What are /lit/'s thoughts on William Blake? Was he insane,

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This is probably all you need to start with, for secondary reading check out Fearful Symmetry by Northrop Frye

Another gay poet.

>>8943866
lol pleb

>>8943834
>“To say that a great genius is mad, while at the same time recognizing his artistic merit, is no better than to say he is rheumatic or diabetic.”
-Jimmy the fartman on Blake

>His parents did, however, encourage his artistic talents, and the young Blake was enrolled at the age of ten in Pars' drawing school. The expense of continued formal training in art, however, was a prohibitive one, and the family decided that at the age of fourteen William would be apprenticed to a master engraver. At first his father took him to William Ryland, a highly respected engraver. William, however, resisted the arrangement telling his father, "I do not like the man's face: it looks as if he will live to be hanged!" The grim prophecy was to come true twelve years later.

>>8943834

Begin with:
- Marriage of Heaven and Hell
- Songs of Innocence & Experience
- Poems from the Pickering manuscript (includes "Auguries of Innocence")
- The Everlasting Gospel

>>8943847

To read the "prophetic books" you will need a guide to Blake's mythology, best is Frye's book. You can probably read "Milton" w/out help (I did) but "Jerusalem", the magnum opus, is incomprehensible if you don't have a crib sheet to tell you what Los, Golgonooza, Emanations, Spectres, etc etc mean.