How do William Blake and William Wordsworth respond to nature in their
poetry?
The Romantic Era was an age, which opened during the Industrial
(1800-1900) and French Revolution (1789). These ages affected the
romantic poets greatly by disrupting and polluting nature. Before the
Industrial Revolution, William Blake wrote about Songs of Innocence.
He also wrote Songs of Experience but after the Industrial
Revolution. William Wordsworth, on the other hand, continued on an
optimistic route and ignored the Industrial Revolution in his poems.
He instead wrote about nature only and its beauty. Previous Augustan
poets were more controlled and rule governed. They were also concerned
with order.
In Blake’s ‘London’, he describes the city as being dirty and
restricted giving a pessimistic image, whereas Wordsworth describes it
as a beautiful and free city giving an optimistic image. Blake shows
how in his point of view, he thinks the city is controlled, “Near
where the charter’d Thames does flow.” The adjective ‘charter’d’
illustrates how the Thames is under control. Blake also talks about
how the people's minds are not free to think, “The mind-forg’d
manacles I hear.” The noun ‘manacles’ describes people’s minds as
being chained and controlled like slaves and prisoners. ‘London’ is
set in the night time which straight away makes you think about the
city being drowned in darkness, “But most thro’ midnight streets I
hear.” The adjective ‘most’ shows us how nearly everything occurs at
night. The darkness also shows us how there is a feeling of secrecy.
On the other hand, in ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’, Wordsworth
shows in his perspective that nothing is controlled in the city,”The
river glideth at his ow...
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...e also talks about how the church was ruining
nature, “And tomb-stones where flowers should be.” The noun
‘tomb-stones’ shows how instead of the beauty of nature, they build an
unattractive site.
‘Jerusalem’ uses rhetorical questions, “And did those feet in ancient
time walk upon England’s mountains green?” This creates an effect on
the reader by pulling him into the poem. Blake also talks about the
past beauty of England. Blake criticizes the Industrial Revolution in
his poem ‘Jerusalem’, “And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these
dark Satanic mills?” The adjective ‘Satanic’ signifies evil. This
shows how much Blake despises The Industrial Revolution and how he
thinks its demonic.
From this essay, I conclude that William Blake and William Wordsworth
have the same views of nature before the Industrial Revolution but
take different paths after it.
William Blake, born in 1757 and died in 1827, created the poems “The Lamb,” “The Tyger,” and Proverbs of Hell. Blake grew up in a poor environment. He studied to become an engraver and a professional artist. His engraving took part in the Romanticism era. Romanticism is a movement that developed during the 18th and early 19th century as a reaction against the Restoration and Enlightenment periods focusing on logic and reason.
During the Romantic Era drastic events changed the way people lived. One major change came with the Industrial Revolution, many job opportunities began to arise and people started to change their living lifestyle. Many people went to live in the cities and left behind the breathtaking countryside. The British Culture became better because they had more resources and its economy increased rapidly, however people lost the tranquility of nature with their movement into the emerging cities. Another important event that had a significant effect on the British culture and Literature was the French revolution; poets like William Wordsworth were devastated to see the horrible changes the revolution had caused. The revolution was one of the major reasons why poets focused more on the theme of nature. The poem “Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” written by William Wordsworth expresses the power of nature. The author uses his memories from past experiences to illustrate the importance of nature in a person’s life. In the poem he describes nature’s strong healing power. Wordsworth communicate...
William Blake is remembered by his poetry, engravements, printmaking, and paintings. He was born in Soho, London, Great Britain on November 28, 1757. William was the third of seven siblings, which two of them died from infancy. As a kid he didn’t attend school, instead he was homeschooled by his mother. His mother thought him to read and write. As a little boy he was always different. Most kids of his age were going to school, hanging out with friends, or just simply playing. While William was getting visions of unusual things. At the age of four he had a vision of god and when he was nine he had another vision of angles on trees.
