English literature the book is designed to acquaint students with the main outlines

As Blake grew older, he became more and more caught up in his mystical faith and his visions of a heavenly world. He actually saw the angels and strange figures which his pictures portrayed. They sai: beside him in the garden, or in the trees, gathering around him as naturally as a group of friends. Those visions loosened him from the material world, in which so much of the eighteenth century was stuck fast as in a slough of mental despond. Repression he regarded as evil, though freedom from repression he interpreted not psychologically, as in the contemporary manner, but mystically. As a child he was fascinated by the Bible and by the ideas of the German mystic Jacob Boeme. Blake’s later symbolic works, including “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (1790), “The Gates of Paradise”(i793), and “Jerusalem” (1804), reflect his ever- deepening reflections about God and man. His interest in the supernatural and his imaginative experimentation with his art and verse classify him, like Robert Burns, as a pre-Romantic. Even today scholars continue to puzzle over the complex philosophical symbolism ofhis later works, but all readers can appreciate the delicate lyricism ofhis “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience”.

The short poem given below is from the volume “Songs of

Innocence”. The symbolic images of rose and worm may make you puzzle too:

The Sick Rose

О Rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed Ofcrimsonjoy,

And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.

Romanticism in England

General Background

Romanticism, which was the leading literary movement in England for half a century, was caused by great social and eco­ nomic changes. The Industrial Revolution, which had begun in the middle of the 18lhcentury didn’t bring happiness to the people of Great Britain. Dur ng that period England changed from an agricultural to an industrial society and from home manufacturing to factory production. The peasants, deprived of their lands, had to go to work in factories. Mines and factories had changed the appearance ofthe country. A large new working class developed in the cities. But mechanization did not improve the life of the common people. The sufferings of the working people led to the first strikes, and workers took to destroying machines. That was a movement directed against industrial slavery. Workers, who called themselves Luddites after a certain Ned Ludd who in fit of fury broke two textile frames, naively believed that machines were the chief cause of their sufferings. Those actions led to severe repression by the authorities.

During the early 1800s the French situation dominated England’s foreign policy. The French Revolution had begun in 1789 as a protest against royal despotism. In its early phases the French

Revolution seemed to offer great hope for common people. At the beginning of the French Revolution, most enlightened people in Great Britain felt sympathy for the democratic ideals of the revolutionaries in France. But after achieving power, the revolutionary government in France resorted to brutality. Further­ more, in i793 revolutionary France declared war on England.

Scientific achievements in the areas of geology, chemistry, physics, and astronomy flourished during the Romantic Age, but they also did not improve the living conditions of the common working people. Then the belief of progressive-minded people in the ideal nature of the new system fell to pieces. As a result the Romantic Movement sprang up towards the close ofthe 18thcen­ tury.