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https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-ozymandias

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-origins-of-childrens-literature

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/landscape-and-the-sublime

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Julian Walker looks at William Blake's poetry in the context of 18th-century children's literature, considering how the poems' attitudes towards childhood challenge traditional ideas about moral education during that period.

The 18th century saw the development of children's literature as a genre: by the middle of the century it had become a profitable business. William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience look superficially like traditional 18-century verse for children. But, in fact, the poems challenge and overturn many of the ideas and conventions contained in children's literature, exploring complex ideas about childhood, morality and religion.

What kinds of books for children were produced during this period, and how does Blake's work relate to them?

Various types of children's literature developed from a diverse range of sources. Emblem books, in which animals were used as the basis for moral instruction - animals such as the lamb or tiger were 'read' as having symbolic meaning. These developed into natural history books.

School hornbooks, displaying both the alphabet and Biblical texts on a wooden paddle covered with transparent horn, developed into simple alphabet and counting books, and later into spelling and grammar textbooks and other instructional books, such as the Little Pretty Pocket Book (1744) detailing games, history, or natural history.

Chapbooks were very small, anonymous and cheap works that were hawked round the country by pedlars. They typically included crude woodcut prints, sometimes hand-coloured, illustrating simple alphabets, counting songs, fantastical tales and imaginative nursery rhymes. They often lacked a clear moral message, instead telling tales of other worlds, implausible characters and often violent events. Even such apparently simple rhymes as 'Rock-a-by-baby' and 'Jack and Jill' involve random injuries to children.

Moral and instructional books for children were aimed at a 'polite' middle class readership, and provided models for correct modes of behaviour. These books simplified the complexities of ethical, religious and social issues, condensing them into easy-to-understand instruction. Two popular examples are Isaac Watts' Divine Songs (1715) and James Janeway's A Token for Children (1671), published in several editions throughout the century.

Blake reacted against this genre of instructional children's literature in the Songs of Innocence and Experience, taking a popular literary form and subverting it. 'London' in Songs of Experience, for instance, inverts the self-righteousness of the speaker in Watts' 'Song IV' from his hugely popular Divine Songs (1715). Watts's child, speaking in the first person, looks at the 'Poor', 'Children ... half naked' and those who 'early learn to swear, and curse, and lye, and steal', and responds by promising to fear God, and love him 'more than they'.

In contrast, Blake's response to the abuse of children is the howl of outrage at the end of 'London':

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

In James Janeway's A Token for Children argument is perhaps more complex - his response to the horror of the Plague is that the security of salvation is preferable to the despair of life, and his dying children are acutely and demonstrably aware of heaven. Blake's children are equally aware of heaven, and death is indeed present in the Songs, but fundamentally his view is that of a child rather than a preaching adult.

How does Blake's omission of moral resolution affect the tone of the poems?

Blake's general refusal to provide a moral resolution to the situations that arise in the Songs of Innocence and Experience shows him turning his back on the easy moral lessons of this kind of children's literature, probably to the discomfort of many of his readers. Even a close friend, Benjamin Malkin, entirely missed the irony in 'Holy Thursday' in Innocence, reading the poem as an approval of the orphan children's orchestrated thanksgivings.

When a moral is provided, as in the case of 'The Chimney Sweeper', in Innocence, it is so trite as to be provocative:

So if all do their duty they need not fear harm

Sitting at the end of a poem that begins with a father selling his child into the chimney-sweeping trade, this challenges the reader, who is addressed directly as furthering this trade - 'your chimneys I sweep' - and is thus complicit in the abuse.

The use of ambiguity, irony and outrage within a context of what appeared to be poetry for children probably startled Blake's readers. But then, while he claimed that children could 'elucidate his visions' as well as adults, he never said that the Songs were for children.

In Hymns for the Amusement of Children (1770) the poet Christopher Smart writes directly to children without taking any stance of judgement; his work and that of Sarah Trimmer propose a respect for the simple and for the natural world which are both seen in Blake.

What was the quality of book production for children?

While the tiny chapbooks maintained a tradition of robust and naïve woodcut illustration, towards the end of the century there was a rise in the sophistication of illustrations in children's books; The Infant's Library (1800) has engraved illustrations that were hand-coloured, like Blake's songs, with considerable care and imagination. The layout and size of print was often clearly planned for the child-reader, as in Mrs Barbauld's Hymns in Prose for Children (1787).

How are different theories of childhood reflected in the literature?

