TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > English > Blake - Context
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
- accelerated pace of change
- town = machinery, industry
- country = agricultural
- continuity of families broken - not all were in same country village
- forges = industry
- growth of child labour - textile factories and chimney sweeps
- Blake inspired by furnaces - positively and negatively
- profit for mill owners
POLITICAL REVOLUTION
- Rousseau - man is born free but is everywhere in chains
- French/American Revolutions
- casting off of loathsome political ruling
- Blake welcomed revolutions
- uses of images being bound [Infant Sorrow]
- "mind-forged manacles" - [London]
- "binding with briars" [Garden of Love]
RELIGION
- unorthodox view by Blake
- "life is holy and everything on Earth is the word of God and in its essence IS God"
- Christianity - everyone born with the ability to commit sins
- Blake thought the Church and the State were too close
- believed in fighting to CHANGE NOT ACCEPT:
- exploitation of poor
- curbs on political liberty
- opposition to sexual freedom
- happiness with war
- church should provide more charity
- church beliefs:
- dislike of emotion
- remote of child experience
- tight laws
ALL OF WHICH WENT AGAINST BLAKE'S IDEAS
- Blake had different visions = visionary
- thinking about Jesus = orthodox Christianity
- to Blake:
- Jesus was divine, saved humanity and restored it
- Jesus rebelled against laws, as Blake did
- believed Jesus would have fostered the arts
- church worships a God that is obsessed with authority, obedience and restraint
- Blake attacks idea of original sin
- "without contraries there is no progression"
- "sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nourish unacted desires" - very romantic view, feelings are our best guide, reason will not/cannot guide you
- liked women to behave naturally and generously
- he disliked church's mystery
- hated restriction, self denial and humility
- poems were extremely, explicitly religious
- Bible = very important, considered a great work of imagination [NOTE: DO NOT THINK "IMAGINATION" = MADE UP! BLAKE BELIEVED THE BIBLE]
Comments
These notes are aimed at A Level English Literature students at A2 level.
Originally written by camiroo on TSR Forums.
