Klaipeda University
Institute of Continuing studies
Department of English Philology
Diana Griciuvien'
English Preromanticism: William Blake
Term Paper
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. M. Šidlauskas
2008
CONTENTS
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...............3
1. William Blake-a forerunner of English Romanticism 1 William Blake-a social critic of his own time………………………………………..6 2 William Blake’s ideas and the Modern World………………………………………6
2. “Songs of innocence and of Experience”-the most popular W.Blake’s poem book 1 The social significance of W. Blake’s work…………………………………………8 2 Paired poems-one of the most important characteristic……………………………....8…show more content… Many scholars, authors, and artists have recently turned to William Blake as to the most rebellious of the English romanticists, who views are now familiar. In a time when terrorism, religious fundamentalism and racial conflict mark our daily lives, the Blake provides a dynamic incursion of tolerant hope into that horizon. Blake was truly a unique artist and thinker worthy of much praise and academic study. I was obviously inspired by two of author’s famous poetry books, “The Songs of Innocence” and “The Songs of Experience”. The most of studies are done on this field by various researchers. Most of them are concentrating on the social significance of Blake’s work. According to Ben Wilkinson “..the poems through the book explore the complex relationship between meaning and morality, the often blurred lines between the two contrary states of innocence and experience, as well as pervasive and widespread corruption: of church and of state, of the decline of sociability or ‘brotherhood’, and of the dulling of our sensory perceptions through the inevitable ‘fall’ from innocence (Wilkinson B. 2007)”. His poems are separated into innocence and experience, both opposites. As Innocence has the sound of laughter the initial ecstasy. The poet therefore becomes a sort of foreteller who can see more deeply into reality and who also tries to warn man of the evils of society. While the Innocence poems dwell on pleasure and relief, the poem of Experience emphasize the