William Blake's Poetry

William Blake's critical analysis of politics, religion, society and the psyche remains powerfully relevant today. The widespread popular interest in his art and poetry is evident through its continuing presence in film, TV, advertising, novels and exhibitions. This Reader's Guide offers an accessible short introduction to Blake's poetry, giving a clear point of access to the larger philosophical ideas that his work explores. It begins by introducing the social and intellectual contexts of works, including Songs of Innocence and of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and opens out into the major Blakean themes that underlie both these early works and his later prophetic texts.

Jonathan Roberts is a lecturer in Romantic Literature at the University of Liverpool