''Poetical Sketches'' is the first collection of

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

and

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the fo ...

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of t ...

, written between 1769 and 1777. Forty copies were printed in 1783 with the help of Blake's friends, the artist

John Flaxman John Flaxman (6 July 1755 – 7 December 1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman, and a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Early in his career, he worked as a modeller for Josiah Wedgwood's pottery. He spent several ye ...

and the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew, at the request of his wife

Harriet Mathew Harriet Mathew was an 18th-century London socialite and patron of the arts, who is considered an important early patron of John Flaxman and William Blake. She was the wife of the Reverend Anthony Stephen Mathew (also known by the pseudonym Henry M ...

. The book was never published for the public, with copies instead given as gifts to friends of the author and other interested parties. Of the forty copies, fourteen were accounted for at the time of

Geoffrey Keynes Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes ( ; 25 March 1887, Cambridge – 5 July 1982, Cambridge) was a British surgeon and author. He began his career as a physician in World War I, before becoming a doctor at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, where h ...

' census in 1921. A further eight copies had been discovered by the time of Keynes' ''The Complete Writings of William Blake'' in 1957.Keynes (1966: 883) In March 2011, a previously unrecorded copy was sold at auction in London for £72,000.

Publication

The original 1783 copies were seventy-two pages in length, printed in octavo by John Flaxman's aunt, who owned a small print shop in the Strand, and paid for by Anthony Stephen Mathew and his wife Harriet, dilettantes to whom Blake had been introduced by Flaxman in early 1783.Ackroyd (1995: 94) Each individual copy was hand-stitched, with a grey back and a blue cover, reading "POETICAL SKETCHES by W.B." It was printed without a table of contents and many pages were without half titles. Of the twenty-two extant copies, eleven contain corrections in Blake's handwriting. ''Poetical Sketches'' is one of only two works by Blake to be printed conventionally with

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...

; the only other extant work is '' The French Revolution'' in 1791, which was to be published by Joseph Johnson. However, it never got beyond the proof copy, and was thus not actually published. Even given the modest standards by which the book was published, it was something of a failure.

Alexander Gilchrist Alexander Gilchrist (182830 November 1861), an English author, is known mainly as a biographer of William Etty and of William Blake. Gilchrist's biography of Blake is still a standard reference work about the poet. Gilchrist was born at Newingto ...

noted that the publication contained several obvious misreadings and numerous errors in punctuation, suggesting that it was printed with little care and was not proofread by Blake (thus the numerous handwritten corrections in printed copies). Gilchrist also notes that it was never mentioned in the ''

Monthly Review The ''Monthly Review'', established in 1949, is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. The publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. History Establishment Following ...

'', even in the magazine's index of "Books noticed", which listed every book published in London each month, signifying that the publication of the book had gone virtually unnoticed. Nevertheless, Blake himself was proud enough of the volume that he was still giving copies to friends as late as 1808, and when he died, several unstitched copies were found amongst his belongings. After the initial 1783 publication, ''Poetical Sketches'' as a volume remained unpublished until R. H. Shepherd's edition in 1868. However, prior to that, several of the individual poems had been published in journals and anthologised by Blake's early biographers and editors. For example, Benjamin Heath Malkin included 'Song: "How sweet I roam'd from field to field"' and 'Song: "I love the jocund dance"' in ''A Father's Memoirs of his Child'' (1806), Allan Cunningham published 'Gwin, King of Norway' and 'To the Muses' in ''Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'' (1830), and

included 'Song: "When early morn walks forth in sober grey"' in his ''

Life of William Blake The ''Life of William Blake, "Pictor Ignotus." With selections from his poems and other writings'' is a two-volume work on the English painter and poet William Blake, first published in 1863. The first volume is a biography and the second a comp ...

'' (1863). Gilchrist, however, did not reproduce Blake's text ''verbatim'', instead incorporating several of his own emendations. Many subsequent editors of Blake who included extracts in their collections of his poetry, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A. C. Swinburne,

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

and E. J. Ellis, also introduced their own emendations. Due to the extreme rarity of the original publication, these emendations often went unnoticed, thus giving rise to a succession of variant readings on the original content. Subsequent versions repeated or added to these changes, despite what later commentators described as obvious misreadings. However, in 1905, John Sampson produced the first scholarly edition of Blake's work, in which he returned to the original texts, also taking into account Blake's own handwritten corrections. As such, most modern editors tend to follow Sampson's example, and use the original 1783 publication as their control text.

