Notebook of William Blake
The Notebook of William Blake was used by William Blake as a commonplace book from to 1818.
Description
The Notebook consists of 58 leaves and contains autograph drafts by Blake of poems and prose with numerous sketches and designs, mostly in pencil. Containing two pages of preface, alongside 94 pages of sketches, each page is approximately 159 x 197mm. The original leaves were later bound with a partial copy of 'All that is of any value in the foregoing pages' that is Rossettis' transcription of Blake's notebook.Ideas of Good & Evil
At first the Notebook belonged to Blake's favourite younger brother and pupil Robert who made a few pencil sketches and ink-and-wash drawings in it. After death of Robert in February 1787, Blake inherited the volume beginning it with the series of sketches for many emblematic designs on a theme of life of a man from his birth to death. Then, reversing the book he wrote on its last pages a series of poems of. He continued the book in 1800s returning to the first pages. All together the Notebook contains about 170 poems plus fragments of prose: :s:Notebook#1807|Memoranda, Draft for Prospectus of the Engraving of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, Public Address, A Vision of the Last Judgment. The latest work in the Notebook is a long and elaborated but unfinished poem :s:The Everlasting Gospel |The Everlasting Gospel dated c. 1818.On the page 4 is placed a short humorous poem :s:When a Man has Married a Wife|"When a Man has Married a Wife..." and a picture above showing of a man and woman rising from bed in a sparsely furnished room that could be Blake's own. The line of text obscured by the picture "Ideas of Good & Evil" served probably as a title to 64 following picture emblems, 17 of which were used for the book "For Children: The Gates of Paradise". D. G. Rossetti, A. C. Swinburne, and W. B. Yeats in their publications of Blake's poetry used this as a title for the series of poems from the manuscripts. In 1905 John Sampson issued the first annotated publication of all these poems and created a detailed descriptive :s:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals/Poems from the Rossetti Manuscript#INDEX TO 'THE ROSSETTI MS.'|Index to 'The Rossettt MS.'. It follows by some other scholarly publications edited by Geoffrey Keynes, David V. Erdman & together with D. K. Moore, Alicia Ostriker, Gerald E. Bentley Jr., etc.
In the introduction of his publication D. G. Rossetti gave to these poems a following presentation:
Poems of 1793
The section of contains 63 poems that include drafts versions of 16 poems entered the collection of Songs of Experience, which have been placed here in the following order:", p.109
Some of these drafts are significantly different from their last versions, for example ":s:Infant Sorrow |Infant Sorrow" of the Notebook is much more expanded and composed of nine quatrains instead of two that were chosen for the Songs of Experience. Also it is interesting to compare the most famous Blake's poem "The Tyger" with its two earlier Notebook versions |"The Tyger", 1st draft and :s:The Tyger .
The genre of most of the poems of this section can be defined as :s:Songs and Ballads|Songs and Ballads. Some of them reflect the political and social climate of that time:
...", p.113 rev
...", p.113 rev
:s:Why should I care for the men of thames|✶✶✶
:s:Silent, Silent Night|✶✶✶
Some other of these poems rather belong to the genre of :s:Satiric verses and epigrams from Blake's Notebook|Satiric verses and epigrams, like the following:
, p.101 rev
:s:Motto to the Songs of Innocence & of Experience |Motto to the Songs of Innocence and of Experience
This motto, which was never engraved by Blake, is not found in any copy of the Songs of Innocence and of Experience.
Poems of 1800–1803
There are 10 poems in the Notebook written during Blake's life in Felpham, a village in West Sussex. Here is the one of his most characteristic poems of that period::s:Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau|✶✶✶
Poems of 1808–1811">:s:Notebook#c.1808-1811">Poems of 1808–1811
The most of 92 texts of this section are epigrams, gnomic verses or fragments addressed to Blake's friends and enemies, to painters and poets as well as some different historical or mythological characters and even to God. Here are typical examples:, p.23
", p.73
, p.32, p.46
:s:Was I angry with Hayley who usd me so ill|✶✶✶
:s:To God|To God
In the following short fragment Blake speaks of himself and his own spiritual experience in his babyhood:
:s:The Angel that presided oer my birth|✶✶✶
There is also a draft of famous Blake's motto from his poem Jerusalem The Emanation of the Giant Albion'':
:s:I give you the end of a golden string|✶✶✶
But there in "Jerusalem" at the beginning of the chapter 4 it is given in a combination with other 4 mysterious lines:
Designs
The Notebook is full of Blake's sketches and designs almost on every page. Here is the index of the first 25 pages :... and so on.
