Blake’s Synaesthesia: The Testimony of Crabb Robinson

G.E. Bentley Jr. has written that Henry Crabb Robinson’s diaries and notes ‘give far fuller information about Blake’s conversations than may be found anywhere else.’ By the time he met Blake socially at a dinner given by Eliza Aders (b.1785) on 10 December 1825, he ‘had seen the 1809 exhibition, read his Descriptive Catalogue, and written an essay about him [in the Vaterländisches Museum, 1810].’ His notes, taken verbatim and apparently written down on the day, or day after, their meetings subsequent to Aders’ dinner, are an extremely valuable resource. They are earnest in tone yet also emotionally distanced by a scepticism belied by Crabb Robinson’s eagerness to faithfully record Blake’s ideas.