WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.339 Okay, so picture this. It's 1827. We're in a 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:07.799 cramped little two -room apartment in a pretty 00:00:07.799 --> 00:00:11.619 grim part of London. And there's a man lying 00:00:11.619 --> 00:00:14.699 there, dying. And for all intents and purposes, 00:00:14.900 --> 00:00:17.940 in the eyes of the world, he's a failure. A complete 00:00:17.940 --> 00:00:20.320 failure. He's lived in poverty his whole adult 00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:22.739 life. He's about to be buried in a common grave 00:00:22.739 --> 00:00:25.379 in Bunhill Fields, which is basically a pauper's 00:00:25.379 --> 00:00:27.760 pit. And the very few people who even know his 00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:30.160 name, they mostly agree on one thing. that the 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:32.320 man was completely, utterly out of his mind. 00:00:32.380 --> 00:00:35.700 Exactly. It is such a bleak starting point. I 00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:37.799 mean, if you were a betting person back in 1827, 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:40.159 looking at the cultural landscape of England, 00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:42.280 you would have bet everything against William 00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:44.679 Blake being remembered at all. Let alone revered. 00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:47.079 Let alone revered, yes. And yet, that's exactly 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:49.299 why we're here today. This is the whole paradox 00:00:49.299 --> 00:00:51.060 of William Blake. Yes, it is. Because today, 00:00:51.259 --> 00:00:54.060 you walk into any university literature department, 00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:57.740 any art history lecture, and Blake is a titan. 00:00:58.109 --> 00:01:00.270 He's on the syllabus right next to Wordsworth 00:01:00.270 --> 00:01:02.289 and Keeks. He's in the lyrics of Bob Dylan. He's 00:01:02.289 --> 00:01:04.209 the spiritual godfather of the graphic novel. 00:01:04.469 --> 00:01:07.950 His verses are sung in cathedrals. It's an unbelievable 00:01:07.950 --> 00:01:11.390 turnaround. It's arguably the most dramatic rehabilitation 00:01:11.390 --> 00:01:14.549 of a reputation in English cultural history. 00:01:14.769 --> 00:01:18.500 You've got this figure who was, well... He was 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:20.920 essentially invisible to the cultural elite of 00:01:20.920 --> 00:01:23.120 his own time. Or a laughing stock. Or treated 00:01:23.120 --> 00:01:25.680 as a laughing stock, right. And yet he created 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:29.400 a mythology so vast and a visual rawage so distinct 00:01:29.400 --> 00:01:32.079 that it took the rest of the world nearly a century 00:01:32.079 --> 00:01:35.099 to even figure out what he was doing. So that 00:01:35.099 --> 00:01:36.900 is our mission for this deep dive. We're going 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:39.540 to unpack the life and the work of William Blake. 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:42.219 We've got a huge stack of sources here, biographies, 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:45.379 art analysis, his own letters, even court records. 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:48.780 Right. We really want to understand the idiosyncratic 00:01:48.780 --> 00:01:51.620 views that made him an outcast in his time. But, 00:01:51.680 --> 00:01:53.760 you know, a visionary for ours. And we have to 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.219 get technical, too. We need to explore his unique 00:01:56.219 --> 00:01:58.840 artistic method because the sources are really 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:01.180 clear that his physical process of printing was 00:02:01.180 --> 00:02:03.920 just as revolutionary as his poetry. Absolutely. 00:02:04.219 --> 00:02:07.200 You just can't separate Blake the printer from 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:10.080 Blake the poet. But. Before we even get to the 00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:12.180 mechanics of that, we have to address the elephant 00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:14.620 in the room. The madness. The madness. Yeah. 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:17.020 Yeah. We need to investigate whether he was actually, 00:02:17.099 --> 00:02:19.919 you know, hallucinating or if he just possessed 00:02:19.919 --> 00:02:22.240 a fundamentally different way of seeing. I remember 00:02:22.240 --> 00:02:24.580 reading a claim by the critic Northrop Frye, 00:02:24.580 --> 00:02:27.139 and it was just staggering. He said, Blake's 00:02:27.139 --> 00:02:31.219 prophetic works are the least read body of poetry 00:02:31.219 --> 00:02:34.139 in the English language in proportion to their 00:02:34.139 --> 00:02:38.159 merit. Wow. That's a huge claim. Isn't it? It 00:02:38.159 --> 00:02:40.139 implies there's this massive treasure trove of 00:02:40.139 --> 00:02:42.139 insight that people just skip over because it's 00:02:42.139 --> 00:02:44.780 too weird or too dense. And that's the challenge, 00:02:44.819 --> 00:02:48.139 right? Blake demands a suspension of modern cynicism. 00:02:48.259 --> 00:02:50.639 He asks you to look at the world through a lens 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:53.099 where the spiritual is actually more real than 00:02:53.099 --> 00:02:55.060 the physical. So let's start at the beginning, 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:58.319 the child visionary. Usually when we talk about 00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:00.740 tortured artists, the trauma starts early. But 00:03:00.740 --> 00:03:03.080 with Blake, the sources say his childhood was 00:03:03.080 --> 00:03:06.400 just defined by these intense visual experiences. 00:03:06.659 --> 00:03:08.800 Right. And visions is the key word here. We're 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:11.840 not talking about a vivid imagination, you know, 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:14.039 the way a child imagines a dragon while playing. 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:18.599 Right. For Blake, these experiences were visceral. 