Pl. 11 – The School Boy
1789
William Blake hated the idea of children being cooped up in classrooms, and this page proves it! The poem 'The School Boy' complains that going to school on a beautiful summer morning 'drives all joy away,' comparing a student to a bird trapped in a cage. The text is framed by twisting vines and leaves, with a figure climbing the trellis on the right, while three children sit at the bottom, seemingly enjoying the very freedom the poem describes. Blake created these 'illuminated books' using a special etching technique he invented, hand-coloring each page so no two copies are exactly alike.
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