The work of William Blake William Blake, visionary English poet and painter, precursor of English romanticism, combined the vocations of engraver, painter and poet. He was born on November 28, 1757, the son of a Londoner. Blake spent his entire life relatively quietly in London, with the exception of a stay in Felpham, on the south coast of England, from 1800 to 1803. Largely self-taught, Blake was however widely read and his poetry shows the influence of the German mystic Jakob. Boehme, for example, and Swedenborgianism. As a child, Blake wanted to become a painter. He was sent to drawing school at age 10 and at 14 was apprenticed to James Basire, an engraver. While frequently drawing at Westminster Abbey, he developed an interest in the Gothic style, which he combined with a taste for the art of Raphael, Michelangelo and Durer. He exhibited his first works in 1780, married Catherine Boucher in 1782 and published his first poems, Poetic Sketches, in 1783. However, he quickly withdrew them from circulation, apparently offended by the condescending preface written by a patron. Amid its traditional and derivative elements are allusions to its later innovative style and themes. Like all his poetry, this volume has reached few contemporary readers. Blake produced and published his other works himself, except those which remained in manuscript at his death, using his own unique method of engraving illustrations and text onto copper plates and coloring the volumes hand printed. . He executed numerous engravings for other people's books as well as watercolors and other types of paintings. Blake gave only... middle of paper ... as little is known during his lifetime, but his influence is evident in the work of several painters who knew him when he was an old man, particularly Samuel Palmer. He also influenced the Pre-Raphaelite painters of the 19th century and his first publisher was WB Yeats, who knew much of his poetry by heart. James Joyce, DHLawrence and Joyce Cary, among others, found inspiration in his writings and he had a considerable influence on modern literary criticism through the work of Northrop Frye. Today, Blake is one of the most discussed poets. Of those who actually knew Blake, Palmer left the most interesting assessment of him: “In him you saw the Creator, the Inventor... He was energy itself and spread around him an influence fiery, an atmosphere of life, full of ideas. . . It was a man without a mask.."