Romantic Poets: Blake and Wordsworth

Flashcards from lecture notes on William Blake and William Wordsworth

What source does William Blake frequently use symbols from?

Bible

List three occupations attributed to William Blake.

Poet, engraver, painter

Where did William Blake study art?

Royal Academy of Arts

What social problem was William Blake concerned with?

The Industrial Revolution had negative effects on the human soul

According to Blake, what was more important than reason?

Imagination

List three figures who possess imagination according to Blake.

God, the Child, the Poet

Name William Blake's two poetic collections.

Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

Where was William Wordsworth born?

Cumberland in the Lake District

In what year was Wordsworth made Poet Laureate?

1843

Who did Wordsworth write with in the first generation of romantic poets?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Give three themes common in Wordsworth's poetry.

Nature, Imagination, Senses and Memory

What kind of language was Wordsworth against.

He was against "the poetic diction," that is the use of an artificial and elevated language;

What is considered the manifesto of English Romanticism?

"The Preface" of the Lyrical Ballads

How did Wordsworth see nature?

A source of joy and pleasure, which comforts man in sorrow and teaches him how to love and how to act in a moral way.

What kind of power Wordsworth feel that sensibility was?

Divine power

What is the key concept of Wordsworth's poetry?

Recollection in Tranquility

What is the poem 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' also known as?

Daffodils

What everyday event does "I wandered lonely as a cloud" describe?

An ordinary walk in the Lake District

What do Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience represent?

Represent 2 complementary states of the human being: Innocence (childhood) and Experience (adulthood).

What is the symbol used in Blake's Songs of Innocence?

Lamb

What is the symbol used in Blake's Songs of Experience?

Tyger