Printing William Blake the Printer

Blake, William. The William Blake Archive. 1996-2002. http://www.blakearchive.org 

Print, Daughters of Albion – Front Piece. 1789 & 1793.
Print, “The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode”, Thomas Gray Poems. 1768.
http://www.engl.virginia.edu/~enec981/dictionary/blake6.html
Print, America, Plate 6. 1793.
Print, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, “Vanity”, Plate 21. 1790-1793.
Painting, Newton. 1795-1805.
Print, Jerusalem, Plate 100. 1804-1820.

Print, Jerusalem, Plate 53. 1804-1820.

Other:

Van Dyck. Self Portrait with Sunflower. 1632.
Allen Ginsberg Kaddish Cover: Photographer: Unknown; Date: Unknown.
Elsa Dorfman, Photograph,. Allen Ginsberg, Polaroid, 1986.
www.elsa.photo.net  http://elsa.photo.net/Ginsberg.html
Book Cover, Sanders, Edward.
1968 A History In Verse

Quoted Text:
Note, The Notebook of William Blake. Erdman, N25 transcript 1787-1827.
Poem, “To the Muses”. (Erdman, Poetical Sketches; p 417: 13-17).
Line, “I will not Reason & Compare:” (Erdman, Los in Jerusalem, 10.21; p 153). 1804-1820.

The printer embodies the text on the page . William Blake, iconoclastic poet visionary and printer published his poetry with elaborate illustrations, creating a unique mythology for his prophetic vision. The engraved prints were hand-colored. He illustrated the works of Chaucer, Milton, Dante and contemporary, Thomas Gray in several emblem books. Although Blake is associated with the Romantic Movement, his work is distinctively individual. The engravers art etches text on metal plates for printing. Blake engraved his hand- written text on to copper plates by etching with the word with caustic materials.  While the enlightenment thinkers called for an empirical proof of ideas Blake's works provide an empirical visceral proof of  vision embodied. His crafted works demonstrate the physicality of application. As a self-published author engaged in every phase of production, from concept to finished product, Blake represents bookmaking embodied in practice.

Dante Rossetti, who founded the Pre-Raphaelite movement, also produced elaborately illustrated poetry books that paired image with text. He purchased Blake's notebook. Other printer poets include Laura Ryding, (Anarchy is Not Enough), Robert Graves (The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth), and Mark Twain ( The Mysterious Stranger).

In this design, two plates from Blake’s Marriage and America depict the same figure and page composition. The selected images, show how Blake portrayed the human in exalted states of pure innocence and profaned descent. His ideas about the body, found a renaissance in the twentieth century with poet, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) who had a vision of Blake in a railroad yard, where he wrote his "Sunflower Sutra" poem  Blake. Ginsberg created melodies for several Blake poems.  He always ended his performances with Blake’s “All the Hills Are Echoing”.

A native plant of the Americas, the sunflower first appeared in Europe during the mid 1500s and quickly became a  popular symbol for constancy based on its heliotropic properties. It is also a potent symbol of the revolution in thought known as the Enlightenment that was fostered by colonization, conquest and trade with the new world.  The two Sunflower poems of Blake and Ginsberg are quoted:

The two Sunflower poems of Blake and Ginsberg are quoted:

Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,

Who countest the steps of the Sun,

Seeking after that sweet golden clime

Where the traveller's journey is done:

(Blake “Ah Sun-flower”)Look at the sunflower he said,
there was a dead gray shadow against the sky,
big as a man sitting
dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust—
I rushed up enchanted—it was my first sunflower,
memories of Blake
—my visions—Harlem and Hells

(Ginsberg, ”Sunflower Sutra”)

 Blake’s poem, “To the Muse”, is quoted on the page for printing.  His poem summons the ancient muse of a prior age, while lamenting the loss of purity and clarity of her fading voice. The post-modern poem below echoes Blake's threnody with ironic overtures:

Come and speak with me
Oh Muse
Come and speak awhile

Your dance dies in our arms
Yet we strive once more
to revive your failing falling heart

Vision’s perfection eludes
gone in lost days no return
hard to be a dying breed

Forever I hear fire. Your
mystic song wails out
forgotten tattered tainted glory

 (Dean, “To the Muse”)

    

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