Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

William Blake’s Philosophical Approach to Poetry
Introduction
William Blake’s era consists of the period from 1757-1827
...
Blake, much like William Wordsworth, wrote from heart, emphatically
with natural influential expression
...

Although he did not receive the deserved recognition during his lifetime, but now he is regarded
as the earliest and most original of the Romantic poets and ‘grandfather’ of the Romantic period
...
His language and syntax
are fairly simple
...
Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794) were intended by
Blake to be read together
...

Blake’s View on God
William Blake’s beliefs about God were like his poetry, engravings and art- utterly unique
...
Blake denied the need for anyone to save him, least of all the biblical god
he called “Nobodaddy”
...
He did not need
to be saved by Christ
...
While Blake was a scholar
of the Bible, he was a highly original thinker who created his own mythology and his own
human-centered religion
...
Blake is a devout admirer of intrinsic energies and
sublime instincts of human soul
...

“Without contraries is no progression,” he declared in Marriage of Heaven and Hell
...
The Songs of
Innocence themselves are by no means all sweetness and light
...
So, Blake
vehemently defies any sort of repression upon the impulses of man and frankly supports its liberty
and freedom
...
For Blake, any logical analysis of nature of Universe thoroughly based upon
science and reason is grievously misleading
...
For Blake 'Imagination' is that faculty in man which
can hear the promptings of God intuition or Spiritual Sensation
...

The Bible’s vivid prophetic and visceral apocalyptic imagery stirred him as well
...
In one of his epic poems, ‘Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion’ (1804-20),
he declared:
… I rest not from my great task!
To open the eternal worlds, to open the immortal eyes Of
man …
At the time, there were few with the eyes to see and ears to hear him
...
It was a tangibly, visibly changing
society, fostering an almost irresistible focus on the physical aspects of reality
...
After the medieval
period, there seem to have been only three English poets who have achieved greatness in this
way
...

Depth
Blake’s poems are thus enriched by Biblical symbols and ideas
...

Nevertheless, it remains true that they are part of his communication with his readers, and if we

wish to understand him at a deeper level, to realize fully what he is saying, we should know
something of them
...
The
Nurse has merely said that it is getting dark, and there will be a dewfall; this will be one of those
calm summer nights in a period of fine weather; there will be another golden day tomorrow
...
Innocence is over; the night of Experience has begun
...
Romanticism is a phenomenon
characterized by reliance on the imagination and subjectivity of approach, freedom of thought
and expression, and an idealization of nature
...
William Blake lived in London for his
entire life; there, he produced versatile and symbolically rich works
...




---