00:03:18.699 --> 00:03:21.500 They were external. He saw them with his physical 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:24.479 eyes. The biographical records point to one specific 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:27.330 incident when he was just four years old. He 00:03:27.330 --> 00:03:29.490 starts screaming his head off because he claims 00:03:29.490 --> 00:03:32.250 he saw God put his head to the window. Which 00:03:32.250 --> 00:03:33.930 is, I mean, if you really think about it, that's 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:37.090 a terrifying image. A giant face just appearing 00:03:37.090 --> 00:03:39.310 at the window. It really is. It speaks to the 00:03:39.310 --> 00:03:41.789 intensity of his perception, even as a toddler. 00:03:42.009 --> 00:03:44.770 And it didn't stop there. No. A bit later, he's 00:03:44.770 --> 00:03:47.710 maybe eight or ten, walking through Peckham Rye, 00:03:47.849 --> 00:03:50.270 just a green space in London, and he looks up 00:03:50.270 --> 00:03:53.000 at a tree. But he doesn't see leaves. No. He 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:55.280 tells his parents he saw a tree filled with angels, 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:58.699 bestangling every bough like stars. That phrase 00:03:58.699 --> 00:04:02.080 alone, bestangling every bough, it's so quintessentially 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.699 Blake, it's poetic even in just the recounting 00:04:04.699 --> 00:04:07.000 of the memory. But the fascinating part for me 00:04:07.000 --> 00:04:09.979 is how the adults reacted. When he came home 00:04:09.979 --> 00:04:12.539 and told his father about the angel tree, his 00:04:12.539 --> 00:04:15.719 dad's immediate instinct was to thrash him. Right. 00:04:16.250 --> 00:04:18.569 To beat the boy for telling lies. Which, you 00:04:18.569 --> 00:04:20.689 know, to be fair to his father, was pretty standard 00:04:20.689 --> 00:04:23.189 18th century parenting. Oh, absolutely. But it 00:04:23.189 --> 00:04:25.310 sets up this conflict immediately, doesn't it, 00:04:25.329 --> 00:04:27.730 between social reality and Blake's reality. It 00:04:27.730 --> 00:04:30.790 does. But his mother stepped in. And the record 00:04:30.790 --> 00:04:33.209 suggests that while his father was strict, the 00:04:33.209 --> 00:04:35.769 parents were, on the whole, pretty supportive 00:04:35.769 --> 00:04:38.610 of his artistic side. They made a crucial decision. 00:04:38.930 --> 00:04:40.790 They didn't force him into a standard school. 00:04:41.050 --> 00:04:43.870 He left school at age 10 and was educated at 00:04:43.870 --> 00:04:46.149 home by his mother. Why was that so significant? 00:04:46.600 --> 00:04:49.259 Well, because the English school system in the 00:04:49.259 --> 00:04:52.300 1700s was a machine for conformity. It was all 00:04:52.300 --> 00:04:55.680 rote learning, drilling Latin, and often just 00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:58.399 brutal discipline. Right. Blake missed all of 00:04:58.399 --> 00:05:00.360 that. His mind wasn't hammered into the standard 00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:02.560 shape of the Georgian era. He was allowed to 00:05:02.560 --> 00:05:05.199 follow his own curriculum, reading widely and, 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:08.839 well, wildly. So he's allowed to be weird. But 00:05:08.839 --> 00:05:10.740 he still needs to make a living. He wasn't a 00:05:10.740 --> 00:05:12.860 rich kid. His dad was a hosier selling socks 00:05:12.860 --> 00:05:15.759 and stockings. So at age 14, they have to decide 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:17.939 his future. They knew he had artistic talent, 00:05:17.959 --> 00:05:20.160 so they look into an apprenticeship. Ideally, 00:05:20.160 --> 00:05:21.540 he would have been apprenticed to a painter. 00:05:21.740 --> 00:05:24.259 Ah, but the fees for a top -tier painter must 00:05:24.259 --> 00:05:27.019 have been... Astronomical. His father just couldn't 00:05:27.019 --> 00:05:29.000 afford it, so they settled on the next best thing. 00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:32.600 Engraving. I want to pause on engraving, because 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:34.540 to a modern listener, that might just sound like 00:05:34.540 --> 00:05:38.660 art. But in the 18th century... There was a huge 00:05:38.660 --> 00:05:41.639 class distinction here, wasn't there? Huge. A 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:44.180 painter was a gentleman, an artist with a capital 00:05:44.180 --> 00:05:48.180 A who dealt with grand ideas. An engraver was 00:05:48.180 --> 00:05:50.959 a tradesman. A craftsman. A craftsman, yes. It 00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:53.199 was a service industry. Your job was to take 00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:55.800 a painting done by someone else and copy it onto 00:05:55.800 --> 00:05:58.500 a copper plate using a sharp steel tool called 00:05:58.500 --> 00:06:01.470 a burin. Which sounds like grueling work. It's 00:06:01.470 --> 00:06:03.629 grueling physical labor. You're cutting lines 00:06:03.629 --> 00:06:06.910 into metal day in, day out. It requires immense 00:06:06.910 --> 00:06:09.189 strength and precision, but very little creativity 00:06:09.189 --> 00:06:11.810 in the eyes of the art establishment. But his 00:06:11.810 --> 00:06:14.769 master, a man named James Beziar, does something 00:06:14.769 --> 00:06:17.410 interesting. He sends young Blake to Westminster 00:06:17.410 --> 00:06:19.949 Abbey to draw. And this is such a key moment. 00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:22.939 You have to strip away your modern image of Westminster 00:06:22.939 --> 00:06:26.079 Abbey. Today, it's clean, it's gray stone, it's 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:29.459 full of tourists. In the 1770s, it was a gothic 00:06:29.459 --> 00:06:32.180 theater of memory. It was crowded with painted 00:06:32.180 --> 00:06:34.819 effigies, colorful waxworks, suits of armor, 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.699 deep shadows. It wasn't a great tomb. It was 00:06:37.699 --> 00:06:41.980 vibrant and alive. And Blake just falls in love 00:06:41.980 --> 00:06:44.139 with it. He becomes obsessed. This is where he 00:06:44.139 --> 00:06:47.199 solidifies his love for the gothic style. Now, 00:06:47.220 --> 00:06:48.699 you have to understand, in the 18th century, 00:06:48.920 --> 00:06:51.750 gothic was a slur. It meant barbarous. It meant 00:06:51.750 --> 00:06:54.089 barbarous, rude, medieval. The sophisticated 00:06:54.089 --> 00:06:57.209 taste was classical, clean lines, Greek columns, 00:06:57.370 --> 00:07:00.050 symmetry. But Blake looked at the Gothic statues 00:07:00.050 --> 00:07:02.790 in the Abbey and saw what he called living form. 00:07:03.069 --> 00:07:05.949 He felt it was spiritual and true compared to 00:07:05.949 --> 00:07:09.089 the cold mathematics of the popular style. There's 00:07:09.089 --> 00:07:10.750 a story from this time that I just love because 00:07:10.750 --> 00:07:12.709 it shows he wasn't just this, you know, fragile, 00:07:12.850 --> 00:07:15.629 visionary flower. The schoolboy incident. Ah, 00:07:15.730 --> 00:07:19.449 yes. The Westminster schoolboys. They were notorious. 