At the crossroads of literature and hermeticism stands the figure of William Blake, an English poet, artist, mystic and visionary of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He is sometimes called a revolutionary for his theory of "free love", but this is not entirely true. Blake did not want to shock the audience, although he did almost everything in spite of or not as was customary.
Blake's work was opened to Russian readers by the Symbolist poets. Blake's poetry inspired the Pre-Raphaelites, romantics and, of course, surrealists, so many perceive him primarily as a poet. He is indeed a bard in the sense in which the Druids used the word. But Blake is not just a lyrical poet: a whole cosmogony is created in his works.
And not every artist knows that Blake is famous for his graphics, made in the technique of relief printing developed by him, which was later widely used by book publishers. He also adhered to the intaglio method, which consisted of making notches on a plate of tin - popular in the 18th century, but extremely laborious.
Everything said about Blake is true, but in the series about the great mystics, we do not interpret their views and do not analyze their work, but only talk about the indisputable facts of their biographies. Without acquaintance with the eventful moments of the earthly life of outstanding people, it is impossible either to make an excursion into their work, or to understand their true greatness.
What does the phrase "William Blake was born on November 28, 1757 in London" mean? Bookvoyed will note that instead of William it was possible to write William, Blake replaced by Blake. The erudite will scratch his bald head and say that it would be more correct to write the date of birth according to the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia for a good half century after Blake was born. And to a knowledgeable person, both the year and the place of birth of the mystic will tell a lot.
A boy born on the same day and the same year, say, in Scotland, will differ from a Londoner no less than a medieval European from a modern Chinese. And this is not just a beautiful metaphor. This year, on both sides of the English Channel, there will appear many outstanding British politicians and extraordinary figures of the future French Revolution, which contemporaries will call the Great.
“William Blake’s life can seem banal, correct, and devoid of adventure. But she still amazes with her absolute exclusivity, going beyond the usual life framework,”noted the French writer and philosopher Georges Bataille. The poet William Wordsworth prophetically remarked that this poor fellow was insane, but his obsession was far more interesting than the common sense of Lord Byron or Walter Scott. The fate of William Blake is no less mysterious than his texts, and no less interesting than his visions.
The Bible had a huge impact on the growing Willie. In the second half of the 18th century, most Europeans treated the Holy Scriptures with greater reverence than their descendants 200 years later. But the sprouts of free-thinking made their way even then - at this time the Enlightenment flourished with its cult of common sense, and some of its supporters flaunted atheism with might and main and insisted on permissiveness. The 20th century is still far away, but a precedent has already been set. And as for their opponents, inclined to mystical views, they read the works of the Swede Emmanuel Swedenborg, a naturalist and theosophist, who freely communicated with spirits and even, in his own words, deserved the visit of Christ himself.
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William's parents were dissidents - opponents of the official Anglican Church. Subsequently, this word will come into use in our country too - it will be called the opponents of the Soviet system. And in the then Britain they called those who disagreed with the postulates of official Anglicanism. It is difficult to say exactly what the views of the parents of the future mystic were. Some historians believe that Blake's father and mother were followers of the Moravian brothers or Hernguthers.
In 1782, Blake married Catherine Boucher, an uneducated but sweet girl who fell in love with William's poetic nature at first sight. The couple lived together until Blake's death. And she, it seems, did not separate the couple: Catherine assured that she was regularly visited by the spirit of her husband. On the advice of the late Blake, her wife secretly traded his graphics. However, not all of his works have come down to us: two of Blake's old friends deliberately destroyed some of his works. In their opinion, some of the leaves personified the triumph of obscenity or challenged canonical Christian views.
Indeed: Blake did not hesitate to portray a naked body even when it came to chaste images from the Bible or world literature (for example, Dante's Beatrice), his famous Christian subjects sometimes look very unusual, and a variety of dark (however, as well as light) he painted forces in such an unusual and vivid way, as if he himself had seen them in reality. However, it is possible that he saw - not without reason, and his graphics, and the poetry researchers call visionary, as if their images were revealed to the author in a dream or in mystical revelations.
Blake, along with other personalities, is considered the forerunner of the free love movement. He advocated the abolition of all possible taboos imposed on homosexuality, prostitution and adultery. Unlike another famous author, Daniel Dafoe, who was very concerned about the moral health of stupid youths and old fools whom whores lead astray, Blake understood perfectly well that not all girls could earn an honest way, and it was not they who gave rise to the demand for their services. themselves, and men.
Blake's own sexual orientation was normal. True, he wanted to get a second wife, but only because he and Catherine had no children. Here Blake's readiness to follow the Old Testament commandment "Be fruitful and multiply!" Was manifested, and this desire was in no way connected with the notorious polygamy, which the mystic is trying to impose retroactively.
William Blake passed away while working on illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. Having departed to a better world on August 12, 1827, Blake was buried in a sectarian cemetery. The traces of his grave were lost already in the 20th century, when his legacy was unconditionally accepted by Western intellectuals.
Booker Igor