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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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William Blake

 

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Johann Lavater : Aphorisms

William Blake, on margin of his copy of Johann Lavater, Aphorisms: "'I hop no one will call what I have written cavilling ... For I write from the warmth of my heart, & cannot resist the impulse I fell to rectify what I think false in a book I love so much, & aprove so generally.'"

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

Francis Bacon : Essays

William Blake, in copy of Francis Bacon, Essays: "'Villain! Did Christ seek the Praise of the Rulers?'"

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

Edmund Burke : A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

William Blake, in copy of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Works (1798) vol I: " '... I read Burkes Treatise [on the Sublime and Beautiful] when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancmt [sic] of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Comtempt & Abhorrence then; that I do now.'"

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

John Locke : An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

William Blake, in copy of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Works (1798) vol I: " '... I read Burkes Treatise [on the Sublime and Beautiful] when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancmt [sic] of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Comtempt & Abhorrence then; that I do now.'"

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

Francis Bacon : The Advancement of Learning

William Blake, in copy of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Works (1798) vol I: " '... I read Burkes Treatise [on the Sublime and Beautiful] when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancmt [sic] of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Comtempt & Abhorrence then; that I do now.'"

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

Sir Joshua Reynolds : Works

William Blake, in copy of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Works (1798) vol I: " '... I read Burkes Treatise [on the Sublime and Beautiful] when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancmt [sic] of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Comtempt & Abhorrence then; that I do now.'"

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

John Locke : unknown

[John Locke] "says it [is the] same faculty that invents judges".

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

John Milton : Paradise Lost, vii, 29-30

"And tho' I call them Mine, I know that they are not Mine, being of the Same opinion with Milton when he says 'That the Muse visits his Slumbers & awakes & governs his Song when Morn purples the East', & being also in the predicament of that Prophet who says: I cannot go beyond the command of the Lord, to speak good or bad."

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

 : Numbers 24:13

"And tho' I call them Mine, I know that they are not Mine, being of the Same opinion with Milton when he says 'That the Muse visits his Slumbers & awakes & governs his Song when Morn purples the East', & being also in the predicament of that Prophet who says: I cannot go beyond the command of the Lord, to speak good or bad."

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

 : Bible

"I name Moses, Solomon, Esop, Homer, Plato". [Blake is referring to a selection of influential authors/characters from the Bible and classical literature]

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book, Unknown

  

Homer : unknown

"What is it sets Homer, Virgil and Milton in so high a rank of Art? Why is the Bible more Entertaining and Instructive than any other book? Is it not because they are addressed to the imagination, which is spiritual sensation, & but mediately to the understanding or Reason?"

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book, Unknown

  

Francis Bacon : Advancement of Learning, Part 2, P.47

"Consider what Lord Bacon says: 'Sense sends over to Imagination before Reason have judged...See Advancement of Learning, Part 2, P.47 of first Edition".

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

John Milton : unknown

"Now my lot in the Heavens is this, Milton lov'd me in/childhood & shew'd me his face./Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper/ years gave me his hand;/ Paracelsus & Behmen appear'd to me," Poem in letter to John Flaxman Letter 19 12th Sept 1800 explaining Blake's most influential reading.

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      

  

Giordano Bruno : unknown

"I shall not be able to avail myself of the assistance of Bruno's fairies." [Reference to writings of Giordano Bruno 1548-1600. Italian Heretic philosopher - according to editorial footnote]. Letter 21 to William Hayley

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      

  

Homer : Iliad

"Blake and I read every Evening that copy of the Iliad which your namesake of St Paul's was so good as to send me, comparing it with the 1st edition and with the Greek as we proceed - we shall be glad to see the odyssey also, as soon as it is visible - & with it the pages of the Iliad that were not dispatched from the press, when our copy arrived". Letter from William Hayley to John Johnson Letter 37

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

Francis Bacon : 

"Bacon & Newton would prescribe ways of making the world heavier to me, & Pitt would prescribe distress for a Medical potion;" in same letter he talks about Mr Hayley's library being nearly finished. Letter to Thomas Butts. Letter 31. 11th September 1801.

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      

  

William Gilpin : 3 Essays on Picturesque Beauty

"Perhaps Picturesque is somewhat synonymous to the word Taste, which we should think improperly applied to Homer & Milton, but very well to Prior or Pope. I suspect that the application of these words are the Excellencies of an inferior order, & which are incompatible with the Grand style... So says Sir Joshua, & so say I;" quotes Sir Joshua Reynolds to William Gilpin in '3 essays on Picturesque Beauty' by William Gilpin in letter to Thomas Butts

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

  

 : The New Testament

"I go on Merrily with my Greek & Latin; am very sorry that I did not begin to learn languages early in life as I find it very Easy; am now learning my Hebrew [ABC]. I read Greek as fluently as an Oxford scholar & the Testament is my chief master: astonishing indeed is the English Translation, it is almost word for word & if the Hebrew Bible is as well translated... we need not doubt of its having been translated as well as written by the Holy Ghost." Letter 43 to James Blake 30th Jan 1803

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: William Blake      Print: Book

 

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