How Does Blake Move from Innocence to Experience

How Does Blake Move from Innocence to Experience

  • Submitted By: blaine
  • Date Submitted: 05/24/2008 2:29 PM
  • Category: History Other
  • Words: 1649
  • Page: 7
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The term `romantic' first appeared in the 18th Century and originally meant `romantic like'. But from about 1750 - 1870 there was a movement in literature and the romantic era was created along with the `romantic poets'. The first generation of romantic poets were Wordsworth, Blake and Coleridge. These poets changed the face of English poetry. Being the era of passion the `romantics' were interested in individuality imagination and nature rejecting the values of the 18th century. The French revolution was their main inspiration in writing when times of change were being questioned and tested. They were interested in feelings not facts during a time of the industrial revolution when there was a shift in values and concerns. They expressed new political ideas emphasising equality and brotherhood. Wordsworth, Blake and Coleridge managed to inspire later poets Keats and Shelly to write about society and times they lived in. The `romantics' spread throughout Europe inspiring artists and musicians also. Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Shelly's work encompassed some of the most lyrical and passionate poems of all English poetry Born on the 28th of November 1757, Blake was a son of a hosier, paying for his son to have only a modest education. He apprenticed in 1771 as an engraver for seven years ending to study painting for a short period of time, then leaving in the belief of creating his own system of art and he and not enslaved by another mans. Producing his first poems in 1789.

Blake created new symbols and myths in order to protect his highly individual visions. Blake was both a poet and an artist who associated the break with tradition, protesting against the cold and repressive nature of religious doctrines. He was not interested in the strict `correctness' of art and poetry but was more concerned with bringing out the imagination of what an experience meant to him.

The purpose of his poetry is to startle the...

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