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120-407: The name of the press comes from the poetry of William Blake : Enitharmon was a character who represented spiritual beauty and poetic inspiration. The press's logo "derives from a Blake woodcut". The Press was founded by Alan Clodd in 1967. Sharing a belief with close friend Kathleen Raine in the "sacrificial stresses which seem to be the means by which the vision of outstanding creative spirits

240-524: A cottage at Felpham , in Sussex (now West Sussex ), to take up a job illustrating the works of William Hayley , a minor poet. It was in this cottage that Blake began Milton (the title page is dated 1804, but Blake continued to work on it until 1808). The preface to this work includes a poem beginning " And did those feet in ancient time ", which became the words for the anthem " Jerusalem ". Over time, Blake began to resent his new patron, believing that Hayley

360-543: A Christian element to his mythic world. In the revised version of Vala , Blake added Christian and Hebrew images and describes how Los experiences a vision of the Lamb of God that regenerates Los's spirit. In opposition to Christ is Urizen and the Synagogue of Satan , who later crucifies Christ. It is from them that Deism is born. Marcionite Marcionism was an early Christian dualistic belief system that originated with

480-534: A canon. He summarizes, But the first collector of the Pauline Epistles had been Marcion. No one else we know of would be a good candidate, certainly not the essentially fictive Luke, Timothy, and Onesimus. And Marcion, as Burkitt and Bauer show, fills the bill perfectly. David Trobisch argues that the evidence which is revealed by comparison of the oldest manuscripts of Paul’s letters proves that several epistles had previously been assembled as an anthology which

600-496: A demon". However, "others, among whom were Potitus and Basilicus, held to two principles, as did Marcion himself. Others consider that there are not only two, but three natures. Of these, Syneros was the leader and chief.” In early 3rd century, a splinter group of Marcionites was established by Prepon the Assyrian , who claimed the existence of an intermediate spiritual entity between the good and evil gods. The premise of Marcionism

720-406: A distinctive vision of a humanity redeemed by self-sacrifice and forgiveness, while retaining his earlier negative attitude towards what he felt was the rigid and morbid authoritarianism of traditional religion. Not all readers of Blake agree upon how much continuity exists between Blake's earlier and later works. Psychoanalyst June Singer has written that Blake's late work displayed a development of

840-510: A gesture of equality, as the barren earth blooms beneath their feet. Europe wears a string of pearls, while her sisters Africa and America are depicted wearing slave bracelets. Some scholars have speculated that the bracelets represent the "historical fact" of slavery in Africa and the Americas while the handclasp refer to Stedman's "ardent wish": "we only differ in color, but are certainly all created by

960-550: A gospel , which was a shorter version of the Gospel of Luke , and ten Pauline epistles . Marcion's canon rejected the entire Old Testament, along with all other epistles and gospels of what would become the 27-book New Testament canon , which during his life had yet to be compiled. Pauline epistles enjoy a prominent position in the Marcionite canon, since Paul was considered by Marcion to be Christ's only true apostle. Marcionism

1080-406: A great number of his works, particularly his Bible illustrations, to Thomas Butts , a patron who saw Blake more as a friend than a man whose work held artistic merit; this was typical of the opinions held of Blake throughout his life. The commission for Dante 's Divine Comedy came to Blake in 1826 through Linnell, with the aim of producing a series of engravings. Blake's death in 1827 cut short

1200-605: A housekeeper. She believed she was regularly visited by Blake's spirit. She continued selling his illuminated works and paintings, but entertained no business transaction without first "consulting Mr. Blake". On the day of her death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful as her husband, and called out to him "as if he were only in the next room, to say she was coming to him, and it would not be long now." On her death, longtime acquaintance Frederick Tatham took possession of Blake's works and continued selling them. Tatham later joined

1320-681: A memorial to Blake and his wife was erected in Westminster Abbey. Another memorial lies in St James's Church, Piccadilly , where he was baptised. At the time of Blake's death, he had sold fewer than 30 copies of Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Blake was not active in any well-established political party. His poetry consistently embodies an attitude of rebellion against the abuse of class power as documented in David Erdman's major study Blake: Prophet Against Empire: A Poet's Interpretation of

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1440-435: A method he used to produce most of his books, paintings, pamphlets and poems. The process is also referred to as illuminated printing, and the finished products as illuminated books or prints. Illuminated printing involved writing the text of the poems on copper plates with pens and brushes, using an acid-resistant medium. Illustrations could appear alongside words in the manner of earlier illuminated manuscripts . He then etched

1560-485: A number of Blake's drawings. At the same time, some works not intended for publication were preserved by friends, such as his notebook and An Island in the Moon . Blake's grave is commemorated by two stones. The first was a stone that reads "Near by lie the remains of the poet-painter William Blake 1757–1827 and his wife Catherine Sophia 1762–1831". The memorial stone is situated approximately 20 metres (66 ft) away from

1680-579: A number of ways from the version that is now regarded as canonical. It seems to have lacked all prophecies of Christ's coming, as well as the Infancy account, the baptism, and the verses were more terse in general. It also included ten of the Pauline epistles , in the following order: Galatians , 1 Corinthians , 2 Corinthians , Romans , 1 Thessalonians , 2 Thessalonians , Laodiceans , Colossians , Philemon , Philippians . Marcion's Apostolikon did not include