Through the period there were differing attitudes to the concept of childhood. Christian morality proposed the idea of 'original sin'; children were inherently evil and had to be redeemed (often by punishment) and learning to be good Christians. In 1799 Hannah More wrote that it was 'a fundamental error to consider children as innocent beings'. Chapbook stories that link piety to worldly success reflect these views, as do Watts's Divine Songs and Janeway's Tokens for Youth.

But John Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) proposed that the child's mind was a blank canvas, open to any suggestions, and therefore child development should be carefully managed in order to create worthy and useful citizens. Though many children's books showed that religious behaviour may be rewarded in heaven (Janeway) or by an advantageous marriage (The Renowned History of Goody-Two Shoes), intelligent, creative and non-violent education of the child, and by implication continuing self-improvement, was the duty of every individual.

Some Thoughts Concerning Education by John Locke

John Locke proposed that the child's mind is a blank canvas in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, 1728.

Rousseau, however, denied both these views, claiming that children should be seen as distinct entities, innately moral and only degraded by exposure to adult behaviour. The idea of children as distinct from adults, and indeed having something to teach adults, is clearly reflected in many of Blake's Songs.

Julian Walker is an artist, writer and educator, who works with the Learning Department at the British Library. His research-based art and writing practice explores language, social history, the nature of objects and engagement with the past. He is co-author of Trench Talk: Words of the First World War (Stroud: Spellmount, 2012).

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William Blake and 18th-century children's literature

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Julian Walker looks at William Blake's poetry in the context of 18th-century children's literature, considering how the poems' attitudes towards childhood challenge traditional ideas about moral education during that period. The 18th century saw the development of children's literature as a genre: by the middle of the century it had become a profitable business.

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Dr Stephanie Forward explains the key ideas and influences of Romanticism, and considers their place in the work of writers including Wordsworth, Blake, P B Shelley and Keats.

Today the word 'romantic' evokes images of love and sentimentality, but the term 'Romanticism' has a much wider meaning. It covers a range of developments in art, literature, music and philosophy, spanning the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The 'Romantics' would not have used the term themselves: the label was applied retrospectively, from around the middle of the 19th century.

In 1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau declared in The Social Contract: 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.' During the Romantic period major transitions took place in society, as dissatisfied intellectuals and artists challenged the Establishment. In England, the Romantic poets were at the very heart of this movement. They were inspired by a desire for liberty, and they denounced the exploitation of the poor. There was an emphasis on the importance of the individual; a conviction that people should follow ideals rather than imposed conventions and rules. The Romantics renounced the rationalism and order associated with the preceding Enlightenment era, stressing the importance of expressing authentic personal feelings. They had a real sense of responsibility to their fellow men: they felt it was their duty to use their poetry to inform and inspire others, and to change society.

Revolution

When reference is made to Romantic verse, the poets who generally spring to mind are William Blake (1757-1827), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) and John Keats (1795-1821). These writers had an intuitive feeling that they were 'chosen' to guide others through the tempestuous period of change.

This was a time of physical confrontation; of violent rebellion in parts of Europe and the New World. Conscious of anarchy across the English Channel, the British government feared similar outbreaks. The early Romantic poets tended to be supporters of the French Revolution, hoping that it would bring about political change; however, the bloody Reign of Terror shocked them profoundly and affected their views. In his youth William Wordsworth was drawn to the Republican cause in France, until he gradually became disenchanted with the Revolutionaries.

Painting of the storming of the Bastille, 1789

Depiction of the storming of the Bastille, Paris - the event that triggered the French Revolution.

Usage terms © De Agostini Picture Library
Held by© De Agostini Picture Library

The imagination

The Romantics were not in agreement about everything they said and did: far from it! Nevertheless, certain key ideas dominated their writings. They genuinely thought that they were prophetic figures who could interpret reality. The Romantics highlighted the healing power of the imagination, because they truly believed that it could enable people to transcend their troubles and their circumstances. Their creative talents could illuminate and transform the world into a coherent vision, to regenerate mankind spiritually. In A Defence of Poetry (1821), Shelley elevated the status of poets: 'They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit...'. He declared that 'Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world'. This might sound somewhat pretentious, but it serves to convey the faith the Romantics had in their poetry.

Manuscript of P B Shelley's 'The Masque of Anarchy'

P B Shelley's manuscript of 'The Masque of Anarchy', 1819, was a reaction of furious outrage at the Peterloo Massacre. An avowedly political poem, it praises the non-violence of the Manchester protesters when faced with the aggression of the state.

