William Blake

'To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour' William BlakeWilliam Blake was a poet and artist.

Born in Soho in the eighteenth century, the son of a shopkeeper, he is now acclaimed as a radical left-field artist.

Most recently, the Tate held an exhibition of his work: 'Magnificent ... reveal's Blake's vision at its most vivid and strange' GUARDIANBlake's written work was equally vivid.

A major poet of the Romantic age, the full range of his poetry includes the joyful and sorrowful, the childlike and complex - and illustrates his original and prophetic vision.

Considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic opinions, he is now revered for the depth of his poetry and art, and the philosophical undercurrents intrinsic to all his creative work. 'If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they'd immediately go out''The imagination is not a state; it is the human existence itself'