William Blake: an interactive approach to the context
The activity here is designed to provide material for discussion and exploration about the context in which William Blake lived and wrote. Click on the numbered tiles on the activity page to see a selection of visual reminders of the influences on the poet. It's an activity that will probably work best in pairs or groups, so that you can discuss together the images and their relationships to Blake. You will also need to consider whether there are other contextual aspects missing from the list!
Some of the images are obvious, some may be more challenging. You'll probably decide that several of them link to more than one of the suggested contextual areas. They include:
- Pictures of Blake himself
- Emanuel Swedenborg (the one holding a book)
- The Boston Tea Party
- Images of the industrial and agricultural changes taking place at the end of the Eighteenth Century
|
|
Blake's gravestone
|
- The cottage at Felpham, 'which Blake considered the dwelling of immortals' according to Peter Ackroyd
- London
- Thomas Paine
- The Gordon Riots
- French Revolution, including (of course) the guillotine
- Engravings from Blake's works, including Songs of Innocence and Experience, images of Christ and of the discovery of Abel's body by Adam and Eve.
If you need help identifying the images, or assessing their importance to Blake and to the time, make use of the resources list on the Blake resources page.
You will find it useful to read the help notes first - click on the large question mark to learn how to see all the images, to link them to the contexts and to add your own notes.
- Go to the activity now
- This activity is based on the interactive resources on NATE's Unlocking Literature CD-ROM for GCSE poetry. Find out more, and place orders, on the NATE site.
- For technical reasons, I regret that currently this activity will only work in Internet Explorer with Java enabled - if you cannot see the white activity area with numbered tiles, this means that your version of IE does not have Java enabled. Update it or seek help!
Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections Literary Connections
|
|
|
