William Blake

William Blake

PREFACE PART I INTRODUCTION WILLIAM BLAKE PART II - RECORDS FROM CONTEMPORARY SOURCES (I.) EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY, LETTERS, AND REMINISCENCES OF HENRY CRABB ROBINSON, TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS. IN DR. WILLIAMS'S LIBRARY (1810-1852) (1) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S DIARY (2) FROM A LETTER OF CRABB ROBINSON TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH (3) FROM CRABB ROBINSON'S REMINISCENCES (II.) FROM 'A FATHER'S MEMOIRS OF HIS CHILD,' BY BENJAMIN HEATH MALKIN (1806) (III.) FROM LADY CHARLOTTE BURY'S DIARY (1820) (IV.) BLAKE'S HOROSCOPE (1825) (V.) OBITUARY NOTICES IN THE LITERARY GAZETTE' AND 'GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE' (1827) (VI.) EXTRACT FROM VARLEY'S ZODIACAL PHYSIOGNOMY (1828) (VII.) BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF BLAKE BY J. T. SMITH (1828) (VIII.) LIFE OF BLAKE BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM (1830) It was when Mr. Sampson's edition of Blake came into my hands in the winter of 1905 that the idea of writing a book on Blake first presented itself to me. From a boy he had been one of my favorite poets, and I had heard a great deal about him from Mr. Yeats as long ago as 1893, the year in which he and Mr. Ellis brought out their vast encyclopaedia, The Works of William Blake, Poetic, Symbolic, and Critical. From that time to this Blake has never been out of my mind, but I have always hesitated to write down anything on a subject so great in itself, and already handled by great poets. Things have been written about Blake by Rossetti which no one will ever surpass; and in Mr. Swinburne's book Blake himself seems to speak again, as through the mouth of a herald. I read these, I read everything that had been written about him; gradually I got to know all his work, in all its kinds; and when I found, in Mr. Sampson's book, the rarest part of his genius, disentangled at last from the confusions of the commentators, I caught some impulsewas it from the careful enthusiasm of this editor, or perhaps straight from Blake?and began to write down what now filled and overflowed my mind. Having begun on an impulse, I laid my plans as strictly as I could, and decided to make a book which would be, in its way, complete. There was to be, first, my own narrative, containing, as briefly as possible, every fact of importance, with my own interpretation of what I took to be Blake's achievements and intentions. But this was to be followed by a verbatim reprint of documents. These documents were the material of Gilchrist, but, even after Gilchrist's use of them, they remain of primary and undiminished importance: they are the main evidence in our case. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 60448
Author: Symons, Arthur
Release Date: Oct 7, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English