Image from Wikimedia
I must Create a System,
or be enslav’d by another Mans.
I will not Reason & Compare:
my business is to Create.
– William Blake, Jerusalem: Chapter 1, 1804
TIME and PLACE
William Blake was born 28 November 1757, and died 12 August 1827.
Two rooms in London, England (each with a bed), and between them a “room” in Heaven – a pleasant bank beside a river in moonlight.
CHARACTERS
WILLIAM BLAKE, considered by some to have been among the greatest visionaries in English history. A writer, poet, artist, and printmaker. Called by one authority “the greatest artist Britain has ever produced.” Considered by others, mad, or possibly just a fraud. A biographer’s nightmare. Dressed in old, threadbare clothes, his trousers shiny with wear.
CATHERINE BLAKE, wife of forty-five of Blake’s seventy years (1782 to 1827). Also dressed in shabby clothes.
YOUNG WILLIAM, Blake at a tender age.
ROBERT BLAKE, William Blake’s younger brother, born c. June 1762, died February 1787 at age twenty-four.
Numerous ANGELS and other speaking and non-speaking parts.
SCENE 1
YOUNG WILLIAM is hiding in his childhood bedroom.
VOICE OF
William!… William!… MASTER WILLIAM! Reveal yourself this instant.
YOUNG WILLAIM
[in hiding] I cannot.
VOICE OF
And why not?
YOUNG WILLAIM
[in hiding] I am too afraid.
VOICE OF
Be. Be afraid. Be very afraid. And come out now!
YOUNG WILLAIM
[in hiding] What are you going to do to me?
VOICE OF
Give you a piece of my mind.
YOUNG WILLAIM
[in hiding] Your voice booms, and makes me lose hope.
VOICE OF
My voice is the essence of calm and silence, Little One.
You want boom, fail to do what I tell you, and the world will give you all the boom, and more, your meek and fragile little body can take.
[pause] If you don’t come out, you don’t deserve to hear what I have to say.
[another pause] Go ahead then. Ignore my words.