Influences and importance

Blake's literary influences in ''Poetical Sketches'' include, amongst others, Elizabethan poetry, Shakespearean drama,

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and politica ...

Ben Jonson Benjamin "Ben" Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – c. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for t ...

, Thomas Fletcher,

Thomas Gray Thomas Gray (26 December 1716 – 30 July 1771) was an English poet, letter-writer, classical scholar, and professor at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is widely known for his '' Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,'' published in 1751. G ...

, William Collins,

Thomas Chatterton Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge. Alth ...

Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; 1552/1553 – 13 January 1599) was an English poet best known for '' The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the premier craftsmen o ...

, James Thomson's '' The Seasons'' (1726–1730),

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...

's '' The Castle of Otranto'' (1764), James Macpherson's ''

Ossian Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora'' (1763), and later combined unde ...

'' (1761–1765) and Thomas Percy's ''

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry The ''Reliques of Ancient English Poetry'' (sometimes known as ''Reliques of Ancient Poetry'' or simply Percy's ''Reliques'') is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Bishop Thomas Percy and published in 1765. Sources The basis ...

'' (1765). Blake shows especial antipathy towards the

closed couplet In poetics, closed couplets are two line units of verse that do not extend their sense beyond the line's end. Furthermore, the lines are usually rhymed. When the lines are in iambic pentameter, they are referred to as heroic verse. However, Samuel ...

Augustan poetry In Latin literature, Augustan poetry is the poetry that flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus as Emperor of Rome, most notably including the works of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. In English literature, Augustan poetry is a branch of A ...

. Although scholars are generally in agreement that ''Poetical Sketches'' is far from Blake's best work, it does occupy an important position in Blakean studies, coming as it does as the very outset of his career. In 1947, for example,

Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symm ...

declared in '' Fearful Symmetry'' that although ''Poetical Sketches'' is not regarded as a great piece of work, "it is of the highest importance to us, partly because it show Blake's symbolic language in an emergent and transitional form, and partly because it confirms that Blake is organically part of his literary age." Writing in 1965, S. Foster Damon concurs with Frye's opinion. In the entry for ''Poetical Sketches'' in Damon's '' Blake Dictionary'', he refers to ''Sketches'' as "a book of the revolutionary period, a time of seeking for non- neoclassical inspiration, a preparation for the

Romantic period Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

..For all the derivative material, the book is a work of genius in its daring figures, its metrical experiments, its musical tone."Damon (1988: 331) Damon also writes, "Historically, Blake belongs – or began – in the Revolutionary generation, when the closed heroic couplet was exhausted, and new subjects and new

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular re ...

s were being sought out. The cadences of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...

, the misunderstood Milton and the poetic Shakespeare with his fellow Elizabethans were Blake's staples from the first; to them we must add the wildness of Ossian, the music of Chatterton, the balladry of Percy's ''Reliques'', and the

Gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

of Walpole. All the principles of

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

are to be found in Blake's first book."

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

is also in agreement with this assessment, seeing the book as very much of its particular epoch; a period he dates from the death of

Alexander Pope Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...

in 1744 to the first major poetry of

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

in 1789. Bloom sees ''Sketches'' as "a workshop of Blake's developing imaginative ambitions as he both follows the poets of sensibility in their imitations of Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton, and goes beyond them in venturing more strenuously on the Hebraic sublime ..Perhaps the unique freshness of ''Poetical Sketches'' can be epitomised by noting Blake's first achievements in the greatest of his projects: to give definite form to the strong workings of imagination that produced the cloudy sublime images of the earlier poets of sensibility. In the best poems of Blake's youth, the sublime feelings of poets like Gray and Collins find a radiant adequacy of visionary outline." Frye, Damon and Bloom are all in agreement that Blake was, at least originally, very much of his age, but this is by no means a universally accepted opinion. Peter Ackroyd, for example, sees the poems as fundamentally divorced from the dominant poetic formulas of the day. Speaking of 'To the Evening Star' in specific and ''Poetical Sketches'' in general, Ackroyd argues that "it would be quite wrong to approach Blake's poetry with a Romantic belief that he is engaged in an act of confessional lyricism or brooding introversion ..This is not the poetry of a melancholy or self-absorbed youth." Susan J. Wolfson goes even further, seeing the volume as a statement of Blake's antipathy towards the conventions of the day and an expression of his own sense of artistic aloofness; "He serves up stanzas that cheerfully violate their paradigms, or refuse