1800-410: A plate that Blake employed for his relief etching, and indicates why the engravings took so long to complete. Blake's marriage to Catherine was close and devoted until his death. Blake taught Catherine to write, and she helped him colour his printed poems. Gilchrist refers to "stormy times" in the early years of the marriage. Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a concubine into

1920-456: A practice that was preferred to actual drawing. Within these drawings Blake found his first exposure to classical forms through the work of Raphael , Michelangelo , Maarten van Heemskerck and Albrecht Dürer . The number of prints and bound books that James and Catherine were able to purchase for young William suggests that the Blakes enjoyed, at least for a time, a comfortable wealth. When William

2040-415: A press where books are shaped into artefacts of lovely handiwork as well as communicators of words and worlds. The writers and the artists published here over the last fifty years represent a truly historic gathering of individuals with an original vision and an original voice, but the energy is not retrospective: it is growing and new ideas enrich the list year by year. Like an ecologist who manages to restock

2160-466: A printmaker and colorist for his works. "For almost forty-five years she was the person who lived and worked most closely with Blake, enabling him to realize numerous projects, impossible without her assistance. Catherine was an artist and printer in her own right", writes literary scholar Angus Whitehead. William Blake was born on 28 November 1757 at 28 Broad Street (now Broadwick Street ) in Soho , London. He

2280-584: A process invented in 1725, consisted of making a metal cast from a wood engraving, but Blake's innovation was, as described above, very different. The pages printed from these plates were hand-coloured in watercolours and stitched together to form a volume. Blake used illuminated printing for most of his well-known works, including Songs of Innocence and of Experience , The Book of Thel , The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Jerusalem . Although Blake has become better known for his relief etching, his commercial work largely consisted of intaglio engraving ,

2400-408: A reformation of Christendom . This reformation was to deliver Christendom from false Jewish doctrines by restoring the Pauline conception of the gospel , Paul being, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ. In Marcion's own view, therefore, the founding of his church—to which he was first driven by opposition—amounts to

2520-553: A reformation of Christendom through a return to the gospel of Christ and to Paul; nothing was to be accepted beyond that. This of itself shows that it is a mistake to reckon Marcion among the Gnostics. A dualist he certainly was, but he was not a Gnostic. Marcionism shows the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on Christianity, and presents a moral critique of the Old Testament from the standpoint of Platonism . According to Harnack,

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2640-595: A result, he wrote his Descriptive Catalogue (1809), which contains what Anthony Blunt called a "brilliant analysis" of Chaucer and is regularly anthologised as a classic of Chaucer criticism. It also contained detailed explanations of his other paintings. The exhibition was very poorly attended, selling none of the temperas or watercolours. Its only review, in The Examiner , was hostile. Also around this time (circa 1808), Blake gave vigorous expression of his views on art in an extensive series of polemical annotations to

2760-705: A student at the Royal Academy in Old Somerset House, near the Strand. While the terms of his study required no payment, he was expected to supply his own materials throughout the six-year period. There, he rebelled against what he regarded as the unfinished style of fashionable painters such as Rubens , championed by the school's first president, Joshua Reynolds . Over time, Blake came to detest Reynolds' attitude towards art, especially his pursuit of "general truth" and "general beauty". Reynolds wrote in his Discourses that

2880-417: Is at last fulfilled." John Middleton Murry notes discontinuity between Marriage and the late works, in that while the early Blake focused on a "sheer negative opposition between Energy and Reason", the later Blake emphasised the notions of self-sacrifice and forgiveness as the road to interior wholeness. This renunciation of the sharper dualism of Marriage of Heaven and Hell is evidenced in particular by

3000-568: Is attested to by several historical sources of the Islamic Golden Age which appear to reveal that a meager Marcionite community continued to exist in the Near East into the tenth century. For example, the Christian writer Thomas of Margā states that, at the end of the eighth century, the metropolitan of Gēlān and Daylam, Shuwḥālīshōʿ , travelled into the remote parts of his see, preaching "among

3120-542: Is currently known as " Gnosticism ", especially his rejection of the Jewish God , his rejection of the Old Testament, and his rejection of the material world, and his elevation of Paul as the primary apostle. There were early Christian groups, such as the Ebionites , which did not accept Paul's writings as a part of their canon. Ehrman asserts that Marcion likely "hated Jews and everything Jewish". Robert M. Price considers

3240-500: Is enhanced for the benefit of their fellow beings", Clodd had little faith in the publishing mainstream. Since its founding Enitharmon Press has been distinguished as an independent press whose two major concerns have been the quality of its books (from paper and binding to typesetting and design) and maintaining a "wide-ranging literary culture outside the realm of agents, public relations and television tie-ins". Under Alan Clodd 's stewardship Enitharmon published over 150 titles. Some of

3360-668: Is most improbable, because if this were so he would have been compelled to make a direct attack upon the New Testament of the Church, and if such an attack had been made we should have heard of it from Tertullian. Marcion, on the contrary, treats the Catholic Church as one that 'follows the Testament of the Creator-God,' and directs the full force of his attack against this Testament and against

3480-425: Is said to have cried, "Stay Kate! Keep just as you are – I will draw your portrait – for you have ever been an angel to me." Having completed this portrait (now lost), Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses. At six that evening, after promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died. Gilchrist reports that a female lodger in the house, present at his expiration, said, "I have been at

