Romanticism expressed emotion over reason. This was part because of the extreme opposition that the people of that period had to the Enlightenment attitudes. A seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of Romanticism, William Blake, considered, instead of clear emotion, imagination as an instrument of knowledge superior to reason. In his poems he sympathized with the victims of society degraded by industrialization and praised imagination against materiality. The paper focuses in two groups of works of the artist, bound together in a single volume, “Songs of Innocence and of Experience”. Blake asserted on the general title-page an addition to the title: “Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul”. In the introduction of “William Blake: Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (Oxford, 1970) Keynes G. mentions, “The character of the designs for Experience is noticeably more severe than it is in those of Innocence […]”. The paper investigates the way Blake expresses his ideology – imagination in contradiction to materiality – in the form of songs of innocence in contradiction to experience songs. Main aim is the revelation of the way he presented his poetry to his audience obsessively as part of a picture, text and image bound in one, “[…] due to his cast of mind, whereby the life of the imagination was more real to him than the material world […] word and symbol each reinforcing the other.” (ibid).

Authors:
Sofia Vlazaki, University of West Attica, Greece

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Sofia Vlazaki is a University Doctoral Student at University of West Attica in Greece

See this presentation on the full schedule – On Demand Schedule

Bookmark