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

, or off-rhyme, or play with eye-rhymes; rhythms that disrupt metrical convention, and line-endings so unorthodox as to strain a practice of

enjambment In poetry, enjambment ( or ; from the French ''enjamber'') is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The ori ...

already controversial in eighteenth century poetics." Similarly, W. H. Stevenson argues that "there is little direct borrowing, and it would be truer to say that, even at this early stage, he is experimenting with verse forms and has formed for himself a style as individual as Collin's and Akenside's".Stevenson (2007: 3)

''Poetical Sketches'' consists of nineteen lyric poems, a dramatic fragment (''King Edward the Third''), a prologue to another play in blank verse ('Prologue, Intended for a dramatic piece of King Edward the Fourth'), a prose poem prologue ('Prologue to King John'), a

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

('A War Song to Englishmen') and three prose poems ('The Couch of Death', 'Contemplation', and 'Samson'). The nineteen lyric poems are grouped together under the title "Miscellaneous Poems": Blake Mad Song

* 'To Spring' * 'To Summer' * 'To Autumn' * 'To Winter' * 'To the Evening Star' * 'To Morning' * 'Fair Elenor' * 'Song: "How sweet I roam'd from field to field'" * 'Song: "My silks and fine array'" * 'Song: "Love and harmony combine'" * 'Song: "I love the jocund dance'" * 'Song: "Memory, hither come'" * 'Mad Song' * 'Song: "Fresh from the dewy hill, the merry year'" * 'Song: "When early morn walks forth in the sober grey'" * 'To the Muses' * 'Gwin, King of Norway' * 'An Imitation of Spencer' * 'Blind-man's Buff' The work begins with an 'Advertisement' which explains that the contents were written by Blake in his youth and, therefore, any "irregularities and defects" should be forgiven: According to J.T. Smith, the advertisement was written by "Henry Mathew", which most critics take to mean Anthony Stephen Mathew; "Mrs Mathew was so extremely zealous in promoting the celebrity of Blake, that upon hearing him read some of his earlier efforts in poetry, she thought so well of them as to request the Rev. Henry Mathew, her husband, to join Mr. Flaxman in his truly kind offer of defraying the expense of printing them; in which he not only acquiesced, but with his usual urbanity, wrote the following advertisement." The following year, in 1784, Flaxman sounded a similar sentiment in a letter to

William Hayley William Hayley (9 November 174512 November 1820) was an English writer, best known as the biographer of his friend William Cowper. Biography Born at Chichester, he was sent to Eton in 1757, and to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1762; his conne ...

accompanying a copy of the book; "his education will plead sufficient excuse to your liberal mind for the defects of his work."

'To Spring', 'To Summer', 'To Autumn', 'To Winter'

The opening four poems, invocations to the four seasons, are often seen as offering early versions of four of the figures of Blake's later mythology, each one represented by the respective season, where "abstract personifications merge into the figures of a new myth."Harold Bloom, "Commentary" in Erdman (1982: 968) Spring seems to predict

Tharmas In the mythological writings of William Blake, Tharmas is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. He represents sensation, and his female counterpart is Enion In the mythological writings of W ...

, the peaceful embodiment of

sensation Sensation (psychology) refers to the processing of the senses by the sensory system. Sensation or sensations may also refer to: In arts and entertainment In literature * Sensation (fiction), a fiction writing mode * Sensation novel, a Briti ...