3600-594: Is that many of the teachings of Christ are incompatible with the actions of the God of the Old Testament . Focusing on the Pauline traditions of the Gospel, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and especially any association with the Old Testament religion, was opposed to, and a backsliding from, the truth. He further regarded the arguments of Paul regarding law and gospel , wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness , death and life, as

3720-459: Is the first work to mention them. In particular, Blake's God/Man union is broken down into the bodily components of Urizen (head), Urthona (loins), Luvah (heart), and Tharmas (unity of the body) with paired Emanations being Ahania (wisdom, from the head), Enitharmon (what can't be attained in nature, from the loins), Vala (nature, from the heart), and Enion (earth mother, from the separation of unity). As connected to Blake's understanding of

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3840-483: Is the most innovative aspect of his art, but a 2009 study drew attention to Blake's surviving plates, including those for the Book of Job : they demonstrate that he made frequent use of a technique known as " repoussage ", a means of obliterating mistakes by hammering them out by hitting the back of the plate. Such techniques, typical of engraving work of the time, are very different from the much faster and fluid way of drawing on

3960-457: Is the only non-pastoral Pauline epistle missing from the Marcionite canon, suggesting Laodiceans was simply Ephesians under another name. The Epistle to the Alexandrians is not known from any other source; Marcion himself appears to have never mentioned it. In bringing together these texts, Marcion redacted what is perhaps the first New Testament canon on record, which he called the Gospel and

4080-642: The Areopagus sermon . Various popular sources count Marcion among the Gnostics , but as the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.) puts it, "it is clear that he would have had little sympathy with their mythological speculations " (p. 1034). In 1911 Henry Wace stated: A modern divine would turn away from the dreams of Valentinianism in silent contempt; but he could not refuse to discuss

4200-471: The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds , denouncing the Royal Academy as a fraud and proclaiming, "To Generalize is to be an Idiot". In 1818, he was introduced by George Cumberland's son to a young artist named John Linnell . A blue plaque commemorates Blake and Linnell at Old Wyldes' at North End, Hampstead. Through Linnell he met Samuel Palmer , who belonged to a group of artists who called themselves

4320-647: The French and American revolutions and wore a Phrygian cap in solidarity with the French revolutionaries, but despaired with the rise of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in France. That same year, Blake composed his unfinished manuscript An Island in the Moon (1784). Blake illustrated Original Stories from Real Life (2nd edition, 1791) by Mary Wollstonecraft. Although they seem to have shared some views on sexual equality and

4440-561: The Old Testament . Marcion is said to have gathered scriptures from Jewish tradition, and juxtaposed these against the sayings and teachings of Jesus in a work entitled the Antithesis . Besides the Antithesis , the Testament of the Marcionites was also composed of a Gospel of Christ which was Marcion's version of Luke, and that the Marcionites attributed to Paul, that was different in

4560-820: The Pastoral epistles or the Epistle to the Hebrews . According to the Muratorian canon , it included a Marcionite pseudo-Paul's epistle to the Alexandrians and an epistle to the Laodiceans . The contents of this Marcionite Epistle to the Laodiceans are unknown. Some scholars equate it with the Epistle to the Ephesians, because the latter originally did not contain the words 'in Ephesus', and because it

4680-664: The Romantic Age . What he called his " prophetic works " were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham , he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "human existence itself". Although Blake

4800-526: The Shoreham Ancients . The group shared Blake's rejection of modern trends and his belief in a spiritual and artistic New Age. Aged 65, Blake began work on illustrations for the Book of Job , later admired by Ruskin , who compared Blake favourably to Rembrandt , and by Vaughan Williams , who based his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing on a selection of the illustrations. In later life Blake began to sell

4920-466: The demiurge . Scholars of Early Christianity disagree on whether to classify Marcion as a Gnostic: Adolf von Harnack does not classify Marcion as a Gnostic, whereas G. R. S. Mead does. Harnack argued that Marcion was not a Gnostic in the strict sense because Marcion rejected elaborate creation myths, and did not claim to have special revelation or secret knowledge. Mead claimed Marcionism makes certain points of contact with Gnosticism in its view that

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5040-466: The "disposition to abstractions, to generalising and classification, is the great glory of the human mind"; Blake responded, in marginalia to his personal copy, that "To Generalize is to be an Idiot; To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit". Blake also disliked Reynolds' apparent humility, which he held to be a form of hypocrisy. Against Reynolds' fashionable oil painting , Blake preferred

5160-433: The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article on Marcion: It was no mere school for the learned, disclosed no mysteries for the privileged, but sought to lay the foundation of the Christian community on the pure gospel , the authentic institutes of Christ . The pure gospel, however, Marcion found to be everywhere more or less corrupted and mutilated in the Christian circles of his time. His undertaking thus resolved itself into

5280-527: The Abbey. They teased him and one tormented him so much that Blake knocked the boy off a scaffold to the ground, "upon which he fell with terrific Violence". After Blake complained to the Dean, the schoolboys' privilege was withdrawn. Blake claimed that he experienced visions in the Abbey. He saw Christ with his Apostles and a great procession of monks and priests, and heard their chant. On 8 October 1779, Blake became

5400-710: The Apostolikon, which reflects his belief in the writings of Jesus and the apostle Paul respectively. An English language reconstruction of the content of the Evangelion and Apostolikon attested in Patristic sources was published by Jason David BeDuhn in 2013. The Prologues to the Pauline Epistles (which are not a part of the text, but short introductory sentences as one might find in modern study Bibles ), found in several older Latin codices , are now widely believed to have been written by Marcion or one of his followers. Harnack makes

