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184-463: William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age . What he called his " prophetic works " were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in
368-528: A cottage at Felpham , in Sussex (now West Sussex ), to take up a job illustrating the works of William Hayley , a minor poet. It was in this cottage that Blake began Milton (the title page is dated 1804, but Blake continued to work on it until 1808). The preface to this work includes a poem beginning " And did those feet in ancient time ", which became the words for the anthem " Jerusalem ". Over time, Blake began to resent his new patron, believing that Hayley
552-507: A Christian element to his mythic world. In the revised version of Vala , Blake added Christian and Hebrew images and describes how Los experiences a vision of the Lamb of God that regenerates Los's spirit. In opposition to Christ is Urizen and the Synagogue of Satan , who later crucifies Christ. It is from them that Deism is born. Romantic poetry Romantic poetry is the poetry of
736-551: A London setting, themes of trickery and money, and a distinct moral ambiguity, despite Jonson's professed aim in the Prologue to Volpone to "mix profit with your pleasure". His late plays or " dotages ", particularly The Magnetic Lady and The Sad Shepherd , exhibit signs of an accommodation with the romantic tendencies of Elizabethan comedy . Within this general progression, however, Jonson's comic style remained constant and easily recognisable. He announces his programme in
920-452: A Nightingale ", Keats wrote: ...................................................for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain. Romantic poetry was attracted to nostalgia, and medievalism is another important characteristic of romantic poetry, especially in
1104-556: A brief Bible verse (the neck-verse ), forfeiting his "goods and chattels" and being branded with the so-called Tyburn T on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson converted to Catholicism, possibly through the influence of fellow-prisoner Father Thomas Wright , a Jesuit priest. In 1598 Jonson produced his first great success, Every Man in His Humour , capitalising on the vogue for humorous plays which George Chapman had begun with An Humorous Day's Mirth . William Shakespeare
1288-567: A brief spell of imprisonment imposed to mark the authorities' displeasure at the work, in the second week of October 1605, he was present at a supper party attended by most of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. After the plot's discovery, he appears to have avoided further imprisonment; he volunteered what he knew of the affair to the investigator Robert Cecil and the Privy Council. Father Thomas Wright, who heard Fawkes's confession,
1472-423: A charge of recusancy , with Jonson alone additionally accused of allowing his fame as a Catholic to "seduce" citizens to the cause. This was a serious matter (the Gunpowder Plot was still fresh in people's minds) but he explained that his failure to take communion was only because he had not found sound theological endorsement for the practice, and by paying a fine of thirteen shillings (156 pence ) he escaped
1656-902: A cousin of King James, in Leith, and was made an honorary burgess of Edinburgh at a dinner laid on by the city on 26 September. He stayed in Scotland until late January 1619, and the best-remembered hospitality he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, William Drummond of Hawthornden , sited on the River Esk . Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. Drummond noted he
1840-406: A distinctive vision of a humanity redeemed by self-sacrifice and forgiveness, while retaining his earlier negative attitude towards what he felt was the rigid and morbid authoritarianism of traditional religion. Not all readers of Blake agree upon how much continuity exists between Blake's earlier and later works. Psychoanalyst June Singer has written that Blake's late work displayed a development of
2024-408: A family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School , where the antiquarian , historian, topographer and officer of arms William Camden (1551–1623) was one of his masters. The pupil and master became friends, and the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death in 1623. At Westminster School he met
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#17327654701162208-399: A famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are longer and are mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although it is included among the epigrams, " On My First Sonne " is neither satirical nor very short; the poem, intensely personal and deeply felt, typifies a genre that would come to be called "lyric poetry." It is possible that the spelling of 'son' as 'Sonne' is meant to allude to
2392-652: A fixed engagement in the Admiral's Men , then performing under Philip Henslowe 's management at The Rose . John Aubrey reports, on uncertain authority, that Jonson was not successful as an actor; whatever his skills as an actor, he was more valuable to the company as a writer. By this time Jonson had begun to write original plays for the Admiral's Men; in 1598 he was mentioned by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia as one of "the best for tragedy." None of his early tragedies survive, however. An undated comedy, The Case
2576-518: A gesture of equality, as the barren earth blooms beneath their feet. Europe wears a string of pearls, while her sisters Africa and America are depicted wearing slave bracelets. Some scholars have speculated that the bracelets represent the "historical fact" of slavery in Africa and the Americas while the handclasp refer to Stedman's "ardent wish": "we only differ in color, but are certainly all created by
2760-406: A great number of his works, particularly his Bible illustrations, to Thomas Butts , a patron who saw Blake more as a friend than a man whose work held artistic merit; this was typical of the opinions held of Blake throughout his life. The commission for Dante 's Divine Comedy came to Blake in 1826 through Linnell, with the aim of producing a series of engravings. Blake's death in 1827 cut short
2944-647: A hack imitator of the English Romantics." More recently, an essay by Dana Gioia has spearheaded a revival of readership and scholarly interest in the life and poetry of Longfellow. There are elements of Romanticism in many later works of American poetry. The influence of Whitman is evident in the work of Langston Hughes and E. E. Cummings ; there are echoes of Transcendentalism in poems about nature by Robert Frost , Carl Sandburg , and Gary Snyder ; there are strains of Romantic individualism in writing by Frank O'Hara , Sylvia Plath , Adrienne Rich , and
3128-608: A housekeeper. She believed she was regularly visited by Blake's spirit. She continued selling his illuminated works and paintings, but entertained no business transaction without first "consulting Mr. Blake". On the day of her death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful as her husband, and called out to him "as if he were only in the next room, to say she was coming to him, and it would not be long now." On her death, longtime acquaintance Frederick Tatham took possession of Blake's works and continued selling them. Tatham later joined
3312-454: A line when he wrote. His own claimed response was "Would he had blotted a thousand!" However, Jonson explains, "Hee was (indeed) honest, and of an open, and free nature: had an excellent Phantsie ; brave notions and gentle expressions: wherein hee flow'd with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopp'd". Jonson concludes that "there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." When Shakespeare died, he said, "He
3496-698: A memorial to Blake and his wife was erected in Westminster Abbey. Another memorial lies in St James's Church, Piccadilly , where he was baptised. At the time of Blake's death, he had sold fewer than 30 copies of Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Blake was not active in any well-established political party. His poetry consistently embodies an attitude of rebellion against the abuse of class power as documented in David Erdman's major study Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of
3680-435: A method he used to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and poems. The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and the finished products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts . He then etched
3864-601: A nonsensical line in Julius Caesar and the setting of The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported Jonson as saying that Shakespeare "wanted art" (i.e., lacked skill). In "De Shakespeare Nostrat" in Timber , which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out)
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#17327654701164048-488: A number of Blake's drawings. At the same time, some works not intended for publication were preserved by friends, such as his notebook and An Island in the Moon . Blake's grave is commemorated by two stones. The first was a stone that reads "Near by lie the remains of the poet-painter William Blake 1757–1827 and his wife Catherine Sophia 1762–1831". The memorial stone is situated approximately 20 metres (66 ft) away from
4232-470: A number of Jonson's plays, at least two of which ( Every Man in His Humour and Sejanus His Fall ) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now impossible to tell how much personal communication they had, and tales of their friendship cannot be substantiated. Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio . This poem, "To