, who comes to heal "our love-sick land that mourns" with "soft kisses on her bosom." Summer is perhaps an early version of Orc, spirit of

Revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

, and is depicted as a strong youth with "ruddy limbs and flourishing hair", who brings out artists' passions and inspires them to create. In later poems, Orc's fiery red hair is often mentioned as one of his most distinguishing characteristics; "The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun into the western sea" ('' The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'', 25:13). Autumn seems to predict Los, the prophetic genius and embodiment of

imagination Imagination is the production or simulation of novel objects, sensations, and ideas in the mind without any immediate input of the senses. Stefan Szczelkun characterises it as the forming of experiences in one's mind, which can be re-creations ...

, as it is the only one of the four seasons Blake allows to speak directly, which it does in a "jolly voice." Finally, Winter serves as an antecedent for Urizen, limiter of men's desires and embodiment of

tradition A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...

and conventionality, insofar as winter is depicted as a giant who "strides o'er the groaning rocks;/He writhers all in silence, and his hand/Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life." In '' The Book of Urizen'' (1795), Urizen is depicted as a giant striding over the land spreading winter throughout the cities of men (Chap. VIII: Verse 6).

'To the Evening Star'

Possibly inspired by Spenser's "Epithalamion" (''c.''1597), lines 285-295, 'To the Evening Star' is described by S. Foster Damon as "pure Romanticism, way ahead of its time." Harold Bloom identifies it as perhaps Blake's earliest

Song of Innocence ''Song of Innocence'' is the debut album by American composer and producer David Axelrod. It was released in October 1968 by Capitol Records. In an effort to capitalize on the experimental climate of popular music at the time, Axelrod composed ...

in its presentation of a

pastoral A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depict ...

vision of calm and harmony;

'Fair Elenor'

'Fair Elenor' has attracted critical attention insofar as it is one of the very few poems in Blake's ''œuvre'' written in a specific genre; in this case the genre is Gothic, and the poem adheres to its conventions so rigidly, it may in fact be a parody.Ostriker (1977: 871) The opening lines, for example, are almost clichéd in their observance of Gothic conventions;

'Song: "How sweet I roam'd from field to field"'

According to Benjamin Heath Malkin, this poem was written prior to Blake's fourteenth birthday, and as such, "How sweet" may be his oldest extant poem. Despite his young age, the poem includes allusions to mythological figures such as Eros,

Cupid In classical mythology, Cupid (Latin Cupīdō , meaning "passionate desire") is the god of desire, lust, erotic love, attraction and affection. He is often portrayed as the son of the love goddess Venus (mythology), Venus and the god of war Mar ...

and Psyche. Bloom sees it as Blake's first Song of Experience.Harold Bloom, "Commentary" in Erdman (1982: 969) Northrop Frye argues that the poem functions as a precursor to Blake's version of the Phaëton myth in 'Night the Second' of ''

Vala, or The Four Zoas ''Vala, or The Four Zoas'' is one of the uncompleted prophetic books by the English poet William Blake, begun in 1797. The eponymous main characters of the book are the Four Zoas (Urthona, Urizen, Luvah and Tharmas), who were created by the fall ...

'' (1796), where the sun is seized by

Luvah In the mythological writings of William Blake, Luvah is one of the four Zoas, who were created when Albion, the primordial man, was divided fourfold. He represents love, passion, and rebellious energy. His Emanation (female counterpart) is Vala; ...

(representative of love and passion).Frye (1947: 178) Damon reads it as "a protest against marriage," and notes that the imagery in the poem, particularly the phrases "silken net" and "golden cage" predict Blake's later metaphorical uses of nets and enclosures. For example, in ''The Book of Urizen'', after the Fall of Los and Urizen, and the birth of

Enitharmon Enitharmon is a major female character in William Blake's mythology, playing a main part in some of his prophetic books. She is, but not directly, an aspect of the male Urthona, one of the Four Zoas. She is in fact the Emanation of Los, als ...

and Orc, the Eternals cover mortal earth with a roof "called Science" (Chap: V: Verse 12). Subsequently, after exploring the earth, Urizen spreads out "the net of Religion" (Chap VIII: Verse 9).

