William Blake (1757-1827) was an English poet, artist, and printmaker. Although largely unrecognized during his lifetime, he is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. He is held in high regard by critics for his expressiveness and creativity and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. He produced a diverse and symbolically rich body of works that embraced the imagination as "the body of God" or "human existence itself." Reverent of the Bible but hostile to the Church of England, he was influenced by the ideals and ambitions of the French and American revolutions, as well as by such thinkers as Emanuel Swedenborg.
~~tag-text~~
The work was composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period of radical foment and political conflict immediately after the French Revolution. The title is an ironic reference to Emanuel Swedenborg's theological work Heaven and Hell published in Latin 33 ye... SEE MORE