Volume 13, Number 7 · October 23, 1969
Blake Triumphant
By John Crowe Ransom
Blake and Tradition The Bollingen Series XXXV: 11
by Kathleen Raine
Princeton, Vol. I, 460, Vol. II, 367 pp., $22.50 the set
Most readers acquainted with good poetry, if we want their opinion of William Blake, will cite Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. Doubtless they will speak well of these pieces as being both 'lyrical' and 'original.' But I think few readers can make much conversation about Blake's late and philosophical poems; these are not included within the common anthologies; and even if they were, they would probably seem too difficult to follow. Blake died in 1827 at the age of seventy. But it has taken more than a hundred years for competent scholars to know and appreciate him. As late as 1910, when the famous 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica appeared, the item about the poet Blake finished him off in a single sentence: 'With the publication of Songs of Experience Blake's poetic career, so far as ordinary readers are concerned, may be said to close.'
Review, 2251 words
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