SOURCE: A review of Blake, in Christianity and Literature, Vol. 48, No. 3, Spring, 1999, pp. 374-76.

In the following review, Fulwiler offers a positive evaluation of Blake.

Effectively interweaving recurring topics of religion, spiritual matters, visions, the Bible, and the autodidacticism of William Blake, Peter Ackroyd repeatedly refers to the contraries, or oppositions, in the life and personality as well as the verbal and visual works of his subject [in Blake]; in so doing, he reminds the reader of Blake’s own declaration that “Without contraries is no progression.” From the three opening chapters treating the early religious influences on Blake through intermediate sections of the biography concerning subsequent periods and those tracing the closing years of Blake’s life, the author emphasizes the circumstances and events that rendered the visionary engraver-painter-poet unique among creators of great art. It should be noted that Ackroyd prefers the designation of engraver to...