Milton (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Blake
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Genres: Poetry, Epic, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Religion, Poetry or poets, God, Seventeenth century, Women, Divorce, Death or dying, Martyrs or martyrdom, Birds, Devils or demons, Satan or Satanism, Angels, Baptism
Critical Evaluation:
William Blake composed this brief epic poem to explain Christianity to a troubled England. Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton before him had written on that theme, but Blake created a far more personal and highly original myth. As he saw it, England’s Christianity had traded supernatural spirituality for scientific rationality. Blake thought scientific rationality, or what he called natural religion, would lead to commercial imperialism, dehumanizing mechanization of work, and worldwide wars. One may say that he was right. He blamed...
[The entire page is 2082 words long]
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