4416-407: A plate that Blake employed for his relief etching, and indicates why the engravings took so long to complete. Blake's marriage to Catherine was close and devoted until his death. Blake taught Catherine to write, and she helped him colour his printed poems. Gilchrist refers to "stormy times" in the early years of the marriage. Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into
4600-511: A portrait of Jonson, offers a caricature that is recognisable from Drummond's report – boasting about himself and condemning other poets, criticising performances of his plays and calling attention to himself in any available way. This " War of the Theatres " appears to have ended with reconciliation on all sides. Jonson collaborated with Dekker on a pageant welcoming James I to England in 1603 although Drummond reports that Jonson called Dekker
4784-459: A practice that was preferred to actual drawing. Within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of Raphael , Michelangelo , Maarten van Heemskerck and Albrecht Dürer . The number of prints and bound books that James and Catherine were able to purchase for young William suggests that the Blakes enjoyed, at least for a time, a comfortable wealth. When William
4968-583: A process invented in 1725, consisted of making a metal cast from a wood engraving, but Blake's innovation was, as described above, very different. The pages printed from these plates were hand-coloured in watercolours and stitched together to form a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including Songs of Innocence and of Experience , The Book of Thel , The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Jerusalem . Although Blake has become better known for his relief etching, his commercial work largely consisted of intaglio engraving ,
5152-478: A realistic perspective on nature. He believes that nature is not the source of joy and pleasure, but rather that people's reactions to it depend on their mood and disposition. Coleridge believed that joy does not come from external nature, but that it emanates from the human heart. Melancholy occupies a prominent place in romantic poetry, and is an important source of inspiration for the Romantic poets. In '" Ode to
5336-468: A remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama. During the early 1630s, he also conducted a correspondence with James Howell , who warned him about disfavour at court in the wake of his dispute with Jones. According to a contemporary letter written by Edward Thelwall of Gray's Inn , Jonson died on 18 August 1637 (O.S. 6 August). He died in London. His funeral was held the next day. It
5520-599: A result, he wrote his Descriptive Catalogue (1809), which contains what Anthony Blunt called a "brilliant analysis" of Chaucer and is regularly anthologised as a classic of Chaucer criticism. It also contained detailed explanations of his other paintings. The exhibition was very poorly attended, selling none of the temperas or watercolours. Its only review, in The Examiner , was hostile. Also around this time (circa 1808), Blake gave vigorous expression of his views on art in an extensive series of polemical annotations to
5704-502: A rogue. Marston dedicated The Malcontent to Jonson and the two collaborated with Chapman on Eastward Ho! , a 1605 play whose anti-Scottish sentiment briefly landed both Jonson and Chapman in jail. At the beginning of the English reign of James VI and I in 1603 Jonson joined other poets and playwrights in welcoming the new king. Jonson quickly adapted himself to the additional demand for masques and entertainments introduced with
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5888-430: A series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation. He resumed writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest, however, for their portrayal of Charles I 's England. The Staple of News , for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to
6072-723: A student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period. There, he rebelled against what he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable painters such as Rubens , championed by the school's first president, Joshua Reynolds . Over time, Blake came to detest Reynolds' attitude towards art, especially his pursuit of "general truth" and "general beauty". Reynolds wrote in his Discourses that
6256-421: A vernal wood May teach you more of man, Of moral evil and of good, Than all the sages can. Shelley was another nature poet, who believed that nature is a living thing and there is a union between nature and man. Wordsworth approaches nature philosophically, while Shelley emphasizes the intellect. John Keats was another lover of nature, but Coleridge differs from other Romantic poets of his age, in that he has
6440-510: A whole. Poe, however, strongly disliked transcendentalism. Another American Romantic poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882), was the most popular poet of his day. He was one of the first American celebrities and was also popular in Europe, and it was reported that 10,000 copies of The Courtship of Miles Standish sold in London in a single day. However, Longfellow's popularity rapidly declined, beginning shortly after his death and into
6624-425: Is Altered , is markedly similar to Shakespeare's romantic comedies in its foreign setting, emphasis on genial wit and love-plot. Henslowe's diary indicates that Jonson had a hand in numerous other plays, including many in genres such as English history with which he is not otherwise associated. The comedies of his middle career, from Eastward Hoe to The Devil Is an Ass are for the most part city comedy , with
6808-507: Is Altered , may be his earliest surviving play. In 1597, a play which he co-wrote with Thomas Nashe , The Isle of Dogs , was suppressed after causing great offence. Arrest warrants for Jonson and Nashe were issued by Queen Elizabeth I 's so-called interrogator, Richard Topcliffe . Jonson was jailed in Marshalsea Prison and charged with "Leude and mutynous behaviour", while Nashe managed to escape to Great Yarmouth . Two of
6992-409: Is Altered , Jonson eschewed distant locations, noble characters, romantic plots and other staples of Elizabethan comedy, focusing instead on the satiric and realistic inheritance of new comedy . He set his plays in contemporary settings, peopled them with recognisable types, and set them to actions that, if not strictly realistic, involved everyday motives such as greed and jealousy . In accordance with
7176-465: Is another important feature of Romantic poetry, as a source of inspiration. This poetry involves a relationship with external nature and places, and a belief in pantheism . However, the Romantic poets differed in their views about nature. Wordsworth recognized nature as a living thing, teacher, god, and everything. These feelings are fully developed and expressed in his epic poem The Prelude . In his poem "The Tables Turned" he writes: One impulse from
7360-416: Is at last fulfilled." John Middleton Murry notes discontinuity between Marriage and the late works, in that while the early Blake focused on a "sheer negative opposition between Energy and Reason", the later Blake emphasised the notions of self-sacrifice and forgiveness as the road to interior wholeness. This renunciation of the sharper dualism of Marriage of Heaven and Hell is evidenced in particular by
7544-618: Is considered by many to be the central representative of Romanticism in Russian literature; however, he can't be labelled unequivocally as a Romantic. Russian critics have traditionally argued that,during the 36 years of his life, Pushkin's works took a path from neo-Classicism through Romanticism and ultimately to Realism . An alternative assessment suggests that "he had an ability to entertain contrarities [ sic ] which may seem Romantic in origin, but are ultimately subversive of all fixed points of view, all single outlooks, including
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7728-405: Is considered to be the ideologue of Sturm und Drang , with Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz , H. L. Wagner and Friedrich Maximilian Klinger also significant figures. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was also a notable proponent of the movement, though he and Friedrich Schiller ended their period of association with it by initiating what would become Weimar Classicism . Jena Romanticism – also
7912-665: Is emphasised during this period. Leading Romantic poets include Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (considered the most important), Manuel José Quintana , José Zorrilla , Rosalía de Castro (in Galician and Spanish), and José de Espronceda . In Catalonia , the Romantic movement was a major trigger for the Catalan Renaissance or ' Renaixença ', which would gradually bring back prestige to the Catalan language and literature (in decadence since its 15th-century Golden Age), with
8096-404: Is full of allusions to the art, literature and culture of Greece, as for example in " Ode on a Grecian Urn ". Most of the romantic poets used supernatural elements in their poetry. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the leading romantic poet in this regard, and " Kubla Khan " is full of supernatural elements. Romantic poetry is the poetry of sentiments, emotions and imagination. Romantic poetry opposed
8280-653: Is often called Heidelberg Romanticism (see also Berlin Romanticism ). There was a famous circle of poets, the Heidelberg Romantics, such as Joseph von Eichendorff , Johann Joseph von Görres , Ludwig Achim von Arnim , and Clemens Brentano . A relic of Romanticism is the Philosophers' Walk (German: Philosophenweg ), a scenic walking path on the nearby Heiligenberg, overlooking Heidelberg. The Romantik epoch of German philosophy and literature,
8464-424: Is said to have cried, "Stay Kate! Keep just as you are – I will draw your portrait – for you have ever been an angel to me." Having completed this portrait (now lost), Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses. At six that evening, after promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died. Gilchrist reports that a female lodger in the house, present at his expiration, said, "I have been at
