The Portable William Blake
Table of Contents
THE VIKING PORTABLE LIBRARY
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction
I. - THE YOUNG BLAKE
From POETICAL SKETCHES
II. - THERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGION and ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE
THERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGION
ALL RELIGIONS ARE ONE
III. - SONGS OF INNOCENCE AND OF EXPERIENCE
SONGS OF INNOCENCE
SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
ADDITIONAL POEMS
IV. - VERSES AND FRAGMENTS FROM THE ROSSETTI AND PICKERING MANUSCRIPTS
FIRST SERIES
SECOND SERIES
V. - SELECTIONS FROM THE LETTERS
LETTERS
VI. - THE PROPHETIC BOOKS
THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL
FOR THE SEXES: THE GATES OF PARADISE
THE BOOK OF THEL
VISIONS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF ALBION
AMERICA - A PROPHECY
EUROPE
THE FIRST BOOK OF URIZEN
THE BOOK OF AHANIA
THE BOOK OF LOS
THE SONG OF LOS
From THE FOUR ZOAS
From MILTON
From JERUSALEM
VII. - ON ART, MONEY, AND THE AGE
From THE LAOCOÖN GROUP
From A DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE OF PICTURES, POETICAL AND HISTORICAL INVENTIONS, ...
From PUBLIC ADDRESS - [From the Rossetti MS.]
ON HOMER’S POETRY & ON VIRGIL
MARGINALIA, I
EPIGRAMS AND VERSES CONCERNING SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS
MARGINALIA, II
EPIGRAMS, VERSES, AND FRAGMENTS
VIII. - THE OLD BLAKE
FRAGMENTS - INSCRIPTION IN THE AUTOGRAPH ALBUM OF WILLIAM UPCOTT
THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL
A VISION OF THE BOOK OF JOB
From A VISION OF THE LAST JUDGMENT - [From the Rossetti MS]
APPENDIX
BLAKE CHRONOLOGY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
THE VIKING PORTABLE LIBRARY
FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE
THE VIKING PORTABLE LIBRARY
William Blake
William Blake was born in Broad Street in 1757, the son of a London hosier. Having attended Henry Parr’s drawing school in the Strand, he was in 1772 apprenticed to Henry Basire, engraver to the Society of Antiquaries, and later was admitted as a student to the Royal Academy, where he exhibited in 1780. He married Catherine Boucher in 1782 and in 1783 published Poetical Sketches. The first expression of his mysticism appears in Songs of Innocence (1789), which, like The Book of Thel (published in the same year), has as its main theme the constant presence and power of divine love even in the midst of evil.
Blake’s visionary ideas are developed further in his chief prose work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), where he denies the theory of eternal punishment and the reality of matter. His revolt against authority is expressed in much of his subsequent writing, and in Songs of Experience (1794) he protests against restrictive codes and celebrates the spirit of love. The chief works which Blake produced during this decade are mythological and are intended to expose the failings of the moral code. His final symbolic works are ‘Milton’ and ‘Jerusalem’. The minor poems that followed include some exquisite lyrics, notably ‘The Morning’ and ‘The Land of Dreams’.
Little of Blake’s work was published on conventional form. He combined his vocations as poet and graphic artist to produce books that are visually stunning. He also designed illustrations of works by other poets and devised his own technique for producing large watercolour illustrations and colour-printed drawings. Blake died in 1827, ‘an Old Man feeble & tottering but not in Spirit & Life not in the Real Man The Imagination which Liveth for Ever’.
Alfred Kazin is Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and Hunter College. He is the author of On Native Grounds, New York Jew, and An American Procession, among other books.
Each volume in The Viking Portable Library either presents a representative selection from the works of a single outstanding writer or offers a comprehensive anthology on a special subject. Averaging 700 pages in length and designed for compactness and readability, these books fill a need not met by other compilations. All are edited by distinguished authorities, who have written introductory essays and included much other helpful material.
BookishMall.com
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,
Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin, Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published in the United States of America
by Viking Penguin Inc. 1946
Paperbound edition published 1956
Reprinted 1959,1960, 1961,1962, 1963,1965 (twice),
1966, 1967 (twice), 1968,1969 (twice), 1970 (twice)
1971, 1972, 1974 (twice), 1975
Published in Penguin Books 1976
Copyright 1946 by Viking Penguin Inc.
Copyright © Viking Penguin Inc., 1948
Copyright © renewed Viking Penguin Inc., 1974
All rights reserved
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Blake, William, 1757-1827.
The Portable Blake.
Reprint of the 1946 ed. published by The Viking Press, New York.
Bibliography: p. 700. Includes index.
I.
1 comment