Blake
William Blake, a London hosier's son, began having mystical visions at the age of eight and came to see his life as a revelation of eternity. While eking out a living as an engraver, he offered, quite unsuccessfully, his great series of prophetic books,Songs of Innocence and Experience. For Ackroyd, biographer of bothCharles DickensandT. S. Eliot, Blake was a visionary, who long beforeFreudsaw warfare as a form of repressed sexuality and believed there were eternal states of rage, desire and selfhood through which a man passes, keeping his soul intact. The tragedy was that he had the capacity to become a great public and religious poet, but instead turned in upon himself, gaining neither reputation nor influence in his lifetime.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.