5520-634: The Beast: William Blake and the Moral Law (1993), claims to show how far he was inspired by dissident religious ideas rooted in the thinking of the most radical opponents of the monarchy during the English Civil War . Because Blake's later poetry contains a private mythology with complex symbolism, his late work has been less published than his earlier more accessible work. The Vintage anthology of Blake edited by Patti Smith focuses heavily on

5640-603: The Churches had not noticed the cloven hoof. Conversely, several early Latin codices contain Anti-Marcionite Prologues to the Gospels. According to a remark by Origen ( Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 15.3), Marcion "prohibited allegorical interpretations of the scripture". Tertullian disputed this in his treatise against Marcion. Tertullian, along with Epiphanius of Salamis , also charged that Marcion set aside

5760-471: The Classical precision of his early influences, Michelangelo and Raphael . David Bindman suggests that Blake's antagonism towards Reynolds arose not so much from the president's opinions (like Blake, Reynolds held history painting to be of greater value than landscape and portraiture), but rather "against his hypocrisy in not putting his ideals into practice." Certainly Blake was not averse to exhibiting at

5880-536: The History of His Own Times (1954). Blake was concerned about senseless wars and the blighting effects of the Industrial Revolution . Much of his poetry recounts in symbolic allegory the effects of the French and American revolutions. Erdman claims Blake was disillusioned with the political outcomes of the conflicts, believing they had simply replaced monarchy with irresponsible mercantilism. Erdman also notes Blake

6000-470: The Manichaeans." Those medieval Muslim writers who specialized in the study of foreign religions often presented Marcionite theology accurately. For example, al-Masʿūdī (d. 956) states that the Marcionites taught "two principles, good and evil, and justice is a third (principle) between the two," which, according to de Blois, are clear references to the Marcionite belief in "the good god, evil matter, and

6120-520: The Pauline canon a single collection of epistles despite the problem which is caused by a lack of knowledge as to how they were collected, when they were collected, who collected them and sent copies of them to the various churches. Price has investigated several historical scenarios and reached the conclusion that Marcion was the first person in recorded history who is known to have collected Paul's writings and sent copies of them to various churches together as

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6240-675: The Royal Academy, submitting works on six occasions between 1780 and 1808. Blake became a friend of John Flaxman , Thomas Stothard and George Cumberland during his first year at the Royal Academy. They shared radical views, with Stothard and Cumberland joining the Society for Constitutional Information . Blake's first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist , records that in June 1780 Blake was walking towards Basire's shop in Great Queen Street when he

6360-732: The Tate Gallery, Catherine mixed and applied his paint colors. One of Catherine Blake's most noted works is the coloring of the cover of the book Europe: A Prophecy . William Blake's 1863 biographer, Alexander Gilchrist , wrote, "The poet and his wife did everything in making the book - writing, designing, printing, engraving - everything except manufacturing the paper: the very ink, or colour rather, they did make." In 2019 Tate Britain 's Blake exhibition gave particular focus to Catherine Boucher's role in William Blake's work. Around 1783, Blake's first collection of poems, Poetical Sketches ,

6480-498: The actual grave, which was not marked until 12 August 2018. For years since 1965, the exact location of William Blake's grave had been lost and forgotten. The area had been damaged in the Second World War ; gravestones were removed and a garden was created. The memorial stone, indicating that the burial sites are "nearby", was listed as a Grade II listed structure in 2011. A Portuguese couple, Carol and Luís Garrido, rediscovered

6600-420: The atmosphere of the three states of being in the poem. Blake's illustrations of the poem are not merely accompanying works, but rather seem to critically revise, or furnish commentary on, certain spiritual or moral aspects of the text. Because the project was never completed, Blake's intent may be obscured. Some indicators bolster the impression that Blake's illustrations in their totality would take issue with

6720-527: The body, as having been taken from the earth, is incapable of sharing in salvation . Tertullian also attacked this view in De Carne Christi . Polycarp , according to Irenaus in his work, Adversus Haereses , had an encounter with Marcion: And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me?" "I do know thee, the first-born of Satan." Hippolytus reported that Marcion's phantasmal (and Docetist) Christ

6840-624: The book are the Four Zoas ( Urthona , Urizen , Luvah and Tharmas ), who were created by the fall of Albion in Blake's mythology . It consists of nine books, referred to as "nights". These outline the interactions of the Zoas, their fallen forms and their Emanations . Blake intended the book to be a summation of his mythic universe . Blake's Four Zoas, which represent four aspects of the Almighty God and Vala

6960-563: The contents of the Letters of Paul and the recorded sayings of Jesus—in other words, an argument from scripture, with Marcion defining what was and was not scripture. Also, the Christology of the Marcionites is thought to have been primarily Docetic , denying the human nature of Jesus. This may have been due to the unwillingness of Marcionites to believe that Jesus was the son of both God the Father and

7080-533: The creator and lord of the world ( κοσμοκράτωρ [English transliteration: kosmokrator/cosmocrator]). As the law which governs the world is inflexible and yet, on the other hand, full of contradictions, just and again brutal, and as the law of the Old Testament exhibits the same features, so the God of creation was to Marcion a being who united in himself the whole gradations of attributes from justice to malevolence, from obstinacy to inconsistency." In Marcionite belief, Jesus

