Illustrations to Milton's "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" and Descriptions of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" Designs

The poetry of John Milton was important to Blake as both poet and artist from his earliest years. As he told John Flaxman in a letter of 12 September 1800, "Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face" (Erdman page 707). Several early drawings, such as the Satan, Sin, and Death of c. 1780 (Butlin 101), were probably inspired by Milton. In 1790-92, Blake loosely sketched several illustrations to Paradise Lost in his Notebook (Butlin 201; see Related Works, below). He composed his first series of water colors illustrating one of Milton's poems in 1801 when the Rev. Joseph Thomas commissioned eight designs for Comus (Butlin 527). Thomas later acquired (very probably on commission) a set of twelve water color illustrations to Paradise Lost in 1807 (Butlin 529) and six water colors illustrating "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" in 1809 (Butlin 538). Between 1808 and 1815, Blake produced similar (but not in every respect identical) sets of the Paradise Lost and "Nativity" designs for Thomas Butts (Butlin 529, 542), to which he added the twelve illustrations to "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso" c. 1816-20 (Butlin 543) presented here. Although we can be confident that Butts was the first owner of these illustrations and very probably commissioned them, there are no extant records of such a commission. The dating of the water colors is based on the presence of an "1816" watermark in six of the designs and on stylistic features, particularly the high degree of finish with fine brush strokes, indicative of Blake's later style.

Each design is accompanied by a separate sheet of paper on which Blake wrote in pen and ink a brief title, now considered the verso of each sheet because glued to a backing sheet. The rectos of the inscribed sheets bear pen and ink quotations, in Blake's hand, of the lines illustrated, to which Blake added his own comments on the motifs pictured. These quotations and comments are of course important in understanding Blake's pictorial responses to "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso." The rectos of these inscribed sheets are presented here, each following the water color to which it refers. Because of the backing sheets, the verso inscriptions can only be read with the aid of a strong backing light, but they cannot be photographed. Thus, they are included here in the transcriptions, but they are not reproduced.

As is typical of his work as an illustrator of the works of other poets, Blake paid close attention to the text, but this disciplined approach did not preclude the inclusion of his own interpretations. In itself the selection of passages to illustrate indicates Blake's emphasis on imaginative states of consciousness, including dreams and visions.

Blake's literary response to the life and works of John Milton finds its fullest expression in the illuminated book Milton a Poem (c. 1804-10; see Related Works, below).