A Representative Poet:
Blake is a representative of the new age in the congenital enthusiasm of his temperament, his exquisite appreciation of beauty his passion for freedom, the largeness of his vision, the fascination which the supernatural exerted upon him, his faith in the imagination, his anti-intellectualism, his lyric thought. But, as he said, "Genius is always above the age"; and though not completely ignored he remained almost isolated in his time.
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| William Blake—A Representative Poet of the New Age |
Genuine interest in his poetry and in his designs dates from the middle of the nineteenth century that is 1868 when Swinburne's essay on Blake appeared. His ideas were then found to be in harmony with new ethical and spiritual tendencies. His defiance of traditional morality was congenital to bold spirits. His view of Christ's message as one of joy was a protest against the Carlylean doctrine of renunciation and sorrow. His insistence upon what came to be called "fullness of life" was agreeable to the generation influenced by Swinburne and Pater. His non-orthodox mysticism appealed strongly to Rossetti, and later, to Yeats.
A Poet of Inspiration:
Of all the traditional poets of the eighteenth century, Blake is the most original and the most spontaneous. He is the poet of inspiration. He follows no man's lead, and obeys no voice except that which he hears in his own mystic soul. As a child he had visions of God and the angels look in at his window and as a man he thought that the souls of the great dead came to visit him—Virgil, Homer, Dante, Milton—'majestic shadows. gray but luminous.' To him all nature was a great spiritual symbolism, in which he saw fairies, elves, angels, devils all looking at him through the eyes of flowers and stars. He seems never to have asked himself the question how far these visions were pure illusions.
As a Visionary:
As a visionary he touched both Art and Letters; he is ever looking behind the visible frame of things, for the glories and terrors of the world of spirit; not with the earnest, ethical-intent of Wordsworth, but with the eye of one who cannot help dreaming dreams and seeing visions. The visionary in him may and often will overpower the artist, and a wild confusion of imagery often blurs his work, whether as draughtsman or singer; but if at times it dawns his clarity and simplicity, it gives a phantom touch of extraordinary subtlety, and too much of his work had an exquisite beauty, that lifts his lyric faculty into an atmosphere like that of no other poet. Blake himself declared: "The Nature of my work is Visionary or Imaginative, it is an Endeavour to Restore what the Ancients call'd the golden Age.”
The Most Original Poet of his Age:
Of all the romantic poets of eighteenth century, Blake is the most independent and the most original. In his earliest work, written when he was scarcely more than a child, he seems to go back to the Elizabethan song writers for his models, but for the greater part of his life he was the poet of inspiration alone. As a lyric poet he may be rated with Donne, Burns and Wordsworth. Simplicity, naturalness, sweet music, mystical and spiritual colouring, spontaneity, revolt against convention, a yearning for freedom, purity and innocence are the chief characteristics of his lyrics.
As a Mystic:
Both the naturalism and mysticism of the Romantic Revival found expression in Blake; and on this point he differs from pioneers like Burns, who is simply naturalistic, or Cowper, who is only slightly touched by mysticism. On the naturalistic side he deals with the simplest phase of life; with the instinctive life of the child; with the love of flowers, hills and streams, the blue sky, the brooding clouds, and yet the mystical vision of the poet is always transforming these familiar things touching obscure aspects, and spiritualising the variest commonplace into something strange and wonderful. The human note in Burns is untouched by supernaturalism. To Blake every spot is holy ground; angels shelter the birds from harm, the good shepherd looks after his sheep, the divine spark burns even in the breasts of savage animals. Cruelty to animals incensed Blake; he would give them the same freedom he wishes for human kind.
Unlike some mystics he did not seek after the spirit world because he despised the world of sense, but because he loved it so well he felt there was more in it than man could fathom here. His mysticism was not an aspiration for the future: it was a realisation of the present. He wanted us to realize that the Kingdom of Heaven was within us, and that God existed nowhere but within in the human qualities of man, he equated god with Love, Peace, Mercy and Pity. There is also a practical side of his mysticism which touches the problems of life. His view of Love resembles Shelley's.
A Great Romantic:
So Blake as a poet is known as a romantic poet, as a lyric poet, as a visionary and a mystic. Above all he is a pure artist. "He is", says Saintsbury, "a singer of the beauty and mystery, the glory and terror of God." His style has the quality of 'rightness' which is the mark of all truly great poetry. He is the spiritual counterpart of the French Revolution who preaches and practises all the gospels of Romanticism. He is an upholder of the principle of liberty, equality and fraternity, the liberator of poetry from the classical, matter-of-fact and restrained, suffocated prosaic world, a lover of Nature and childhood. He was interested in building the New Jerusalem on the soil of this darkened planet amidst the long battle of the opposites such as Good and Evil, Imagination and Reason.
Lyricism:
His songs are spontaneous bird-songs, “fragile as bubbles on a running stream, that flash off visionary wisdom." Some of the lines have become proverbial:
1. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
2. Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
3. Where man is not, nature is barren.
Conclusion:
The merits of Blake are that Blake sings of the human soul. He has intense vision, prophetic imagination, and experiential mysticism. He also possesses luminous simplicity of meaning and magic childlikeness of thought, intense ecstatic sensitiveness to impressions. But he has some defects too. His mysticism is too rhapsodical and elaborate; his symbols are obscure. Sometimes one and the same symbol is used for various interpretations. Often he is dogmatic; he is also unable to express his sensibilities. He is unable to weave a narrative or plot to sustain his imaginative perceptions. His mind is undisciplined; it lacks balance, scope and tolerance which a classical training might have provided. His mind moves in a mystic manner; it requires metaphor. He sees not likeness but identities. He needs an elucidator all the time, and yet remains obscure.
