"I must Create a System or be enslav'd by another Man's. / I will not Reason and compare: my business is to Create" (10:20-21).
Referred to as "a hopeless fool," an individual proved the idea that, "Many foolish ideas have been formed about Blake by looking at the naked text." William has often been misunderstood and disregarded as result of his seemingly unfounded or irrelevant works of art to the common man. Yet as we look deeper into his work, we see a man whose vison and insight go far beyond to scopes of many an intelligent person.
One contested idea about Blake lies in the point of his mythology. Is he original in his work, or a borrower of another man's ideas? Some would argue that he is not as revolutionarily trail-blazing as it may seem at first acquaintence with his writings. Even other renowned authors of the past seemed to glean off of age-old themes of myth and reality. However, as one commentator pointed out, "The use of the classical myth, then is impossible to Blake because of its having been abstracted from vision of the eternal reality." Blake saw his visons, unlike the conventional method of imagaining them from his own intellect.
I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the Immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards inot the Worlds of Thought,
into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagaination. (5:17-20)
Not all appreciate his efforts, however. An inquisitive eye can see throughout William Blakes' artisic controbutions to human society that his ideas seem to transend the basic themes of fabled myths of history.
"Some of those who saw the exhibit praised Blake's artistry, but others thought the paintings "hideous" and more than a few called him insane." There were, and still are, those who have difficulty appreciating what they fail to understand. As one commentator framed it, "...Blake could not 'write for blockheads' or those unwilling or incapable of thinking beyond the spatial and temporal limitations of this world."
As a result, perhaps, of the population around him failing to value or even see the uniquness of his writings and art, William and his wife Catherine were unsuccessful in bringing in sizable income and had neccesity to make do on very little material good. Their love was strong, however, and his wife was a source of comfort and joy to him even through the difficult pressures of life. On Blake's very deathbed, while his precious wife wept his demise, he told her, "'Stay, Kate! keep just as you are -- I will draw your portraint -- for you have ever been an angel to me."
In addition to Blake's supportive wife, he had a small troop of admirers who almost saw Blake as a holy being, calling him "divine" and molded their intellect and existence upon the beliefs of long ago, calling themselves "the ancients." They were perhaps drawn to his demeaner as well, seeing him as "approachable, kind and natural" which probably enabled Blake's influential presence in their lives. Conversely, others saw him as an angry indivudual, and the reason for this discrepency is perhaps related to whether or not the receiver of his words and actions aligned well with William Blake's views and situation. Nonetheless, whether Blake's artisic and imagainative legacy remains as the colorful romantic, the controversial artistic revolutionary and the confident weaver of pictures of the humanity. Blake has shown us a mysterious gift, as Northrop Frye reflects:
"The ability to paint and the ability to write have often belonged to the same person; but it is rare to find them equally developed." The watching world has been changed as a result.