8648-457: Is the first work to mention them. In particular, Blake's God/Man union is broken down into the bodily components of Urizen (head), Urthona (loins), Luvah (heart), and Tharmas (unity of the body) with paired Emanations being Ahania (wisdom, from the head), Enitharmon (what can't be attained in nature, from the loins), Vala (nature, from the heart), and Enion (earth mother, from the separation of unity). As connected to Blake's understanding of
8832-487: Is the most innovative aspect of his art, but a 2009 study drew attention to Blake's surviving plates, including those for the Book of Job : they demonstrate that he made frequent use of a technique known as " repoussage ", a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. Such techniques, typical of engraving work of the time, are very different from the much faster and fluid way of drawing on
9016-803: Is traditionally referred to as the "Golden Era" of Russian literature . Romanticism permitted a flowering of especially poetic talent: the names of Vasily Zhukovsky and later that of his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Pushkin is credited with both crystallizing the literary Russian language and introducing a new level of artistry to Russian literature. His best-known work is a novel as sonnet sequence , Eugene Onegin . An entire new generation of poets including Mikhail Lermontov , Yevgeny Baratynsky , Konstantin Batyushkov , Nikolay Nekrasov , Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy , Fyodor Tyutchev and Afanasy Fet followed in Pushkin's steps. Pushkin
9200-731: The Critique of Judgment and what was seen as the failure of the Analytic of the Sublime to accomplish the task set before it: bridging the gap between pure and practical reason. In a different vein, Friedrich Hölderlin and Heinrich von Kleist also grappled with similar philosophical issues in a manner different from the Jena circle. Heidelberg was the centre of the epoch of Romantik ( Romanticism ) in Germany. The phase after Jena Romanticism
9384-530: The Age of Revolutions . The idea of the creative imagination was stressed above the idea of reason, and minute elements of nature, including as insects and pebbles, were now considered divine. Nature was perceived in many different ways by the Spanish Romantics, and Instead of employing allegory , as earlier poets had done, these poets tended to use myth and symbol . The power of human emotion furthermore
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#17327654701169568-474: The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds , denouncing the Royal Academy as a fraud and proclaiming, "To Generalize is to be an Idiot". In 1818, he was introduced by George Cumberland's son to a young artist named John Linnell . A blue plaque commemorates Blake and Linnell at Old Wyldes' at North End, Hampstead. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer , who belonged to a group of artists who called themselves
9752-658: The English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642). Jonson was born in June 1572 —possibly on the 11th —in or near London. In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandfather, who "served King Henry 8 and
9936-662: The French and American revolutions and wore a Phrygian cap in solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in France. That same year, Blake composed his unfinished manuscript An Island in the Moon (1784). Blake illustrated Original Stories from Real Life (2nd edition, 1791) by Mary Wollstonecraft. Although they seem to have shared some views on sexual equality and
10120-513: The Romantic era , an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. It involved a reaction against prevailing Enlightenment ideas of the 18th century, and lasted approximately from 1800 to 1850. Romantic poets rebelled against the style of poetry from the eighteenth century which was based around epics, odes, satires, elegies, epistles and songs. In early-19th-century England,
10304-538: The Shoreham Ancients . The group shared Blake's rejection of modern trends and his belief in a spiritual and artistic New Age. Aged 65, Blake began work on illustrations for the Book of Job , later admired by Ruskin , who compared Blake favourably to Rembrandt , and by Vaughan Williams , who based his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing on a selection of the illustrations. In later life Blake began to sell
10488-651: The egalitarian ethos behind the French Revolution . Whether Burns would have recognised the same principles at work in the Soviet State at its most repressive is moot. This didn't stop the Communists from claiming Burns as one of their own and incorporating his work into their state propaganda. The post-communist years of rampant capitalism in Russia have not tarnished Burns' reputation. Lord Byron
10672-440: The grotesque or other extraordinary experiences that "take us beyond ourselves." The literary concept of the sublime became important in the eighteenth century. It is associated with the 1757 treatise by Edmund Burke , though it has earlier roots. The idea of the sublime was taken up by Immanuel Kant and the Romantic poets including especially William Wordsworth . Romantic poetry contrasts with Neoclassical poetry , which
10856-404: The satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox ( c. 1606 ), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare , during the reign of James I ." Jonson was a classically educated , well-read and cultured man of
11040-485: The sonnet form, with which it shares some features. A few other so-called epigrams share this quality. Jonson's poems of "The Forest" also appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are addressed to Jonson's aristocratic supporters, but the most famous are his country-house poem "To Penshurst" and the poem " To Celia " ("Come, my Celia, let us prove") that appears also in Volpone . Underwood , published in
11224-473: The "disposition to abstractions, to generalising and classification, is the great glory of the human mind"; Blake responded, in marginalia to his personal copy, that "To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit". Blake also disliked Reynolds' apparent humility, which he held to be a form of hypocrisy. Against Reynolds' fashionable oil painting , Blake preferred
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#173276547011611408-414: The 1616 folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the only poet of his time to work in its full classical range. The epigrams explore various attitudes, most from the satiric stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers and spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous; Jonson's epigrams of praise, including
11592-413: The 19th-century in diverse literary developments, such as "realism", " symbolism ", and the so-called fin de siècle "decadent" movement . German Romanticism was the dominant intellectual movement in the philosophy , the arts , and the culture of German-speaking countries in the late-18th and early 19th centuries. Compared to English Romanticism, German Romanticism developed relatively late, and, in
11776-514: The 20th Century as academics began to appreciate poets like Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson , and Robert Frost . In the twentieth century, literary scholar Kermit Vanderbilt noted, "Increasingly rare is the scholar who braves ridicule to justify the art of Longfellow's popular rhymings." 20th-century poet Lewis Putnam Turco concluded "Longfellow was minor and derivative in every way throughout his career [...] nothing more than
11960-532: The Abbey. They teased him and one tormented him so much that Blake knocked the boy off a scaffold to the ground, "upon which he fell with terrific Violence". After Blake complained to the Dean, the schoolboys' privilege was withdrawn. Blake claimed that he experienced visions in the Abbey. He saw Christ with his Apostles and a great procession of monks and priests, and heard their chant. On 8 October 1779, Blake became
12144-656: The Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law (1993), claims to show how far he was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War . Because Blake's later poetry contains a private mythology with complex symbolism, his late work has been less published than his earlier more accessible work. The Vintage anthology of Blake edited by Patti Smith focuses heavily on
12328-668: The Church of England); the carving shows a distinct space between "O" and "rare". A monument to Jonson was erected in about 1723 by the Earl of Oxford and is in the eastern aisle of Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner . It includes a portrait medallion and the same inscription as on the gravestone. It seems Jonson was to have had a monument erected by subscription soon after his death but the English Civil War intervened. Apart from two tragedies, Sejanus and Catiline , that largely failed to impress Renaissance audiences, Jonson's work for
12512-475: The Classical precision of his early influences, Michelangelo and Raphael . David Bindman suggests that Blake's antagonism towards Reynolds arose not so much from the president's opinions (like Blake, Reynolds held history painting to be of greater value than landscape and portraiture), but rather "against his hypocrisy in not putting his ideals into practice." Certainly Blake was not averse to exhibiting at
12696-462: The Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor and as a playwright. As an actor, he was the protagonist "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play The Spanish Tragedy ( c. 1586 ), by Thomas Kyd (1558–94), the first revenge tragedy in English literature. By 1597, he was a working playwright employed by Philip Henslowe , the leading producer for the English public theatre; by
