Cover of Poems of William BlakeFree online

Poems of William Blake

Also online · free to read

According to Wikipedia: "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 both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His prophetic poetry has been said to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". His visual artistry has led one British art journalist to proclaim him "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". Although he only once journeyed farther than a day's walk outside London during his lifetime, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich corpus, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "Human existence itself". Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterized as part of both the Romantic movement and "Pre-Romantic", for its large appearance in the 18th century. Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England, Blake was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Jakob Bohme and Emanuel Swedenborg."

Audience
adult
Length
short · 45 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Poems of William Blake? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Poems of William Blake. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Wordsworth: Poems Shares poetry, classics, literature
  2. Tennyson: Poems Shares poetry, classics, poems
  3. Poe: Poems Shares poetry, classics, poems
  4. Selected Poems Shares poetry, classics, poems

“People who read Poems of William Blake tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Free onlineFree Keats: poems published in 1820
  2. Eliot: Poems
  3. Frost: Poems
  4. Beat Poets

“If you want more of the same, start with these.”

  1. A Treasury of Great Poems
  2. Free onlineFree Poems of the Past and the Present
  3. The Major Works
  4. Rilke's Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

“If it was the poetry that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl
  2. Evangeline and Other Poems
  3. Six Centuries of English Poetry from Tennyson to Chaucer: Typical Selections from the Great Poets (1892)
  4. Poetry

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Selected Poetry and Prose
  2. Hopper
  3. The Selected Poetry of Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Bilingual Edition
  4. Evening