Literarily William Blake was the first important Romantic poet. Briefly make a comment on his poetry.
A. His first work Poetical Sketches, is a collection of youthful verse. Joy, laughter, love and harmony are the prevailing notes.
B. Songs of Innocence presents a happy and innocent world, though not without its evils and sufferings. The songs of Experience paints a world of misery, poverty, disease, war and repression with a melancholy tone. The two books hold the similar subject-matter, but the tone, emphasis and conclusion differ. Childhood is central to Blake’s concern in the two books.
C. The poem from the Songs of Innocence indicates the conditions which make religion a consolation, a prospect of “illusory happiness,” but the poem from the Songs of Experience reveals the true nature of religion which helps bring misery to the poor children.
D. His poem Marriage of Heaven and Hell marks his entry into maturity. It plays the double role both as a satire and a revolutionary prophecy. In his later period, he wrote many prophetic works, which reveal him as the prophet of universal political and spiritual freedom and show the poet himself as the spokesman of revolt.
