O pretexto:
Aqui há dias, Joyce postou no Outras Bossas essa foto sua com o marido, tirada durante as gravações do Feminina, em 1980. Estão juntos há 32 anos. A dada altura, a cantora escreve assim:
«Quem nunca passou por isso, sorry. É bom demais, e não acontece a toda hora.»
A história em si:
On the day of his death, Blake worked relentlessly on his Dante series. Eventually, it is reported, he ceased working and turned to his wife, who was in tears by his bedside. Beholding her, Blake is said to have cried, «Stay Kate! Keep just as you are – I will draw your portrait – for you have ever been an angel to me.» Having completed this portrait (now lost), Blake laid down his tools and began to sing hymns and verses. At six that evening, after promising his wife that he would be with her always, Blake died. Gilchrist reports that a female lodger in the same house, present at his expiration, said, «I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel.»
[in Gilchrist, The Life of William Blake, London, 1863, 405.]
O antecedente:
In 1782, Blake met Catherine Boucher, who was to become his wife. At the time, Blake was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. Telling Catherine and her parents the story, she expressed her sympathy, whereupon Blake asked her, «Do you pity me?». To Catherine's affirmative response he responded, «Then I love you».
Blake married Catherine – who was five years his junior – on 18 August 1782 in St. Mary's Church, Battersea. Illiterate, Catherine signed her wedding contract with an 'X'.
The original wedding certificate may still be viewed at the church, where a commemorative stained-glass window was installed between 1976 and 1982.
Blake's marriage to Catherine remained a close and devoted one until his death. Later, in addition to teaching Catherine to read and write, Blake trained her as an engraver. Throughout his life she would prove an invaluable aid to him, helping to print his illuminated works and maintaining his spirits throughout numerous misfortunes.
Algumas notas que fazem diferença:
1.
George Richmond gives the following account of Blake's death in a letter to Samuel Palmer: “ He died ... in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ — Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten'd and he burst out Singing of the things he saw in Heaven.”
[Grigson, Samuel Palmer, p. 38]
2.
Catherine paid for Blake's funeral with money lent to her by Linnell. He was buried five days after his death – on the eve of his forty-fifth wedding anniversary – at the Dissenter's burial ground in Bunhill Fields, where his parents were also interred. Present at the ceremonies were Catherine, Edward Calvert, George Richmond, Frederick Tatham and John Linnell.
Following Blake's death, Catherine moved into Tatham's house as a housekeeper. During this period, she believed she was regularly visited by Blake's spirit. She continued selling his illuminated works and paintings, but would entertain no business transaction without first "consulting Mr. Blake".
[Ackroyd, Blake, 390]
3.
On the day of her own death, in October 1831, she was as calm and cheerful as her husband, and called out to him "as if he were only in the next room, to say she was coming to him, and it would not be long now".
[Blake Records, p. 410]
4.
On her death, Blake's manuscripts were inherited by Frederick Tatham, who burned several of those which he deemed heretical or too politically radical. Tatham had become an Irvingite, one of the many fundamentalist movements of the 19th century, and was severely opposed to any work that "smacked of blasphemy".
[Ackroyd, Blake, p. 391]
5.
Sexual imagery in a number of Blake's drawings was also erased by John Linnell.
[Marsha Keith Schuchard, Why Mrs Blake Cried: Swedenborg, Blake and the Sexual
Basis of Spiritual Vision, pp. 1-20]
6.
Since 1965, the exact location of William Blake's grave had been lost and forgotten, while gravestones were taken away to create a new lawn. Nowadays, Blake’s grave is commemorated by a stone that reads "Near by lie the remains of the poet-painter William Blake 1757-1827 and his wife Catherine Sophia 1762-1831". This memorial stone is situated approximately 20 metres away from the actual spot of Blake’s grave, which is not marked. However, members of the group Friends of William Blake have rediscovered the location of Blake's grave and intend to place a permanent memorial at the site.
["Friends of Blake" website e Coming up - William Blake" BBC Inside Out]
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