William Blake was a visionary poet, engraver, and illustator who brought light to the worlds of London, God, and Man, demonstrating their angelic integration. He never left London but once in his life, and it is believed that during this trip, probably to Sussex, he penned the lines of &#8220;Jerusalem,&#8221; which has become a kind of second or spiritual national anthem for England in the centuries since his death. It is also the poem from which we take the phrase &#8220;chariot of fire,&#8221; which in the 20th century would become a major film, the line itself, having been adapted from the Book of Kings.
Considered mad by many in his acquaintance during his life, Blake died in obscurity and poverty, and has since come to be known as a sage, a visionary, and an inspiration to countless readers. Like the greatest of writers, his phrases have easily entered the lexicon. &#8220;Tyger Tyger, burning bright&#8230;&#8221; &#8220;The Lost Traveller&#8217;s dream under the hill&#8230;&#8221;
Born to parents who were by all accounts skeptical of his claims to visionary power, young William yet proved a prodigious talent, and his folks were enormously supportive of his creative life and adamant he receive proper artistic training, which he did. As a youth he attended Henry Pars Drawing School near Holborn on Strand in central London.
William Blake ought also to be remembered for the curious, passionate, and attentive, and it must be said, unapologetically idiosyncratic way he lived his life. He and his wife were known to treat their backyard as a kind of Edenic space, cavorting au naturel was commonplace; a harkening back to the lost Paradise he always for, and of which he occasionally saw glittering glimpses.
He is reported, on good authority, to have died singing.