These sketches often serve as the sources for Blake's later works, illustrations of his books, engravings, watercolors, etc. Here are some examples:
| Image | Description | Image | Description | Image | Description |
| attrib. to Robert Blake: Oberon and Titania Reclining on a Poppy , Monochrome wash drawing, c. 1786–87. Butlin 201.5, p.13 British Library, London, England | William Blake: Oberon and Titania , from The Song of Los, copy A, Relief etching with color printing and hand colouring. 1795 object 5 British Museum | William Blake: Oberon and Titania , from The Song of Los, copy C, Relief etching with color printing and hand colouring. 1795 object 5 Morgan Library and Museum, New York, USA | |||
| Tiger. Ink sketch from Notebook, p.6 | Tiger. Engraving from Designs to a Series of Ballads of William Hayley, copy 1, 1802, Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California, USA | The Tyger. Songs of Innocence and of Experience, copy Y, 1825, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA | |||
| The inscription: Thus the traveller hasteth in the Evening Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.15 | The Traveller hasteth in the Evening 14 Publishd 17 May 1793 by WBlake Lambeth Engraving from For Children. The Gates of Paradise, 1793, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., USA | The Traveller hasteth in the Evening 14 Publishd 17 May 1793 by WBlake Lambeth Engraving from For the Sexes. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, c. 1825 Morgan Library and Museum | |||
| The inscription: Ah luckless babe born under cruel star And in dead parents baleful ashes bred Full little weenest thou what sorrows are Left thee for portion of thy livelihed Spenser Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.19 | Alas! Engraving from For Children. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 9, 1793, Library of Congress | 7 What are these? Alas! the Female Martyr Is She also the Divine Image Publishd 17 May 1793 by WBlake Lambeth Engraving from For the Sexes. The Gates of Paradise, 1825, object 9 Inscribed in graphite lower center: "7. One dies! Alas! the living and dead! One is slain! and one is fled! Blake's 'Key'." Yale Center for British Art at Yale University in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, USA Paul Mellon Collection | |||
| Oothoon & the Nymph-Marigold. Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.28 | Oothoon & the Nymph-Marigold. Relief etching with monotyped color from Visions of the Daughters of Albion, copy G, object 3, 1795 Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA | Oothoon & the Nymph-Marigold. Relief etching with monotyped color from Visions of the Daughters of Albion, copy O, object 3, c. 1818 British Museum | |||
| Nebuchadnezzar. Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.44 | Nebuchadnezzar. Colour print, ink and watercolour on paper, 1795/c.1805 Tate Britain, London, England | Nebuchadnezzar. Etching and watercolour on paper, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, copy I, 1827 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England. | |||
| Count Ugolino and his sons in prison Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.59 | Does thy God O Priest take such vengeance as this? Engraving from For the Sexes. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, c. 1825 Morgan Library and Museum | Count Ugolino and his sons in prison c.1826. pen, tempera and gold on panel Fitzwilliam Museum | |||
| The inscription: What we hope we see Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.61 | Fear & hope are – Vision. Engraving from For Children. The Gates of Paradise, 1793, Yale Center for British Art | Fear & hope are – Vision. Engraving from For the Sexes. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, c. 1825 Morgan Library and Museum | |||
| The inscription: I found him beneath a tree in the Garden Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.63 | I found him beneath a Tree Engraving from For Children. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 3, 1793, Library of Congress | I found him beneath a Tree Engraving from For the Sexes. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 3, c. 1825 Morgan Library and Museum | |||
| The inscription: he rears from off the pool His mighty stature Milton Pencil sketch from Notebook, p.91 | Fire Engraving from For Children. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 7, 1793, Library of Congress | Fire Engraving from For the Sexes. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 7, c. 1825 Morgan Library and Museum | |||
| The inscription: Thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God- Ezekiel Two sketches from Notebook, p.94 | Air Engraving from For Children. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 6, 1793, Library of Congress | Air Engraving from For the Sexes. The Gates of Paradise, copy D, object 6, c. 1825 Morgan Library and Museum | |||
| Satan with a shield and spear, sketch from Notebook, p.112 | Satan Exulting over Eve. Graphite, pen and black ink, and watercolor over color print, illustration of Paradise Lost, 1795. 1795. The Getty Center, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA | Satan Exulting over Eve. Medium Colour print, ink and watercolour on paper mounted on canvas, illustration of Paradise Lost, 1795. Tate Britain |