12880-625: The English Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance, and during the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies and his theory and practice of "humour characters" (which are often misunderstood; see William Congreve's letters for clarification) was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many Restoration comedies. John Aubrey wrote of Jonson in Brief Lives . By 1700, Jonson's status began to decline. In
13064-553: The English language". While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham , he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "human existence itself". Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he came to be highly regarded by later critics and readers for his expressiveness and creativity, and for
13248-497: The First Folio, and he may have been inspired to write this poem by reading his fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been previously either unpublished or available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form. Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence was enormous for he has been described as "One of the most vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English literature". Before
13432-550: The History of His Own Times (1954). Blake was concerned about senseless wars and the blighting effects of the Industrial Revolution . Much of his poetry recounts in symbolic allegory the effects of the French and American revolutions. Erdman claims Blake was disillusioned with the political outcomes of the conflicts, believing they had simply replaced monarchy with irresponsible mercantilism. Erdman also notes Blake
13616-522: The Jena Romantics or Early Romanticism (Frühromantik) – is the first phase of Romanticism in German literature represented by the work of a group centered in Jena from about 1798 to 1804, notably Friedrich Schlegel , August Wilhelm Schlegel , Novalis , Ludwig Tieck , and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling . These thinkers were primarily concerned with the problems posed by Immanuel Kant in
13800-596: The King was in residence. The Masque of Blackness was praised by Algernon Charles Swinburne as the consummate example of this now-extinct genre, which mingled speech, dancing and spectacle. On many of these projects, he collaborated, not always peacefully, with designer Inigo Jones . For example, Jones designed the scenery for Jonson's masque Oberon, the Faery Prince performed at Whitehall on 1 January 1611 in which Prince Henry , eldest son of James I, appeared in
13984-521: The Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us" , did a good deal to create the traditional view of Shakespeare as a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke", had a natural genius. The poem has traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and sceptical of
14168-417: The Romantic" and that "he is simultaneously Romantic and not Romantic". Scottish poet Robert Burns became a "people's poet" in Russia. In Imperial times the Russian aristocracy were so out of touch with the peasantry that Burns, translated into Russian , became a symbol for the ordinary Russian people. In Soviet Russia, Burns was elevated as the archetypical poet of the people – not least since
14352-647: The Royal Academy, submitting works on six occasions between 1780 and 1808. Blake became a friend of John Flaxman , Thomas Stothard and George Cumberland during his first year at the Royal Academy. They shared radical views, with Stothard and Cumberland joining the Society for Constitutional Information . Blake's first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist , records that in June 1780 Blake was walking towards Basire's shop in Great Queen Street when he
14536-513: The Soviet regime slaughtered and silenced its own poets. A new translation of Burns, begun in 1924 by Samuil Marshak , proved enormously popular selling over 600,000 copies. In 1956, the Soviet Union became the first country in the world to honour Burns with a commemorative stamp. The poetry of Burns is taught in Russian schools alongside their own national poets. Burns was a great admirer of
14720-740: The Tate Gallery, Catherine mixed and applied his paint colors. One of Catherine Blake's most noted works is the coloring of the cover of the book Europe: A Prophecy . William Blake's 1863 biographer, Alexander Gilchrist , wrote, "The poet and his wife did everything in making the book - writing, designing, printing, engraving - everything except manufacturing the paper: the very ink, or colour rather, they did make." In 2019 Tate Britain 's Blake exhibition gave particular focus to Catherine Boucher's role in William Blake's work. Around 1783, Blake's first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches ,
14904-469: The Welsh poet Hugh Holland , with whom he established an "enduring relationship". Both of them would write preliminary poems for William Shakespeare 's First Folio (1623). On leaving Westminster School in 1589, Jonson attended St John's College, Cambridge , to continue his book learning. However, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he returned after a month. According to
15088-542: The actors, Gabriel Spenser and Robert Shaw, were also imprisoned. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison , for killing Gabriel Spenser in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields (today part of Hoxton ). Tried on a charge of manslaughter , Jonson pleaded guilty but was released by benefit of clergy , a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting
15272-503: The actual grave, which was not marked until 12 August 2018. For years since 1965, the exact location of William Blake's grave had been lost and forgotten. The area had been damaged in the Second World War ; gravestones were removed and a garden was created. The memorial stone, indicating that the burial sites are "nearby", was listed as a Grade II listed structure in 2011. A Portuguese couple, Carol and Luís Garrido, rediscovered
15456-419: The atmosphere of the three states of being in the poem. Blake's illustrations of the poem are not merely accompanying works, but rather seem to critically revise, or furnish commentary on, certain spiritual or moral aspects of the text. Because the project was never completed, Blake's intent may be obscured. Some indicators bolster the impression that Blake's illustrations in their totality would take issue with
15640-462: The better our chances for survival as citizens and inhabitants of the earth". [REDACTED] Category Ben Jonson Benjamin Jonson ( c. 11 June 1572 – 18 August [ O.S. 6 August] 1637) was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours ; he is best known for
15824-643: The book are the Four Zoas ( Urthona , Urizen , Luvah and Tharmas ), who were created by the fall of Albion in Blake's mythology . It consists of nine books, referred to as "nights". These outline the interactions of the Zoas, their fallen forms and their Emanations . Blake intended the book to be a summation of his mythic universe . Blake's Four Zoas, which represent four aspects of the Almighty God and Vala
16008-416: The careful attention to form and style that often came naturally to those trained in classics in the humanist manner. Jonson largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter that had consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Thomas Campion and Gabriel Harvey . Accepting both rhyme and stress, Jonson used them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity, restraint and precision. "Epigrams" (published in
16192-666: The churchman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at this time built a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn . After having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went to the Netherlands and volunteered to soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders . England was allied with the Dutch in their fight for independence as well as the ongoing war with Spain . The Hawthornden Manuscripts (1619), of
16376-466: The comedies Volpone (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil Is an Ass (1616). The Alchemist and Volpone were immediately successful. Of Epicoene , Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's subtitle was appropriate since its audience had refused to applaud
16560-539: The conversations between Ben Jonson and the poet William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585–1649), report that, when in Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought and killed an enemy soldier in single combat , and took for trophies the weapons of the vanquished soldier. Johnson is reputed to have visited the antiquary Sir Robert Cotton at a residence of his in Chester early in the 17th century. After his military activity on
16744-436: The death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel." George Richmond gives the following account of Blake's death in a letter to Samuel Palmer : He died ... in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see & expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ – Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten'd and he burst out Singing of
16928-441: The dismal failure of The New Inn ; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience ( An Ode to Himself ), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew , one of the "Tribe of Ben", to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognise his own decline. The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Jonson felt neglected by
