William Blake Biography

     William Blake was an English poet and printer who was born in 1757 and died in 1827.  He lived a long, fulfilling   and eventful life.  The picture above was painted of William Blake in 1807.  Blake lived in London for all of his life, except for three years where he lived in Felpham.  He was taken out of school when he was ten, then was home schooled.  When his parents realized his amazing drawing skills, they entered him in drawing classes.  Also during this time, Blake had been working on his own poetry as well.  
     Blake eventually married a woman, and taught her how to read and write.  She ended up printing all of his work and would be there for him through hard times like when his father died.  Although many things in his life had changed, Blake still had the same ideas and opinions he had previously.  Blake was thought to be mad by many people, because of his unusual poems and his artwork as well.  In all of Blake's poems, he uses symbolism to represent objects in nature, everyday life, and even things in the bible.  Romantics poets were all against Christianity in one way, and all believed nature was a sacred thing.  The reason for them disapproving Christianity was because it had replaced the idea of nature creating beautiful things with God creating them.  In some of Blake's poems the message to people is that we are destroying nature, and taking it for granted.  Romantic poets did not understand how people could treat something so beautiful as nature like it was nothing important.  If Blake was concerned about the way society was back then, I could not imagine what his thoughts would be now. 
     Blake used very descriptive language in his poems that would create a beautiful picture in the reader's head.  Blake died a very dramatic and traumatic death with his wife sitting right by his bedside crying.  They exchanged their words of love to each other because they knew it was the end, he painted a portrait of her, then he died.  One of the most remarkable and touching things I have ever heard about Blake were the words from a female who was present when he passed away.  These words were "I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel".