Critics & Context Flashcards
Zachary Leader quote
‘Distanced and calculation, much too knowing to be calculated’
Critic for Little Vagabond
Zachary Leader
Critic for London
Timothy Vines
Timothy Vines quote
London charges Parliament with perpetuating the wretchedness of the human condition
What did Thomas Paine say about London?
A market where every man knows his place, and corruption is common traffic
How many prostitutes worked in London?
50,000
What percentage of prostitutes is estimated to have had syphilis?
40%
Even who were treated for venereal disease?
Children
What was published in London every year
The List of Covent Garden Ladies
What paid for poor relief?
Local taxes
Who paid taxes to help the poor?
Local parishioners
How many paupers were in workhouses in 1777?
90,000
Why was vagabond a derogatory term?
Parishioners did not want to pay for people passing through
When did the gin craze take place?
The first half of the 18th century
What did the Middlesex magistrates say about the epidemic of drunkenness?
They noted that gin was popular among ‘the inferior set of people’
Context for Holy Thursday (innocence)
Holy Thursday, or ascension day
What took place on ascension day?
The poor children from charity schools went to St. Paul’s cathedral to sing the praises of their benefactors.
Charity schools…?!?!?
Established by wealthy benefactors; there was no national system of education before the 19th century. Some members of the wealthy classes feared that educating the poor would upset the social order.
Holy Thursday (Experience)
Pastoral poetry
What is pastoral poetry?
Pastoral poetry deals with rural life, typically drawing a contrast between the innocence of the countryside and the misery of city life. Often in elegiac form, lamenting the loss of a golden age.
What is anti-pastoral?!?
Anti-pastoral works criticise the artificiality of the pastoral tradition, because it obscures the hardships faced by those in rural areas.
Context for nurse’s songs
Children’s verse
What kind of children’s verse was in fashion during the 18th century
Improving and moralistic, with a simple form.
Who wrote ‘a token for children’?
James janeway
What is covered in Janeway’s verse?
The deaths of young children, give in accounts of their sins, which included disobedience and boisterousness
Who argued that Blake satirises children’s verse?
John Holloway
Why did Blake reject conventional religion?
Blake saw Christianity of his day as distorting true spiritual life, changing religion into a system of moral laws which bound people in shame and fear of punishment.
What did Blake, as a dissenter, reject?
The notion of a transcendent, external God
How did Blake believe the traditional image of God was formed?
Made when people ‘fell’ into divided selfhood, interpreting the world solely through the point of experience.
According to Blake, what was the Fall?
Not a fall into sin, but a fall into a distorted way of seeing God as vengeful and punitive.
Chimney sweeper context
…chimney sweeping.
Which act regarding child labour was passed in the late 1700s?
Britain’s act for the better regulation of chimney sweeper’s and their apprentices
When were criminal charges finally pressed for exploration of children?
1875, 30 years after blake’s death
How many slaves were exported from Africa each year by the 1780s?
88,000
What was formed in 1787? (Slave trade)
The committee for the abolition of the slave trade, by evangelicals and Quakers
Infant sorrow context
Swaddling bands
When were concerns raised about the safety of swaddling bands?
The 18th century
What did Rousseau have to say about swaddling bands?
The child has barely left the mothers womb, it has hardly begun to move … When it is given new bonds
The schoolboy - context
Education - Locke, Wesley, and Rousseau
What was Rousseau’s view of education?
Children innocent
Should be educated in the countryside
Education about teaching children to be their own master
‘See to it that they do not die without tasting life’
What did Locke believe about education?
Infants mind a tabula rasa
Carefully monitored by tutor
Reasoning and logic
What did Wesley believe about education?
Children born sinful.
Education = repairing humanity’s from grace
Context for Rose/lily/garden of love/ rose tree
Free love, marriage
What did the free love movement support?
Sexual matters separated from state. Marriage legal prostitution. Women’s rights.
Which proponent of the free love movement was Blake friends with?
Mary Wollstonecraft
When were the songs of experience published?
1794 - the year the reign of terror began
When was London published?
1792
When were the songs of innocence published?
1789
What did Blake do to show his support for the revolution?
At the beginning, he wore the red bonnet of Liberty to show his commitment to the ideals of Liberty, equality, and brotherhood
What did Blake participate in?
Radical clubs that sprang up in Britain; became acquainted with Thomas Paine
List the 3 key facts about Dissenters
They disagreed with the hierarchy of archbishops, bishops, and priests
Believed church for a place for unmediated relationship with God
Dissenters marginalised by society
Blake’s understanding of heaven and hell
Angels represent the conservative voice of tradition, while Devils represent rebellion and progress. Humans should not seek forgiveness to change the world, but rather should attempt to reawaken the creative powers of the divine.
Critic for Pastoral figure
Jennifer Davis-Michaels: Blake is deliberately rejecting a celebration of the landscapes appearance, because that appearance falsifies the suffering within it
Critic for Nurse’s Song
Susan Fox - the nurse is protecting the children from ‘darkness and grief’
