YMMV / William Blake

• Fair for Its Day: "The Little Black Boy" from ''Songs of Innocence" depicts the black race as inherently fated to suffering for the protection of the white race. However, it also depicts them as fundamentally equal in God's view, and destined to dwell un-segregated in Heaven, which was a very radical idea for the time.
• Misaimed Fandom: "Newton", due to its "heroic" style, is widely misinterpreted as an approving depiction of Isaac Newton (eg in the three-dimensional sculpture by Eduardo Paolozzi inspired by it). In fact, the anti-materialist and mystically Christian Blake intended the work as a caricature mocking Newton for paying attention to insignificant things on Earth when he should have been thinking about his immortal soul. This is made clear by the engraving's original subtitle, Personification of Man Limited by Reason.
• Nightmare Fuel: Both the poems and his artwork, with Blake's detailed art style creating a range of truly bizarre images. Standouts include Blake's illustrations of the Divine Comedy and Book of Revelations, "The Ghost of a Flea◊ (especially in light of Alan Moore's interpretation of the image), the surreal, Goya-esque "The Night of Enitharmon's Joy"◊, this illustration◊ from ''The Book of Urizen'...but the worst is probably the eerie Thousand-Yard Stare in Blake's painting of Nebuchadnezzar◊.

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