TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > English > Blake - Context by Theme
Revolution
- Blake continued to support the French revolution during 'The Terror' when other romantic poets such as Wordsworth turned away.
- French revolutionaries were called 'Tigers' by political pamphlets at the time and Wordsworth.
- In Blake's poem 'The French Revolution' he calls the King's armies 'starry hosts' [link to the Tyger]
- Rousseau, Blake had read his works and seems to both agree and disagree with certain principles.
- Tom Paine, who was acquainted with Blake, also supported the American and French revolutions. He said that Governments had lost their innocence.
- Blake spent much of 1789 wearing a red beret to show his support for the revolution in France.
Religion
- Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) – Blake felt that it revealed the tyranny of God and you can say this inspired his poison tree poem.
- The church believed in predestination to heaven or hell – Blake totally rejected this. Links to Garden of Love.
- Blake attended early meetings of Swedenborg’s followers in their attempt to set up a church.
- Blake loved his brother Robert and claimed to see his soul ascending to heaven clapping his hands.
- Hymns were popular at the time such as 'Hark the herald angels sing', you could say that Blake's form reflects this.
- Lambs can be taken to mean 2 things 1) Jesus - lamb of god 2) In the bible a lamb is used as a sacrifice to protect newborns from the angel of death.
- Blake created an alternative evil creator God elsewhere in his poetry called 'Urizen', Blake may be referring to Urizen when he references to an evil God eg. the tyger and a poison tree.
- Blake offset Urizen with Orc, a fictional God of fire who symbolised energy and rebellion for Blake. You can link this with references to fire in Blake and talk about how it could be a positive thing.
Materialism/ Reality
- Blake believed in seeing beyond materialism, he associated single vision with Isaac Newton in a letter to Thomas Butts where he said single vision is 'Newton's sleep'
- Blake never sold 'songs of experience on its own' which you can use to show how he always though the world was at least a neutral place - not evil.
Philosophy/ Mythology
- Blake had also read about the legend of Prometheus - a figure who stole fire from the repressive Gods and was later punished for it. This again could show how Blake favours fire.
- Blake had also read Plato philosophy which said that the soul exists before birth and when the child is born, it becomes locked inside the body as a prisoner. You can reference this to ‘how can the bird that is born for joy/ sit in a cage and sing?’
Slavery
- Blake attended Anti Slavery meetings and rallies in the late 1700's.
- Rule Britannia was popular at the time, it said 'Britain's shall never be slaves', you can say this may have inspired Blake's slavery references as he obviously saw it differently.
Love and Relationships
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Obviously quite a lot of it crosses over, such as Rousseau can also be used to cover nature.
Comments
These notes are aimed at A Level English Literature students at A2 level.
Originally written by tomdav on TSR Forums.
