Thursday, January 12, 2012

Very Helpful Blake Timeline

http://www.blakesociety.org/about-blake/a-blake-chronology/
An example entry:
1788
Began associating with the radical circle of Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin, Joseph Priestley, Thomas Paine, & Joseph Johnson.  Met the painter Henry Fuseli, or Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741-1825, with whom he had some spiritual affinity.  For the rest of his life, Blake had a close, spiritual relationship with Robert (Gilchrist).  “I converse daily & hourly in the Spirit & See him in my remembrance in the regions of my Imagination.  I hear his advice & even now write from his Dictate.”  Blake claimed that the appearance of Robert to him in one of his “visionary imaginations” led to the idea of relief etching in copper for printing his poetry (Gilchrist).  Produces his first works using his method of relief etched illuminated printing: There is No Natural Religion & All Religions are One, though these were not printed until 1794 5.  Engraves the Songs of Innocence by the new process (Gilchrist).

Note, too, what Blake is up to in 1791:
The first book of Blake’s unfinished poem in seven books, The French Revolution, is printed for Joseph Johnson but in view of the political situation is abandoned.  Only one set of page proofs survives.  Six engravings after Blake’s designs appeared in a new edition of Mary Wollstonecraft’s book Original Stories from Real Life, Johnson, 1791, & 10 plates for [Erasmus, grandfather of Charles] Darwin’s Botanic Garden, Johnson, 1791 (Gilchrist).

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