Poems by William Blake

‘Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled’ William Blake

William Blake is one of Britain’s most fascinating writers, who, as well as being a groundbreaking poet, is also well known as a painter, engraver, radical and mystic. Although Blake was dismissed as an eccentric by his contemporaries, his powerful and richly symbolic poetry has been a fertile source of inspiration to the many writers and artists who have followed in his footsteps. In this collection Patti Smith has collected together her personal selection of Blake’s poems, including the complete poems from the famous Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, to give a singular picture of this unique genius.

William Blake

Reviews

“ A visionary genius... There are passages of brilliance everywhere... The wonder of Blake is that he had an imagination that brought together words and images ”

Independent

“ There was no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron ”

William Wordsworth

“ The movement of his [Blake's] early verse are like the gambollings of some very powerful animal, still in its fluffy-footed and tottering babyhood ”

Samuel Butler Yeats

“ [Blake] always insists on the importance of the pure, clean line that evokes and creates the figure on the background of the uncreated void ”

James Joyce

“ Blake is a great liberating imaginative force ”

Tom Paulin

“ The poems of a man with a profound interest in human emotions, and a profound knowledge of them ”

T.S. Eliot

Paperback

9780099511632

January 1, 2008

Vintage Classics

192 pages

RRP $17.99
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Poems

William Blake

Hardback

9781857157109

November 25, 1994

Everyman

284 pages

RRP $34.99
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EBook

9781407091396

July 1, 2010

Vintage Digital

192 pages
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