Eternity's Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake

If the phrase "method in madness" applies to any poet, it applies to William Blake most of all.Blake is not a fake wannabe artist. Picasso, Chagall, Munch all could have drawn realistic representational renderings of what they wanted to express, if they had chosen to do so. Dali, as creative and iconoclastic as any twentieth century artist, proved that fact with his exquisitely realistic yet impossible images. And when one looks at Blake's drawings, one is reminded of brutish or raw art, art unspoiled by preordained rules, unfettered with the chains forged by past masters. Like Picasso and Dali, Blake is free of all that.And like them, but unlike the poets and artists who came before him, Blake _chose_ to free himself. Or perhaps Blake was his own prisoner: he was condemned to be free, to use Jean-Paul Sartre's phrase, so he had no real choice in the matter.He came from what would today be called a solid lower middle class background. He was expected to ply a trade that would command decent wages. He was obviously gifted at drawing, so he was apprenticed to an illustrator and engraver. Blake could conceivably have used his ability to set himself up comfortably. He could have illustrated other people's mundane commissions and earned a very good living.But Blake's mad genius made that impossible for him. He is not like Bach or Da Vinci who cleverly worked with their patrons to satisfy their own artistic needs. Blake was much more like Beethoven, his own man, and even more like Gauguin: a man driven to say something intensely personal.Leo Damrosch doesn't spend much time on Blake's life. Blake married, happily it seems, but he and his wife Catherine remained childless. He found commissions tedious and did not pursue them. He found a patron, or rather a patron found him and took him in. Relations were not always easy, but for a while Blake was lodged and given time to work.Eternity's Sunrise isn't a biography. It presents not Blake's life, but his works. The book explains the lexicon of recurring symbols Blake drew and wrote of. Blake's corpus is unique. He was obsessed with England, with the spiritual side of his Christian religion, and he was inspired by Milton. He had the piercing, intense visions a biblical prophet and we could argue that he foresaw the "satanic mills" of the industrial revolution.And as many prophets were outcast, so was Blake. At the dawn of the Victorian age of Reason, in an era during which England's empire's knew no sunset, where Science would unlock the secrets of creation, Blake preached of pain and ecstasy, of misery and joy, of perdition and salvation.We can recognize Blake's figures. Nude, muscular men, clearly erotic but rising above only sexual love. He created characters: Albion, the four Zoas, Los, Milton, himself. There were Lambs, there were Tygers. There was innocence and experience. Eternity's Sunrise is a guide to all these images. For laymen, it is an indispensable guide to anyone who wants to make sense of what William Blake wanted to say.On top of that, the hardcover edition is a beautifully produced book. Printed on high quality paper, with 40 colour plates and many black and white plates, the book is slightly oversized but not so much that it would be uncomfortable to hold.Vincent Poirier, Quebec City.

One of the better books on Blake given that it is concise and not too technical. Half the book is text, half plates (or pictures of Blake's awesome art).Damrosch's book is easy to read and covers the main points of interest in a superior fashion to numerous ponderous works one reads on Blake and his times. This book is certainly head and shoulders above June Singer's book on Blake and Jung.It is recommended over Tobias Churton's book "Jerusalem," which mistakenly treats Blake both as a Christian and a Gnostic. He was neither. Those who advocate this line rarely provide us with substantial proof of their position. They simply wheel out one or two flimsy anecdotes found in the works of previous misguided authors. The proof that Blake was neither a card-carrying Christian or Gnostic is overwhelming, from his own work and from perceptive scholars such as Damrosch and others. Moreover, Churton's work "Jerusalem" appears to be a rehash of Kathleen Raine's masterly book "Golgonooza." I suggest one reads the latter rather than the former author.The main criticism is that before getting to an essential section on Blake's ideas about women and their role in the Fall of Spirit, Damrosch lingers on media-tasty bites such as Blake's possible insanity, homosexuality and misogyny. In doing so, he weakens the following section and his later remarks, thereby prejudicing the conclusions of most uninformed readers. An average reader is set up to summarily dismiss the section dealing with Blake's perceptive but controversial ideas on the female psyche. This is a subject that has never been sufficiently addressed by any author on Blake, no matter how otherwise competent.Damrosch and his editor clearly do not agree with Blake's ideas on women, and have customarily attempted to cast doubt on Blake's sanity before dealing with his unique theories on the subject. The author's own bias clearly mars this section, although it really does not matter because the section is short and not overly informative. It was written with enough basic information for most readers who probably share Damrosch's antipathy to probing insights and investigations that remove the mystique from women. Any reader who has placed women on pedestals will have no time for Blake in any case. One can see that Damrosch himself would rather have avoided writing the section in question, preferring to cover safer, far less controversial, areas of Blake's canon. So it is for most Blake scholars.Despite this kid-gloves approach, the book is worth reading for anyone trying to understand Blake's complex mind. Bear in mind, however, that the great poet was neither insane. homosexual or misogynistic. His vision into the nature of reality went as deep as it can go.Another good book for beginners is "Golgonooza: City of Imagination," by Kathleen Raine. Her other books on Blake are also worth reading. The best books on Blake are of an academic level so I won't list them here.

This is quite simply a brilliant book. Anyone with a love of Blake, or even an interest, should buy this. The book is beautifully written and wonderfully engaging. Books on Blake can be difficult to follow; Blake's corpus is not easy to represent clearly. Authors can make the mistake of too often apologising for the gaps in historical reference points. Damrosch makes no such apologies. His work here is authoritative and informative, whilst also be an immensely beautiful voyage of discovery. I have read numerous books on Blake but this author seemed fresh and new. My book of the year without any shadow of doubt. Superb.

This book has been a real and much looked for insight into Blake. It is a compelling and thrilling read. I learnt so much and it has deepened my respect for William Blake and all is visions.

as a Blake fan I find this book very interesting and satisfying - breaks beyond the cliches and good illustrations

Really good. I could have read another 100 pages, made me look very carefully at Blake's images.

A really lovely book - contents are wise and measured.