![]() ![]() Nevertheless, Blake is not merely concerned with the loss of childhood as such but with something of deeper meaning 2. Within his poetry, a child-like vision is traversed since a child loses its innocence in the course of time through experience. ![]() In the Songs, Blake firstly presents the innocent state of children, whereas later he gives a more experienced outlook as the result of destruction and suffering through society. It was the great influence of Rousseau’s image of the child, not seen as a small adult but as a human being in its own entity and of natural innocence 1, which induced Blake to write his Songs of Innocence (1789) and its counterpart Songs of Experience (1794) a few years later. ![]() In contrast to the Enlightenment thinkers, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau reconsidered the special stage of childhood. Blake was not only exceptional for his devotion for an aesthetic form of his illuminated poems but he was also unique for his strong concentration of thought. As a poet of unknown value during his lifetime, William Blake (1757-1827) remains an exceptional writer of the early Romantics. ![]()
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