The marginalised and oppressed

Wordsworth was concerned about the elitism of earlier poets, whose highbrow language and subject matter were neither readily accessible nor particularly relevant to ordinary people. He maintained that poetry should be democratic; that it should be composed in 'the language really spoken by men' (Preface to Lyrical Ballads [1802]). For this reason, he tried to give a voice to those who tended to be marginalised and oppressed by society: the rural poor; discharged soldiers; 'fallen' women; the insane; and children.

Blake was radical in his political views, frequently addressing social issues in his poems and expressing his concerns about the monarchy and the church. His poem ' London ' draws attention to the suffering of chimney-sweeps, soldiers and prostitutes.

Lyrical Ballads: 1800 edition

In the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth writes that he has 'taken as much pains to avoid [poetic diction] as others ordinarily take to produce it', trying instead to 'bring [his] language near to the language of men'.

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience

'London' from William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1794. Blake emphasises the injustice of late 18th-century society and the desperation of the poor.

Children, nature and the sublime

For the world to be regenerated, the Romantics said that it was necessary to start all over again with a childlike perspective. They believed that children were special because they were innocent and uncorrupted, enjoying a precious affinity with nature. Romantic verse was suffused with reverence for the natural world. In Coleridge's 'Frost at Midnight' (1798) the poet hailed nature as the 'Great universal Teacher!' Recalling his unhappy times at Christ's Hospital School in London, he explained his aspirations for his son, Hartley, who would have the freedom to enjoy his childhood and appreciate his surroundings. The Romantics were inspired by the environment, and encouraged people to venture into new territories - both literally and metaphorically. In their writings they made the world seem a place with infinite, unlimited potential.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Walking Tour of Cumbria

In August 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge set out from his home at Greta Hall, Keswick, for a week's solo walking-tour in the nearby Cumbrian mountains. He kept detailed notes of the landscape around him, drawing rough sketches and maps. These notes and sketches are in Notebook No 2, one of 64 notebooks Coleridge kept between 1794 and his death.

A key idea in Romantic poetry is the concept of the sublime. This term conveys the feelings people experience when they see awesome landscapes, or find themselves in extreme situations which elicit both fear and admiration. For example, Shelley described his reaction to stunning, overwhelming scenery in the poem 'Mont Blanc' (1816).

Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

In this 1757 essay, the philosopher Edmund Burke discusses the attraction of the immense, the terrible and the uncontrollable. The work had a profound influence on the Romantic poets.

The second-generation Romantics

Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge were first-generation Romantics, writing against a backdrop of war. Wordsworth, however, became increasingly conservative in his outlook: indeed, second-generation Romantics, such as Byron, Shelley and Keats, felt that he had 'sold out' to the Establishment. In the suppressed Dedication to (1819-1824) Byron criticised the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, and the other 'Lakers', Wordsworth and Coleridge (all three lived in the Lake District). Byron also vented his spleen on the English Foreign Secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, denouncing him as an 'intellectual eunuch', a 'bungler' and a 'tinkering slavemaker' (stanzas 11 and 14). Although the Romantics stressed the importance of the individual, they also advocated a commitment to mankind. Byron became actively involved in the struggles for Italian nationalism and the liberation of Greece from Ottoman rule.

Notorious for his sexual exploits, and dogged by debt and scandal, Byron quitted Britain in 1816. Lady Caroline Lamb famously declared that he was 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know.' Similar accusations were pointed at Shelley. Nicknamed 'Mad Shelley' at Eton, he was sent down from Oxford for advocating atheism. He antagonised the Establishment further by his criticism of the monarchy, and by his immoral lifestyle.

Letter from Lord Byron about his memoirs, 29 October 1819

In this letter to his publisher, John Murray, Byron notes the poor reception of the first two cantos of Don Juan, but states that he has written a hundred stanzas of a third canto. He also states that he is leaving his memoirs to his friend George Moore, to be read after his death, but that this text does not include details of his love affairs.

Female poets

Female poets also contributed to the Romantic movement, but their strategies tended to be more subtle and less controversial. Although Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) was modest about her writing abilities, she produced poems of her own; and her journals and travel narratives certainly provided inspiration for her brother. Women were generally limited in their prospects, and many found themselves confined to the domestic sphere; nevertheless, they did manage to express or intimate their concerns. For example, Mary Alcock (c. 1742-1798) penned 'The Chimney Sweeper's Complaint'. In 'The Birth-Day', Mary Robinson (1758-1800) highlighted the enormous discrepancy between life for the rich and the poor. Gender issues were foregrounded in 'Indian Woman's Death Song' by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835).

