William Blake Critical Interpretations

Question 1

C. Rovee

Answer 1

‘Blake questions the equation of purity with power, presenting childhood as only barely shielded from a harsh and exploitative world’
‘Innocence as a sustaining fantasy’
(Romanticism)

Question 2

Which Romantic philosopher discussed the fragility of innocence, which could be destroyed by socialization/education (commenting on industrialisation)?

Answer 2

Rousseau

Question 3

Bloom

Answer 3

‘his Songs of Innocence have a charm denied to the Songs of Experience, because he was at home in the former region, and did not really understand the meaning of the latter’

Question 4

Yoder

Answer 4

‘for Blake, once Christ assumes the human form, everything becomes by definition Christ-like’

Question 5

Bernard Nestfield-Cookson

Answer 5

‘Prophet of universal brotherhood’

Question 6

Natoli

Answer 6

‘The preservation of innocence by falsification of experience’

Question 7

Gillham’

Answer 7

‘Blake contrasts the self-centred greed of the state of Experience with the possibilities of our innocent moments’

Question 8

T.S.Eliot

Answer 8

‘peculiar honesty which, in a world too frightened to be honest, is particularly terrifying’

Question 9

Cavill et al

Answer 9

‘Direct criticism of the Church’s involvement in exploitation and oppression’