7200-427: The creator of the material world is not the true deity, rejection of materialism and affirmation of a transcendent , purely good spiritual realm in opposition to the evil physical realm, the belief Jesus was sent by the "True" God to save humanity, the central role of Jesus in revealing the requirements of salvation, the belief Paul had a special place in the transmission of this "wisdom", and its docetism . According to

7320-437: The death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel." George Richmond gives the following account of Blake's death in a letter to Samuel Palmer : He died ... in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see & expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ – Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten'd and he burst out Singing of

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7440-509: The divine, the Zoas are the God the Father (Tharmas, sense), the Son of God (Luvah, love), the Holy Ghost (Urthona, imagination), and Satan who was originally of the divine substance (Urizen, reason) and their Emanations represent Sexual Urges (Enion), Nature (Vala), Inspiration (Enitharmon), and Pleasure (Ahania). Blake believed that each person had a twofold identity with one half being good and

7560-490: The earlier work, as do many critical studies such as William Blake by D. G. Gillham. The earlier work is primarily rebellious in character and can be seen as a protest against dogmatic religion especially notable in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , in which the figure represented by the "Devil" is virtually a hero rebelling against an imposter authoritarian deity. In later works, such as Milton and Jerusalem , Blake carves

7680-433: The end of the 18th century. Europe Supported by Africa and America is an engraving by Blake held in the collection of the University of Arizona Museum of Art . The engraving was for a book written by Blake's friend John Gabriel Stedman called The Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796). It depicts three women embracing one another. Black Africa and White Europe hold hands in

7800-428: The enterprise, and only a handful of watercolours were completed, with only seven of the engravings arriving at proof form. Even so, they have earned praise: [T]he Dante watercolours are among Blake's richest achievements, engaging fully with the problem of illustrating a poem of this complexity. The mastery of watercolour has reached an even higher level than before, and is used to extraordinary effect in differentiating

7920-419: The essence of religious truth. He ascribed these aspects and characteristics as two principles, the righteous and wrathful God of the Old Testament , who is at the same time identical with the creator of the world, and a second God of the Gospel who is only love and mercy. Marcionites held that the God of the Hebrew Bible was inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal, and that the material world he created

8040-419: The exact burial location after 14 years of investigatory work, and the Blake Society organised a permanent memorial slab, which was unveiled at a public ceremony at the site on 12 August 2018. The new stone is inscribed "Here lies William Blake 1757–1827 Poet Artist Prophet" above a verse from his poem Jerusalem . The Blake Prize for Religious Art was established in his honour in Australia in 1949. In 1957

8160-414: The falsification of the Gospel and of the Pauline Epistles. His polemic would necessarily have been much less simple if he had been opposed to a Church which, by possessing a New Testament side by side with the Old Testament, had ipso facto placed the latter under the shelter of the former. In fact Marcion’s position towards the Catholic Church is intelligible, in the full force of its simplicity, only under

8280-466: The following claim: We have indeed long known that Marcionite readings found their way into the ecclesiastical text of the Pauline Epistles, but now for seven years we have known that Churches actually accepted the Marcionite prefaces to the Pauline Epistles! De Bruyne has made one of the finest discoveries of later days in proving that those prefaces, which we read first in Codex Fuldensis and then in numbers of later manuscripts, are Marcionite, and that

8400-490: The fundamentalist Irvingite church and under the influence of conservative members of that church burned manuscripts that he deemed heretical. The exact number of destroyed manuscripts is unknown, but shortly before his death Blake told a friend he had written "twenty tragedies as long as Macbeth ", none of which survive. Another acquaintance, William Michael Rossetti, also burned works by Blake that he considered lacking in quality, and John Linnell erased sexual imagery from

8520-469: The gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and used Luke alone. Tertullian cited Luke 6:43–45 ("a good tree does not produce bad fruit") and Luke 5:36–38 ("nobody tears a piece from a new garment to patch an old garment or puts new wine in old wineskins "), in theorizing that Marcion set about to recover the authentic teachings of Jesus. Irenaeus claimed, [Marcion's] salvation will be the attainment only of those souls which had learned his doctrine ; while

8640-440: The government of George III , and the creation of the first police force. In 1781 William met Catherine Boucher when he was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He recounted the story of his heartbreak for Catherine and her parents, after which he asked Catherine: "Do you pity me?" When she responded affirmatively, he declared: "Then I love you". William married Catherine, who

8760-405: The grim humour of the cantos ). At the same time, Blake shared Dante's distrust of materialism and the corruptive nature of power, and clearly relished the opportunity to represent the atmosphere and imagery of Dante's work pictorially. Even as he seemed to be near death, Blake's central preoccupation was his feverish work on the illustrations to Dante's Inferno ; he is said to have spent one of

8880-444: The humanisation of the character of Urizen in the later works. Murry characterises the later Blake as having found "mutual understanding" and "mutual forgiveness". Regarding conventional religion, Blake was a satirist and ironist in his viewpoints which are illustrated and summarized in his poem Vala, or The Four Zoas , one of his uncompleted prophetic books begun in 1797. The demi-mythological and demi-religious main characters of

9000-439: The ideas first introduced in his earlier works, namely, the humanitarian goal of achieving personal wholeness of body and spirit. The final section of the expanded edition of her Blake study The Unholy Bible suggests the later works are the "Bible of Hell" promised in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell . Regarding Blake's final poem, Jerusalem , she writes: "The promise of the divine in man, made in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell ,