00:07:19.629 --> 00:07:22.069 notoriously entitled and used to run wild in 00:07:22.069 --> 00:07:24.290 the abbey, and they started tormenting Glake 00:07:24.290 --> 00:07:26.589 while he was up on a scaffold sketching a tomb. 00:07:26.870 --> 00:07:29.170 And Blake, the future mystic poet, doesn't just 00:07:29.170 --> 00:07:31.120 sit there and take it. No, he knocks the boy 00:07:31.120 --> 00:07:33.920 right off the scaffold. And it worked. He complained 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:36.259 to the dean, and the dean actually revoked the 00:07:36.259 --> 00:07:38.720 schoolboy's privileges to enter the Abbey. It 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:41.300 shows that even as a teenager, he had this spine 00:07:41.300 --> 00:07:44.939 of steel, a scrappy, combative nature that would 00:07:44.939 --> 00:07:47.220 really define his entire career. Absolutely. 00:07:47.860 --> 00:07:50.459 Which brings us neatly to the next phase, rebellion. 00:07:51.599 --> 00:07:54.439 In 1779, he becomes a student at the Royal Academy 00:07:54.439 --> 00:07:57.060 of Arts. This is the inner sanctum of the British 00:07:57.060 --> 00:07:59.399 art world. And the man running the show is Sir 00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:02.300 Joshua Reynolds? Reynolds is, well, he's essentially 00:08:02.300 --> 00:08:04.689 the villain of Blake's early life. Reynolds was 00:08:04.689 --> 00:08:07.329 a brilliant society painter, but ideologically 00:08:07.329 --> 00:08:10.689 he was the establishment personified. He championed 00:08:10.689 --> 00:08:13.350 this theory of art based on general truth and 00:08:13.350 --> 00:08:15.209 general beauty. Okay, what does that actually 00:08:15.209 --> 00:08:17.750 mean, general beauty? It means that to create 00:08:17.750 --> 00:08:20.589 high art, you shouldn't paint the specific quirks 00:08:20.589 --> 00:08:22.889 or, you know, the flaws of a model. You should 00:08:22.889 --> 00:08:25.410 smooth them out. You generalize nature to find 00:08:25.410 --> 00:08:28.660 the ideal form. Reynolds believed that the specific 00:08:28.660 --> 00:08:31.360 details, the mole on a cheek, a crooked nose 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:34.179 were distractions from the general truth. And 00:08:34.179 --> 00:08:37.970 Blake. Hated it with a burning passion. He actually 00:08:37.970 --> 00:08:40.269 wrote in the margins of his copy of Reynolds 00:08:40.269 --> 00:08:41.970 Discourses, and this is one of his most famous 00:08:41.970 --> 00:08:46.070 quotes. To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize 00:08:46.070 --> 00:08:49.370 is the alone distinction of merit. To generalize 00:08:49.370 --> 00:08:51.590 is to be an idiot. I mean, that is such a direct 00:08:51.590 --> 00:08:53.450 attack on the head of the entire institution. 00:08:53.690 --> 00:08:56.309 It's a total philosophical opposition. Blake 00:08:56.309 --> 00:08:58.649 believed that truth wasn't in the blurry average 00:08:58.649 --> 00:09:01.830 ideal. Truth was in the specific, the minute, 00:09:01.929 --> 00:09:05.200 the lineaments, as he called them. He despised 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:07.840 the oil painting style of masters like Rubens, 00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:10.600 which he found messy and blotted. He wanted the 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:13.500 hard, clear bounding lines of Michelangelo and 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:15.779 Raphael. Why? What was it about those hard lines? 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:18.639 Because when Blake saw a vision, it wasn't blurry. 00:09:19.019 --> 00:09:22.559 It was hyper real. It was precise. It had a clear 00:09:22.559 --> 00:09:25.960 outline. He wanted his art to reflect that visionary 00:09:25.960 --> 00:09:28.320 clarity. So you have this guy who sees angels 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:31.600 and trees and wants art to be razor sharp. And 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:33.279 he's stuck in a school that's telling him to 00:09:33.279 --> 00:09:37.039 blur the lines and paint general beauty. It's 00:09:37.039 --> 00:09:39.340 a recipe for disaster. Or a recipe for revolution. 00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:42.220 And speaking of revolution, we have to talk about 00:09:42.220 --> 00:09:44.940 the Gordon Riots of 1780. Yes, this is one of 00:09:44.940 --> 00:09:47.159 those historical moments that just feels like 00:09:47.159 --> 00:09:49.860 fiction. The Gordon Riots were these massive 00:09:49.860 --> 00:09:53.399 anti -Catholic uprisings in London. Mobs, burning 00:09:53.399 --> 00:09:56.600 buildings, just total chaos. And somehow, Blake 00:09:56.600 --> 00:09:58.980 gets involved in this. His biographer, Alexander 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:01.600 Gilchrist, records that blake was walking toward 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:03.820 his old master's shop and basically got swept 00:10:03.820 --> 00:10:06.820 up by the mob the sheer physical force of the 00:10:06.820 --> 00:10:08.840 crowd just carried him along where were they 00:10:08.840 --> 00:10:11.720 going they stormed newgate prison set it on fire 00:10:11.720 --> 00:10:14.320 and released the prisoners and blake was reportedly 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:16.639 in the front rank the front rank so do we think 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:18.960 he was there voluntarily or was he just like 00:10:18.960 --> 00:10:21.100 crowd surfing against his will It's ambiguous. 