title: The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)
author:  William Blake 
description: <b>William Blake </b>(1757-1827) was the son of a London hosier. Having attended Henry Parr's drawing school, he was apprenticed as an engraver to the Society of Antiquaries in 1772 and later was admitted to teh Royal Academy. He married in 1782 and published his first work, Poetical Sketches, in 1783. The first of his "illuminated books" was Songs of Innocence in 1789. Blake's work over the next twenty years chart the refining of his ideas and beliefs, from a recognition of repression in Songs of Experience to his epic works Milton and Jerusalem whihc present a renewed vision of reconciliation between humanity.<br><br> <b>Alicia Ostriker</b> is a professor of English at Rutgers University.
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  DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS
  
  
  GENERAL EDITOR: STANLEY APPELBAUM  
  EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: THOMAS CROFTS
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Copyright
  
  
  Copyright © 1995 by Dover Publications, Inc.
  
  
  All rights reserved under Pan American and International Copyright
  Conventions.
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
  
  Bibliographical Note
  
  
  This Dover edition, first published in 1995, is a new selection by David and
  Virginia Erdman from The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, edited by
  David Erdman, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965.
  The introductory Note, table of contents and index of titles and first lines
  have been prepared specially for the present edition.
  
  
    
  
  
  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
  
  
  Blake, William, 1757-1827.
  
  
  [Poems. Selections]
  
  
  Blake’s selected poems / edited by David and V