Editing William Blake (section)

== Later life ==
[[File:William Blake House in Felpham.JPG|thumb|right|The cottage in [[Felpham]], [[Blake’s Cottage]], where Blake lived from 1800 until 1803]]
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.<ref>Bentley, G. E, ''Blake Records'', p 341</ref> Gilchrist refers to "stormy times" in the early years of the marriage.<ref>Gilchrist, ''Life of William Blake'', 1863, p. 316</ref> Some biographers have suggested that Blake tried to bring a [[concubine]] into the marriage bed in accordance with the beliefs of the more radical branches of the [[Swedenborgianism|Swedenborgian Society]],<ref>Schuchard, MK, ''Why Mrs Blake Cried'', Century, 2006, p. 3</ref> but other scholars have dismissed these theories as conjecture.<ref>Ackroyd, Peter, ''Blake'', Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995, p. 82</ref>
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 rationalises the Book's unusual ending, but notes that he is speculating.<ref>Damon, Samuel Foster (1988). A Blake Dictionary</ref>

=== Felpham ===
In 1800, Blake moved to a [[Blake’s Cottage|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: A Poem in Two Books|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 "[[And did those feet in ancient time#Use as a national anthem|Jerusalem]]". Over time, Blake began to resent his new patron, believing that Hayley 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)

[[File:William Blake - Jerusalem, Plate 51 - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|'Skofeld' wearing "mind forged manacles" in ''[[Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion]]'', Plate 51]]

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.<ref>Wright, Thomas. ''Life of William Blake''. 2003, p. 131.</ref> Blake 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."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/williamblake1.html|title=The Gothic Life of William Blake: 1757–1827|website=www.lilith-ezine.com|access-date=18 November 2017|archive-date=12 October 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012185143/http://lilith-ezine.com/articles/williamblake1.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> Blake was cleared in the [[Chichester]] [[assize]]s 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".<ref>{{cite book |author=Lucas, E.V.|author-link=E. V. Lucas|title=Highways and byways in Sussex|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Highways_and_Byways_in_Sussex|publisher=Macmillan|location=United States|year=1904 |id=ASIN B-0008-5GBS-C}}</ref> Schofield was later depicted wearing "mind forged manacles" in an illustration to ''[[Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion]]''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Peterfreund |first=Stuart |title=The Din of the City in Blake's Prophetic Books |journal=[[ELH]] |volume=64 |issue=1 |date=Spring 1997 |pages=99–130 |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |doi=10.1353/elh.1997.0007 |jstor=30030248|s2cid=162326554  |issn = 0013-8304}}</ref>

=== Return to London ===
[[File:William Blake by John Flaxman c1804.jpg|thumb|right|Sketch of Blake from, circa 1804, by [[John Flaxman]]]]

Blake returned to London in 1804 and began to write and illustrate ''[[Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion|Jerusalem]]'' (1804–20), his most ambitious work. Having conceived the idea of portraying the characters in [[Geoffrey Chaucer|Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales|Canterbury Tales]]'', Blake approached the dealer [[Robert Cromek]], with a view to marketing an engraving. Knowing Blake 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 a result, he wrote his ''[[Descriptive Catalogue (1809)|Descriptive Catalogue]]'' (1809), which contains what [[Anthony Blunt]] called a "brilliant analysis" of Chaucer and is regularly anthologised as a classic of Chaucer criticism.<ref>Blunt, Anthony, ''The Art of William Blake'', p 77</ref> 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 (1808–86)|The Examiner]]'', was hostile.<ref>Peter Ackroyd, "Genius spurned: Blake's doomed exhibition is back", ''The Times Saturday Review'', 4 April 2009</ref>

[[File:William Blake 003.jpg|thumb|left|Blake's ''The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun'' (1805) is [[The Great Red Dragon Paintings|one of a series of illustrations]] of [[Book of Revelation|Revelation]] 12.]]

Also around this time (circa 1808), Blake gave vigorous expression of his views on art in an extensive series of polemical annotations to the ''Discourses'' of [[Joshua Reynolds|Sir Joshua Reynolds]], denouncing the [[Royal Academy]] as a fraud and proclaiming, "To Generalize is to be an Idiot".<ref>[[Lorenz Eitner]], ed., ''Neoclassicism and Romanticism, 1750–1850: An Anthology of Sources and Documents'' (New York: Harper & Row/Icon Editions, 1989), p. 121.</ref>

In 1818, he was introduced by George Cumberland's son to a young artist named [[John Linnell (painter)|John Linnell]].<ref>Bentley, G.E., ''The Stranger from Paradise'', Yale University Press, 2001, pp. 366–367</ref> A [[blue plaque]] commemorates Blake and Linnell at Old Wyldes' at North End, Hampstead.<ref name="EngHet">{{cite web| url=http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/discover/blue-plaques/search/blake-william-1757-1827|title=BLAKE, WILLIAM (1757–1827) & LINNELL, JOHN (1792–1882)|publisher=English Heritage| access-date=5 August 2012}}</ref> Through Linnell he met [[Samuel Palmer]], who belonged to a group of artists who called themselves the [[Ancients (art group)|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 [[William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job|illustrations]] for the ''[[Book of Job]]'', later admired by [[John Ruskin|Ruskin]], who compared Blake favourably to [[Rembrandt]], and by [[Ralph Vaughan Williams|Vaughan Williams]], who based his ballet ''[[Job: A Masque for Dancing]]'' on a selection of the illustrations.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

In later life Blake began to sell 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.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

[[File:Blake Dante Hell XII.jpg|thumb|William Blake's image of the [[Minotaur]] to illustrate ''Inferno'', Canto XII, 12–28, The Minotaur XII]]
The commission for [[Dante Alighieri|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 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:

{{blockquote|[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 the atmosphere of the three states of being in the poem.<ref>Bindman, David. "Blake as a Painter" in ''The Cambridge Companion to William Blake'', Morris Eaves (ed.), Cambridge, 2003, p. 106</ref>}}

[[File:Blake Dante Hell V.jpg|thumb|left|Blake's ''The Lovers' Whirlwind'' illustrates Hell in Canto V of [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]''.]]
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 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 the grim humour of the [[canto]]s).{{cn|date=April 2025}}

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 (Dante)|Inferno]]''; he is said to have spent one of the last [[shilling]]s he possessed on a pencil to continue sketching.<ref>''Blake Records'', p. 341</ref>