The Life of William Blake. (HANDOUT SHEET.)

William Blake <Tab/>He lived in London all his life, except for a year he spent in Sussex. <Tab/>While in Sussex he suffered from writer's block. It was only in London, he wrote, that he could "carry on his visionary studies...see visions, dream dreams." <Tab/>In the June of 1780 it is suspected that Blake may have participated in …

…for a line in the poem London "The hapless soldiers sigh/ Runs in blood down palace walls." <Tab/>In the 18th Century London was in many respects still a medieval city, with a mercantile (trade) heart with rich and poor still living side by side. By the end of the century the city became increasingly sub-divided. It was this social sub-division that Blake wrote about in many of his poems.