William Blake

RINTRAH roars and shakes his fires in the burden'd air, Hungry clouds swag on the deep. Once meek, and in a perilous pathThe just man kept his course alongThe Vale of Death. Roses are planted where thorns grow, And on the barren heathSing the honey bees. Then the perilous path was planted, And a river and a springOn every cliff and tomb;And on the bleached bonesRed clay brought forth: Till the villain left the paths of easeTo walk in perilous paths, and driveThe just man into barren climes. Now the sneaking serpent walksIn mild humility;And the just man rages in the wildsWhere lions roam. Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden'd air, Hungry clouds swag on the deep. As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its advent, the Eternal Hell revives. And lo Swedenborg is the angel sitting at the tomb: his writings are the linen clothes folded up. Now is the dominion of Edom, and the return of Adam into Paradise.-See Isaiah xxxiv. and xxxv. chap. Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys reason; Evil is the active springing from E

Songs of Innocence and of Experience is a collection of poems by William Blake. It appeared in two phases. A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul." Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and the "Fall." Blake's categories are modes of perception that tend to coordinate with a chronology that would become standard in Romanticism: childhood is a state of protected innocence rather than original sin, but not immune to the fallen world and its institutions

'How can the bird that is born for joy / Sit in a cage and sing?'A selection of Blake's most haunting verse, including 'The Songs of Innocence and Experience'. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

Illustrations of The Book of JobWilliam BlakeIllustrations of the Book of JobInvented and Engraved by William BlakeWilliam Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job primarily refers to a series of twenty-two engraved prints (published 1826) by Blake illustrating the biblical Book of Job. It also refers to two earlier sets of watercolours by Blake on the same subject (1806 and 1821). The engraved Illustrations are considered to be Blake's greatest masterpieces in the medium of engraving, and were also a rare commercial and critical success for Blake. As early as 1785 Blake had sketched several ink studies of an illustration to Job. In 1793 Blake engraved a composition based upon these drawings, which he offered for sale in the Prospectus to the Public for twelve shillings. This, alongside an engraving of Ezekiel, are the only extant examples of an intended series of biblical illustrations that were never completed. Blake reworked the Job plate sometime after 1804, but the resulting print was not included in the Illustrations. Blake's next illustration was the tempera painting Job and his Daughters (1800), commissioned by Thomas Butts. This has similarities to plate 20 of the engraved illustrations, but it is unclear whether the print was directly based upon it.

William Blake's sexually charged, gloriously anarchicpoems mesmerise modern minds. This new edition ofSongs of Innocence and of Experience showcases him at his best, while Nigel Nelson's perceptive introduction offers fresh and surprising insight into the man and his words. Journalist, author and broadcaster Nigel Nelson is a lifelong Blake fan. He works in Parliament as political columnist for the Sunday People, and is Britain's longest serving national newspaper political editor. He has been a columnist for the Church of England Newspaper and reviews theology and medieval history books for Tribune. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 5, was historian David Starkey's weekly sparring partner on Talk Radio, is a regular newspaper reviewer for BBC News and Sky News and was a familiar face on ITV's This Morning.

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