17112-618: The divine, the Zoas are the God the Father (Tharmas, sense), the Son of God (Luvah, love), the Holy Ghost (Urthona, imagination), and Satan who was originally of the divine substance (Urizen, reason) and their Emanations represent Sexual Urges (Enion), Nature (Vala), Inspiration (Enitharmon), and Pleasure (Ahania). Blake believed that each person had a twofold identity with one half being good and
17296-414: The dominant theme of English Romantic poetry: the filtering of natural emotion through the human mind in order to create meaning. The Sublime is considered one of the most important concepts in Romantic poetry. In literature, it refers to use of language and description that excites thoughts and emotions beyond ordinary experience. Although it is often associated with grandeur , the sublime may also refer to
17480-496: The earlier work, as do many critical studies such as William Blake by D. G. Gillham. The earlier work is primarily rebellious in character and can be seen as a protest against dogmatic religion especially notable in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , in which the figure represented by the "Devil" is virtually a hero rebelling against an imposter authoritarian deity. In later works, such as Milton and Jerusalem , Blake carves
17664-457: The early years, coincided with Weimar Classicism (1772–1805); in contrast to the seriousness of English Romanticism, the German variety of Romanticism notably valued wit, humour, and beauty . Sturm und Drang , literally "Storm and Drive", "Storm and Urge", though conventionally translated as "Storm and Stress") is a proto-Romantic movement in German literature and music that took place from
17848-556: The end of the 18th century. Europe Supported by Africa and America is an engraving by Blake held in the collection of the University of Arizona Museum of Art . The engraving was for a book written by Blake's friend John Gabriel Stedman called The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796). It depicts three women embracing one another. Black Africa and White Europe hold hands in
18032-428: The enterprise, and only a handful of watercolours were completed, with only seven of the engravings arriving at proof form. Even so, they have earned praise: [T]he Dante watercolours are among Blake's richest achievements, engaging fully with the problem of illustrating a poem of this complexity. The mastery of watercolour has reached an even higher level than before, and is used to extraordinary effect in differentiating
18216-535: The exact burial location after 14 years of investigatory work, and the Blake Society organised a permanent memorial slab, which was unveiled at a public ceremony at the site on 12 August 2018. The new stone is inscribed "Here lies William Blake 1757–1827 Poet Artist Prophet" above a verse from his poem Jerusalem . The Blake Prize for Religious Art was established in his honour in Australia in 1949. In 1957
18400-828: The expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and more heterogeneous group of poems. It contains A Celebration of Charis , Jonson's most extended effort at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic poems including the poem to Shakespeare and a sonnet on Mary Wroth ; the Execration against Vulcan and others. The 1640 volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to Donne (one of them appeared in Donne's posthumous collected poems). There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare . William Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays:
18584-532: The first volume of the folio-collected edition of his works that year. Other volumes followed in 1640–41 and 1692. (See: Ben Jonson folios ) On 8 July 1618 Jonson set out from Bishopsgate in London to walk to Edinburgh, arriving in Scotland's capital on 17 September. For the most part he followed the Great North Road , and was treated to lavish and enthusiastic welcomes in both towns and country houses. On his arrival he lodged initially with John Stuart,
18768-517: The free human spirit." Belief in the importance of the imagination is a distinctive feature of romantic poets such as John Keats , Samuel Taylor Coleridge and P. B. Shelley , unlike the neoclassical poets. Keats said, "I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination- What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth." For Wordsworth and William Blake , as well as Victor Hugo and Alessandro Manzoni ,
18952-487: The fundamentalist Irvingite church and under the influence of conservative members of that church burned manuscripts that he deemed heretical. The exact number of destroyed manuscripts is unknown, but shortly before his death Blake told a friend he had written "twenty tragedies as long as Macbeth ", none of which survive. Another acquaintance, William Michael Rossetti, also burned works by Blake that he considered lacking in quality, and John Linnell erased sexual imagery from
19136-438: The government of George III , and the creation of the first police force. In 1781 William met Catherine Boucher when he was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He recounted the story of his heartbreak for Catherine and her parents, after which he asked Catherine: "Do you pity me?" When she responded affirmatively, he declared: "Then I love you". William married Catherine, who
19320-405: The grim humour of the cantos ). At the same time, Blake shared Dante's distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power, and clearly relished the opportunity to represent the atmosphere and imagery of Dante's work pictorially. Even as he seemed to be near death, Blake's central preoccupation was his feverish work on the illustrations to Dante's Inferno ; he is said to have spent one of
19504-443: The humanisation of the character of Urizen in the later works. Murry characterises the later Blake as having found "mutual understanding" and "mutual forgiveness". Regarding conventional religion, Blake was a satirist and ironist in his viewpoints which are illustrated and summarized in his poem Vala, or The Four Zoas , one of his uncompleted prophetic books begun in 1797. The demi-mythological and demi-religious main characters of
19688-439: The ideas first introduced in his earlier works, namely, the humanitarian goal of achieving personal wholeness of body and spirit. The final section of the expanded edition of her Blake study The Unholy Bible suggests the later works are the "Bible of Hell" promised in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell . Regarding Blake's final poem, Jerusalem , she writes: "The promise of the divine in man, made in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell ,
19872-437: The imagination is a spiritual force, is related to morality, and they believed that literature, especially poetry, could improve the world. The secret of great art, Blake claimed, is the capacity to imagine. To define imagination, in his poem " Auguries of Innocence ", Blake said: To see a world in a grain of sand, And heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour. Love for nature
20056-466: The individual human's role in it. However, much like Emerson, Whitman does not diminish the role of the mind or the spirit; rather, he elevates the human form and the human mind, deeming both worthy of poetic praise. Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) is best known for his poetry and short stories, and is widely regarded as a central figure of Romanticism in the United States and American literature as
20240-447: The inscription. Another theory suggests that the tribute came from William Davenant , Jonson's successor as Poet Laureate (and card-playing companion of Young), as the same phrase appears on Davenant's nearby gravestone, but essayist Leigh Hunt contends that Davenant's wording represented no more than Young's coinage, cheaply re-used. The fact that Jonson was buried in an upright position was an indication of his reduced circumstances at
20424-524: The institution of marriage, no evidence is known that would prove that they had met. In Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfilment. From 1790 to 1800, William Blake lived in North Lambeth , London, at 13 Hercules Buildings, Hercules Road . The property
20608-589: The last shillings he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching. Blake's last years were spent at Fountain Court off the Strand (the property was demolished in the 1880s, when the Savoy Hotel was built). On the day of his death (12 August 1827), Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside. Beholding her, Blake
20792-480: The late 1760s to the early 1780s, in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion were given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism imposed by the Enlightenment and associated aesthetic movements. The period is named for Friedrich Maximilian Klinger 's play Sturm und Drang , which was first performed in 1777. The philosopher Johann Georg Hamann
20976-533: The leading figure in poetry of Jacint Verdaguer . In Swedish literature the Romantic period is between 1809 and 1830, while in Europe, the period is usually seen as running between 1800 and 1850. The Swedish version was very much influenced by German literature . During this relatively short period, there were so many great Swedish poets, that the era is called the Golden Age . The period started around when several periodicals were published that criticised
21160-641: The literature of the 18th century. The important periodical Iduna , published by the Gothic Society (1811), presented a romanticised version of Gothicismus , a 17th-century cultural movement in Sweden that had centered on the belief in the glory of the Swedish Geats or Goths. The early 19th-century Romantic nationalist version emphasised the Vikings as heroic figures. Transcendentalism