'Song: "My silks and fine array"'

"A pastiche of Elizabethan imagery", possibly to the point of parody, "My silks" deals with the popular Elizabethan topic of the transience of love;

'Song: "Love and harmony combine"' and 'Song: "I love the jocund dance"'

"My silks and fine array" contrasts sharply with the next two poems; "Song: 'Love and harmony combine'", which celebrates a natural love in which the lovers are depicted as trees with intertwining branches and roots ("Love and harmony combine,/And around our souls intwine,/While together thy branches mix with mine,/And our roots together join") and the similarly themed "Song: 'I love the jocund dance'" ("I love our neighbours all,/But, Kitty, I better love thee;/And love them I ever shall;/But thou art all to me"). W. H. Stevenson speculates that Kitty could in fact be Blake's future wife, Catherine Blake.

'Mad Song'

'Mad Song' is often regarded as Blake's first

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

. Harold Bloom, who feels it is the most "Blakean" poem in ''Poetical Sketches'' refers to it as an "intellectual satire" on both the concept of mad songs (six of which appeared in Percy's ''Antiques'', which describes madness as being a peculiarly English themeOstriker (1977: 872)) and the world which the singer seeks to leave. Frye is also an admirer of the poem and argues that "a maddened world of storm and tempest is the objective counterpart of madness in the human mind; and the madman is mad because he is locked up in his own Selfhood or inside, and cannot bear to see anything. In order to have his world a consistently dark one, he is compelled to rush frantically around the spinning earth forever, keeping one jump ahead of the rising sun, unable even to sleep in his everlasting night." Alexander Lincoln likens the poem to 'Song: "How Sweet I roam'd from field to field"' insofar as both deal with "states of mental captivity described from within."Andrew Lincoln (ed.) ''William Blake: The Illuminated Books, Volume 2: Songs of Innocence and of Experience'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 12

'Song: "Fresh from the dewy hill, the merry year"' and 'Song: "When early morn walks forth in sober grey"'

As with the contrast between "My silks and fine array" on one hand and "Love and harmony combine" and "I love the jocund dance" on the other, Blake again opposes the pleasure of love with its opposite in 'Song: "Fresh from the dewy hill, the merry year'" and 'Song: "When early morn walks forth in sober grey"'. In particular, the third stanza of each poem stands in diametric opposition to one another. The first reads This is strongly contrasted with the following song: Northrop Frye calls the contrasts between these various poems an "attempt to work out an antithesis of innocence and experience," and as such, they serve as a thematic antecedent of Blake's later work.

'To the Muses'

'To The Muses' represents an attack on contemporary poetry, using the language and cadence of Augustan verse to mock that very style of writing. Blake describes how the nine muses, once so active amongst the poets of old, now seem to have left the earth; The poem also contains Blake's first reference to a topic with which he would deal several times in his subsequent work; the four elements,

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as ...

, air,

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames ...

and

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...

(although he replaces fire with Heaven); In '' For Children: The Gates of Paradise'' (1793), Blake would assign each element a visual representation. In ''The Book of Urizen'', the four elements are personified as the sons of Urizen ( Utha is water, Thiriel is air, Fuzon is fire and Grodna is earth). In ''

Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion ''Jerusalem'', subtitled ''The Emanation of the Giant Albion'' (1804–1820, with additions made even later), is the last, longest and greatest in scope of the prophetic books written and illustrated by the English poet, artist and engraver W ...

'' (1820), Blake describes the original formation of the elements (30:27-40).

'Gwin, King of Norway'

Presented as a warning for tyrannical kings, the longer lyric poem 'Gwin, King of Norway' represents Blake's first engagement with revolution, a theme which would become increasingly important in his later verse, such as ''

America a Prophecy ''America a Prophecy'' is a 1793 prophetic book by the English poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on eighteen plates, and survives in fourteen known copies. It is the first of Blake's '' Continental prophecies''. Background ...

'' (1793), ''

Europe a Prophecy ''Europe a Prophecy'' is a 1794 prophetic book by the British poet and illustrator William Blake. It is engraved on 18 plates, and survives in just nine known copies. It followed ''America a Prophecy'' of 1793. Background During autumn 1790, ...

'' (1794), ''

The Song of Los ''The Song of Los'' (written 1795) is one of William Blake's epic poems, known as prophetic books. The poem consists of two sections, "Africa" and "Asia". In the first section Blake catalogues the decline of morality in Europe, which he blames ...

