060

  • Homer Invoking the Muse

  • 1805
  • William Blake (British 1757-1827), with John Flaxman (British 1755-1826)
  • Engraving
  • 25.3 x 35.4 cm., 9-15/16 x 13-15/16" image
    Inscription: "Achilles wrath to Greece the direful spring of woes unnumbered heavenly goddess sing! Pope's Homer's Iliad"
  • Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts Purchase, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 2010.4

Essay by Kelly Daniels, Associate Professor of English

Today we view William Blake as one of the central figures in British literature, but he was virtually unknown during his life. His illuminated books of poetry didn't sell, and his gallery openings attracted little attention. A painter, illustrator, engraver and, especially, a poet, he died poor. Lucky for him, he'd cultivated a close friendship with John Flaxman, one of England's greatest sculptors and illustrators, internationally famous at the time of the friendship for his drawings devoted to the ancients like the one featured here. Flaxman helped Blake earn a living as an engraver by continually referring clients to him (Bentley volume 12), and the esteem was mutual. Upon Flaxman's death, Blake called him a "Sublime Archangel" (Keyness 51). Like many visionaries, Blake was too strange for his contemporary audience. His religious views were unconventional (William Wordsworth considered him mad); his politics were radical. He was once tried for high treason for allegedly speaking against the king (Gilchrist 195). By contrast, Flaxman devoted his art to Christian and ancient mythological subjects, work that would have been deemed appropriate to eighteenth-century English society.

It is appropriate to represent Blake with this particular engraving. In it, we see Homer, the ancient Greek poet credited with writing the Iliad and Odyssey, invoking one of the Muses, goddesses who inspired creativity in literature and art. Notice that the Muse's lute is more ornate than the poet's, her superior position looking down on him. It may have been a combination of modesty and true belief that compelled poets such as Homer to give most of the credit of their work to the Muses. A convention of epic poetry and other long forms of literature was to begin by asking the Muses for inspiration, often requesting both content (sometimes accessed through memory) and the ability to write it. "O Muses," wrote Dante Alighieri in Canto II of The Inferno, "O high genius, aide me now! / O memory that engraves the things I saw, / Here shall your worth be manifest to all!" (13). Considering Blake's body of work, we know that he was no stranger to the muse, that is, to artistic inspiration. Some might say he'd have been better served invoking Ploutos, the Greek god of riches. But for reasons we'll never know, William Blake didn't use his talents for personal gain; he chose greatness over wealth.