I Believed You, William Blake

Frank Turner's Tales From No Man's Land

Somethin' Else

History

4.8 • 674 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Frank is joined by poet, playwright and translator Sasha Dugdale to discuss the woman behind the song I Believed You, William Blake. Catherine Blake was the wife of the great visionary, painter and poet, who played a crucial role in his life. As well as running the household and keeping him (relatively) sane, she took an active role in his art; assisting with painting, printing and engraving. During his lifetime William Blake enjoyed very little success. It was Catherine who, after his death, began the process of his public rehabilitation and rise to fame. It’s perhaps down to her that we know about him at all.

This episode features an extract from Sasha Dugdale's book Joy. Published by Carcanet Press, it received the 2016 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.

You can buy and stream Frank's album No Man's Land here.

This episode was produced by Hayley Clarke and the executive producer was Peggy Sutton. There was additional production from Paul Smith, Steve Ackerman, Josh Gibbs and Charlie Caplowe. Tales from No Man’s Land is produced by Frank Turner, Xtra Mile Recordings and Somethin’ Else.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Frank Turner.
0:09.2	Welcome to Tales from No Man's Land, a podcast that accompanies my album, No Man's Land.
0:14.4	It's about 13 women from history who you probably haven't heard of, but definitely should have.
0:20.4	Their stories are fascinating, moving, funny,
0:22.9	and most importantly, worth celebrating and sharing.
0:33.3	Welcome back to Tales from No Man's Land with me, Frank Turner.
0:38.8	Unbelievably, we are now halfway through the podcast, which is great and also means the Enders in sight, which is a bit sad, but there's much more to come.
0:45.6	And if you've missed any of the episodes that we've had so far, please do take the time to head back to wherever you get your podcast from and listen to the people we've already talked about.
0:55.0	And I'm very excited that this is release week for my album, No Man's Land. It's out now and
1:00.6	you can find it wherever you get your music from, whether that's at a record store or
1:04.1	online or anywhere else. And on that album, you will find all of the songs that relate to this
1:08.5	podcast.
1:28.1	Today's episode is about a woman called Catherine Blake. You've probably heard of her husband,
1:33.2	William Blake, who was a painter and a poet and a visionary. He wasn't particularly appreciated in his own lifetime, but after his death in 1827, he was slowly recognised as one of the great
1:37.9	visionaries of the romantic era. In 1782, he met and married Catherine Boucher, and she stayed
1:43.4	with him for the rest of his life and played a huge role in everything that happened thereafter.
1:47.6	She assisted with painting, printing and engraving, as well as all the usual stuff that women were expected to do in that time, which, for some like William Blake, was slightly more complicated, given that he was a pretty unstable character.
1:59.8	William Blake died largely uncelebrated and unrecognised,
2:02.6	and his catalogue was in disarray,
2:04.6	and it was Catherine who took the time to collate his work
2:06.6	and save it for posterity.
2:08.6	But of course she herself has never received much in the way of recognition.
	...

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