Writer : William Blake

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Blake was largely unrecognized during his lifetime. Now, he has become a seminal figure in the history of poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. He is regarded as the precursor of the English Romantic Movement.

Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic (different/peculiar) views. He was a very religious man, but he did not like organized religion. He criticized the Church of England. According to him, religion was used by powerful people, and the church was often unfair and cruel.

He believed that the church sometimes stopped people from growing, thinking freely, and having a personal connection with God. William Blake’s famous collections of poems are Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794). In 1794, Blake combined the two sets of poems into a volume titled “Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.”