00:10:21.419 --> 00:10:23.919 I mean, he likely didn't plan to storm a prison 00:10:23.919 --> 00:10:26.639 when he woke up that morning, but Blake definitely 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:29.860 had a radical streak. I can imagine. Seeing that 00:10:29.860 --> 00:10:32.840 kind of chaotic energy, the burning of a fortress 00:10:32.840 --> 00:10:36.320 of authority, that imagery absolutely seeped 00:10:36.320 --> 00:10:39.139 into his later work. He creates characters like 00:10:39.139 --> 00:10:42.000 Orc, the spirit of rebellion. You have to wonder 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.059 if he was remembering the heat of the flames 00:10:44.059 --> 00:10:46.700 at Newgate. It's that collision of the mystical 00:10:46.700 --> 00:10:49.360 and the really gritty reality of London that 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:52.009 makes him so... interesting. But let's shift 00:10:52.009 --> 00:10:54.309 gears a little to his personal life. We painted 00:10:54.309 --> 00:10:57.289 him as a bit of a loner, but he had a very, very 00:10:57.289 --> 00:10:59.330 significant partnership with his wife, Catherine 00:10:59.330 --> 00:11:01.330 Boucher. This is one of the great partnerships 00:11:01.330 --> 00:11:03.690 in art history, truly. The courtship story itself 00:11:03.690 --> 00:11:06.330 is famous. Blake had just been rejected by another 00:11:06.330 --> 00:11:08.549 woman. He's at Catherine's house complaining 00:11:08.549 --> 00:11:11.090 about his broken heart to her and her parents. 00:11:11.330 --> 00:11:13.830 Right. And he turns to Catherine and asks, do 00:11:13.830 --> 00:11:16.250 you pity me? She says, yes. And he just replies, 00:11:16.450 --> 00:11:19.210 then I love you. That sounds incredibly sudden. 00:11:19.610 --> 00:11:23.610 It was. They were married in 1782. And we have 00:11:23.610 --> 00:11:25.809 to look at the class dynamic here again. Catherine 00:11:25.809 --> 00:11:28.409 was the daughter of a market gardener. And she 00:11:28.409 --> 00:11:30.350 was illiterate when they met. She actually signed 00:11:30.350 --> 00:11:33.129 the marriage register with an X. But she didn't 00:11:33.129 --> 00:11:35.769 stay illiterate. No, not at all. Blake taught 00:11:35.769 --> 00:11:37.929 her to read and write. But more importantly, 00:11:38.049 --> 00:11:40.190 for our discussion, he taught her how to print. 00:11:40.309 --> 00:11:42.129 We really have to correct the record on this. 00:11:42.570 --> 00:11:44.929 Catherine wasn't just a muse. She was a technician. 00:11:45.740 --> 00:11:48.360 What was she doing in the workshop? She operated 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:50.879 the heavy rolling press. She mixed the paints. 00:11:50.919 --> 00:11:53.980 She hand -colored the printed pages. So when 00:11:53.980 --> 00:11:56.419 we look at a Blake book, we are literally looking 00:11:56.419 --> 00:11:59.460 at her work, too. Absolutely. Scholars like Angus 00:11:59.460 --> 00:12:01.320 Whitehead have really emphasized that this was 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:04.200 a collaborative workshop. Without Catherine's 00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:07.440 physical labor, the illuminated books as we know 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:09.519 them probably wouldn't even exist. There are 00:12:09.519 --> 00:12:12.539 some difficult parts of their history, though. 00:12:12.799 --> 00:12:15.820 Biographers mention stormy times. And there's 00:12:15.820 --> 00:12:17.960 this persistent rumor that Blake wanted to bring 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:20.740 a concubine into the marriage. This is a very 00:12:20.740 --> 00:12:23.559 controversial point. Blake was exploring radical 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:26.399 religious ideas, specifically the writings of 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:29.220 Swedenborg, which had some unconventional views 00:12:29.220 --> 00:12:32.399 on marriage and the spirit. And there is a story 00:12:32.399 --> 00:12:35.500 that Blake proposed bringing in a second wife. 00:12:36.069 --> 00:12:39.029 citing biblical patriarchs like Abraham as a 00:12:39.029 --> 00:12:41.230 precedent. I can't imagine Catherine loved that 00:12:41.230 --> 00:12:44.129 idea. The story goes that she cried and he dropped 00:12:44.129 --> 00:12:47.289 the idea immediately. But I should caution that 00:12:47.289 --> 00:12:49.169 a lot of modern scholars think this might be 00:12:49.169 --> 00:12:52.529 a misinterpretation of his poetry or just later 00:12:52.529 --> 00:12:54.690 gossip. So we don't know for sure. We don't. 00:12:54.960 --> 00:12:57.419 He wrote a lot about free love and the evils 00:12:57.419 --> 00:12:59.700 of jealousy, but whether he actually tried to 00:12:59.700 --> 00:13:02.320 practice polygamy is very debatable. What isn't 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:04.559 debatable is the tragedy that they did share. 00:13:04.720 --> 00:13:07.159 The loss of a child. Yes. There's no official 00:13:07.159 --> 00:13:09.740 birth record, but biographers strongly suspect 00:13:09.740 --> 00:13:11.899 that Catherine had a stillborn daughter. Wow. 00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:14.220 And Blake's poem, The Book of Thel, is about 00:13:14.220 --> 00:13:16.679 an unborn spirit who's afraid to enter the world 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:18.860 of experience and flees back to the eternal. 00:13:19.340 --> 00:13:21.919 It's very hard to read that poem and not see 00:13:21.919 --> 00:13:24.789 it as an elegy for a lost child. That adds such 00:13:24.789 --> 00:13:27.529 a layer of sadness to his work. But let's move 00:13:27.529 --> 00:13:28.990 to the work itself. We keep saying illuminated 00:13:28.990 --> 00:13:31.929 books. For a listener who has never seen one, 00:13:32.029 --> 00:13:36.090 what are we actually talking about? Because he 00:13:36.090 --> 00:13:37.889 didn't just write a poem and send it off to a 00:13:37.889 --> 00:13:40.309 typesetter. No, and this is the deep dive into 00:13:40.309 --> 00:13:42.970 the technology. In the 18th century, if you wanted 00:13:42.970 --> 00:13:45.149 to publish a book with pictures, it was a two 00:13:45.149 --> 00:13:48.149 -step process. First, you would set the text 00:13:48.149 --> 00:13:50.889 in lead, type letter by letter, and print that. 00:13:51.309 --> 00:13:54.330 Then you'd take a copper plate. engrave the picture 00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:56.610 and print that separately on another page which 00:13:56.610 --> 00:13:58.570 was