William Blake in the context of "Temptation"

The soul is the purported immaterial aspect or essence of a living being. It is typically believed to be immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that describe the relationship between the soul and the body are interactionism, parallelism, and epiphenomenalism. Anthropologists and psychologists have found that most humans are naturally inclined to believe in the existence of the soul and that they have interculturally distinguished between souls and bodies.

The soul has been the central area of interest in philosophy since ancient times. Socrates envisioned the soul to possess a rational faculty, its practice being man's most godlike activity. Plato believed the soul to be the person's real self, an immaterial and immortal dweller of our lives that continues and thinks even after death. Aristotle sketched out the soul as the "first actuality" of a naturally organized body—form and matter arrangement allowing natural beings to aspire to full actualization.

The perennial philosophy (Latin: philosophia perennis), also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a school of thought in philosophy and spirituality that posits that the recurrence of common themes across world religions illuminates universal truths about the nature of reality, humanity, ethics, and consciousness. Some perennialists emphasize common themes in religious experiences and mystical traditions across time and cultures; others argue that religious traditions share a single metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine have developed.

Perennialism has its roots in the Renaissance-era interest in neo-Platonism and its idea of the One from which all existence emerges. Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) sought to integrate Hermeticism with Greek and Christian thought, discerning a prisca theologia found in all ages. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) suggested that truth could be found in many—rather than just Biblical and Aristotelian traditions. He proposed a harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle and saw aspects of the prisca theologia in Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the Quran, Kabbalah, and other sources. Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) coined the term philosophia perennis.

Herman Northrop Frye CC FRSC (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century.

Frye gained international fame with his first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), which led to the reinterpretation of the poetry of William Blake. His lasting reputation rests principally on the theory of literary criticism that he developed in Anatomy of Criticism (1957), one of the most important works of literary theory published in the twentieth century. The American critic Harold Bloom commented at the time of its publication that Anatomy established Frye as "the foremost living student of Western literature." Frye's contributions to cultural and social criticism spanned a long career during which he earned widespread recognition and received many honours.

Henry Fuseli RA (/ˈfjuːzəli, fjuːˈzɛli/ FEW-zə-lee, few-ZEL-ee; German: Johann Heinrich Füssli [ˈjoːhan ˈhaɪ̯nʁɪç ˈfyːsli]; 7 February 1741 – 17 April 1825) was a Swiss painter, draughtsman, and writer on art who spent much of his career in Britain.

Many of his successful works depict supernatural experiences, such as The Nightmare. He produced painted works for John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery and for his own "Milton Gallery". He held the posts of Professor of Painting and Keeper at the Royal Academy. His style had a considerable influence on many younger British artists, including William Blake (1757-1827).

Serpents (Hebrew: נָחָשׁ, romanized: nāḥāš) are referred to in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in the religious traditions and cultural life of ancient Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Canaan. The serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life, healing, and rebirth.

Nāḥāš (נחש‎), Hebrew for "snake", is also associated with divination, including the verb form meaning "to practice divination or fortune-telling". Nāḥāš occurs in the Torah to identify the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is also used in conjunction with seraph to describe vicious serpents in the wilderness]. The tannin, a dragon monster, also occurs throughout the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Exodus, the staves of Moses and Aaron are turned into serpents, a nāḥāš for Moses, a tannin for Aaron. In the New Testament, the Book of Revelation makes use of ancient serpent and the Dragon several times to identify Satan or the Devil (Revelation 12:9; 20:2). The serpent is most often identified with the hubristic Satan, and sometimes with Lilith.

The art of the United Kingdom refers to all forms of visual art in or associated with the country since the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 and encompasses English art, Scottish art, Welsh art and Irish art, and forms part of Western art history. During the 18th century, Britain began to reclaim the leading place England had previously played in European art during the Middle Ages, being especially strong in portraiture and landscape art.

Increased British prosperity at the time led to a greatly increased production of both fine art and the decorative arts, the latter often being exported. The Romantic period resulted from very diverse talents, including the painters William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, John Constable and Samuel Palmer. The Victorian period saw a great diversity of art, and a far bigger quantity created than before. Much Victorian art is now out of critical favour, with interest concentrated on the Pre-Raphaelites and the innovative movements at the end of the 18th century.

A frontispiece in books is a decorative or informative illustration facing a book's title page, usually on the left-hand, or verso, page opposite the right-hand, or recto page of a book. In some ancient editions or in modern luxury editions the frontispiece features thematic or allegorical elements, in others is the author's portrait that appears as the frontispiece. In medieval illuminated manuscripts, a presentation miniature showing the book or text being presented (by whom and to whom varies) was often used as a frontispiece.

Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century. Scholars regard the publishing of William Wordsworth's and Samuel Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in 1798 as probably the beginning of the movement in England, and the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 as its end. Romanticism arrived in other parts of the English-speaking world later; in the United States, about 1820.

The Romantic period was one of social change in England because of the depopulation of the countryside and the rapid growth of overcrowded industrial cities between 1798 and 1832. The movement of so many people in England was the result of two forces: the Agricultural Revolution, which involved enclosures that drove workers and their families off the land; and the Industrial Revolution, which provided jobs "in the factories and mills, operated by machines driven by steam-power". Indeed, Romanticism may be seen in part as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, though it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment, as well as a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. The French Revolution had an important influence on the political thinking of many Romantic figures at this time as well.

"The Grave" is a blank verse poem by the Scottish poet Robert Blair. It is the work for which he is primarily renowned. According to Blair, in a letter he wrote to Philip Doddridge, the greater part of the poem was composed before he became a minister. Edinburgh editor and publisher John Johnstone stated that it was composed whilst Blair was still a student, although "probably corrected and amplified by his more matured judgement." The poem, 767 lines long, is an exemplar of what became known as the school of graveyard poetry.

Part of the poem's continued prominence in scholarship involves a later printing of poems by Robert Hartley Cromek which included illustrations completed by the Romantic poet and illustrator William Blake. He completed forty illustrations for the poem, twenty of which were printed in Cromek's edition. Blake's original watercolours for the prints were believed lost, until they were rediscovered in 2003.