The Portable William Blake by William Blake, edited by Alfred Kazin
This is a more complete collection than the audiobook I listened to before. However, it still has gaps. Some of the poems are just "selections" from a greater work. I've added dates primarily for ones that have complete works and a single date. His works tend to be very "grand" in scope. He has an elaborate mythology created. He used pictures and words, so would probably be right at home as a comic book author today. He has a large scale universe with grand mythological porportions.
There is No Natural Religion (1788) - a logical deduction series that looks at man being limited by senses. God is infinite. Man is Finite.
All Religions are One (1788) - Another logical deduction. This one uses a "poetical genius" as the source of all religions.
Songs of Innocence - these were
Songs of Experience
Additional Poems
Verses and fragments from the Rossetti and Pickering manuscripts
Selections from the Letters
The Prophetic Books
- The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793) - see previous entry
- For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise
- The Book of Thel (1789) - A sort of love poem. She is a deific woman who is all consuming. The boem ends with comparisons to many body parts.
- Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793) - tied a bit of love with mythological grandeur.
- America - A Prophecy (1793) - Has a mixture of historical events and figured tied together with elaborate tales from Blake's mythology
- Europe (1794) - does mention Music of the Spheres. Did Coldplay get ideas here? Other than a few references such as England and Thames, this is more of a mythological world than identifiable Europe
- The First Book of Urizen (1794) - reminded me of Marvel works. This is a more typical epic poem of super beings
- The Book of Ahania (1795) - Urizen is mentioned a lot in this work that extends the universe
- The Book of Los (1795) - another related Urizen work
- The Song of Los (1795) - ties together Urizen with biblical and contemporary figures
- Selections From ”The Four Zoas'' (1797) (or Vala) - This has nine "nights" each of which is a vvery long epic poem in its own right. It includes much of Blake's mythology
- Selections From “Milton''
- Selections From “Jerusalem''
From The Laocoön Group
From A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, Poetrical and Historical inventions...
From Public Address [From the Rosetti MS.]
On Homer's Poetry and on Virgil (1820) - short prose from Blake discussing old poets
Marginalia, I
Epigrams and Verses Concerning Sir Joshua Reynolds
Marginalia, II
Epigrams, Verses, and Fragments
Fragments - Inscription in the autograph album of William Upcott
The Everlasting Gospel (1818) - a look at Christianity and musings on the details of events from the Bible
A Vision of the Book of Job
From A Vision of the Last Judgemet [From the Rosetti MS]
The federalist papers are a series of articles defending the US consitution. It is not a "story" and is a struggle to get through. (It seems to be the type of source that you would use to extract "quotes" to support some viewpoint.) Many of the points are still applicable today. Some of the points are verified in the negative. In defending the president, one key point is that access to repeat elections is unfettered. Oops. Maybe the "lame duck" second term presidents we have is part of our problems today. Also, today's representative constituency has far exceeded the "optimal size".