Blake (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Peter Ackroyd
- First Published: 1995
- Type of Work: Literary biography
- Time of Work: 1757-1827
- Setting: London
- Principal Characters: William Blake, Catherine Blake, Robert Blake, Thomas Butts, George Cumberland, John Flaxman, Henry Fuseli, William Hayley, John Linnell, Samuel Palmer, Thomas Stolhard
- Genres: Criticism, Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: Family or family life, Literature, Art or artists, Poetry or poets, Spiritual life or spirituality, London, Romanticism, Aesthetics
- Locales: London, England
Dismissed in his own day as nothing more than a journeyman engraver with eccentric ideas and wild visions, and as the writer of some unintelligible poetry, William Blake is a titanic figure in modern times, hailed by many as the greatest of the Romantic poets and with a popular appeal that stretches far beyond the confines of art history or literary criticism. Yet he has had to wait until the 1990’s for a biographer who can truly do him justice. Until well into the twentieth century, the general view of Blake’s life was based on Alexander Gilchrist’s Life of William Blake,...
[The entire page is 1988 words long]
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