1. Victorian literature and poetry

2. William Blake and his biography
William Blake was a painter, poet, and print-maker. During his lifetime, he was not recognized much. However, now, he is regarded as an influential figure in the history of visual arts and poetry in the Romantic period. His works were highly prophetic. Northrop Frye, the twentieth-century critic, says that the works of William Blake are least studied in the English language. The 21st-century artist, Jonathan Jones, comments on his visual arts that his art is remote from whatever Britain has produced so far. Among the 100 Greatest Britons, BBC has placed William Blake on number 38 in 2002.William Blake lived in London for his entire life; there, he produced versatile and symbolically rich works. His works employed the imagination of the “human existence itself,” and the body of God.”For his idiosyncratic views, the contemporary writers and poets consider him as mad. However, the later critics regarded him for his creativity and expressiveness, as well as for his mystical and philosophical undercurrents within his works. His poetry and painting are featured as Pre-Romantics and past of the Romantic Movement.William Blake was a committed Christian, yet aggressive to the Church of England. Even he was against all forms of hostile religions. He was greatly influenced by the American and French Revolution in the 18 th century. William Blake also abandoned political beliefs but maintained friendly relations with the political activists Thomas Paine. Thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg also influenced him greatly.Though Blake had many known influences, the uniqueness and distinguishing quality of his works makes him difficult to categorize. He has been categorized as “glorious luminary” and a man who had not been envisioned by the predecessors and was not ranked with his contemporaries by William Michael, the 19th-century critic. William Blake was born on 28th November 1757 in London. He attended school for a short period of time and then got further education at home. In the early years, Blake was highly influenced by the Bible. It remained a lifetime source of inspiration and colored his life and works with spirituality. Blake started experiencing visions at an early age. When Blake was four years old, writes Henry Crabb, he saw the head of God appearing in the window. He also supposedly envisions the prophet Ezekiel standing under the tree and also had seen a tree filled with angels. It was these visions that affect his writing and paintings he produced.By the age of 10, the artistic abilities of William Blake came to the forefront. He attended Henry Pars’ drawing school. There he learned to sketch the human figure. He also apprenticed with engravers at the age of 14. The master of Blake was an engraver to the London Society of Antiques. He sent Blake to Westminster Abbey to draw the monuments and tombs. In that place, his love for gothic was established.In 1779, Blake finished his apprenticeship that comprised seven years. He turned into a journeyman copy engraver. He started working on projects for print and book publishers. During that time, he was also preparing himself to make his career as a painter. In the same year, he attended the Royal Academy of Art’s School of Design. In 1780, he started exhibiting his own works in the Academy. In 1783, he published his Poetical Sketches. It was a collection of poems that he wrote over the course of 14 years.In 1782, William Blake married an illiterate lady Catherine Sophia Boucher. She was taught to read, write, and color. She was a great supporter of her husband until his death. In 1787, William Blake suffered greatly from the death of his brother Robert. At the instance of his brother’s death, Blake envisions a spirit coming down joylessly through the ceiling. This vision entered into the mind of Blake and greatly inspired his later poetry.In the following years, Blake started a new method of printing called “illuminating printing.” This painting influenced every aspect of his arts.An established engraver, William Black, soon started receiving commissions for his watercolors. He painted the scenes from the Bible and works of Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton.In 1800, William Blake shifted to a seaside Village of Felpham upon the invitation of his friend William Hayley. However, soon the relationship between Blake and Hayley soon turned bitter. Blake ran into different trouble. A soldier, in 1803, illegally occupied the property of Blake, and when Blake asked him to leave, he accused him of sedation and assault. In 1804, Black was acquitted, and he, along with his wife, shifted back to London. In the same year, Blake started writing and illustrating about Jerusalem. His works on Jerusalem are his most aspiring works to date. He also started showing his works, including the Canterbury Pilgrims by Chaucer and Satan Calling Up His Legions, at the exhibitions. However, his works did not get any appreciation. Devastated by the negative reviews and no attention for his works, Blake started withdrawing from his attempt of success. From 1809 to 1818, he only sketched a few paintings. He was sinking into paranoia, obscurity, and poverty. However, in 1819, Blake started sketching “visionary head.” Until 1825, Blake had sketched more than 100 of such visionary heads.Between 1823 and 1825, Blake remained highly busy with his arts. He engraved almost 21 designs of Book of Job and Dante’s Inferno. By 1825, he also started a series of watercolor illustrations of Dante.In the last years of his life, William Blake suffered from an undiagnosed disease. He died on 12th August 1827. He left unfinished watercolor illustrations of Pilgrim’s Progress by Bunyan and manuscript of the Book of Genesis of the Bible. Though he was unappreciated in his life, William Blake turned out to be a great figure in the arts of poetry and paintings.