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I saw this and thought some of you might like it. Some of you probably already know about this poet but it's all new to me. apparently this guy had visions and was against organized religions. I am finding him fascinating especially since people have thought to set his poems to music. Any of you educated people have anything to add about him I would be interested.
Blake is known not only for his poetry, but also as an accomplished engraver and artist, he published his work with his own illustrations.
"One of the most traumatic events of William Blake's life occurred in 1787, when his beloved brother, Robert, died from tuberculosis at age 24. At the moment of Robert's death, Blake allegedly saw his spirit ascend through the ceiling, joyously; the moment, which entered into Blake's psyche, greatly influenced his later poetry. The following year, Robert appeared to Blake in a vision and presented him with a new method of printing his works, which Blake called "illuminated printing." Once incorporated, this method allowed Blake to control every aspect of the production of his art.
"While Blake was an established engraver, soon he began receiving commissions to paint watercolors, and he painted scenes from the works of Milton, Dante, Shakespeare and the Bible....Unappreciated in life, William Blake has since become a giant in literary and artistic circles, and his visionary approach to art and writing have not only spawned countless, spellbound speculations about Blake, they have inspired a vast array of artists and writers."
thank you for the songs of Blake poems, lovely vocals, her voice on the first one reminds me of Loreena McKennitt who set literature (Tennyson, Noyes, Shakespeare, Blake, Lampman) to music. best wishes L8Gr8 with your own artistic expression. here are some Blake quotes:
"if we see with our imaginations, we see the infinite. if we see with our reason, we see only ourselves."
"art is the tree of life. science is the tree of death"
"if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is--infinite.
For man has closed himself up till he sees things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
Ooooh Ahhhh...I know you guys have seen it already. I really have to catch up here. If you watch it a little circle shows up in the upper right hand corner and you can move it around.
Yes. In my youth, Blake was as trendy (1) a figure as C.S Lewis, Einstein, perhaps Ghandi. As El Che, Tolkien and Mandela became in the later decade.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tzaphkiel
thank you for the songs of Blake poems, lovely vocals, her voice on the first one reminds me of Loreena McKennitt who set literature (Tennyson, Noyes, Shakespeare, Blake, Lampman) to music. best wishes L8Gr8 with your own artistic expression. here are some Blake quotes:
"if we see with our imaginations, we see the infinite. if we see with our reason, we see only ourselves."
"art is the tree of life. science is the tree of death"
"if the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is--infinite.
For man has closed himself up till he sees things through narrow chinks of his cavern."
Ah. Thanks. I knew there was some reason why Blake, though I admire his work greatly, is not quite canny. Like Keats (2) , a great artist. But talks a load of balls.
(1) dates me . I thought about it. Influential is not quite it. Trendy was the word. Iconic in some ways, influential in others, but not quite that.
(2) "'beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know". When I first heard that in school, I though it the biggest load of hogtripe I'd ever hard. I still thinks so and I've never forgiven Holst for setting it.
P.s I if I may digress onto a Forum -relevant point, Daniel Harbour, in the "Intelligent person's guide to atheism" (don't let the title put you off: I was able to understand it) used the example 'Ode to a nightingale' to debunk Keats' (3) view that understanding science facts killed the magic. Keats shows in a line about Venus that he knows it is a planet orbiting the sun. That evidently does nothing whatsoever to spoil the magic of the morning star for him or for me.
I must recount the story..one of Milligan's I think. In his army days there were various lectures given to the bored soldiery. At one a sergeant announced:
"The lecture today is about..." (consults a bit of paper) .."Keats. And I don't suppose any of you iggerant buggers knows what a Keat is, do you?"
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 05-25-2016 at 04:45 AM..
"'beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know". When I first heard that in school, I though it the biggest load of hogtripe I'd ever hard. I still thinks so and I've never forgiven Holst for setting it.
Yeah that is a pretty egregious bit of nonsense. Truth is not always beautiful or even attractive. It just is. If you judge whether something someone says is true solely by how it appeals to you subjectively, you are risking a world of hurt.
The truth about reality can be beautiful but also it is often austere, unflattering, and harsh. If you don't make room for things like "you can't have everything you want when you want it", "life does not come with guarantees", "s__t happens", etc., then you will have some real surprises in store for you. And what a disservice to young people not to tell the whole story.
Indeed. Beauty is fine and I love it, but it is nothing to do with truth and is of course subjective human values. Truth s what is so and science fact is the nearest that human reasoning and experiment to get to discovering it. It is nothing to do with beauty, though understanding of the way the world is can make it beautiful, too. I often encountered people who didn't want to know about music. They thought it would spoil it. It may have done in some ways but in others, understanding works like Sibelius' 4 (and the VW 4, also) helped me to appreciate its beauties in a way I couldn't have done without the understanding.
Maybe one day I'll come to see the beauty of the Shostakovich 4. Not so far.
Maybe one day I'll come to see the beauty of the Shostakovich 4. Not so far.
I really try to appreciate modern music, things even further out on a limb than Shostokovich, given that my stepson is enamored with serialism. But it is far too uniformly strident, harsh and bombastic for me. My first exposure was the music used in 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey for Bowman's journey through the Jupiter portal. My opinion of it has not improved since. I can only stand it in small doses.
My stepson got a pair of premium headphones from me as a result ... that way I can be on the same floor of the house while he is listening to it ...
During the proms in my 20's -30's I heard a LOT of "Modern" music and I have a feeling that it took out of music everything that made for music. It may just be me and I sure like Messiaen and am a bit of an Ives specialist. I can understand what is gong on and follow the development of tome -rows, but it ain't music to me.
Sure you can make it sound beautiful with a lot of orchestration and wordless choruses, but, as Bruckner said: "You can paint a sausage green and blue, but it's still a sausage."
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I thought about it. Influential is not quite it. Trendy was the word. Iconic in some ways, influential in others, but not quite that.