The Gothic

Reaction against the Enlightenment was reflected in the rise of the Gothic novel. The most popular and well-paid 18th-century novelist, Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), specialised in 'the hobgoblin-romance'. Her fiction held particular appeal for frustrated middle-class women who experienced a vicarious frisson of excitement when they read about heroines venturing into awe-inspiring landscapes. She was dubbed 'Mother Radcliffe' by Keats, because she had such an influence on Romantic poets. The Gothic genre contributed to Coleridge's Christabel (1816) and Keats's 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' (1819). Mary Shelley (1797-1851) blended realist, Gothic and Romantic elements to produce her masterpiece Frankenstein (1818), in which a number of Romantic aspects can be identified. She quotes from Coleridge's Romantic poem The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere. In the third chapter Frankenstein refers to his scientific endeavours being driven by his imagination. The book raises worrying questions about the possibility of 'regenerating' mankind; but at several points the world of nature provides inspiration and solace.

The Mysteries of Udolpho

The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe was one of the most popular and influential Gothic novels of the late 18th century.

The Byronic hero

Romanticism set a trend for some literary stereotypes. Byron's Childe Harold (1812-1818) described the wanderings of a young man, disillusioned with his empty way of life. The melancholy, dark, brooding, rebellious 'Byronic hero', a solitary wanderer, seemed to represent a generation, and the image lingered. The figure became a kind of role model for youngsters: men regarded him as 'cool' and women found him enticing! Byron died young, in 1824, after contracting a fever. This added to the 'appeal'. Subsequently a number of complex and intriguing heroes appeared in novels: for example, Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Edward Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's (both published in 1847).

Illustrations to Wuthering Heights by Clare Leighton

The Byronic hero influenced Emily Brontë's portrayal of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. This 1931 edition of Brontë's novel is illustrated with wood engravings by Clare Leighton.

Contraries

Romanticism offered a new way of looking at the world, prioritising imagination above reason. There was, however, a tension at times in the writings, as the poets tried to face up to life's seeming contradictions. Blake published Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1794). Here we find two different perspectives on religion in 'The Lamb' and 'The Tyger'. The simple vocabulary and form of 'The Lamb' suggest that God is the beneficent, loving Good Shepherd. In stark contrast, the creator depicted in ' The Tyger' is a powerful blacksmith figure. The speaker is stunned by the exotic, frightening animal, posing the rhetorical question: 'Did he who made the Lamb make thee?' In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793) Blake asserted: 'Without contraries is no progression' (stanza 8).

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

William Blake was deeply critical of traditional religion but greatly admired John Milton. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell includes references to Milton and Paradise Lost and the book ends with 'A Song of Liberty', which calls for revolt against the tyrannies of church and state.

Wordsworth's ' Tintern Abbey' (1798) juxtaposed moments of celebration and optimism with lamentation and regret. Keats thought in terms of an opposition between the imagination and the intellect. In a letter to his brothers, in December 1817, he explained what he meant by the term ' Negative Capability ': 'that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason' (22 December). Keats suggested that it is impossible for us to find answers to the eternal questions we all have about human existence. Instead, our feelings and imaginations enable us to recognise Beauty, and it is Beauty that helps us through life's bleak moments. Life involves a delicate balance between times of pleasure and pain. The individual has to learn to accept both aspects: '"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know' ('Ode on a Grecian Urn' [1819]).

Manuscript of 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' by John Keats

'Ode on a Grecian Urn' from a manuscript copy believed to be in the hand of George Keats, the poet's brother.

The premature deaths of Byron, Shelley and Keats contributed to their mystique. As time passed they attained iconic status, inspiring others to make their voices heard. The Romantic poets continue to exert a powerful influence on popular culture. Generations have been inspired by their promotion of self-expression, emotional intensity, personal freedom and social concern.

Footnotes

[1] Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley's poetry and prose: authoritative texts, criticisms, ed. by Donald H. Reiman and Sharon B. Powers (New York; London: Norton, c.1977), p.485.

Dr Stephanie Forward is a lecturer, specializing in English Literature. She has been involved in two important collaborative projects between the Open University and the BBC: The Big Read, and the television series The Romantics, and was a contributor to the British Library's Discovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians site and to the 20th century site. Stephanie has an extensive publications record. She also edited the anthology Dreams, Visions and Realities; co-edited (with Ann Heilmann) Sex, Social Purity and Sarah Grand, and penned the script for the C.D. Blenheim Palace: The Churchills and their Palace.

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Dr Stephanie Forward explains the key ideas and influences of Romanticism, and considers their place in the work of writers including Wordsworth, Blake, P B Shelley and Keats.

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Overview of Romanticism in Literature.docx