Romantic Lit

Romantic notions in Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper"

Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that occurred during the second half of the 18th century. During this time, a shift from previously established Enlightenment ideals to more natural, emotional, and personal themes was seen. Opposing forces within Romantic literature were Nature and the Self; Nature was seen as the source of goodness and it was through society and civilization that innocence of what was natural, and the natural order of things, was lost. One of the Romantic poets that best exemplified this concept was William Blake.

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience can be used to demonstrate how society and civilization have corrupted the inherent innocence of children. In Reading Between the Lines: A Christian Guide to Literature, Veith (1990) writes that "civilization was seen as corrupting the natural innocence of human beings; more primitive...
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