Publisher's Synopsis
This catalogue to accompany a major exhibition displays a full range of the works of William Blake, focusing on his vision, his personal mythology, his political views and his highly idiosyncratic techniques.;William Blake holds a reputation as one of the most influential and also most perplexing of British artists. Probably best known for the verses of the hymn "Jerusalem" and his poem "The Tyger", he produced an enormously varied range of work, appealing to a more diverse audience than perhaps any other artist.;The book is divided into four thematic sections. An analysis of Blake's lifelong interest in the Gothic, a study of his life in Lambeth in the 1790s, an investigation into the sources from which he developed his ideas and, finally, his major illuminated books.;In two opening essays Peter Ackoyd introduces Blake the man, exploring the apparent contradictions of his complex personality, while Marilyn Butler casts new light on Blake in the context of the social, cultural and literary environment of his time.
