William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. He claimed to have mystical visions from a young age. Blake wrote poetry exploring mythology, politics, and prophecy. He was also a skilled engraver and printer, allowing him to illustrate his own works. Though some thought him delusional, his work was praised for its unique style combining contradictory ideas and imagery from heaven and hell.

1. William Blake

2. About William Blake
• William Blake was born November 28, 1757 and he died August
12, 1827. He was gifted in philosophy poetry and art. Blake told people
that he had mystical visions in his life. When he was only four years
old, he said he had seen God, who had put up his head on the window;
and when he was nine years old, he saw a tree full of angels. Many
people who heard him speak this way thought that he was delusional.
Because of these encounters, the image of the angel would be a
constant symbol in William Blake's life. Blake was born into a middle
class family he did not attend school instead his mother taught him at
home. The bible was a huge influence to him. He became a professional
engraver at age 21. Blake married the illiterate Catherine Boucher and
then he taught her how to read and write and also make drafts so that
they could work together. He even had plans to publish along with her.
She played an important role in his life.

3. His Poetry
• He wrote several poems about mythology, satires, politics and prophecies.
William Blake Claimed that he had powers of prophecy. When an engraver
was introduced to him by his father, William saw a vision of the man being
hanged as he did not like his face. Later on, it was proved that the engraver
was indeed false as he was sent to the gallows for excessive debt and forgery.
Blake had many talents, he was not only just a poet he was also a painter and
a printmaker. He learned several languages like Hebrew, Latin, Italian and
Greek so that he could read literary works in their original language. When
Blake passed away, his “insanity” was praised by William Wordsworth, who
said that there was more to Blake's insanity than Lord Byron's or Walter Scott's
sanity. Blake had a unique style of writing and he would always use two
contradictory words in his works. For example, heaven and hell, spirit and
reason and so on. His work had a unique dichotomy. Today, several poets
copy this style in their own poetry.

4. The Argument
• Rintrah is the prophet, and can be seen
as the equivalent of Jesus. When “Rintrah
roars and shakes his fires”, it is giving this
Christ like character what the average
person see as demonic characteristics.
“The deep”, referring to hell, he says
contain swagging clouds. We associate
clouds with heaven. This is therefore
reversing the idealistic views of man, a
symbolic representation that hell is good
and heaven is evil.

5. A Poison Tree
• Theme: Forgiveness
• Blake is referring to his own
personal experience, he was
angry with a friend, let the friend
know that he was angry.
But, even though he had let his
“foe” know he had not done so
entirely. Only a small part of the
anger that the narrator had felt
left when he told his friend of the
issue. However, the moral is that
when you do not share your
feelings your bad feeling will
continue to grow.

6. The collections
• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
• Songs of Experience

7. Works Cited
• http://courses.wcupa.edu/fletcher/britlitweb/lranieria.
htm
•
http://www.eliteskills.com/analysis_poetry/A_Poison
_Tree_by_William_Blake_analysis.php
• http://poetry.rapgenius.com/William-blake-the-
marriage-of-heaven-and-hell-annotated#note-
2315852
• http://heavenandhell-maa.blogspot.com/