expensive and it separated the word from 00:13:58.570 --> 00:14:01.769 the image exactly blake wanted them to be one 00:14:01.769 --> 00:14:05.990 organic thing he wanted total control so around 00:14:05.990 --> 00:14:09.909 1788 he invented relief etching it's brilliant 00:14:09.909 --> 00:14:12.190 in its simplicity but just incredibly difficult 00:14:12.190 --> 00:14:14.639 to execute okay so how does it work It's the 00:14:14.639 --> 00:14:17.000 reverse of standard engraving. In standard engraving, 00:14:17.059 --> 00:14:18.980 you cut the lines into the copper. Blake did 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:21.840 the opposite. He used an acid -resistant liquid, 00:14:22.100 --> 00:14:24.120 a kind of stop -out varnish. And he'd point with 00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:26.419 that. He'd use a brush to paint his text and 00:14:26.419 --> 00:14:29.360 his images directly onto the copper plate. But 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:31.120 he would have had to write the text backwards, 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:34.240 right? In mirror writing. Yes. Can you imagine? 00:14:34.659 --> 00:14:37.480 He had to write his poetry in reverse, with a 00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:41.539 brush, in varnish, on a copper plate. The skill 00:14:41.539 --> 00:14:44.679 required is just mind -boggling. So then what? 00:14:45.039 --> 00:14:48.220 Then he'd dip the plate in acid. The acid would 00:14:48.220 --> 00:14:51.100 eat away all the raw, untouched copper, but it 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:52.740 couldn't touch the parts he had painted with 00:14:52.740 --> 00:14:55.120 the varnish. So when he washed the acid off, 00:14:55.340 --> 00:14:58.200 the text and the image were left standing up. 00:14:58.220 --> 00:15:00.840 Standing up in relief, exactly, like a rubber 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:03.019 stamp. So he could... ink the whole plate and 00:15:03.019 --> 00:15:05.700 print the words and the picture in one go. Exactly. 00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:07.580 This was revolutionary. It meant he could be 00:15:07.580 --> 00:15:10.159 his own publisher, his own printer, his own distributor. 00:15:10.399 --> 00:15:13.139 He bypassed the censors, the commercial publishers, 00:15:13.460 --> 00:15:16.440 the editors. He completely seized the means of 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:18.600 production. It's like the 18th century equivalent 00:15:18.600 --> 00:15:20.919 of starting a sub stack or YouTube channel because 00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:22.879 the mainstream networks won't hire you. That 00:15:22.879 --> 00:15:25.259 is a perfect analogy. He became an independent 00:15:25.259 --> 00:15:28.200 media house of one. And after printing, he and 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:31.039 Catherine would hand paint each page with watercolors. 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:33.620 Which means every copy is unique. Every single 00:15:33.620 --> 00:15:37.039 copy of Songs of Innocence or The Marriage of 00:15:37.039 --> 00:15:40.100 Heaven and Hell is a unique work of art. They're 00:15:40.100 --> 00:15:42.700 not mass -produced commodities. So he's working 00:15:42.700 --> 00:15:44.919 away in London, creating these masterpieces, 00:15:45.080 --> 00:15:47.080 but he's still really struggling financially. 00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:50.860 And then, in 1800, he decides to leave London. 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:53.639 He moves to the countryside, to a village called 00:15:53.639 --> 00:15:55.899 Feltham. This was supposed to be the big turning 00:15:55.899 --> 00:15:59.409 point. A patron, a man named William Haley, invited 00:15:59.409 --> 00:16:01.990 him to live in a cottage and work as his personal 00:16:01.990 --> 00:16:05.009 illustrator. And at first, Blake is thrilled. 00:16:05.190 --> 00:16:07.789 He's ecstatic. He writes letters saying, heaven 00:16:07.789 --> 00:16:10.389 opens here on all sides. He's seeing angels in 00:16:10.389 --> 00:16:12.690 his garden. He feels free from the city. But 00:16:12.690 --> 00:16:14.889 the reality sets in pretty quickly. William Haley 00:16:14.889 --> 00:16:18.110 was. While Blake later called him a corporeal 00:16:18.110 --> 00:16:21.049 friend and a spiritual enemy. Ouch. Haley was 00:16:21.049 --> 00:16:23.549 a bad poet and, by all accounts, a bit of a bore. 00:16:23.710 --> 00:16:26.149 He didn't understand Blake's genius at all. He 00:16:26.149 --> 00:16:28.549 just wanted Blake to do drudgery painting miniatures, 00:16:28.549 --> 00:16:31.330 decorating ladies' fans. He tried to turn the 00:16:31.330 --> 00:16:33.669 visionary prophet into a commercial decorator. 00:16:34.049 --> 00:16:36.429 Precisely. And Blake felt his soul was just being 00:16:36.429 --> 00:16:39.129 suffocated by it all. And then comes the incident 00:16:39.129 --> 00:16:41.830 with the soldier. This is the moment where Blake's 00:16:41.830 --> 00:16:44.470 life really hangs in the balance. The John Schofield 00:16:44.470 --> 00:16:48.820 incident. August 1803. Blake finds a soldier, 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.620 John Schofield, wandering around in his garden. 00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:54.919 Blake asks him to leave. And Schofield refuses. 00:16:55.340 --> 00:16:58.759 Schofield refuses. So Blake, again showing that 00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:01.799 scrappy nature, grabs the soldier by the elbows 00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:04.500 and physically marches him down the road to the 00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:07.440 local inn. But Schofield doesn't just, you know, 00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:10.299 walk away and forget about it. No. Schofield 00:17:10.299 --> 00:17:12.819 goes to the magistrate and swears an oath that 00:17:12.819 --> 00:17:15.539 Blake committed sedition. He claims that during 00:17:15.539 --> 00:17:17.759 the scuffle, Blake shouted, damn the king, the 00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:20.420 soldiers are all slaves. And we have to contextualize 00:17:20.420 --> 00:17:23.720 this. In 1803, England is terrified of a French 00:17:23.720 --> 00:17:27.220 invasion. Napoleon is at the door. Exactly. Accusing 00:17:27.220 --> 00:17:29.099 someone of sedition is not a small thing. It 00:17:29.099 --> 00:17:31.400 was a hanging offense. Blake was put on trial 00:17:31.400 --> 00:17:34.039 at the Chichester Sizes for assault and sedition. 