Born into poverty in London in 1757, but did Blake, art school, and teaching to an engraver. He had little formal education other than this, however. Here he developed his impressive techniques of engraving, which are the core of his poetry. If you can, get a copy of these poems with pictures, if it is missing a truly wonderful experience. (This does not mean that this book is not worth reading in its own name).

The eighteenth century is a time of turbulence. The revolution brewing in France and the old models and ways of thinking has been put aside. Blake grew up in a radical, liberal, deviating from the house and has never lost its rebel streak. This is shown in his approach to poetry.

In the eighteenth century, poetry is essentially to America in iambic pentameter, and most serious case of shoe-horned in verse. Probably the worst example of this is the Pope. “The Windsor Forest” for example, begins:

Its forests, Windsor! and thy green retreats,

While the monarch and the seats of the Muses

Invite my includes. Sylvain was well presented!

Unlock your springs, and open all its nuances.

Granville commands; muses you can help!

What Muse for Granville can sing it, to refuse?

That was incredibly sophisticated style, invoking the Muse, with lines very formal and a lot of pictures of the epic, like Blake and the Romantic Rebel disadvantages. Wordsworth and Coleridge said that poets write reflects the natural rhythm of the English language should be spoken and direct, and easy for everyone. But even their wonderful “Lyrical Ballads” is in front of Blake Burns in England and Scotland. The revolution was in the air and wanted to liberate the “spirit of iron have forged” from Latin and Greek.

I’ll take Blake “The Sick Rose” from songs of experience as an example:

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

Flying in the Night

In the howling storm,

Do you have your bed

Of Crimson joy

And his dark secret love

Do you have destroyed your life.

Now you can see, the poetic voice of the individual Blake – direct and simple, without decoration or adornment. In eight short lines, he says – and it is much more interesting than the guff sprouted by the pope.

The rose is corrupt has always been a symbol of love and beauty, but here it is and has been infected. Blake is railing against the poverty that forced many women to a life of prostitution. The worm is a symbol of lost innocence in the Garden of Eden, in addition to being a phallic image. Blake saw the beauty and innocence of the sexual act is problematic as in “secret love”.

The rose is also a traditional symbol of England. Here, Blake has also denounced the country as corrupt and inhumane.

This is also in another of his collections – songs from an island on the moon

This city and this country has produced many mayors

To sit in the state and follow the laws “of their old oak chairs,

With face as brown as a nut to drink strong beer –

Good English hospitality O then not fail!

Would be in scarlet and gold broad lace, sweat Yeoman;

With the knee socks and black shoes rolled Jet

Drink With a consumption of meat and beer, and were strong and healthy –

Good English hospitality O then not fail!

While sitting at the table for the mayor and council

They could be the right to enter the city, each ate ten:

Hunger and poverty in the dining hall of meat and good beer –

Good English hospitality O then not fail!

In addition, demand change and complained about the injustices of our society, Blake also highlights the potential for the good of the people. An example of the Songs of Innocence:

Infant Joy

I have no name.

I’m only two days.

What should I call?

I’m happy. Joy is my name

This is a wonderfully evocative imitation of the soil a little child. How is it configured as a conversation speaks of warmth and tenderness, compassion and communication.

But reports on the other side of life, in Songs of Experience. Many of Blake’s poems in this collection of works in the context of a poem in Songs of Innocence opposite. Infant Sorrow looks at the other side of birth:

My mother groaned, my father wept

Jumped in the dangerous world;

Helpless, naked, piping high

As a demon hidden in a cloud.

The struggle in the hands of my father

The fight against gangs my classes,

Bound and weary I thought best

To play insulted liver sausage in the womb.

“Helpless” and “dangerous” refers to the fact that when Blake was written, the infant mortality rate is much higher than today. “Fighting in the hands of my Father” means that the child is small and vulnerable. He or she is trapped in a struggle for survival, and the reaction of parents is also revealing moaned “/” called “refers to the harsh reality of poor, struggling to raise a family.

A poem is like “the Chimney” (again from Songs of Experience)

When my mother died, and I was very young,

And my father sold me my tongue much longer,

I could hardly mourning Cry Cry Cry Cry,

While chimneys of mud and soot I sleep.

Even if a toddler – too young, to say, “sweep” right – is forced to work as a chimney sweep.

There’s little Tom Dacre who cried when his head

It spun like a lamb back shaved, so I told him.

Hush Tom does not matter, because if you’re bald head,

They know that the soot can not spoil your white hair

The image of the Lamb is used repeatedly in the poetry of Blake – as a metaphor for Jesus and innocence. Once again, humanity and compassion of the poet in appearance.

And when all was quiet at night.

As Tom, he slept a show

That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Jack and Ned

All were locked up in coffins of black.

Here is the fate of the swing is universal for all children living in poverty cover to.

And there is an angel who had the key light

And he opened the coffins and set them free.

Then go for a green level, they laugh run

And washing in a river and shine in the sun.

Even the image of a carefree childhood, romantic. The concept of childhood did not exist until the Romantic period – children often simply treated as small adults.

Then, naked and black, left all their suitcases behind them.

They rise above the clouds, and sport in the wind.

And the angel told Tom, if this is a good boy

‘d to have God as Father, and never want joy.

Blake radical dissenting opinions here are obvious. I am sure that the last line is very ironic. We know that life is hard and painful scans. What is that, like God, the gentle indifference of joy in heaven, there is misery to bear on the earth? Blake’s answer is a resounding No!

And so Tom awoke and we rose in the darkness

And work with our bags and our brushes.

The gift is to read the variety – these lines yourself and see how it reflects the monotony of existence by Tom.