William Blake, one of the earliest and greatest figures of Romanticism, wrote the "Songs of Innocence and Experience" in the 1790s. The poems juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption and repression. The collection explores the value and limitations of two different perspectives on the world. Many of the poems are in pairs, so that the same situation or problem is seen through the lens of innocence first and …showed first 75 words of 1043 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1043 total…line to mean that "the 'Human Brain' can choose to make the world the glorious place it implicitly is, but also can create a falsely isolated and consequently fallen world" (31). Although Blake would later develop a mythological system to convey his ideas, these two poems contain the essence of his vision in stark simplicity: "his opposition to any philosophy or creed that diminishes man's capacity to enjoy the unbounded bliss that is his birthright" (Gleckner 43).