'' (1795) and ''

The Book of Ahania ''The Book of Ahania'' is one of the English poet William Blake's prophetic books. It was published in 1795, illustrated by Blake's own plates. The poem of the book consists of six chapters. The content concerns Fuzon, a son of Urizen, a ''Zoa' ...

'' (1795). In 'Gwin', Blake points out how the ordinary man must become a revolutionary to suppress political tyranny; For Frye, "Gordred the giant leads a workers' revolution ..the rebellion seems to be largely a

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. C ...

one in which the stronghold of political liberty is the independent

yeoman Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...

David V. Erdman David V. Erdman (November 4, 1911 in Omaha, NE – October 14, 2001) was an American literary critic, editor, and Professor Emeritus of English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Professor Erdman established his reputation as ...

sees the poem as a direct antecedent of ''America'' and thus containing allusions to the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

; England's actions prior to and during the war received widespread condemnation from the majority of the people, especially in London, where numerous protests were held against it. Blake was very much of the popular opinion that England was the oppressor and that the American people were fighting a righteous battle for their freedom. Erdman argues that in 'Gwin', "the geography is sufficiently obscure so that "the nations of the North" oppressed by King Gwin may easily be compared to the nations of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

oppressed by King George ..In 'Gwin', the rising up of the oppressed behind the "troubl'd banners" of their deliverer "Gordred the giant" parallels the hope that some American champion would prove the Samson of the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...

." Erdman thus compares Gordred with

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

and

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. Susan J. Wolfson also sees the poem as primarily metaphorical; "the revenge-tale enacted by two symbolic figures is less the ballad's point than the universal carnage that displaces all hope of political reform ��this bloodbath may not so much pale politics into visionary history as evoke an appalling visionary politics, a transhistorical anxiety about the human cost of historical conflict." The name Gordred was probably taken from Chatterton's 'Godred Crovan' (1768). Margaret Ruth Lowery suggests that Blake took more from Chatterton than simply the name of Gordred, arguing that there are many parallels in theme and imagery between Chatterton's story of a Norse tyrant invading the

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, and Blake's of a revolution against a Norse tyrant.

'An Imitation of Spencer'

Alicia Ostriker sees 'An Imitation of Spencer' as "an early attempt on Blake's part to define his poetic vocation." The poem follows 'To the Muses' in its mockery of Augustan poetry, accusing such poetry of consisting of "tinkling rhimes and elegances terse." This is contrasted with the power of more accomplished poetry;

'Blind-Man's Bluff'

Predicting the close bond between form and content which would prove so important an aspect of his later Illuminated Books, in this simple story of a children's game, Blake uses the structure to carry his metaphorical intent; "Blake's tidy couplets report a game of all sound and no eye, where tyranny and wanton cruelty ensue, provoking a summary call for law and order and fair play ��Miming the forms of children's rhymes, he even implies the genesis of man's designs in childish games, whose local mischief, tricks and blood-letting confusions rehearse worldly power-plays." This is most evident in the poem's concluding lines:

''King Edward the Third''

