Уильям Блейк в русской культуре (1834–2020)

34

«He was barely known to the writers such as Wordsworth and Coleridge with whom he is now yoked in anthologies of English poetry».

35

«a perfectly mad poem called Jerusalem».

36

«There is no doubt this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the Sanity of Lord Byron & Walter Scott!»

37

«I have this morning been reading a strange publication – viz. Poems with very wild and interesting pictures, as the swathing, etched (I suppose) but it is said – printed and painted by the Author, W. Blake. He is a man of Genius – and I apprehend, a Swedenborgian – certainly, a mystic empathically You perhaps smile at my calling another Poet, a Mystic; but verily I am in the very mire of commonplace common-sense compared with Mr. Blake, apo- or rather anacalyptic Poet, and Painter!»

38

«Blake's prophetic visions thus do not reveal previously hidden truths, but return any glimmer of truth to obscurity».

39

«Title page and the following emblem contain all the faults of the Drawings with <…> few beauties».

40

«a Babe two days old does not, cannot smile – and innocence and the very truth of Nature must go together. Infancy is too holy a thing to be ornamented».