William Blake Loss Of Innocence

The Romantic Period’s cultural, social, and historical events were integrated into literature. Popular forms of styles and values found in The Romantic Period are: imagination, emotions, belief in children’s innocence, and nature as beauty and truth. William Blake expressed these in “The Songs of Innocence” and “The Songs of Experience” in 1789 and 1794. William portrayed oppression and loss of popular values during this time period through his publication of poems.
The Romantic period was a literary movement in Europe, The United States, and Latin America from 1750-1870 (Schwartz). The beginning of the French Revolution is what marked the start of the Romantic Period (Heath). “The Romantic Period started off with oppression which then led
Blake not only portrayed the loss of innocence but allowed society to read about it in his poems that later filled the minds of them as to how important innocence is for children. “…He helped change the world and in changing the world he saved many innocent children from lives of drudgery and misery terminated by premature deaths. While he wrote many wonderful poems and was also a talented painter, printer and engraver, what makes Blake the most important of poets and artists is the change his work wrought in human hearts, minds and consciences,” (Burch). In “Nurses Song of Innocence,” Blake shows the importance of children’s innocence by saying, “No, no let us play, for it is yet day / And we cannot go to sleep / Besides in the sky he little birds fly / And the hills are all covered with sheep,” (Blake). The children are free in their pursuit of joy as they are running and playing through the greenery. Blake showed that sometimes children became the pathetic victims of the unfair behavior of the
“My mother taught me underneath a tree / And sitting down before the heat of day,” the tree representing the tree of knowledge, the boy learns his lesson about love and endurance under this tree (Blake). “Lamb is the symbol of renewal, victory of life upon the death, gentleness, tenderness, innocence. It is a perfect victim which should be sacrificed to assure someones salvation,” adding to that, the lamb in “The Little Black Boy” implies innocence and the figure of Christ (WordPress). Blake included the lamb symbol in “The Chimney Sweeper” by saying “There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head / That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved,” he used the simile “like a lamb’s back” to describe the child’s loss of his youth (Blake). William Blake addresses racism and the slave trade going on during the Romantic period through his works. During the Romantic Period, children were often viewed that they were an adult just younger and smaller, meaning not a child. The book, Innocence, Heterosexuality, and the Queerness of Children's Literature expresses that children’s innocence during the Romantic Period had an influence on Blake to portray that into his poems. “…Yet it is necessary to consider Romanticism’s