William Blake was born in London on 28 November 1757 to James and Catherine Blake. His father, James, was a hosiery (hosiery salesman) in London. Blake had four brothers, James, John, Richard and Robert; and a sister named Catherine (Harris 5). Blake got along better with his younger brother, Robert, as they shared an interest in art (Clarke 1). As a boy, Blake claimed to have had visions of God, spirits, prophets, and angels. It is said that when he was four years old he saw the head of God in his window. In his most famous vision, he saw the prophet Ezekiel under a tree and a tree of angels when he was nine years old ("The Early Years"). Although his parents believed he was lying, they took into consideration that their son was “different” and did not believe he would be successful in a traditional school environment (“Poets”). Then Blake was home-schooled by his mother until the age of ten. Blake was constantly alone as a boy “…to seek a world of imagination without fear of recrimination from others” (Harris 21). As a child, Blake spent his time engraving drawings of the Greek antiquities his father had bought him “(Early Years”). James and Catherine supported and encouraged Blake's artistic ability and enrolled him in Henry Par's drawing school in the Strand when Blake was 10 years old, there he began to write poetry (Harris 5). He liked the works of Shakespeare, Jonson and Spenser and ancient ballads as opposed to the current literature of the time ("The Young Artist"). Some of Blake's favorite artists ranged from Raphael, Michelangelo, Giulio Romano, Albrecht Dürer, and Maerten Heemskerck. (Merriman 2)In 1772, Blake was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire, the engraver of the London Society of antiquities, due to the high cost of dra...... half of the paper ......nius during the French Revolution period, aware of the imminent economic change and sick to the bone of the dominant hypocrisy…” (Hagstrum 97-98). ImplicationsCharles Swinburne, Percy Shelly, TS Elliot and James Joyce all drew their influence from Blake (Perfume 1). William Butler Yeats in particular was inspired by his philosophical and poetic ideas and even edited an edition of Blake's complete works (“Blake and Shelley”). Bob Dylan Alasdair Gray, Jim Morrison and Allen Ginsberg also have nods to Blake's poetry (“William Blake in Doors”). More recently his poems have been edited by U2, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Bruce Dickinson, M. Ward and Ulver (Maher 4). His poems inspired the characters of numerous 20th century writers. Blake was the muse of comics writers Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, R. Crumb and J.M. DeMatteis (Whitson 1).