9120-514: The institution of marriage, no evidence is known that would prove that they had met. In Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), Blake condemned the cruel absurdity of enforced chastity and marriage without love and defended the right of women to complete self-fulfilment. From 1790 to 1800, William Blake lived in North Lambeth , London, at 13 Hercules Buildings, Hercules Road . The property

9240-602: The just god." In the majority of cases, the Islamic references to Marcionism are really references to what has been termed "Neo-Marcionism," a sub-branch of the sect that seems to have lived in Khorasan in the tenth century. The classical Muslim thinkers rejected all types of Marcionite theology as deviations from the truth, and some thinkers, such as Ibn al-Malāḥimī (d. c. 1050) wrote polemics against them as others did against Nicene Christianity . This did not, however, prevent many of

9360-577: The last shillings he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching. Blake's last years were spent at Fountain Court off the Strand (the property was demolished in the 1880s, when the Savoy Hotel was built). On the day of his death (12 August 1827), Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside. Beholding her, Blake

9480-596: The leading British publisher of collaborations between distinguished artists and authors. Artists include Paula Rego , Gilbert & George , Henri Cartier-Bresson , Jim Dine , Robert Creeley , R. B. Kitaj and Victor Pasmore , and authors Ted Hughes , Thom Gunn , Seamus Heaney and Blake Morrison . The list of Enitharmon Press, while still specialising in poetry, diversified to include translations, memoirs, fiction and literary criticism. Most notably, translations of Federico García Lorca , Vladimir Mayakovsky , Rainer Maria Rilke and Lao Zi and critical responses to

9600-539: The marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the more radical branches of the Swedenborgian Society , but other scholars have dismissed these theories as conjecture. In his Dictionary, Samuel Foster Damon suggests that Catherine may have had a stillborn daughter for which The Book of Thel is an elegy. That is how he rationalizes the Book's unusual ending, but notes that he is speculating. In 1800, Blake moved to

9720-423: The meadows with a nearly vanished species of wild flower or brings a rare pair of birds back to found a colony, this publisher has dedicatedly and brilliantly made a success of that sharply endangered species, the independent press." In 1987, as he neared the age of 70, Clodd passed on the directorship of Enitharmon to Stephen Stuart-Smith. Alongside the poetry list, Stuart-Smith established Enitharmon Editions , now

9840-399: The most prestigious include books by Kathleen Raine , David Gascoyne , Vernon Watkins , Samuel Beckett and John Heath-Stubbs . "William Blake dreamed up the original Enitharmon as one of his inspiriting, good, female daemons, and his own spirit as a poet-artist, printer-publisher still lives in the press which bears the name of his creation. Enitharmon is a rare and wonderful phenomenon,

9960-592: The movement known as Marcionism began with the teachings and excommunication of Marcion around 144. Marcion was reportedly a wealthy shipowner, the son of a bishop of Sinope of Pontus , Asia Minor . He arrived in Rome c. 140, soon after Bar Kokhba's revolt . The organization continued in the East for some centuries later, particularly outside the Byzantine Empire in areas which later would be dominated by Manichaeism . By

10080-411: The other evil. In Vala , both the character Orc and The Eternal Man discuss their selves as divided. By the time he was working on his later works, including Vala , Blake felt that he was able to overcome his inner battle but he was concerned about losing his artistic abilities. These thoughts carried over into Vala as the character Los (imagination) is connected to the image of Christ, and he added

10200-690: The pagans, Marcionites and Manichaeans." In a similar way, the tenth-century Muslim bibliographer Ibn al-Nadīm goes so far as to claim that the Marcionites are "numerous in Khurāsān " and that there "they practice openly, like the Manichaeans ." Although information about the Khorasanite Marcionites is not related in any other historical source, Ibn al-Nadīm nevertheless also quotes a "reliable informant" ( thiḳa ), "whom he says had seen Marcionite books and who reported that their script resembled that of

10320-502: The plates in acid to dissolve the untreated copper and leave the design standing in relief (hence the name). This is a reversal of the usual method of etching, where the lines of the design are exposed to the acid, and the plate printed by the intaglio method. Relief etching (which Blake referred to as " stereotype " in The Ghost of Abel ) was intended as a means for producing his illuminated books more quickly than via intaglio. Stereotype,

10440-498: The question raised by Marcion, whether there is such opposition between different parts of what he regards as the word of God, that all cannot come from the same author. A primary difference between Marcionites and Gnostics was that the Gnostics based their theology on secret wisdom (as, for example, Valentinius who claimed to receive the secret wisdom from Theudas who received it direct from Paul) of which they claimed to be in possession, whereas Marcion based his theology on

10560-399: The reign of emperor Commodus (180–192), Marcionism was divided into various opinions with various leaders; among whom was Apelles , whom Rhodo describes as: "... priding himself on his manner of life and his age, acknowledges one principle, but says that the prophecies are from an opposing principle, being led to this view by the responses of a maiden by name Philumene, who was possessed by

10680-418: The same Hand." Others have said it "expresses the climate of opinion in which the questions of color and slavery were, at that time, being considered, and which Blake's writings reflect." Blake employed intaglio engraving in his own work, such as for his Illustrations of the Book of Job , completed just before his death. Most critical work has concentrated on Blake's relief etching as a technique because it

