William Blake

Algernon Charles Swinburne helped prepare Alexander Gilchrist’s biography of Blake for publication, but he grew to dislike the finished book. A few years later, Swinburne published his own assessment of Blake’s life and work. This book is useful for its commentary on Blake’s prophetic poems—works largely ignored by Gilchrist—as well as for its characterization of Blake as a rebel. The idea that Blake knowingly set himself in opposition to society, both artistically and philosophically, would come to dominate later discussions of the artist’s work.