00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:36.700 If the jury had believed the soldier, Blake could 00:17:36.700 --> 00:17:39.559 have been in prison or, well, much worse. So 00:17:39.559 --> 00:17:41.500 what happened at the trial? Blake was acquitted. 00:17:41.819 --> 00:17:44.359 The evidence was deemed to be invented. The villagers 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:47.680 all testified to his good character. But the 00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:50.119 psychological scar was deep. I'm sure. Blake 00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:52.420 felt he had been targeted by the state, and he 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:55.279 immortalized it in his art. In his later epic 00:17:55.279 --> 00:17:58.619 poem, Jerusalem, the character Schofield appears 00:17:58.619 --> 00:18:02.539 as a villain wearing mind -forged manacles. He 00:18:02.539 --> 00:18:05.140 literally turned his accuser into a demon in 00:18:05.140 --> 00:18:07.200 his personal mythology. That brings us to the 00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:09.099 mythology itself. Yes. This is where a lot of 00:18:09.099 --> 00:18:11.680 listeners might get lost. You open a Blake book 00:18:11.680 --> 00:18:15.700 and it's not just Jesus and Satan. It's Urizen, 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:20.190 Loss, Anatharmon, Orc. Why did he need to create 00:18:20.190 --> 00:18:22.750 his own gods? Because he felt the traditional 00:18:22.750 --> 00:18:25.490 religious terms were polluted. God and angel 00:18:25.490 --> 00:18:27.230 had been used by the state and the church to 00:18:27.230 --> 00:18:30.450 justify war, slavery, and repression. So he created 00:18:30.450 --> 00:18:33.789 his own pantheon, the four zoas, to map the human 00:18:33.789 --> 00:18:35.650 psyche. Okay, let's break them down. Who are 00:18:35.650 --> 00:18:37.609 the key players in this system? Okay, so the 00:18:37.609 --> 00:18:39.789 big one is Urizen. His name sounds like horizon, 00:18:39.970 --> 00:18:42.250 you know, the limit, or your reason. He is the 00:18:42.250 --> 00:18:44.960 embodiment of reason and law. He's usually depicted 00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:47.779 as an old man with a white beard, holding a compass, 00:18:47.980 --> 00:18:50.920 measuring the world, creating rules. So reason 00:18:50.920 --> 00:18:52.839 is the bad guy. I mean, that's a pretty bold 00:18:52.839 --> 00:18:55.019 take for the Age of Enlightenment. In Blake's 00:18:55.019 --> 00:18:59.299 world, yes. Single vision, pure rationality without 00:18:59.299 --> 00:19:02.980 emotion or imagination is destructive. It freezes 00:19:02.980 --> 00:19:05.559 the world into a dead thing. So who's the hero? 00:19:05.740 --> 00:19:10.190 The hero is Loss. L -O -S. He represents imagination 00:19:10.190 --> 00:19:13.430 and poetry. He's a blacksmith, constantly beating 00:19:13.430 --> 00:19:16.549 form out of the fires of chaos. He is the active 00:19:16.549 --> 00:19:19.009 creative force. And the eighth Armin. She represents 00:19:19.009 --> 00:19:21.730 inspiration and pity, the female counterpart 00:19:21.730 --> 00:19:24.769 or emanation of loss. And then you have Orc, 00:19:24.789 --> 00:19:27.670 the fiery spirit of rebellion. Orc is the energy 00:19:27.670 --> 00:19:30.589 that explodes against Urizen's cold laws. This 00:19:30.589 --> 00:19:32.589 all connects to his most famous work, The Marriage 00:19:32.589 --> 00:19:35.200 of Heaven and Hell. He basically flips the entire 00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:37.400 Bible on its head. It does. He argues that in 00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:39.900 traditional religion, good is just passive obedience, 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:42.839 which the church calls heaven, and evil is active 00:19:42.839 --> 00:19:45.140 energy and desire, which they call hell. And 00:19:45.140 --> 00:19:48.359 Blake says... Blake says energy is eternal delight. 00:19:48.940 --> 00:19:51.740 He argues that the creative force, the devil 00:19:51.740 --> 00:19:54.400 party, is actually the source of all life and 00:19:54.400 --> 00:19:57.420 genius. The tigers of wrath are wiser than the 00:19:57.420 --> 00:20:01.029 horses of instruction. Precisely. The untamed, 00:20:01.049 --> 00:20:03.509 instinctive energy of the tiger has more divine 00:20:03.509 --> 00:20:06.170 wisdom than the trained, obedient horse. And 00:20:06.170 --> 00:20:08.369 this wasn't just abstract theology for him. It 00:20:08.369 --> 00:20:11.670 was deeply political. Extremely political. Blake 00:20:11.670 --> 00:20:14.950 was a radical through and through. He wore the 00:20:14.950 --> 00:20:17.309 Phrygian cap, the red cap of the French Revolution 00:20:17.309 --> 00:20:19.369 in the streets of London, which was a dangerous 00:20:19.369 --> 00:20:22.089 statement to make. And he was fiercely anti -slavery. 00:20:22.349 --> 00:20:25.109 Fiercely. His palms, like the little black boy 00:20:25.109 --> 00:20:27.230 and visions of the daughters of Albion, attack 00:20:27.230 --> 00:20:29.390 the institution of slavery and the commodification. 00:20:29.519 --> 00:20:32.480 of human beings with a ferocity that was really 00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:35.519 rare for his time. And his views on free love 00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:38.240 fit in here, too. Yes. He saw a marriage that 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:41.119 lacked love as just legal prostitution. He believed 00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:43.099 that suppressing your natural desires twisted 00:20:43.099 --> 00:20:46.839 the soul. He who desires but acts not breeds 00:20:46.839 --> 00:20:49.839 pestilence. That's a powerful line. It is. However, 00:20:50.039 --> 00:20:53.160 we should add some nuance here. As he got older, 00:20:53.339 --> 00:20:56.279 his view shifted a bit. He moved away from a 00:20:56.279 --> 00:20:59.160 purely libertine idea of do whatever you want 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:03.140 toward a philosophy of self -denial. But, and 00:21:03.140 --> 00:21:06.880 this is key, self -denial inspired by love for 00:21:06.880 --> 00:21:09.380 another person, not by a commandment from a priest 00:21:09.380 --> 00:21:11.819 