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William Blake Notes (ENGL 210)
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William Blake Notes (ENGL 210)
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Topic 10: Blake and RomanticismNovember 21st - 25th, 2022
Contextualizing Romanticism
The Lyrical Ballads – Wordsworth and Coleridge turned away from what they saw as the
artificial structures of 18th-century poetic diction, returning to more “natural” forms with
ballads, and focusing their work on the beauty of nature.
● Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope saw poetry as an area for craftsmanship, reason,
order, and logic (neoclassicism) – romanticism claims to throw this away, replacing it
instead with humanity, imagination, and creativity.
○ A very new set of ideas for poetry comes in with romanticism.
William Blake
Very interested in Milton – Blake wrote long and intensely obscure poems (like “Milton”) in his
responses to Paradise Lost.
● Self-published his work (it’s really hard to find these days)
For Blake, humanity is not fallen, but potentially divine.
● Interested in the ways that people can break through from repression.
Nurse’s Song (Innocence)
Presence of an adult figure who has the role of a protector for the children.
● She gives in to the children! The will of the children overrules the will of the adult.
● They make an argument – “we cannot go to sleep” (l. 10)
○ They cause the nurse to revise her understanding of what’s going on here.
● Childhood and play in relation to natural elements – there’s no utility to what the children
are doing (it doesn’t work and they aren’t expending effort… they’re just doing their
thing)
Nurse’s Song (Experience)
“Green” in Blake – we see that the idea of the “green” is associated with life in the “Nurse’s
Song (Innocence)” and the “Ecchoing Green,” but it’s now twisted into something that’s a little
bit corrupting and negative in the nurse’s face.
● Inverting the positivity in the pastoral nature to something bad (by association)
● Everything that is beautiful in nature is twisted here
Deeply nihilistic – “Your spring & your day are wasted in play / And your winter and night in
disguise” (ll. 7-8)
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