21344-549: The marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the more radical branches of the Swedenborgian Society , but other scholars have dismissed these theories as conjecture. In his Dictionary, Samuel Foster Damon suggests that Catherine may have had a stillborn daughter for which The Book of Thel is an elegy. That is how he rationalizes the Book's unusual ending, but notes that he is speculating. In 1800, Blake moved to
21528-452: The masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind of natural wonder whose genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote. But the poem itself qualifies this view: Some view this elegy as a conventional exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to the "Sweet Swan of Avon", the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped to edit
21712-463: The more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson". Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Protestant, suffered forfeiture under Queen Mary . Becoming a clergyman upon his release, he died a month before his son's birth. His widow married a master bricklayer two years later. Jonson attended school in St Martin's Lane in London. Later,
21896-478: The more serious penalties at the authorities' disposal. His habit was to slip outside during the sacrament, a common routine at the time—indeed it was one followed by the royal consort, Queen Anne of Denmark , herself—to show political loyalty while not offending the conscience. Leading church figures, including John Overall , Dean of St Paul's , were tasked with winning Jonson back to Protestantism, but these overtures were resisted. In May 1610 Henry IV of France
22080-563: The new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a tierce of wine and beer. Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd . Though only two acts are extant, this represents
22264-530: The new reign and fostered by both the king and his consort Anne of Denmark . In addition to his popularity on the public stage and in the royal hall, he enjoyed the patronage of aristocrats such as Elizabeth Sidney (daughter of Sir Philip Sidney ) and Lady Mary Wroth . This connection with the Sidney family provided the impetus for one of Jonson's most famous lyrics, the country house poem To Penshurst . In February 1603 John Manningham reported that Jonson
22448-688: The next year, the production of Every Man in His Humour (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist. Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The identity of Jonson's wife is obscure, though she sometimes is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a Benjamin Jonson in 1594, at the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr , near London Bridge . The registers of St Martin-in-the-Fields record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November 1593, at six months of age. A decade later, in 1603, Benjamin Jonson, their eldest son, died of bubonic plague when he
22632-543: The objectivity of neoclassical poetry. Neoclassical poets avoided describing their personal emotions in their poetry, unlike the Romantics. . French literature from the first half of the century was dominated by Romanticism, which is associated with such authors as Victor Hugo , Alexandre Dumas, père , François-René de Chateaubriand , Alphonse de Lamartine , Gérard de Nerval , Charles Nodier , Alfred de Musset , Théophile Gautier and Alfred de Vigny . Their influence
22816-462: The orders of Lord Burghley , was permitted to minister to the inmates of London prisons. It may have been that Jonson, fearing that his trial would go against him, was seeking the unequivocal absolution that Catholicism could offer if he were sentenced to death. Alternatively, he could have been looking to personal advantage from accepting conversion since Father Wright's protector, the Earl of Essex ,
23000-411: The other evil. In Vala , both the character Orc and The Eternal Man discuss their selves as divided. By the time he was working on his later works, including Vala , Blake felt that he was able to overcome his inner battle but he was concerned about losing his artistic abilities. These thoughts carried over into Vala as the character Los (imagination) is connected to the image of Christ, and he added
23184-572: The philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as "Pre-Romantic". A theist who preferred his own Marcionite style of theology, he was hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to almost all forms of organised religion), and was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions . Although later he rejected many of these political beliefs, he maintained an amicable relationship with
23368-507: The plates in acid to dissolve the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief (hence the name). This is a reversal of the usual method of etching, where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio method. Relief etching (which Blake referred to as " stereotype " in The Ghost of Abel ) was intended as a means for producing his illuminated books more quickly than via intaglio. Stereotype,
23552-414: The play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene , along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition. While his life during this period was apparently more settled than it had been in the 1590s, his financial security was still not assured. Jonson recounted that his father had been a prosperous Protestant landowner until
23736-402: The plot mostly takes second place to a variety of incident and comic set-pieces. They are, also, notably ill-tempered. Thomas Davies called Poetaster "a contemptible mixture of the serio-comic, where the names of Augustus Caesar , Maecenas , Virgil , Horace , Ovid and Tibullus , are all sacrificed upon the altar of private resentment". Another early comedy in a different vein, The Case
23920-441: The poet William Wordsworth defined his and Samuel Taylor Coleridge 's innovative poetry in his new Preface to the second edition (1800) of Lyrical Ballads : I have said before that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin in emotion recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which
24104-494: The political activist Thomas Paine ; he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg . Despite these known influences, the singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Michael Rossetti characterised him as a "glorious luminary", and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors". Collaboration with his wife, Catherine Boucher ,
24288-577: The priest alone drinks the wine. The exact date of the ceremony is unknown. However, his interest in Catholic belief and practice remained with him until his death. Jonson's productivity began to decline in the 1620s, but he remained well-known. In that time, the Sons of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick , Richard Lovelace , and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson, rose to prominence. However,
24472-442: The prologue to the folio version of Every Man in His Humour : he promises to represent "deeds, and language, such as men do use". He planned to write comedies that revived the classical premises of Elizabethan dramatic theory—or rather, since all but the loosest English comedies could claim some descent from Plautus and Terence , he intended to apply those premises with rigour. This commitment entailed negations: after The Case
24656-478: The public theatres was in comedy. These plays vary in some respects. The minor early plays, particularly those written for boy players , present somewhat looser plots and less-developed characters than those written later, for adult companies. Already in the plays which were his salvos in the Poets' War, he displays the keen eye for absurdity and hypocrisy that marks his best-known plays; in these early efforts, however,
24840-414: The reign of " Bloody Mary " and had suffered imprisonment and the forfeiture of his wealth during that monarch's attempt to restore England to Catholicism. On Elizabeth 's accession, he had been freed and had been able to travel to London to become a clergyman. (All that is known of Jonson's father, who died a month before his son was born, comes from the poet's own narrative.) Jonson's elementary education
25024-416: The same Hand." Others have said it "expresses the climate of opinion in which the questions of color and slavery were, at that time, being considered, and which Blake's writings reflect." Blake employed intaglio engraving in his own work, such as for his Illustrations of the Book of Job , completed just before his death. Most critical work has concentrated on Blake's relief etching as a technique because it
25208-399: The standard process of engraving in the 18th century in which the artist incised an image into the copper plate, a complex and laborious process, with plates taking months or years to complete, but as Blake's contemporary, John Boydell , realised, such engraving offered a "missing link with commerce", enabling artists to connect with a mass audience and became an immensely important activity by
25392-449: The temper of his age, he was often so broad in his characterisation that many of his most famous scenes border on the farcical (as William Congreve , for example, judged Epicoene ). He was more diligent in adhering to the classical unities than many of his peers—although as Margaret Cavendish noted, the unity of action in the major comedies was rather compromised by Jonson's abundance of incident. To this classical model, Jonson applied
25576-790: The text they accompany: in the margin of Homer Bearing the Sword and His Companions , Blake notes, "Every thing in Dantes Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All & the Goddess Nature & not the Holy Ghost." Blake seems to dissent from Dante's admiration of the poetic works of ancient Greece , and from the apparent glee with which Dante allots punishments in Hell (as evidenced by