or a king. Okay, so we have to circle back to 00:21:11.819 --> 00:21:14.460 the madness question again in this context. Because 00:21:14.460 --> 00:21:16.779 while he's writing these incredible epics, he's 00:21:16.779 --> 00:21:19.029 telling people he's... you know, having lunch 00:21:19.029 --> 00:21:21.430 with the prophet Isaiah. Wordsworth, the other 00:21:21.430 --> 00:21:23.329 great poet of the age, had a really famous quote 00:21:23.329 --> 00:21:25.349 about this. He said, There is something in the 00:21:25.349 --> 00:21:27.990 madness of this man which interests me more than 00:21:27.990 --> 00:21:30.950 the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott. That's 00:21:30.950 --> 00:21:33.009 a great line. It's like, he's crazy, but he's 00:21:33.009 --> 00:21:35.289 interesting crazy. And Blake certainly didn't 00:21:35.289 --> 00:21:37.710 help his own case with anecdotes like the ghost 00:21:37.710 --> 00:21:40.230 of a flea. Oh, you have to tell that story. So 00:21:40.230 --> 00:21:42.650 he was with an astrologer friend named John Varley. 00:21:42.890 --> 00:21:45.430 And Blake suddenly says, I see the ghost of a 00:21:45.430 --> 00:21:48.980 flea. Marley, who is fascinated by the occult, 00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:51.640 gets very excited and says, Draw it! And Blake 00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:54.680 stares into what, for anyone else, is an empty 00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:59.099 corner of the room and draws this terrifying, 00:21:59.740 --> 00:22:03.640 muscular, scaly man -monster holding a little 00:22:03.640 --> 00:22:06.259 cup for blood. Wow. And he claimed the spirit 00:22:06.259 --> 00:22:08.740 told him that fleas were inhabited by the souls 00:22:08.740 --> 00:22:12.019 of men who were, by nature, bloodthirsty to excess. 00:22:12.279 --> 00:22:14.259 I mean, that sounds exactly like a hallucination. 00:22:14.589 --> 00:22:16.470 It does. But then you look at the drawing. It's 00:22:16.470 --> 00:22:19.349 incredibly specific. It's technical. To Blake, 00:22:19.430 --> 00:22:22.190 the imagination was the body of God. If he imagined 00:22:22.190 --> 00:22:24.369 it, it was real. He just didn't distinguish between 00:22:24.369 --> 00:22:26.730 inner and outer reality the way that we do. So 00:22:26.730 --> 00:22:28.630 let's fast forward to the end of his life. He's 00:22:28.630 --> 00:22:31.190 in his 60s. He's back in London. He's poor. He's 00:22:31.190 --> 00:22:33.910 obscure. But then something amazing happens. 00:22:34.519 --> 00:22:37.339 He gets discovered by a new generation. The ancients. 00:22:37.339 --> 00:22:39.359 This is the real redemption arc of his story. 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:42.319 A group of young artists, including Samuel Palmer 00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:44.759 and John Linnell, they found Blake's work. And 00:22:44.759 --> 00:22:46.920 they didn't see a madman. They saw a sage. They 00:22:46.920 --> 00:22:49.680 called him the interpreter. They valued his spiritual 00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:52.180 intensity over the materialism of the dawning 00:22:52.180 --> 00:22:54.619 industrial world. And practically speaking, they 00:22:54.619 --> 00:22:57.569 saved him from utter poverty. They did. John 00:22:57.569 --> 00:22:59.490 Linnell commissioned him to illustrate the Book 00:22:59.490 --> 00:23:02.730 of Job in Dante's Divine Comedy. This gave Blake 00:23:02.730 --> 00:23:05.450 a steady income and a real purpose in his final 00:23:05.450 --> 00:23:07.589 years. And the work he produced for the Book 00:23:07.589 --> 00:23:10.230 of Job is considered by many to be his absolute 00:23:10.230 --> 00:23:12.730 masterpiece of engraving. And he worked right 00:23:12.730 --> 00:23:14.640 up until the very end, didn't he? The death of 00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:17.299 William Blake in 1827 is one of the most moving 00:23:17.299 --> 00:23:20.420 scenes in all of literary biography. It really 00:23:20.420 --> 00:23:23.099 is. He's lying in his bed, working on the Dante 00:23:23.099 --> 00:23:25.680 illustrations. He stops, looks over at Catherine, 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:28.880 who has been by his side for 45 years, and says, 00:23:28.940 --> 00:23:32.859 Stay, Kate. Keep just as you are. I will draw 00:23:32.859 --> 00:23:35.000 your portrait for you have ever been an angel 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:38.059 to me. Oh, that is just... heartbreakingly beautiful. 00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:40.400 And then after he finishes the sketch, he lays 00:23:40.400 --> 00:23:43.380 down his tools and just starts singing loudly. 00:23:43.779 --> 00:23:45.740 He's singing hymns about the things he is seeing 00:23:45.740 --> 00:23:48.099 in the invisible world. Incredible. A lodger 00:23:48.099 --> 00:23:51.220 in the same house later said, I have been at 00:23:51.220 --> 00:23:53.940 the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel. 00:23:54.299 --> 00:23:56.720 But the story has a tragic postscript. After 00:23:56.720 --> 00:23:59.019 Blake dies, and then after Catherine dies, what 00:23:59.019 --> 00:24:01.240 happens to all his leftover work? Well, Catherine 00:24:01.240 --> 00:24:04.000 lived for a few more years. She actually continued 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.819 to sell his works, but she would always consult 00:24:06.819 --> 00:24:09.240 Mr. Blake's spirit before setting a price. Of 00:24:09.240 --> 00:24:11.640 course she would. But after she died, the remaining 00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:14.660 manuscripts passed to a man named Frederick Tatham. 00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:19.579 And Tatham was not exactly a fan of Blake's more 00:24:19.579 --> 00:24:21.990 radical stuff. Not at all. Tatham had converted 00:24:21.990 --> 00:24:24.970 to a very fundamentalist sect called the Ervinites. 00:24:25.309 --> 00:24:27.910 He came to believe that Blake's work was heretical 00:24:27.910 --> 00:24:31.170 and inspired by the devil. So he burned it. He 00:24:31.170 --> 00:24:33.289 burned the manuscripts. We don't know exactly 00:24:33.289 --> 00:24:36.009 how much was lost forever, but Blake had once 00:24:36.009 --> 00:24:38.869 told a friend he had written 20 tragedies as 00:24:38.869 --> 00:24:41.789 long as Macbeth. None of them survive. That is 00:24:41.789 --> 00:24:44.839 a cultural crime. 