Poor Blake
Jun. 18th, 2023 07:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo"Poor Blake"
That's what his friends called him behind his back. Had he known, he'd have been furious.
God, but he was touchy.
To his face they called him "Will". Which is nice to know, and humanising....
I'm reading Peter Ackroyd's really excellent bio of the man. Generally speaking I don't like bios- most of which pack their subject in sawdust- but Ackroyd, being a creative artist himself and a Cock-er-nee and a practicing psychogeographer gets as close to Blake as you can without recourse to a time machine. When he walks you through late 18th century London you feel like he's been there himself, twisted his ankle on the cobbles, smelled the smells, and stopped off for a pint at the Jews Harp House. He's even persuaded me take my collected Blake from the shelf and start reading the "prophetic books". Thus far I've managed three of the shorter ones - with something approaching profit and delight- and, by crikey, I even think I'm even beginning to understand what the fuck the man was on about...
Poor Blake.
But he lived a life with fewer compromises than most of us manage, did the work he wanted- indeed was compelled- to do, never starved or became homeless- though he came close, lived to a decent old age, enjoyed a wonderful marriage- and had something like free access to planes and dimensions that are barred to most of us most of the time. And though he craved recognition, he always knew he was of the company of Boehme, Shakespeare, Milton, Michelangelo and Durer and if his contemporaries thought of him as just a jobbing engraver with a touch of the crazies it was their loss because they were in the wrong and he was right.
That's what his friends called him behind his back. Had he known, he'd have been furious.
God, but he was touchy.
To his face they called him "Will". Which is nice to know, and humanising....
I'm reading Peter Ackroyd's really excellent bio of the man. Generally speaking I don't like bios- most of which pack their subject in sawdust- but Ackroyd, being a creative artist himself and a Cock-er-nee and a practicing psychogeographer gets as close to Blake as you can without recourse to a time machine. When he walks you through late 18th century London you feel like he's been there himself, twisted his ankle on the cobbles, smelled the smells, and stopped off for a pint at the Jews Harp House. He's even persuaded me take my collected Blake from the shelf and start reading the "prophetic books". Thus far I've managed three of the shorter ones - with something approaching profit and delight- and, by crikey, I even think I'm even beginning to understand what the fuck the man was on about...
Poor Blake.
But he lived a life with fewer compromises than most of us manage, did the work he wanted- indeed was compelled- to do, never starved or became homeless- though he came close, lived to a decent old age, enjoyed a wonderful marriage- and had something like free access to planes and dimensions that are barred to most of us most of the time. And though he craved recognition, he always knew he was of the company of Boehme, Shakespeare, Milton, Michelangelo and Durer and if his contemporaries thought of him as just a jobbing engraver with a touch of the crazies it was their loss because they were in the wrong and he was right.
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Date: 2023-06-18 10:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-19 05:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-06-18 04:10 pm (UTC)Huh! If I venture the opinion, Well, maybe, you've been reading the wrong bios!, will you feel insulted? 😀
I love bios myself! Have you read Michael Holroyd's Lytton Strachey bio? (I suggest it because I know you like the Bloomsburies!)
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Date: 2023-06-19 05:59 am (UTC)No, I haven't read Holroyd on Strachey. I'm afraid I haven't read Strachey's Brief Lives either
no subject
Date: 2023-06-19 11:49 am (UTC)I haven't read it either. 😀
Strachey's life, though, was very, very interesting. Holroyd really does a great job with it.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-19 03:02 pm (UTC)