Vision and Disenchantment: Blake's Songs and Wordsworth's Lyrical BalladsBlake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience and Wordsworth's contributions to Lyrical Ballads were both published in the last decade of the eighteenth century. The similarities between the two collections have often been noticed. However, as Dr Glen argues, to assimilate both collections to a common 'Romanticism' is to obscure that which is most distinctive in each. Each was shaped by and responsive to very different social and cultural pressures in the England of its time and offers a very different vision of human possibility. Moreover each poet uses the language which is the intimate register and vehicle of his society's experience in a very different way. This is a challenging and persuasive interpretation of poems too often seen as part of a coherent and accepted literary tradition: poems which present a continuing challenge to all who would explore possibilities for creative social change. It will be of great interest to all serious readers of Romantic poetry. |
Contents
Lyrical Ballads | 33 |
The Real Language of Men | 57 |
Songs of Innocence | 110 |
Songs of Experience | 165 |
Lyrical Ballads 1798 | 224 |
the Goslar Lyrics | 260 |
the Poems of Grasmere | 303 |
Other editions - View all
Vision and Disenchantment: Blake's Songs and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads Heather Glen No preview available - 1983 |
Common terms and phrases
active actual affirmation ambiguous antinomian appear articulated attempt become Behmenist Blake Blake's Songs Brett and Jones charity child Chimney Sweeper common confrontation contemporary creative culture delight distance Divine Image dramatized E. P. Thompson Ecchoing Green echoes eighteenth exploration expression familiar feeling final stanza Goslar Grasmere heart Holy Thursday Human Abstract imaginative implicit individual Infant Joy Infant Sorrow interaction language late eighteenth-century less lines living London Lucy Lyrical Ballads magazine verse meaning Mercy Pity Peace merely mode moral nature object offers Old Man Travelling passive play poem poem's poetic poetry Poison Tree polite poor portrayed possibility potentially present question radical reader reality realized relationship seems seen sense shared Simon Lee simply social society Songs of Experience Songs of Innocence speaker stanza suggests Swedenborgian thee thought Tintern Abbey traced virtues vision voice volume William Blake words Wordsworth writings
References to this book
Wordsworth's Historical Imagination: The Poetry of Displacement David Simpson No preview available - 1987 |