Assignment 1

Amber
Dr. Nishat Haider
B. A. English (h) - Semester 1
24th February, 2021

Question- William Blake as a romantic poet.

Romanticism is known as one of the most important historical events; unlike most

of what gets called history, romanticism isn't a war or a phase of industrialization

or political downfall. It refers to the birth of a brand new set of ideas, a mindset

and a way of feeling. Originally, romanticism began in Western Europe during the

mid-18 century through the work of artists, poets and philosophers. Ever since then

it has subsequently spread all over the world, redefining how millions of people

look at nature, children, love, sex, money and work. And so it is safe to say that we

are all more or less in some aspect of our sensibilities, romantics! This literary

movement is best understood as a reaction to the birth of the modern world and

some of its key features: industrialization, urbanization, secularization and

consumerism. What follows, are some of the central moments in the history of

romanticism: The Marais, Paris, May 1762. The Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques

Rousseau publishes a book about the raising of children: "Emile" or "On

Education". It contains diatribes against the oppressive world of adults. And

praises the natural goodness, spontaneity and wisdom of little children. It is at

points extremely anxious to get mothers to breast-feed their offspring. The first

sustained argument for this practice in western civilization. The world around

Rousseau is growing ever more, rational, scientific and technologically based. It is

increasingly sensible, planned, sterile and bureaucratic. Against all of these,

Rousseau emphasizes the child, the original rebel, the representative of everything

that is pure, unschooled and outside of the adult discipline. It is the seed of

creativity and geniuses. For the first time in Western history, glamour is directed

not at the attainment of reason and self-control, but at the freedom from tradition

and the natural, innocence of a child.

One such person that contributed to this epiphanic style of art and literature was

William Blake. Born to a hosier during the turbulence of the eighteenth century

Blake indeed left a mark in the hearts of many romantics not just as a poet but as a

painter, an engraver and a visionary. His style of conveyance wasn't limited to the

faction of returning to nature because he instilled a sense of mysticism in his

poetry and composition. In many ways, Blake can be considered one of the most

enigmatic poets of the romantic era. A poet-artist who imaginatively remolds his

own age and its traditions and then produces poetry, engravings, and paintings

within that re-created world is a poet-artist who will attract a wide variety of

readers. Blake’s profound grasp of the ways in which humans deal with the
warring contraries within their minds has become an excellent source for modern

psychology. Carl Jung referred to Blake as a visionary poet who had achieved

contact with the potent wellspring of the unconscious. His devotion to a humanistic

apocalypse created through the display of exuberant energies and expanded

imaginative perceptions has been an inspiration to many writers. Though he wasn't

appreciated enough during his lifetime he still worked hard at his trade that of

engraving, but his style was not in fashion and his commissions were few. This

poverty and the laborious process of producing his own illuminated books for sale

prevented him from producing more than two hundred copies of his own work in

his lifetime.

Despite all this William Blake came to be known as a "divine-child" by his

biographer Alexander Gilchrist as a result of his writings about metaphysical

aspects of existence like the power of God, the Earth, the Sun, heaven and the

stars. Blake in this very notion was completely different, he wasn't writing lyrical

ballad for the masses but to bring a change of thought in the social order and the

minds of me. His fluency and adaptability to modern changes was a grave reason

for his popularity in the 20th century, with unique mental power that incapacitated

the reader of rational sense would often prove him disquieting. Flavors of

mysticism were salient to his aphorism; his references to the Supernatural and the
Occult made something extravagant out of the meanings he shared. Even though

now he might be classified as a schizophrenic because of the visions he used to get

off (some of which he has also painted) nothing can jostle the fact that his

imagination was his greatest trait. He firmly denied the extant of organized

religions and paved the way for people to profess to one single God. Moreover, in

his work Songs of innocence, he found himself expressing the two contrary sides of

the human soul. Introductory poems to each series display Blake's dual image of

the poet as both a "piper" and a "bard". His idea was that of a man who undergoes

various stages of innocence and experience. The pleasant lyrical aspect of poetry

being the Piper's role while the somber prophetic nature of poetry being the stern

Bard. One example of his symbolism being the poem Holy Thursday

"These flowers of London town!

seated in companies they sit

with radiance all their own"

Where he used the accordance of a child as a flower to symbolize the most delicate

and courageous institutions in humankind, with a high element of romanticism, a

sense of wonder and contemplation towards nature.

From penning down the most terrific allusion to the greatness of almighty with his

poem The Tyger to calling poetry "fettered" it fetters the human soul, Blake

gathered the reputation of one of the most important poets from the romantic era.

His juxtaposition of thought and embodiment of liberty and humanitarian

sympathies paved the way for his absolute reliance on imagination and freedom of

thought and expression of nature as the purest of earthy bewilderment. William

Blake was a person who condemned traditional verses, scorned all association with

classicism in art. His visions made him so strong with this allegory that his

renascence of wonder as romanticism kept his form limpid and melodious with an

innovative way of narration. The climax of his poem's lyricism is reached in the

lines which, though somewhat cryptic, effectively produce an effect of wonder and

amazement. His reflection on moralism, depicted in his poem A little boy lost

"In every voice, in every ban.

The mind- for'd manacles I hear"

Gives a brilliant insight on his idea of social justice as he goes onto recollect the

cries of a chimney sweeper, the sigh of a hapless soldier and the little boy that

found himself more comfortable in an ale-house than the church. While poems like

The shepherd and The echoing green depicts a calm simplicity, celebrates rural

happiness and the picturesqueness reflects delightful domesticity and melody. All

these connotations direct towards the fact that in his own construction of the
universe with God at its center and with a number of other recognizable figures, its

complexities, became one of the perplexing aspects of Blake. He was a complete

individual and there's nobody like him in history. It's always said you have to know

the rules before you can break them and this is certainly the case with William

Blake and his romanticism. To repeat Wordsworth "There is no doubt this poor

man was mad, but there is something in his madness which interests me more than

the sanity of Bryon and Walter Scott."