William Blake was one of those 19th century figures who could have and should have been beatniks, along with Rimbaud, Verlaine, Manet, Cezanne and Whitman. He began his career as an engraver and artist, and was an apprentice to the highly original Romantic painter Henry Fuseli. In his own time he was valued as an artist, and created a set of watercolor illustrations for the Book of Job that were so wildly but subtly colored they would have looked perfectly at home in next month's issue of Wired.
so they had to walk to the local pump every day to collect water for
William Blake focused on biblical images in the majority of his poetry and prose. Much of his well-known work comes from the two compilations Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. The poems in these compilations reflect Blake's metamorphosis in thought as he grew from innocent to experienced. An example of this metamorphosis is the two poems The Divine Image and A Divine Image. The former preceded the latter by one year.
The Poems of William Blake What have you understood, from reading the poems of William Blake? William Blake, a late 18th century English Romantic poet uses traditional forms for his poetry in that he blends the ballad, the nursery rhyme and the hymn. The meaning he constructs from these forms however is far from traditional. His style was to express very complex ideas in very simple language and compressing a lot of deep meaning into often very short poems. Blake was a rebel and was over enjoyed when the French revolution liberated the repressed underclass.
He and William Blake share many similarities between their writings such as the idea of the child and their pious ways. However, they differ in their upbringing. Wordsworth was from a higher social class than Blake which changes his view of children immensely. From a young age, Wordsworth was separated from his other siblings after the death of his parents. Instead of going straight into an apprenticeship like Blake, Wordsworth went to school with other children. His poetry shows the view from an upperclassman looking upon children. This brought about the idea of children and the “creed of childhood”, which was defined by his hatred of being an adult. In the eyes of Wordsworth, the worst stage of life was adulthood. Since there were more obligations and things to worry about, adulthood was viewed as a miserable time as seen in his poem “Ode: The Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”. Throughout his school days, Wordsworth would be outside running around and being free. This was the basis for many of his poems since he describes early childhood as a time to be deliberately free and one with God in
London? and ? The Lamb? William Wordsworth, like Blake, was linked with Romanticism. In fact, he was one of the very founders of Romanticism. He wrote poems are about nature, freedom and emotion.
The poems ‘lines composed on Westminster Bridge’ and ‘London’ are created by William Wordsworth and William Blake respectively. Wordsworth’s work originated in the eighteenth century and he himself lived in the countryside, and rarely visited large cities such as London. This is reflected on his poem, making it personal to his experience in London, however William Blake on the other hand had a vast knowledge of London and was actually a London poet, which allowed him to express his views of London from a Londoner’s point of view. I therefore will be examining comparisons in both poems, as well as their contrasting views of London and the poetic devices used to express their opinions.
For Wordsworth nature seems to sympathise with the love and suffering. of the persona, i.e. the persona. The landscape is seen as an interior presence rather. than an external scene, i.e. His idea is that emotions are reflected in the tranquillity of the nature. On the contrary, Coleridge says that poetry is.
William Blake composed two series of poems: Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence. The poems are intertwined as to compare the thoughts of children and adults on the same issues. The innocence of children is discussed on topics of religion, love, and justice. The opinions of adults are also experienced on these topics, but are given from a more experienced viewpoint. William Blake comparatively writes two series of poems to address the controversy of God, love, and justice from pure thinkers and from corrupt thinkers.
William Wordsworth was known as the poet of nature. He devoted his life to poetry and used his feeling for nature to express him self and how he evolved.
The definition of children shifts depending on the person. To some the definition is a time without any worry, to others it is a more logical definition such as the period of time between infancy and adolescence. There are many different versions of this definition, and this is seen in the poetry of William Blake and William Wordsworth. These two authors have very different views on what it means to be a child and how they are portrayed in this era. Compared to now, Children in Blake’s eyes are seen as people that need guidance and need to be taught certain lessons by their parents such as religious, moral, and ethical values. In contrast to Blake’s view, Wordsworth viewed that adults should be more like children. That sometimes
William Wordsworth has respect and has great admiration for nature. This is quite evident in all three of his poems; the Resolution and Independence, Tintern Abbey and Michael in that, his philosophy on the divinity, immortality and innocence of humans are elucidated in his connection with nature. For Wordsworth, himself, nature has a spirit, a soul of its own, and to know is to experience nature with all of your senses. In all three of his poems there are many references to seeing, hearing and feeling his surroundings. He speaks of hills, the woods, the rivers and streams, and the fields.