10800-424: The same thinkers from studying the Marcionites from an anthropological or sociological point of view, as is evident from Ibn al-Malāḥimī's extended reference to the customs of the Marcionites. In Lost Christianities , Bart Ehrman contrasts the Marcionites with the Ebionites as polar ends of a spectrum with regard to the Old Testament . Ehrman acknowledges that many of Marcion's ideas are very close to what

10920-434: The sect may have led other Christians to introduce a formal statement of beliefs into their liturgy (see Creed ) and to formulate a canon of authoritative Scripture of their own, thus eventually producing the current canon of the New Testament . As for the main question, however, whether he knew of, or assumes the existence of, a written New Testament of the Church in any sense whatever, in this case an affirmatory answer

11040-433: The singularity of Blake's work makes him difficult to classify. The 19th-century scholar William Michael Rossetti characterised him as a "glorious luminary", and "a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors". Collaboration with his wife, Catherine Boucher , was instrumental in the creation of many of his books. Boucher worked as

11160-399: The standard process of engraving in the 18th century in which the artist incised an image into the copper plate, a complex and laborious process, with plates taking months or years to complete, but as Blake's contemporary, John Boydell , realised, such engraving offered a "missing link with commerce", enabling artists to connect with a mass audience and became an immensely important activity by

11280-473: The supposition that the Church had not yet in her hand any 'litera scripta Novi Testamenti .' Marcion is believed to have imposed a severe morality on his followers, some of whom suffered in the persecutions. In particular, he refused to re-admit those who recanted their faith under Roman persecution; see also Lapsi (Christian) . Tertullian claimed Marcion was the first to separate the New Testament from

11400-592: The teachings of Marcion of Sinope in Rome around 144 AD. Marcion was an early Christian theologian , evangelist , and an important figure in early Christianity . He was the son of a bishop of Sinope in Pontus . About the middle of the 2nd century (140–155) he traveled to Rome, where he joined the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo . Marcion preached that the benevolent God of the Gospel who sent Jesus Christ into

11520-756: The text they accompany: in the margin of Homer Bearing the Sword and His Companions , Blake notes, "Every thing in Dantes Comedia shews That for Tyrannical Purposes he has made This World the Foundation of All & the Goddess Nature & not the Holy Ghost." Blake seems to dissent from Dante's admiration of the poetic works of ancient Greece , and from the apparent glee with which Dante allots punishments in Hell (as evidenced by

11640-779: The things he saw in Heaven. Catherine paid for Blake's funeral with money lent to her by Linnell. Blake's body was buried in a plot shared with others, five days after his death – on the eve of his 45th wedding anniversary – at the Dissenter 's burial ground in Bunhill Fields , that became the London Borough of Islington . His parents' bodies were buried in the same graveyard. Present at the ceremonies were Catherine, Edward Calvert , George Richmond , Frederick Tatham and John Linnell. Following Blake's death, Catherine moved into Tatham's house as

11760-413: The work of Edward Thomas and Edward Upward . Writers published by Enitharmon have been recipients of these awards: William Blake This is an accepted version of this page William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of

11880-521: The world as the savior was the true Supreme Being , different and opposed to the malevolent Demiurge or creator god , identified with the Hebrew God of the Old Testament . He considered himself a follower of Paul the Apostle , whom he believed to have been the only true apostle of Jesus Christ . Marcion's canon , possibly the first Christian canon ever compiled, consisted of eleven books:

12000-444: Was "revealed as a man, though not a man", and did not really die on the cross. However, Ernest Evans, in editing this work, observes: This may not have been Marcion's own belief. It was certainly that of Hermogenes (cf. Tertullian, Adversus Hermogenem ) and probably other gnostics and Marcionites, who held that the intractability of this matter explains the world's many imperfections. The Arabic name for Marcionism, marqiyūniyya ,

12120-438: Was an early and profound influence on Blake, and remained a source of inspiration throughout his life. Blake's childhood, according to him, included mystical religious experiences such as "beholding God's face pressed against his window, seeing angels among the haystacks, and being visited by the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel ." Blake started engraving copies of drawings of Greek antiquities purchased for him by his father,

12240-488: Was apprenticed to engraver James Basire of Great Queen Street , at the sum of £52.10, for a term of seven years. At the end of the term, aged 21, he became a professional engraver. No record survives of any serious disagreement or conflict between the two during the period of Blake's apprenticeship, but Peter Ackroyd 's biography notes that Blake later added Basire's name to a list of artistic adversaries; and then crossed it out. This aside, Basire's style of line-engraving

12360-467: Was charged not only with assault, but with uttering seditious and treasonable expressions against the king. Schofield claimed that Blake had exclaimed "Damn the king. The soldiers are all slaves." Blake was cleared in the Chichester assizes of the charges. According to a report in the Sussex county paper, "[T]he invented character of [the evidence] was ... so obvious that an acquittal resulted". Schofield

12480-461: Was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he came to be highly regarded by later critics and readers for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have been characterised as part of the Romantic movement and as "Pre-Romantic". A theist who preferred his own Marcionite style of theology, he

12600-487: Was decorated with suits of armour, painted funeral effigies and varicoloured waxworks. Ackroyd notes that "...the most immediate [impression] would have been of faded brightness and colour". This close study of the Gothic (which he saw as the "living form") left clear traces in his style. In the long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the Abbey, he was occasionally interrupted by boys from Westminster School , who were allowed in

