ABSTRACT
The commonest criticism of William Blake is that he was a man of unrestrained imagination, whereby it is implied, not that he was too fond of giving to airy nothings a local habitation, but more simply that he was the victim of aimless phantasy—a muddle-headed person without a sane sense of values. Where Blake was original was in breaking down compartmented ideas of the function of imagination. He announced not the religion of art, but of imagination. “Art for art’s sake” is the pursuit of imagination for imagination’s sake. Blake was one with Jacob Boehme in his belief in the creative power of the Imagination and his consciousness that all true knowledge was knowledge of God; but Blake is distinctive in that he joins hands with Pope in the belief that the proper study of mankind is man. When Blake wrote “The Divine Image” he perceived God as man and the vision filled him with worship.