The unfinished dramatic fragment ''King Edward the Third'' is a Shakespearean history, Shakespearean-inspired Irony, ironic depiction of Edward III of England, Edward III's war with France which began in 1337. Written in loose blank verse, the play is set the night before the Battle of Crécy, a significant turning point in the Hundred Years' War. Blake ironically presents the invasion as a noble crusade for Liberty, which is spoken of as a commercial value by the English lords. For example, several times they boast that England is the home of Liberty and is protected by Liberty, yet they also proudly claim that "England is the land favour'd by Commerce" (Sc.2 l.30). This treatment of Liberty has been identified as mockery of a similar, but non-ironic, treatment in James Thomson's ''Liberty'' (1735), e.g. "Cressy, Battle of Poitiers, Poitiers, Battle of Agincourt, Agincourt proclaim/What Kings supported by almighty love/And people fired with liberty can do" (iv:865-867).Ostriker (1977: 874) The character of William his Man may be a representative of Blake himself, as he is the only character in the play who questions the morality of the invasion beyond the ostensible explanation of Liberty; "I should be glad to know if it was not ambition that brought over our King to France to fight for his right" (Sc.4: ll.20-21). Beyond the investigation into notions of Liberty and the reasons for the invasion, David V. Erdman argues that the theme of the play is the bloodshed and hardship for the common people which will result, despite Edward's belief that the war provides ordinary men with a chance to be heroes; "the key to the [play] is the great Death which lies in wait for the warriors of Edward's ill-starred invasion of France." Erdman believes the play is wholly ironic, and challenges critics who have read it literally and accused it of jingoism. Margaret Ruth Lowery, for example, believes that it expresses "a 'boylike' delight in the picturesqueness of war." S. Foster Damon calls it "uncritically patriotic." Mark Schorer interprets it as an "extended defence of war and national interests." Northrop Frye sees it as "''Rule, Britannia!'' in blank verse." He further states, "the most puzzling feature of ''King Edward the Third'' is the frankness with which Blake admits that economic conditions are the cause of the war. Industry, commerce, agriculture, manufacture and trade are the gods directing the conflict, but the conflict is glorious and the gods worthy of worship. There seems to be no use looking for irony here."Frye (1947: 180) Erdman, however, sees it as impossible that the author of such bitter and anti-imperialist tracts as 'Prologue, Intended for a dramatic piece of King Edward the Fourth', 'Prologue to King John' and 'Couch of Death', could possibly be expressing genuine sentiments in this apparent celebration of jingoism. Instead, Erdman argues that "there are many indications of Blake's general prophetic intent in these scenes; yet if we forget to ask what historical climax they point toward, we may be quite puzzled that Blake's Edward and his brave and battle-ready warriors appear to be undertaking their invasion of the vineyards of France under favourable auspices, marching with jingoistic complacency towards a great slaughter of enemy troops and to be getting by what they represent to each other as glorious and fully justifiable murder." Similarly, Alicia Ostriker refers to the piece as "an ironic treatment of military values urged in the name of high ideals." Regarding the fact that Blake never completed the play, and hence did not depict the English victory, Susan J. Wolfson argues that "Blake's refusal to report these outcomes functions systematically as a refusal of triumphalism, the mode of nationalistic self-satisfaction. His sketch draws us in, instead, to the various critical perspectives on the interests that impel England's history of military adventurism." She goes on to point out that "Blake's perspective is not the conservative lens of eighteenth-century Formalism (literature), formalism that would expose liberty as lawlessness, but a modern lens of suspicion about the motivated rhetoric, craft and intentional designs in the cant of Liberty."

'Prologue, Intended for a dramatic piece of King Edward the Fourth' and 'Prologue to King John'

The moral judgements which are kept implicit in ''King Edward the Third'' are made very much explicit in 'Prologue, Intended for a dramatic piece of King Edward the Fourth' and 'Prologue to King John'. 'Edward the Fourth', which Frye calls "the first real statement of Blake's revolutionary politics," uses the refrain "Who can stand" to enquire into the possibility of nobility amidst war and destruction. It then imagines that even God wonders from where all the conflict has come, with Blake pointing his finger directly at those he holds responsible;

Blake was evidently quite proud of this piece as ''c.''1796, he inscribed a colour etching with "When the senses are shaken/And the Soul is driven to madness. Page 56". This is a reference to the original publication of ''Poetical Sketches'' and refers to lines 2-3 of 'Edward the Fourth'. In 'King John', which Erdman reads as a document of English protest against the American War, Blake becomes even more explicit regarding his detestation of war. Depicting an almost apocalyptical wilderness, Blake laments how "brother in brother's blood must bathe." England has become a place where "the sucking infant lives to die in battle; the weeping mother feeds him for the slaughter" and "the trembling sinews of old age must work the work of death against their progeny." However, the poem concludes on an optimistic note; "O yet may Albion smile again, and stretch her peaceful arms and raise her golden head, exultingly." The source for this possibility of renewal however is never revealed.

'The Couch of Death' and 'A War Song to Englishmen'

Erdman believes that the prose poem 'The Couch of Death' is a coda to ''Edward the Third'', insofar as it depicts the victims of the plague and hardship brought about by the war. The ballad 'A War Song to Englishmen' is usually interpreted as forming a part of ''Edward the Third'', perhaps written by Blake to be inserted later. Specifically, the poem is seen as the second song of the minstrel, whose first song closes the fragment with a passionate evocation of Brutus of Troy, supposed founder of Britain. "War Song" continues to urge troops to battle and, like the minstrel's first song, is usually interpreted as parody and an ironic celebration of Patriotism, patriotic bloodlust. Erdman interprets it as "a parody of the battle songs of modern Britain."

