William Blake (An Informative Speech)

As a young child, thinking back to the times of the 18th century always brought a few images to mind: the castles, kings, and most importantly, the powdered wigs the people wore at the time. But of course this time had more to it than just that. It was a time of exemplary artists, violent wars, and powerful writers, among other things. Out of the many artists and authors of the time, William Blake is one of the most phenomenal to this day. William Blake’s a great author because he’s unique, creative, and absolutely brilliant.

William Blake was born on November 28th, 1757, in London to James and Catherine Blake. He had never attended school, but learned to read and write at home instead. By age ten, we was set on becoming an artist and his parents sent him to drawing school, and two years after that, he began writing poetry. He later apprenticed with an engraver, at age fourteen, because art school had become too costly. Seven years after that, he studied at the Royal Academy for a short time. There is still one detail about his early life that was his main inspiration for writing, but we’ll cover that here shortly.

A person who’s unique is someone who has a quality to make them feel special, and this concept applies to Blake entirely. From his early childhood to the end of his life in 1827, William Blake claimed to have visions. Spirits and angels made appearances in his visions and found their way into his work. For example, he described the Westminster Abbey like this: “The aisles and galleries of the old cathedral suddenly filled with a great procession of monks and priests, choristers and censer barriers.” These spirits appeared to him in a vision while he was in the church. They also later became figure drawings for his other works. His visions also helped him create his poetry books “Visions of Daughters of Albion” and “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” which weren’t too well acknowledged as masterpieces until after his death. If these things didn’t make him unique, then I don’t think anything else could have.

Blake wasn’t just an amazing artist, but also an amazing writer. And though he never had proper schooling he wrote some of the most amazing poetry ever written. Not only were his works eye-opening and fascinating to read, they were also very creative. An example of one of his more detailed and emotional works is his famous poem, “The Tyger”:

“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?”

This poem is a creative outlook on who the tiger is, and what the tiger is used to represent, society and humanity, and also the ‘sin’ we all have within ourselves, losing who we really are and what we care about. The tiger represents how it grows from a large, graceful cat and transforms into a deadly predator, getting more cunning and manipulative as it continues on in life. And to think that this is only one example of his amazing and creative writing.

Aside from his uniqueness and creativity, he was also insanely brilliant. Not only could he write poetry, but he was an artist, engraver, and visionary. He predicted mythical ways the world would be destroyed, created his own engravings and illustrations, and made people think. His beliefs were like any other religious person, even though he did stress imagination over reason. He also rejected the neoclassical literary style, which is why he’s often referred to as a preromantic author. He was both an artist and a poet which set him apart from other writers of his time. William Blake might have been labeled as ’strange’, but he spoke for the common people during the French Revolution and became what very little people dared to be; he was a freethinker.

From poetry to sketches, angelic beings and “Tygers,” William Blake was quite the guy, diligently writing just to make sure that he was heard. Blake was a unique, amazingly creative writer, who was undoubtedly brilliant. And it’s because of him that I no longer think back to castles and powdered wigs, but of the many magnificent artists instead. Yet William Blake wasn’t just a writer, nor was he just an artist; he was a visionary! And even though his brilliance wasn’t recognized until after his death, he tried to make a difference and he did just that. William Blake was a truly revolutionary man.