25760-799: The things he saw in Heaven. Catherine paid for Blake's funeral with money lent to her by Linnell. Blake's body was buried in a plot shared with others, five days after his death – on the eve of his 45th wedding anniversary – at the Dissenter 's burial ground in Bunhill Fields , that became the London Borough of Islington . His parents' bodies were buried in the same graveyard. Present at the ceremonies were Catherine, Edward Calvert , George Richmond , Frederick Tatham and John Linnell. Following Blake's death, Catherine moved into Tatham's house as
25944-415: The time of his death, although it has also been written that he asked for a grave exactly 18 inches square from the monarch and received an upright grave to fit in the requested space. It has been pointed out that the inscription could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), possibly in an allusion to Jonson's acceptance of Catholic doctrine during his lifetime (although he had returned to
26128-422: The title role. Perhaps partly as a result of this new career, Jonson gave up writing plays for the public theatres for a decade. He later told Drummond that he had made less than two hundred pounds on all his plays together. In 1616 Jonson received a yearly pension of 100 marks (about £60), leading some to identify him as England's first Poet Laureate . This sign of royal favour may have encouraged him to publish
26312-472: The troublesome twelve years he remained a Catholic. His stance received attention beyond the low-level intolerance to which most followers of that faith were exposed. The first draft of his play Sejanus His Fall was banned for " popery ", and did not re-appear until some offending passages were cut. In January 1606 he (with Anne, his wife) appeared before the Consistory Court in London to answer
26496-459: The two features of his style which save his classical imitations from mere pedantry: the vividness with which he depicted the lives of his characters and the intricacy of his plots. Coleridge, for instance, claimed that The Alchemist had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his better-known poems are close translations of Greek or Roman models; all display
26680-508: The work of the Beat Generation . However, all of these poets are generally identified with more recent movements -- as feminists, Harlem Renaissance writers, modernists, et cetera -- and only indirectly linked with Romanticism by their critics. Some writers consider romantic poetry a way for a better life. Moreover, as Heidi Thomson mentioned in her article, Why Romantic Poetry Still Matters , "The more literate and articulate we are,
26864-416: The works of John Keats, for example, La Belle Dame Sans Merci , and Coleridge. They were attracted to exotic, remote and obscure places, and so they were more attracted to Middle Ages than to their own age. Medieval Englishman Richard Rolle has been viewed as an early romantic writer with poems such as The Fire of Love . The world of classical Greece was important to the Romantics. John Keats' poetry
27048-446: Was "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others". On returning to England, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University. The period between 1605 and 1620 may be viewed as Jonson's heyday. By 1616 he had produced all the plays on which his present reputation as a dramatist is based, including the tragedy Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved limited success and
27232-524: Was a gentleman", was a member of the extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Galloway , a genealogy that is attested by the three spindles ( rhombi ) in the Jonson family coat of arms : one spindle is a diamond-shaped heraldic device used by the Johnston family. His ancestors spelt the family name with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). While the spelling had eventually changed to
27416-809: Was a literary, artistic and intellectual period in the evolution of Polish culture , which began around 1820, coinciding with the publication of Adam Mickiewicz 's first poems, Ballads and Romances , in 1822. It ended with the suppression of the Polish-Lithuanian January 1863 Uprising against the Russian Empire in 1864. The latter event ushered in a new era in Polish culture known as Positivism . Some other notable Polish romantic poets include Juliusz Słowacki , Cyprian Kamil Norwid , Zygmunt Krasiński , Tymon Zaborowski , Antoni Malczewski and Józef Bohdan Zaleski . The 19th century
27600-508: Was a major influence on almost all Russian poets of the Golden Era, including Pushkin, Vyazemsky, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, Baratynsky, Delvig and, especially, Lermontov. Germany and England were major influences on Romantic Spanish poetry . During the late 18th century to the late 19th century, Romanticism spread in the form of philosophy and art throughout Western societies , and the earlier period of this movement overlapped with
27784-527: Was a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in the eastern region of the United States, rooted in English and German Romanticism , the Biblical criticism of Herder and Schleiermacher , the skepticism of Hume , and the transcendental philosophy of Immanuel Kant and of German Idealism . It was also influenced by Indian religions , especially the Upanishads . The movement
27968-608: Was a reaction to or protest against the general state of intellectualism and spirituality . The doctrine of the Unitarian church as taught at Harvard Divinity School was of particular interest. Poet Walt Whitman (1819–1892), whose major work Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855, was influenced by transcendentalism. Influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Transcendentalist movement, itself an offshoot of Romanticism, Whitman's poetry praises nature and
28152-416: Was among the first actors to be cast. Jonson followed this in 1599 with Every Man out of His Humour , a pedantic attempt to imitate Aristophanes . It is not known whether this was a success on stage, but when published it proved popular and went through several editions. Jonson's other work for the theatre in the last years of Elizabeth I's reign was marked by fighting and controversy. Cynthia's Revels
28336-401: Was among those who might hope to rise to influence after the succession of a new monarch. Jonson's conversion came at a weighty time in affairs of state; the royal succession, from the childless Elizabeth, had not been settled and Essex's Catholic allies were hopeful that a sympathetic ruler might attain the throne. Conviction, and certainly not expedience alone, sustained Jonson's faith during
28520-500: Was an early and profound influence on Blake, and remained a source of inspiration throughout his life. Blake's childhood, according to him, included mystical religious experiences such as "beholding God's face pressed against his window, seeing angels among the haystacks, and being visited by the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel ." Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father,
28704-486: Was apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street , at the sum of £52.10, for a term of seven years. At the end of the term, aged 21, he became a professional engraver. No record survives of any serious disagreement or conflict between the two during the period of Blake's apprenticeship, but Peter Ackroyd 's biography notes that Blake later added Basire's name to a list of artistic adversaries; and then crossed it out. This aside, Basire's style of line-engraving
28888-526: Was assassinated, purportedly in the name of the Pope; he had been a Catholic monarch respected in England for tolerance towards Protestants, and his murder seems to have been the immediate cause of Jonson's decision to rejoin the Church of England. He did this in flamboyant style, pointedly drinking a full chalice of communion wine at the eucharist to demonstrate his renunciation of the Catholic rite, in which
29072-496: Was attended by "all or the greatest part of the nobility then in town". He is buried in the north aisle of the nave in Westminster Abbey , with the inscription "O Rare Ben Johnson [ sic ]" set in the slab over his grave. John Aubrey , in a more meticulous record than usual, notes that a passer-by, John Young of Great Milton , Oxfordshire , saw the bare grave marker and on impulse paid a workman eighteen pence to make
29256-420: Was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. The poems of Lyrical Ballads intentionally re-imagined the way poetry should sound: "By fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men," Wordsworth and his English contemporaries, such as Coleridge, John Keats , Percy Shelley , Lord Byron and William Blake , wrote poetry that
29440-471: Was charged not only with assault, but with uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the king. Schofield claimed that Blake had exclaimed "Damn the king. The soldiers are all slaves." Blake was cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges. According to a report in the Sussex county paper, "[T]he invented character of [the evidence] was ... so obvious that an acquittal resulted". Schofield
29624-489: Was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies and varicoloured waxworks. Ackroyd notes that "...the most immediate [impression] would have been of faded brightness and colour". This close study of the Gothic (which he saw as the "living form") left clear traces in his style. In the long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the Abbey, he was occasionally interrupted by boys from Westminster School , who were allowed in
29808-419: Was deeply opposed to slavery and believes some of his poems, read primarily as championing " free love ", had their anti-slavery implications short-changed. A more recent study, William Blake: Visionary Anarchist by Peter Marshall (1988), classified Blake and his contemporary William Godwin as forerunners of modern anarchism . British Marxist historian E. P. Thompson 's last finished work, Witness Against
