his later designs, it is significant that he would hardly ever write without engraving. He was always indifferent to a strictly intellectual appeal, and his writings invite artistic rather than intellectual criticism.
Henry Fuseli, Prometheus, 1770–1771.
Pencil, quill, ink and ink wash, 15 × 22 cm.
Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Kupferstichkabinett, Basel.
A necessary effect of Blake’s illuminated printing was to decrease his number of readers, in the manner of an artist who displays not books but pictures. Blake often painted in words, and should be judged rather as an artist than an author. Mr. Sampson does not think it probable that the whole impression of the Songs issued by Blake exceeded the twenty-two that he describes. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Blake’s writings were little known. Absorbed in his invention, Blake eventually issued from Lambeth a prospectus defending his method and advertising the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience at five shillings each. In 1793, he wrote: “If a method which combines the Painter and the Poet is a phenomenon worthy of public attention, provided it exceeds in elegance all former methods, the author is sure of his reward.” As Mr. Symons has said,
Had it not been for [Blake’s] lack of a technical knowledge of music, had he been able to write down his inventions in that art also, he would have left us the creation of something like a universal art. That universal art he did, during his lifetime, create; for he sang his songs to his own music; and thus, while he lived, he was the complete realisation of the poet in all his faculties, and the only complete realisation that has ever been known.
What can be said of the Songs of Innocence that has not been said by other poets? Until rather recently, only men of genius busied themselves with Blake; theirs is the prerogative of praising, and there is now presumably no reader of poetry who does not know the most exquisite section of his verse. The boy who had written the Poetical Sketches was already a precocious artist. The imagination of the man who wrote the Songs of Innocence had not outgrown the simplicity of the child. Blake might have been an inspired child writing for children, and these songs are nursery rhymes of pure poetry which children and their elders can equally love. Such sources as have been suggested for them, for example the Divine and Moral Songs for Children by Dr. Watts,[24] only emphasise the transforming power of Blake’s touch. The real excuse for looking for sources is that Blake had an extraordinary temptation to surpass any influence that came his way. Later in life, and much against the grain, he surpassed even Hayley in the art of complimentary letters. It would, then, be a curious paradox if songs that seem the very stream of poetry issuing from the mouth of the Muse herself should have had an accidental origin. It is just possible that the title may have been inspired by a casual memory, but with the verse of the Poetical Sketches before us it would be absurd and uncritical to derive them from anywhere but the author of the earliest poems. He had shown that he could rival the Elizabethan lyrists, and that he could transmute nature into the spirit of the earth; no matter what, imagination was always his principal and characteristic theme. In these songs Blake sings neither of love, nature, religion, nor sorrow, but of the imagination which to be communicable sees itself reflected, especially on the faces of children, in experiences such as these. The lamb, the shepherd, the infant, the cradle, the laughter of childish voices at play, are pretexts for a music that is as fresh, tender, awkward, soothing, and merry as those from whom it originates. For the first time in nursery poetry we feel that the grown-ups are listening, and that it is the child who is telling its mother about the lamb and God. The way in which the simplicities of feeling are conveyed and false sentiment avoided is miraculous. There is nothing quite to equal “Infant Joy” anywhere:
“I have no name:
I am but two days old.”
What shall I call thee?
“I happy am, Joy is my name.”
Sweet joy befall thee!
William Blake, Illustration from America, a Prophecy, plate 8, 1793.
Relief etching, with some wash, 23.2 × 16.6 cm.
The British Museum, London.
Henry Fuseli, The Oath of Rütli, 1779.
Pencil, ink and ink wash, 41.4 × 34.5 cm.
Kunsthaus, Zurich.
William Blake, Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels, 1808.
Watercolour, 51.8 × 31.2 cm.
Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
William Blake, Illustration from The First Book of Urizen, plate 1, frontispiece, 1794.
Colour relief etching, with added hand colouring, 14.7 × 10.2 cm.
The British Museum, London.
“The Lamb,” the “Laughing Song,” the almost monosyllabic lines to Spring, which seem as
Isaac Watts (1674–1748) was one of the first English hymnographers and was even considered the father of English hymnody. He is famous for hymns such as “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” (Ps. 90) and “Jesus Shall Reign” (Ps. 72). He also wrote religious songs especially for children; these were collected in