12720-421: Was deeply opposed to slavery and believes some of his poems, read primarily as championing " free love ", had their anti-slavery implications short-changed. A more recent study, William Blake: Visionary Anarchist by Peter Marshall (1988), classified Blake and his contemporary William Godwin as forerunners of modern anarchism . British Marxist historian E. P. Thompson 's last finished work, Witness Against

12840-399: Was defective, a place of suffering; the God who made such a world is a bungling or malicious demiurge . In the God of the [Old Testament] he saw a being whose character was stern justice, and therefore anger, contentiousness and unmercifulness. The law which rules nature and man appeared to him to accord with the characteristics of this God and the kind of law revealed by him, and this God is

12960-409: Was demolished in 1918, but the site is marked with a plaque. A series of 70 mosaics commemorates Blake in the nearby railway tunnels of Waterloo Station . The mosaics largely reproduce illustrations from Blake's illuminated books, The Songs of Innocence and of Experience , The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , and the prophetic books . In 1788, aged 31, Blake experimented with relief etching ,

13080-576: Was denounced by its opponents as heresy and written against by the early Church Fathers – notably by Tertullian in his five-book treatise Adversus Marcionem ( Against Marcion ), in about 208. Marcion's writings are lost, though they were widely read and numerous manuscripts must have existed. Even so, many scholars say it is possible to reconstruct and deduce a large part of ancient Marcionism through what later critics, especially Tertullian, said concerning Marcion. According to Tertullian and other writers of early proto-orthodox Christianity ,

13200-494: Was five years his junior, on 18 August 1782 in St Mary's Church, Battersea . Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an X. The original wedding certificate may be viewed at the church, where a commemorative stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982. The marriage was successful and Catherine became William's "partner in both life and work", undertaking important roles as an engraver and colourist. According to

13320-473: Was hostile to the Church of England (indeed, to almost all forms of organised religion), and was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American Revolutions . Although later he rejected many of these political beliefs, he maintained an amicable relationship with the political activist Thomas Paine ; he was also influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Swedenborg . Despite these known influences,

13440-534: Was later depicted wearing "mind forged manacles" in an illustration to Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion . Blake returned to London in 1804 and began to write and illustrate Jerusalem (1804–20), his most ambitious work. Having conceived the idea of portraying the characters in Chaucer 's Canterbury Tales , Blake approached the dealer Robert Cromek , with a view to marketing an engraving. Knowing Blake

13560-608: Was not a Jewish Messiah , but a spiritual entity that was sent by the Monad to reveal the truth about existence, thus allowing humanity to escape the earthly trap of the demiurge. Marcion called God 'the Stranger God', or 'the Alien God' in some translations, as this deity had not had any previous interactions with the world, and was wholly unknown. See also the Unknown God of Hellenism and

13680-702: Was of a kind held at the time to be old-fashioned compared to the flashier stipple or mezzotint styles. It has been speculated that Blake's instruction in this outmoded form may have been detrimental to his acquiring of work or recognition in later life. After two years, Basire sent his apprentice to copy images from the Gothic churches in London (perhaps to settle a quarrel between Blake and James Parker, his fellow apprentice). His experiences in Westminster Abbey helped form his artistic style and ideas. The Abbey of his day

13800-550: Was printed. In 1784, after his father's death, Blake and former fellow apprentice James Parker opened a print shop. They began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson . Johnson's house was a meeting-place for some leading English intellectual dissidents of the time: theologian and scientist Joseph Priestley ; philosopher Richard Price ; artist John Henry Fuseli ; early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft ; and English-American revolutionary Thomas Paine . Along with William Wordsworth and William Godwin , Blake had great hopes for

13920-477: Was swept up by a rampaging mob that stormed Newgate Prison . The mob attacked the prison gates with shovels and pickaxes, set the building ablaze, and released the prisoners inside. Blake was reportedly in the front rank of the mob during the attack. The riots, in response to a parliamentary bill revoking sanctions against Roman Catholicism, became known as the Gordon Riots and provoked a flurry of legislation from

14040-457: Was ten years old, his parents knew enough of his headstrong temperament that he was not sent to school but instead enrolled in drawing classes at Henry Pars' drawing school in the Strand . He read avidly on subjects of his own choosing. During this period, Blake made explorations into poetry; his early work displays knowledge of Ben Jonson , Edmund Spenser , and the Psalms . On 4 August 1772, Blake

14160-445: Was the third of seven children, two of whom died in infancy. Blake's father, James, was a hosier , who had lived in London. He attended school only long enough to learn reading and writing, leaving at the age of 10, and was otherwise educated at home by his mother Catherine Blake ( née Wright). Even though the Blakes were English Dissenters , William was baptised on 11 December at St James's Church , Piccadilly, London. The Bible

14280-508: Was too eccentric to produce a popular work, Cromek promptly commissioned Blake's friend Thomas Stothard to execute the concept. When Blake learned he had been cheated, he broke off contact with Stothard. He set up an independent exhibition in his brother's haberdashery shop at 27 Broad Street in Soho . The exhibition was designed to market his own version of the Canterbury illustration (titled The Canterbury Pilgrims ), along with other works. As

14400-467: Was uninterested in true artistry, and preoccupied with "the meer drudgery of business" (E724). Blake's disenchantment with Hayley has been speculated to have influenced Milton: a Poem , in which Blake wrote that "Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies". (4:26, E98) Blake's trouble with authority came to a head in August 1803, when he was involved in a physical altercation with a soldier, John Schofield. Blake

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