William Blake for parlous times …

… William Blake and learning from Covid. On dying before you die.

Eternal perception, joyful dust, continual creativity, the resurrection of life and sparkling imagination comingle, Blake knew. Along with Tolkien and other writers, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Henry Corban, Blake was a passionate advocate for these qualities of true existence. They are not optional extras, surplus to living requirements, as if relics of the premodern age. Fantasy should not merely entertain. It is the heart of lives lived as human beings.