29992-404: Was demolished in 1918, but the site is marked with a plaque. A series of 70 mosaics commemorates Blake in the nearby railway tunnels of Waterloo Station . The mosaics largely reproduce illustrations from Blake's illuminated books, The Songs of Innocence and of Experience , The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , and the prophetic books . In 1788, aged 31, Blake experimented with relief etching ,
30176-437: Was described as a movement against classical and realistic theories of literature, a contrast to the rationality of the Age of Enlightenment . It elevated medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be from the medieval period. It also emphasized folk art, nature and an epistemology based on nature, which included human activity conditioned by nature in the form of language, custom and usage. Romanticism in Poland
30360-403: Was felt in theatre, poetry, prose fiction. In a 1983 book about the 16th century Catholic poet Jean de La Ceppède , English poet Keith Bosley wrote that Agrippa d'Aubigné , "the epic poet of the Protestant cause", during the French Wars of Religion , "was forgotten until the Romantics rediscovered him." The effect of the romantic movement would continue to be felt in the latter half of
30544-444: Was five years his junior, on 18 August 1782 in St Mary's Church, Battersea . Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an X. The original wedding certificate may be viewed at the church, where a commemorative stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982. The marriage was successful and Catherine became William's "partner in both life and work", undertaking important roles as an engraver and colourist. According to
30728-436: Was in a small church school attached to St Martin-in-the-Fields parish, and at the age of about seven he secured a place at Westminster School , then part of Westminster Abbey . Notwithstanding this emphatically Protestant grounding, Jonson maintained an interest in Catholic doctrine throughout his adult life and, at a particularly perilous time while a religious war with Spain was widely expected and persecution of Catholics
30912-492: Was instrumental in the creation of many of his books. Boucher worked as a printmaker and colorist for his works. "For almost forty-five years she was the person who lived and worked most closely with Blake, enabling him to realize numerous projects, impossible without her assistance. Catherine was an artist and printer in her own right", writes literary scholar Angus Whitehead. William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 at 28 Broad Street (now Broadwick Street ) in Soho , London. He
31096-441: Was intensifying, he converted to the faith. This took place in October 1598, while Jonson was on remand in Newgate Gaol charged with manslaughter . Jonson's biographer Ian Donaldson is among those who suggest that the conversion was instigated by Father Thomas Wright, a Jesuit priest who had resigned from the order over his acceptance of Queen Elizabeth's right to rule in England. Wright, although placed under house arrest on
31280-416: Was known to Jonson from prison in 1598 and Cecil may have directed him to bring the priest before the council, as a witness. At the same time, Jonson pursued a more prestigious career, writing masques for James's court. The Satyr (1603) and The Masque of Blackness (1605) are two of about two dozen masques which Jonson wrote for James or for Queen Anne, some of them performed at Apethorpe Palace when
31464-429: Was later depicted wearing "mind forged manacles" in an illustration to Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion . Blake returned to London in 1804 and began to write and illustrate Jerusalem (1804–20), his most ambitious work. Having conceived the idea of portraying the characters in Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales , Blake approached the dealer Robert Cromek , with a view to marketing an engraving. Knowing Blake
31648-419: Was living on Robert Townsend, son of Sir Roger Townshend , and "scorns the world." Perhaps this explains why his trouble with English authorities continued. That same year he was questioned by the Privy Council about Sejanus , a politically themed play about corruption in the Roman Empire. He was again in trouble for topical allusions in a play, now lost, in which he took part. Shortly after his release from
31832-480: Was meant to boil up from serious, contemplative reflection over the interaction of humans with their environment. Although many stress the notion of spontaneity in Romantic poetry, the movement was still greatly concerned with the difficulty of composition and of translating these emotions into poetic form. Indeed, Coleridge, in his essay On Poesy or Art , sees art as "the mediatress between, and reconciler of nature and man". Such an attitude reflects what might be called
32016-424: Was not of an age, but for all time." Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the Mermaid Tavern ; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but because Shakespeare's company produced
32200-544: Was of a kind held at the time to be old-fashioned compared to the flashier stipple or mezzotint styles. It has been speculated that Blake's instruction in this outmoded form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life. After two years, Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from the Gothic churches in London (perhaps to settle a quarrel between Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice). His experiences in Westminster Abbey helped form his artistic style and ideas. The Abbey of his day
32384-547: Was printed. In 1784, after his father's death, Blake and former fellow apprentice James Parker opened a print shop. They began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson . Johnson's house was a meeting-place for some leading English intellectual dissidents of the time: theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley ; philosopher Richard Price ; artist John Henry Fuseli ; early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft ; and English-American revolutionary Thomas Paine . Along with William Wordsworth and William Godwin , Blake had great hopes for
32568-442: Was produced by the Children of the Chapel Royal at Blackfriars Theatre in 1600. It satirised both John Marston , who Jonson believed had accused him of lustfulness in Histriomastix , and Thomas Dekker . Jonson attacked the two poets again in Poetaster (1601). Dekker responded with Satiromastix , subtitled "the untrussing of the humorous poet". The final scene of this play, while certainly not to be taken at face value as
32752-400: Was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac " On My First Sonne " (1603). A second son, also named Benjamin Jonson, died in 1635. During that period , Jonson and his wife lived separate lives for five years; Jonson enjoyed the residential hospitality of his patrons, Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke of Lennox and 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny and Sir Robert Townshend. By summer 1597, Jonson had
32936-422: Was swept up by a rampaging mob that stormed Newgate Prison . The mob attacked the prison gates with shovels and pickaxes, set the building ablaze, and released the prisoners inside. Blake was reportedly in the front rank of the mob during the attack. The riots, in response to a parliamentary bill revoking sanctions against Roman Catholicism, became known as the Gordon Riots and provoked a flurry of legislation from
33120-408: Was ten years old, his parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but instead enrolled in drawing classes at Henry Pars' drawing school in the Strand . He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake made explorations into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson , Edmund Spenser , and the Psalms . On 4 August 1772, Blake
33304-478: Was the product of intellect and reason, while Romantic poetry is more the product of emotion. Romantic poetry at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a reaction against the set standards, conventions of eighteenth-century poetry. According to William J. Long , "[T]he Romantic movement was marked, and is always marked, by a strong reaction and protest against the bondage of rule and custom which in science and theology as well as literature, generally tend to fetter
33488-438: Was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Blake's father, James, was a hosier , who had lived in London. He attended school only long enough to learn reading and writing, leaving at the age of 10, and was otherwise educated at home by his mother Catherine Blake ( née Wright). Even though the Blakes were English Dissenters , William was baptised on 11 December at St James's Church , Piccadilly, London. The Bible
33672-455: Was too eccentric to produce a popular work, Cromek promptly commissioned Blake's friend Thomas Stothard to execute the concept. When Blake learned he had been cheated, he broke off contact with Stothard. He set up an independent exhibition in his brother's haberdashery shop at 27 Broad Street in Soho . The exhibition was designed to market his own version of the Canterbury illustration (titled The Canterbury Pilgrims ), along with other works. As
33856-417: Was uninterested in true artistry, and preoccupied with "the meer drudgery of business" (E724). Blake's disenchantment with Hayley has been speculated to have influenced Milton: a Poem , in which Blake wrote that "Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies". (4:26, E98) Blake's trouble with authority came to a head in August 1803, when he was involved in a physical altercation with a soldier, John Schofield. Blake
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