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Summary: Bentley's Generous Act
Review: The scholarship that works through this book is obviously one of love and devotion of many many years. Bentley's sorting out of events in Blake's life is amazingly well researched - it is the first Blake biography that does not have that usual blur of focus that leaves one more mystified than enlightened. Blake's contemporaries, friends, enemies, patrons, etc. are all given voice through their own extant letters, articles . . - this contextualizes him beautifully and clears the field of critical debris that has grown out over the centuries. In fact, it is Bentley's sober critical eye (of fairness) which is so refreshing - his sense of balance is impeccable. Only a lifetime lover of Blake could hit so consistently true tones. But if you're arriving to this book looking for critical scholarship of the work and myth than you're walking through the wrong door. This book is not about the minutae of the work (see Northrop Frye for that) - it assumes already that one is also a lover and "understander" of the work. This book is about the man - written and informed, of course, by the man's work, but is a book about Blake's life - not a treatise on Urthona. Yes, I recommend this book. Walk on in and stroll around.
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Summary: Why Blake Matters
Review: This biography concentrates too much on Blake's occupation as an engraver and glosses over his reputation as a poet and visionary. Such a bluntly factual, objective account of Blake seems out of keeping with his spiritual enthusiasm and disdain for the factual (i.e. the physical world). But this book did help me develop an appreciation for Blake. The "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" did not impress me because they seemed to be the epitome of maudlin Christian sentimentality. However, Bentley's biography makes it clear that Blake was not a conventional Christian. I was impressed by the importance Blake placed on the imagination, creativity, and the arts as the true expressions of spirituality and the sublime. I also admire Blake's spirited defense of imagination and the Poetic Genius. If Blake were alive today I think he would rant against the scholars rather than Empire. The scholars have laid claim to the poet's place in society and the only empire that exists today is the academic empire. Just look at the way a college campus expands and swallows up all the property around itself! It is the scholars who attack men of inspiration and genius because they need to promote poetry as something that can be taught and explicated. Blake does seem mad when he talks about speaking with angels and spirits but he probably did possess the faculty of a visionary imagination which caused him to express such reverence for the world of imagination, even to the extent of preferring it to the natural world. It reminds me of a quote from Rimbaud, "I came to find my mind's disorder sacred".
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