The Illuminated Blake: William Blake's Complete Illuminated Works with a Plate-by-Plate Commentary
Category: Books,Literature & Fiction,Poetry
The Illuminated Blake: William Blake's Complete Illuminated Works with a Plate-by-Plate Commentary Details
Long regarded as a brilliant eccentric whose works skirted the outer fringes of English art and literature, William Blake (1757–1827) is today recognized as a major poet and one of the most original and exciting English painters. Nowhere is Blake's glorious poetic and pictorial legacy more evident than in this monumental study of his illuminated poems.Compiled and annotated by one of the world's foremost Blake scholars, the book's original publication represented the first working edition of the entire illuminated canon. Accompanied by David V. Erdman's erudite and penetrating analysis, the meticulously reproduced plates reveal the poet/artist's singular attempt to achieve the perfect union of painting and poetry. Commenting on such Blakean masterpieces as The Book of Thel, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Song of Los, The Book of Urizen, and other works, Professor Erdman discusses the details of each illustration in the context of the poem it accompanies. All but the largest plates are reproduced in their original sizes.A comprehensive study revealing the lyrical beauty and intricate design of Blake's illuminated works. This inexpensive edition is required reading — and viewing — for students and scholars of Blake.
Reviews
David W. Erdman has managed to describe the details in Blake's drawings, for William Blake's Complete Illuminated Works with a Plate-by-Plate Commentary, but the text which is the main feature of most of Blake's plates is sometimes faint, and occasionally unclear. Due to the comment in BLAKE AND SWEDENBORG, on the source of its subtitle, Opposition Is True Friendship, about plate 20 of Blake's MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL, that:"beneath this `reptile of the mind,' partially obscured by Blake's thick patina of watercolor pigments in several copies of this hand-painted book, is Blake's final comment on his battle with Swedenborg's angelic alter ego:Opposition is true Friendship." (Harvey F. Bellin, BLAKE AND SWEDENBORG, p. 38).The detail which is shown on page 38 of BLAKE AND SWEDENBORG looks more like "Opposition is True !"Page 117 of Erdman's THE ILLUMINATED BLAKE has a copy of Plate 20, copy I, which hardly even shows the T of True, and a small detail from Copy E with the words "you whose works" just before the last line "are only Analytics," so the little extra squiggle that it provides might be a subliminal comment by Blake on those who think we have the power to explain anything. The drawing of the serpent is ambiguous enough that Erdman's comment, "In I the artist has carelessly colored the angular wave seen through the first loop as though it were part of the serpent's body," (p. 117) might be an indication that Blake intended to show a bit of the tail of the serpent close to the serpent's head, symbolic of logic biting its own tail, or arguments which are circular in nature. As a wave, it looks more like the serpent than the other waves, though the black and white illustrations in both books are not entirely clear, Erdman's book has better shades of gray.Comparing plates of "The Divine Image," SONGS 18g on page 59 in Erdman's book, with the copy on page 88 of BLAKE AND SWEDENBORG, Erdman's is clearer, but page 88 of BLAKE AND SWEDENBORG also prints the words ("To Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love") alongside the illustration, so it is easier to read. Erdman's attempts to explain the figures make this plate more interesting, mentioning Lazarus? Adam? Eve? and Jacob's ladder.There is a "Holy Thursday" from Innocence, SONGS 19I on page 60, and a "Holy Thursday" from Experience, SONGS 33I on page 75. The big disappointment is that "The Tyger," SONGS 42I on page 84 is so difficult to read. I thought that I might remember that poem, but hardly well enough to read it in this book.