Blake: Poems by William Blake

Blake: Poems by William Blake

William Blake is a poet without parallel. He remains a source of wisdom and inspiration to countless individuals throughout the world. Whether familiar with Blake's work or not, the reader is here presented with a gripping and enlightening encounter with the words and visions of this master of the imagination. The selection was commissioned in 1905 by the firm of George Routledge from W.B. Yeats, who had previously been one of the pioneer editors of Blake's prophetic books. Yeats, one of the few poets whose work could be compared with that of Blake, prepared a unique selection of his poetic and prose writings. In doing so, he pruned the texts of Victorian amendments and restored the original lines of Blake, to bring about 'a working text' for the modern age. There is no better way to encounter the work of one poetic genius than as it is presented by another, and Yeats understood Blake in a way few others did. His edition of Blake's poems draws us into the inspirational world of a man he considered one of 'the great artificers of God'. 'the truth uttered is the truth God spake to the red clay at the beginning of the world'.

WILLIAM BLAKE was born in London in 1757. He was educated at home and then worked as an apprentice to the engraver James Basire before joining the Royal Academy in 1779. In 1782 he married Catherine Boucher, and a year later began his career as a poet when he published Poetical Sketches. This was followed by Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), which he also designed and engraved. His other major literary works include The Book of Thel (1789), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c. 1793), Milton (1804-8), and Jerusalem (1804-20). He produced many paintings and engravings during his lifetime. Blake died in 1827.

ALFRED KAZIN was born in Brooklyn in 1915. His first book of criticism, On Native Grounds (1942), was a groundbreaking study of American literature that changed radically our way of looking at it, and established him overnight as a major figure. In a series of books of his own since then, and in many critically edited texts of classic American literary works, he established himself as our preeminent man of letters. He taught widely at Harvard, Smith, Amherst, Hunter College, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and elsewhere. In 1996 he received from the Truman Capote Literary Trust its first Lifetime Achievement Award in Literary Criticism (in memory of Newton Arvin). He died in 1998.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780679436331
ISBN 10	0679436332
Title	Blake: Poems
Author	William Blake
Series	Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	1994-10-18
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable