biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1757–1827)
|
| biography:
| Poet, painter, engraver, and mystic, born in London, UK. After studying at the Royal Academy School he began to produce watercolour figure subjects and to engrave illustrations for magazines. His first book of poems, Poetical Sketches (1783), was followed by Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794), which contain some of his best-known lines (such as ‘Tyger! Tyger! burning bright’) and express his ardent belief in the freedom of the imagination and his hatred of rationalism and materialism. His mystical and prophetical works include the Book of Thel (1789), The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1791), and The Song of Los (1795), which mostly have imaginative designs interwoven with their text, printed from copper treated by a peculiar process, and coloured by his own hand or that of his wife, Catherine Boucher. Among his designs of poetic and imaginative figure subjects are a series of 537 coloured illustrations to Edward Young's Night Thoughts (1797). His finest artistic work is to be found in the 21 Illustrations to the Book of Job (1826), completed when he was almost 70. Subsequent poets, among them Swinbourne and Yeats, have been much influenced by him. |
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