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BLAKE - Coggle Diagram
BLAKE
STYLE
Complex, philosophical meaning
Simple language and syntax: clear, childlike diction
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Musical, hymn-like quality, often echoing nursery rhymes or religious songs
Symbolism and imagery: everyday images (lamb, tiger, child, light, city) carry rich symbolic meanings.
Visual art and poetry combined: he illustrated his own poems with engravings, uniting word and image ("ILLUMINATED PRINTING")
Biblical influence: he draws on the language and imagery of the Bible, giving his poems a prophetic tone
LIFE
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His poems were not successful. To earn a living he engraved books (Dante's Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost
He died poor, unknown and alone in 1827
WORKS
Political works = 1791 - The French Revolution & 1793 - America, a prophecy
1789 - Songs of Innocence = pastoral world of childhood, positive aspects of human nature uncorrupted by experience and civilisation
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1794 - Songs of Innocence and of Experience Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul = two different perspectives on the world. Many poems fell into pairs, showing the same situation through the lens of innocence and experience
IMAGINATION
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Imagination is more powerful and truthful than reason and sensory perception: it allows us to see beyond appearances.
Imagination is the divine power within every human being. Only God, children and poets have this power.
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SYMBOLS
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Children, flowers, spring, the lamb = innocence
Indistrial and urban landscapes or machines = corruption, oppression, rationalism
Blake’s symbols turn ordinary images into spiritual truths. His symbolic language invites readers to see the world not just with the senses, but with imaginative vision
POLITICAL IDEAS
He supported the American War of Independence = fight for liberty and individual rights against oppressive monarchy.
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He supported the French Revolution = struggle to break the chains of oppression — political, social, and spiritual
He saw industrialisation as destructive = a force that enslaved both body and soul and fuelled oppression, greed, causing the the loss of imagination.
The new industrial world, to him, replaced nature, creativity, and warmth with machines, poverty, and dehumanisation.
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