5 - Byron, Blake, and the Adversity of Poetics

Summary

Blake’s radically Christian vision of the infidel Byron as Elijah redivivus solicits an extended comparison between their respective poetic careers as prophets against empire. Three key features of their work, each pertinent to a clearer understanding of Romanticism and its cultural legacies, made them companionable figures. First and foremost, both judged that art and poetry had a special vocation of social enlightenment. Second, both also judged the vocation to involve a root and branch critique of prevailing moral attitudes, with art and poetry missioned to deliver that critique. Finally, a shared hostility to “systematic reasoning” yielded their similar approach to poetic expression.