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Blake William English Visual Body Greatest Poet Painter

William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet and painter. His work, including collections like 'Songs of Innocence' and prose works like 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell', is now considered a key figure of the Romantic Age in poetry and visual arts.

William Blake (1757-1827) était un poète et peintre anglais. Son œuvre, qui comprend des recueils comme 'Songs of Innocence' et des œuvres en prose comme 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell', est maintenant considérée comme une figure clé de l'époque romantique en poésie et en arts visuels.

Front William Blake
Back 1757_1827
poet and painter
he fascinated with the nude
Poetical Sketches contained such poems as 'to the Muses' my Silk and Fine Array'
1789 Songs of Innocence, the gentlest of all his volumes of lyrics' the Book of Thel' which illustrated his early mysticism and use of emblems
Tiriel, written in 1788-9 is the first of this elaborately symbolic writings
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, his principal prose work

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. What he called his prophetic works were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language".[2] His visual artistry led 21st-century critic Jonathan Jones to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced".[3] In 2002, Blake was placed at number 38 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.[4] While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham,[5] he produced a diverse and symbolically rich œuvre, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God"[6] or "human existence itself".[7]

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