A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man

sees. Discuss with reference to poems studied on

the course.

The quote above is arguably the axis to what William Blake

(1757-1827) centred the majority of his most well-known
poems on, Songs of Innocence and Experience (1789-94).
Every human being sees and interprets life around them
differently, from subjective, unique perspectives, based on their
individual levels of both innocence and experience. The same
applies to poetry. Without focusing too much on a hierarchy of
values it is important to recognise some of the values which the
Romantic poets, like Blake, stood for and wanted to promote.

Firstly, the Romantics favoured Nature and all things rural

to the urbanised, highly populated towns and cities which were
emerging due to the Industrial Revolution taking place. This
also coincided with the idea of Childhood, which emphasised
that children are inherently innocent, happiest with simple
pleasures like playing outdoors. This was where the Romantics
argued children should be, not working or aware of adult life
before due time. Victorian society did adopt this discourse of
childhood and we can still see the repercussions of this in the
way adults view and almost revere the good old days when I
was young.

Also, there was a dominant view that there did exist a

sublime/supernatural/deity of some description, which, some
Romantics, like the Gothic writers were trying to promote as a
resistance to The Enlightenment movement which concerned
itself only with what was rational and logical.

Lastly, some of the Romantics were revolutionary in the

way they stood up for the oppressed in society, notably negro
slaves and women, not to mention their collective support for
the French Revolution (1787-99). Duncan Wu in his
Romanticism an Anthology Fourth Edition (2012) in his
introduction to William Blake states; For Blake the plight of
women and slaves was the result of the failure to comprehend
fully what the eye sees (p.178).