Which is better, Milton or Blake?

Milton

Blake, Milton is a meme

memes are a meme

I get kind of annoyed with them too sometimes. Hoarding all those pine cones for themselves. Conical assholes.

Blake, also more correct about reality

both fit their own time. as today we are closer to blake, that is our answer.

but they both reached the essentials so that is pointless to as beyond a historical pov.

Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.
And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the wayes of God to men.

blake or pic related

What is the essential introductory book to Blake? I'd prefer it was longer rather than shorter if need be.

Songs of Experience

>reccing Experience without Innocence
The Book of Urizen is also a good start for his freaky personal mythology, though a bit more consciously "epic". You can even read it as a gnostic mirror version of Paradise Lost, where Urizen's creation is a source of horror, and Los' eternal rebellion is the only hope. Urthona being ripped from Urizen's side to marry Los and birth Orc to rise against him has obvious parallels to the Adam/Eve/Jesus story, etc. As well as the obvious thing in Christian art where God tends to look like the King at the time.

fucking BASED milton

blake is definitely good but come on its no contest

How so?
How can you compete with this?

I'm just glad Veeky Forums has decent threads about these mad lads now

What's the link between him and the others?

Shelley

Frye's Fearful Symmetry, but read Kathleen Raine's Blake and Tradition instead.

I think I'm changing my mind to Milton but I'm not sure so just ignore what ive said thus far. I don't feel well read enough to choose one or the other. I dont read a lot of english literature and have only read paradise lost by milton and only a bit of blake. best of luck!
not sure just like his work

This is how it works, user.
One reads Milton at 19 or so and finds the story far less noble than one expected, in places even silly, but ultimately readable and somewhat intetesting with lots to think about. Then one pushes on through the Romantics beginning with Blake and Burns, and in the process really becoming interested in the poetic side of things, the power of language and whatnot. Eventually when perhaps 24 or so one goes back to re-read Paradise Lost and is completely blown away. In other words, once the poetry of Shelley, Keats et al becomes something really liked, Milton's greatness becomes really apparent.

Lycidas is the greatest poem in the english language and Paradise Lost and Comus are incomparable.
Blake is good but spotty and not nearly the craftsman. Blake does have sincerity in his favor but not "genius"

You know you're being very controversial with that last part!

Best post

I agree with you about Lycidas:

Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to th'world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed."

It gets me emotional every time.

I'm aware! It's probably the hottest take I have. Can't deny he comes close to genius in Marriage in Heaven and Hell.
I feel like Blake resonates with me as a person but Milton resonates with me also as a poet.

I really appreciate Milton but perhaps weirdly as a craftsman - Blake baffled me for a long time, and then quite at random one day his poems and paintings just seemed to match so well, and his verse flourished in my mind as so brilliantly inventive in some strange, sudden and joyous epithany. So now I quite adore Blake, he's one of those people who will never seem quite real and always quite magical, Milton's a little easier to chart and imagine with his prose and early works alongside Paradise.

They were both formidably grumpy men. Milton perhaps moreso.