Injustices Explained

William Blake was born in Soho, London in 1757 along with six other siblings. As a child Blake talks about having visions dealing with angels and God. He began as an engraver and was thought to stay an engraver for the rest of his life. During the 18th and 19th century engravers were known as one of the most skillful people rather than being known as artistic. Later on in his life he expressed himself through poetry. His poetry consisted of his views on social, political and religious injustices during his lifetime. Blake believed in the imagination, democracy, and in the individual, which reflects in the 18th and 19th century Romanticism movement. Although Blake was a religious man who practiced Christianity, he believed the Bible was a form of control, he was a nonconformist radical who criticized political issues by writing a couple of poems that provoke a sense of exposer to the issues during the time, and he also criticized social issues by disagreeing with the actions of the people and the government.

To begin with Blake was viewed as a radical during his time period. He was classified amongst the other few radicals such as Thomas Pain, Joseph Priestley, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. He was a strong supporter of The French Revolution because it brought about change to several issues. The French revolution allowed Blake to become a radical and see the world in a changing perspective. Blake disagreed with many issues during this unfair time period and his social surroundings gave a straightforward glance of the conditions of his time as stated in this quote “Living, as he did, in the heart of London, Blake was very aware of the reality of political and economic injustice” (Morsberger). Not only was Blake a poet but he was...

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...ls exile to hell. The quote from The Tyger can signify how church has corrupted religion to the point where people believe it is natural to live in unforgiving conditions, such as poverty, which was often time extreme during the cold weathers, oppression, and inequality during the Romantic era. Blake believed there was more that could be done for the people who lived under undesirable conditions. Another quote that strongly describes Blake’s views on religion is from The Proverbs of Hell “Prisons are built with stones of law, Brothels with bricks of religion”

Works Cited

Baird, Jim. "Songs Of Innocence And Of Experience." Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.

Morsberger, Katharine M. "William Blake." Dictionary Of World Biography: The 17Th & 18Th Centuries (1999): 1-4. Literary Reference Center. Web. 26 Jan. 2014