20 Macbeths gone forever because 00:24:44.839 --> 00:24:47.559 one guy got squeamish. It is absolutely devastating. 00:24:47.799 --> 00:24:50.380 But enough survived to ignite the future. So 00:24:50.380 --> 00:24:52.799 let's talk about that legacy. Because he does 00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:56.059 eventually rise from the ashes. It started slowly 00:24:56.059 --> 00:24:58.599 with the pre -Raphaelites in the mid -19th century. 00:24:58.859 --> 00:25:00.940 Artists like Rossetti and Swinburne who just 00:25:00.940 --> 00:25:04.250 loved his medieval aesthetic. But the real explosion, 00:25:04.349 --> 00:25:06.769 that happened in the 20th century. A counterculture. 00:25:06.890 --> 00:25:10.910 Exactly. The beats. Allen Ginsberg claimed he 00:25:10.910 --> 00:25:13.730 literally heard Blake's voice reciting poetry 00:25:13.730 --> 00:25:16.269 to him in his apartment. And think about the 00:25:16.269 --> 00:25:19.410 band The Doors. Jim Morrison. Jim Morrison named 00:25:19.410 --> 00:25:21.589 the ban after a line from Blake's The Marriage 00:25:21.589 --> 00:25:24.369 of Heaven and Hell. If the doors of perception 00:25:24.369 --> 00:25:26.569 were cleansed, everything would appear to man 00:25:26.569 --> 00:25:29.349 as it is, infinite. And I think most people probably 00:25:29.349 --> 00:25:31.750 assume that's an Aldous Huxley quote. Huxley 00:25:31.750 --> 00:25:33.869 used it for his book title, but he got it directly 00:25:33.869 --> 00:25:36.849 from Blake. Blake is the godfather of that whole 00:25:36.849 --> 00:25:40.049 psychedelic idea that reality is so much bigger 00:25:40.049 --> 00:25:42.490 than what our five senses report to us. And in 00:25:42.490 --> 00:25:45.009 literature, you've got Philip Pullman. His Dark 00:25:45.009 --> 00:25:48.250 Materials series is basically a modern retelling 00:25:48.250 --> 00:25:50.710 of Blake's war against authoritarian religion. 00:25:51.049 --> 00:25:52.789 And yet there's a supreme irony in all this. 00:25:52.930 --> 00:25:55.690 Blake's poem from the preface to Milton, the 00:25:55.690 --> 00:25:58.410 one that starts, and did those feet in ancient 00:25:58.410 --> 00:26:01.109 time walk upon England's mountains green. It 00:26:01.109 --> 00:26:03.609 became the hymn Jerusalem. Yes. It's sung at 00:26:03.609 --> 00:26:06.140 cricket match. rugby games, the last night of 00:26:06.140 --> 00:26:08.700 the proms. It's become an unofficial English 00:26:08.700 --> 00:26:11.380 national anthem. Which is so ironic because the 00:26:11.380 --> 00:26:14.079 poem is a radical attack on the dark satanic 00:26:14.079 --> 00:26:16.700 mills of the Industrial Revolution and the authority 00:26:16.700 --> 00:26:19.299 of the church. It's a call for a mental revolution 00:26:19.299 --> 00:26:22.400 to build a new Jerusalem. Blake would probably 00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:25.900 find it hilarious or horrifying that the very 00:26:25.900 --> 00:26:29.259 establishment he hated is now singing his song 00:26:29.259 --> 00:26:32.440 while waving flags. There's one last detail about 00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:34.700 his legacy that I found really touching. His 00:26:34.700 --> 00:26:38.420 grave. For a very long time, the exact spot in 00:26:38.420 --> 00:26:41.180 Bunhill Fields was lost. There was a general 00:26:41.180 --> 00:26:43.400 memorial stone, but it wasn't on the grave itself. 00:26:43.480 --> 00:26:47.490 Right. But in 2018, after 14 years of painstaking 00:26:47.490 --> 00:26:49.950 investigation by a Portuguese couple, Carol and 00:26:49.950 --> 00:26:52.829 Luis Garrido, the exact spot was rediscovered. 00:26:52.829 --> 00:26:55.089 And they finally put a proper marker on it. They 00:26:55.089 --> 00:26:58.349 did. It reads, Here lies William Blake, 1757 00:26:58.349 --> 00:27:02.230 -1827, poet, artist, prophet. Better late than 00:27:02.230 --> 00:27:04.710 never. Indeed. So, let's wrap this all up. What's 00:27:04.710 --> 00:27:06.289 the final takeaway here? We've talked about the 00:27:06.289 --> 00:27:08.549 printer, the madman, the prophet. Why does he 00:27:08.549 --> 00:27:10.990 still matter so much to the listener today? I 00:27:10.990 --> 00:27:12.769 think it all comes back to his hatred of single 00:27:12.769 --> 00:27:16.880 vision. of Newton's scientific materialism. Blake 00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:19.099 isn't saying science is bad, but he's saying 00:27:19.099 --> 00:27:21.819 it's incomplete. He believed that imagination 00:27:21.819 --> 00:27:25.059 was the body of God. The human ability to create, 00:27:25.180 --> 00:27:28.259 to visualize, that's the fundamental reality 00:27:28.259 --> 00:27:30.960 for him. Exactly. He lived in poverty and obscurity 00:27:30.960 --> 00:27:33.660 because he refused to compromise that vision. 00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:37.259 He refused to generalize or to fit into the box 00:27:37.259 --> 00:27:39.079 that Joshua Reynolds wanted him to fit into. 00:27:39.279 --> 00:27:41.559 He really challenges us. We live in an era of 00:27:41.559 --> 00:27:44.559 algorithms. big data, and consensus reality. 00:27:45.319 --> 00:27:47.720 We're constantly being told what to like, what 00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:49.779 to think, how to measure our own worth. And Blake 00:27:49.779 --> 00:27:53.099 says, look deeper. He leaves us with that provocative 00:27:53.099 --> 00:27:56.079 thought. The tigers of wrath are wiser than the 00:27:56.079 --> 00:27:58.339 horses of instruction. So the question for you, 00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:00.880 for the listener, is this. In your own life, 00:28:01.059 --> 00:28:03.079 are you being the horse of instruction, doing 00:28:03.079 --> 00:28:05.440 what you're told, following the safe, well -trodden 00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:08.039 path? Or are you suppressing a tiger? What would 00:28:08.039 --> 00:28:09.980 happen if just for a day you trusted your own 00:28:09.980 --> 00:28:12.400 visions, your own idiosyncratic way of seeing 00:28:12.400 --> 00:28:14.559 the world over the consensus of everyone else? 00:28:14.799 --> 00:28:17.119 You might just create something eternal. It's 00:28:17.119 --> 00:28:20.400 a dangerous thought, but a necessary one. Thanks 00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:22.880 for diving deep with us. Keep your eyes open 00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:25.059 for the angels in the trees. Goodbye.