Editing William Blake (section)

=== Creativity ===
[[Northrop Frye]], commenting on Blake's consistency in strongly held views, notes that Blake <blockquote>himself says that his notes on [Joshua] Reynolds, written at fifty, are 'exactly Similar' to those on Locke and Bacon, written when he was 'very Young'. Even phrases and lines of verse will reappear as much as forty years later. Consistency in maintaining what he believed to be true was itself one of his leading principles ... Consistency, then, foolish or otherwise, is one of Blake's chief preoccupations, just as 'self-contradiction' is always one of his most contemptuous comments.<ref name="fearfulsymmetry">[[Northrop Frye]], ''Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake'', 1947, Princeton University Press</ref></blockquote>

[[File:Blake after John Gabriel Stedman Narrative of a Five Years copy 2 object 2-detail.jpg|thumb|right|Blake's ''A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows'', an illustration to [[John Gabriel Stedman|J. G. Stedman's]] ''Narrative, of a Five Years' Expedition, against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam'' (1796)]]
Blake abhorred slavery,<ref>Parker, Lisa Karee, "A World of Our Own: William Blake and Abolition." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2006.
[http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/english_theses/16 online] (pdf, 11&nbsp;MB)</ref> and believed in racial and sexual equality.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}} Several of his poems and paintings express a notion of universal humanity: "As all men are alike (tho' infinitely various)". In one poem, narrated by a black child, white and black bodies alike are described as shaded groves or clouds, which exist only until one learns "to bear the beams of love":

<blockquote><poem>
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear,
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me. (23-8, E9)
</poem></blockquote>

Blake retained an active interest in social and political events throughout his life, and social and political statements are often present in his mystical symbolism. His views on what he saw as oppression and restriction of rightful freedom extended to the Church. His spiritual beliefs are evident in ''Songs of Experience'' (1794), in which he distinguishes between the Old Testament God, whose restrictions he rejected, and the New Testament God whom he saw as a positive influence.