William Blake

Blake's greatness is not in question, nor is his difficulty. Northrop Frye said that Blake is of the great English poets the one for whom the largest share of his work remains largely unread and unknown. An explanation for that is that Blake's longer poems, his prophetic works are extremely difficult to understand. Thus any presentation of his work should have copious notes, even if that presentation centers on that smaller lyric poetry for which Blake is best known to the world. This present edition contains an introduction to Blake's work which is far too short to really give an overall sense of his life and development. Nonetheless this edition contains much of the anthologized Blake, as well as selections from longer works like 'Milton' and 'Jerusalem'. A reader can thus find here the best of Blake. But if the reader needs to go beyond the understanding he can attain by his own reading then this work must be supplemented by others.