Historical Criticism (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name Professor’s Name Course Date Historical Criticism Introduction Blake’s Songs of Innocent and Experience compares the innocence of the children and the corruption and repression associated with adults. The poem illustrates the meekness and limitations of different types of the world. For example, the poem titled The Lamb illustrates a meek virtue, while that of The Tyger reveals darker forces. The poems fall into two parts whereby it is possible to view a problem from two perspectives, including innocence and experience. Although the poet distances himself from the innocent, sometimes he opposes tyrannical authority, restrictive morality, and sexual repression. Undertaking historical criticism will help us understand the poem better. Blake’s literal work shows historical context shows a society with restrictive moral, tyrannical leadership, sexual repression and institutionalized religion that criminalizes what is most holy in people. Blake’s Songs of Innocent and Experience was written in the Romantic era. Kitson indicates that between 1790 and 1850, where artists shift their focus on celebration of nature and ordinary people, and individual experiences (1). Generally, it is a movement that celebrated nature, beauty, idealism and emotions. The movement involved writers, architecture, fashion and criticism, and it was a reaction to the European Enlightenment, which valued rational thinking and reason. Romanticism had preferences in emotions over intellect, primarily focused on nature as a beautiful, inspirational, and interesting subject in mythology. The movement also focused on medieval romances. One of the notable writers from this era was William Wordsworth (1770–1850). He was considered among the first writer of romanticism. The Lyrical Ballads (1798) is the first literal romanticism, but William Blake had written somewhat mystical writings ten years earlier with substantial works already in the Song of Innocence. While earlier romanticism scholars focused more on imagination and nature, Blake, on the other hand, focused on issues related to religious and political beliefs. We can see that clearly in the Song of Innocence, observed when he criticizes the tyrannical governments, restrictive society and institutionalized church. Vines’ article argues that Blake’s poetry creates an ideal society and compares contemporary society. The poems also criticized enlightenment rationality, which focused more on rationality, thus repressing morality (115). Besides poetry, Blake was also a Romantic artist, with illumination ranging from mythological and biblical scenes, giving him more fame than poetry. There were also notable painters, such as Antoine-Jean Baron Gros (1771–1835) and James Barry (1741–1806), but most focused on depicting classical subjects rather than exotic and dramatic images (Vines 117). The political and technological changes in Europe, especially the French Revolution, along with social turmoil related to increasing urbanization, impacted the romantic era. This can be seen in "London", where he depicts children suffering (Kitson 19). With technological advancement and increased use of machines, artists felt that people would become disconnected from Mother Nature (Kitson 21), and therefore they started to define new philosophical ideals for society. Blake's poems criticize religion, and his involvement in religion is rather dramatic. His relationship with religion can be tracked through his mother. Gilchrist indicates that Moravian Church focused on the emotional expression aspect of religious practice, which was equated to the suffering of Christ (8). Blake states that he had experienced vision and conversed with spirits and angles, a clear picture observed in Blake's poetry. Most of his writings try to echo such emotions. In most of his earlier writing, including a pamphlet titled All Religion, Blake introduces his radical beliefs about religion. He uses art to show his beliefs that all religions are one because they have one origin and one destination. He also argues that man established all the religions in the spirit where the divine resides. These radical beliefs are observed in his writings, especially. Vines states that unity, energy, poetry and God are seen in Blake's poetry as an eternal innocence while he depicts experience as the body that led to the fall of man (116). The author argues that the belief portrayed in Blake can lead to a person disregarding the writings as just lunatic ranting. Blake also criticizes Christianity and organized religion more broadly. He argues that the emphasis on sin and virginity in the bible is problematic because they create unethical expectations and a hypocritical society. The difference between the natural world and reality in urban London was incompreh...