'Samson'

The final piece in the volume, 'Samson', has received little critical attention over the years. Andrew Lincoln, however, has identified it as perhaps introducing a pseudo-biographical element into Blake's work, and argues that it "is an early experiment in prophetic narrative. Blake's Samson can be seen as a type of the artist who struggles against the materialism of his own age – and is doomed to be seduced by it before finally achieving his mission. The vulnerability of the would-be deliverer suggests that spiritual captivity is a state through which the strongest of mortals must pass." In ''Milton: A Poem in Two Books, Milton'' (1810), Blake would again allude to the Samson legend, referring to Emanuel Swedenborg as "the strongest of men, the Samson shorn by the Churches" (22:50).

Additional Content

On the blank leaves of a copy of ''Poetical Sketches'' inscribed "from Mrs Flaxman May 15, 1784", are three handwritten poems which, since John Sampson in 1905, have been attributed to Blake. The three poems, "Song 1st by a shepherd", "Song 2nd by a Yound Shepherd" and "Song 3^d by an old shepherd" are not in Blake's handwriting, but are thought to be of his composition insofar as "Song 2nd" is an early draft of "Laughing Song" from ''Songs of Innocence'' (1789). In his 1965 edition of the ''Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake'', David Erdman assigns two additional incomplete prose poems to ''Poetical Sketches'', under the section title 'Further Sketches'; "then She bore Pale desire…" and "Woe cried the muse…". These two poems are extant on seven MS pages in Blake's handwriting, and dateable to the early 1780s, but nothing else is known about them. Erdman includes the two pieces in ''Poetical Sketches'' simply because there is no other collection with which to associate them. His decision, however, is by no means the norm amongst Blake's editors. For example, R.H. Shepherd did not include them in his publication of ''Poetical Sketches'' in 1868. In his 1905 edition of the collected works, Sampson mentioned them in his Introduction to ''Poetical Sketches'' but did not include them in the collection itself. In ''The Complete Writings of William Blake'' (1957 and 1966) Geoffrey Keynes included them but divided them from ''Poetical Sketches'', indexed them separately and dated them both 1777. Alicia Ostriker, in her ''William Blake: The Complete Poems'' (1977), makes no reference at all to either piece throughout the volume. W.H. Stevenson in ''Blake: The Complete Poems'' (1971, 1989 and 2007), mentions them in a footnote, but does not reproduce them. "then She bore pale desire" was first published in 1904, by William Michael Rossetti in the August edition of ''The Monthly Review'', where it was rewritten into verse and appeared under the title ''The Passions'' (which is also the name used by Gilchrist). "Woe cried the muse" was first published in 1925 in Geoffrey Keynes' ''The Writings of William Blake''. "then She bore Pale desire…" begins with a small letter and the first line is not indented, so it is clear that at least one page is missing. Harold Bloom believes it to be an experiment in Stream of consciousness (narrative mode), stream of consciousness writing. According to Erdman, it is "an allegorical genealogy of Pride and Shame and Policy and "the Kingdoms of the World & all their Glory," it shows Blake revolving the problem of man's fate in terms that link imperial pride and individual frustration." For Damon, it is an attempt "to outline the spiritual decay of mankind in the course of history."Damon (1988: 104)

References

Citations

External links

''William Blake: Dreamer of Dreams'' article
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A Census of Copies of William Blake's ''Poetical Sketches'', 1783
, Margaret Ruth Lowery, ''The Library'', Fourth Series, 17:3 (Autumn, 1936), 354-360 (subscription needed) *
The Reputation of Blake's ''Poetical Sketches'', 1783-1863
, Michael Phillips, ''Review of English Studies'', 26 (1975), 19-33 (subscription needed) *
Blake's ''Poetical Sketches'' Finally Arrive in America
, Raymond H. Deck, ''Review of English Studies'', 31 (1980), 183-192 (subscription needed) {{Authority control 1783 poetry books Poetry by William Blake Edward III of England English poetry collections